Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "David, St" to "Demidov" Volume 7, Slice 10
xxvi. 6-11) is in harmony, and the prohibition of the worship of the
heavenly bodies is aimed at a form of idolatry which is frequently alluded to in the times of the later kings. The lofty ethics (e.g. tenth commandment) is in itself no _sound_ criterion, whilst the external form of the laws, though characteristic of later codes, need not be taken as evidence of importance. But the general result of a study of the Decalogue as a whole, in connexion with Israelite political history and religion, strongly supports, in fact demands, a post-Mosaic origin, and modern criticism is chiefly divided only as to the approximate date to which it is to be ascribed. The time of Manasseh (cf. especially its contact with Micah vi. 6-8) has found many adherents, but an earlier period, about 750 B.C. (time of Amos and Hosea), is often held to satisfy the main conditions; the former, however, is probably nearer the mark.
_The Decalogue of Exodus xxxiv._--In the book of Exodus the words written on the tables of stone are nowhere expressly identified with the ten commandments of chap. xx. In xxv. 16, xxxi. 18, xxxii. 15, we simply read of "the testimony" inscribed on the tables, and it seems to be assumed that its contents must be already known to the reader. The expression "ten words" first occurs in xxxiv. 28, in a passage which relates the restoration of the tables after they had been broken. But these "ten words" are called "the words of the covenant," and so can hardly be different from the words mentioned in the preceding verse as those in accordance wherewith the covenant was made with Israel. And again, the words of ver. 27 are necessarily the commandments which immediately precede in vv. 12-26. Accordingly many recent critics have sought to show that Ex. xxxiv. 12-26 contains just ten precepts forming a second decalogue.[4]
These consist not of precepts of social morality, but of several laws of religious observance closely corresponding to the religious and ritual precepts of Ex. xxi.-xxiii. The number ten is not clearly made out, and the individual precepts are somewhat variously assigned. They prohibit (1) the worship of other gods, (2) the making of molten images; they ordain (3) the observance of the feast of unleavened bread, (4) the feast of weeks, (5) the feast of ingathering at the end of the year, and (6) the seventh-day rest; to Yahweh belong (7) the firstlings, and (8) the first-fruits of the land; they forbid also (9) the offering of the blood of sacrifice with leaven, (10) the leaving-over of the fat of a feast until the morning, and (11) the seething of a kid in its mother's milk. This scheme ignores the command to appear thrice in the year before Yahweh which recapitulates Nos. 3-5, and the decade is obtained by omitting No. 6, which some hold to be out of place. Others include "none shall appear before me empty-handed" (xxxiv. 20), and unite Nos. 4-5, 9 and 10. C. F. Kent (_Beginnings of Heb. Hist._ pp. 183 sqq.) obtains a decalogue from scattered precepts in Ex. xx.-xxiii., which corresponds with Nos. 2, 7, 6, 3 and 5 (in one), 9 and 10 (in one), 11 above, and adds (a) the building of an altar of earth (xx. 24), (b) offering from the harvest and wine-press (xxii. 29), (c) firstlings of animals (xxii. 29 sqq.; cf. No. 7, and xxxiv. 19); (d) prohibition against eating torn flesh (xxii. 31).[5] The so-called Yahwist Decalogue in xxxiv. presupposes a rather more primitive stage in society, partly nomadic and partly agricultural; No. 6 is suitable only for agriculturists and cannot have originated among nomads. The whole may be summed up in a sentence:--"Worship Yahweh and Yahweh alone, without images, let the worship be simple and in accord with the old usage; forbear to introduce the practices of your Canaanitish neighbours" (Harper). It would seem to represent more precisely a Judaean standpoint (cf. the simpler customs of the Rechabites, q.v.).
If such a system of precepts was ever viewed as the basis of the covenant with Israel, it must belong to a far earlier stage of religious development than that of Ex. xx. This is recognized by Wellhausen, who says that our decalogue stands to that of Ex. xxxiv. as Amos stood to his contemporaries, whose whole religion lay in the observance of sacred feasts. To those accustomed to look on the Ten Words written on the tables of stone as the very foundation of the Mosaic law, it is hard to realize that in ancient Israel there were two opinions as to what these "Words" were. The hypothesis that Ex. xxxiv. 10-26 originally stood in a different connexion, and was misplaced at some stage in the redaction of the Hexateuch, does not help us, since it would still have to be admitted that the editor to whom we owed the present form of the chapter identified this little code of religious observances with the Ten Words. Were this the case the editor, to quote Wellhausen, "introduced the most serious internal contradiction found in the Old Testament."[6]
_The Decalogue in Christian Theology._--Following the New Testament, in which the "commandments" summed up in the law of love are identified with the precepts of the Decalogue (Mark x. 19; Rom. xiii. 9; cf. Mark xii. 28 ff.), the ancient Church emphasized the permanent obligation of the ten commandments as a summary of _natural_ in contradistinction to _ceremonial_ precepts, though the observance of the Sabbath was to be taken in a spiritual sense (Augustine, _De spiritu et litera_, xiv.; Jerome, _De celebratione Paschae_). The medieval theologians followed in the same line, recognizing all the precepts of the Decalogue as moral precepts _de lege naturae_, though the law of the Sabbath is not of the law of nature, in so far as it prescribes a determinate day of rest (Thomas, _summa_, I^ma II^dae, qu. c. art. 3; Duns, _Super sententias_, lib. iii. dist. 37). The most important medieval exposition of the Decalogue is that of Nicolaus de Lyra; and the 15th century, in which the Decalogue acquired special importance in the confessional, was prolific in treatises on the subject (Antoninus of Florence, Gerson, &c.).
Important theological controversies on the Decalogue begin with the Reformation. The question between the Lutheran (Augustinian) and Reformed (Philonic) division of the ten commandments was mixed up with controversy as to the legitimacy of sacred images not designed to be worshipped. The Reformed theologians took the stricter view. The identity of the Decalogue with the eternal law of nature was maintained in both churches, but it was an open question whether the Decalogue, as such (that is, as a law given by Moses to the Israelites), is of perpetual obligation. The Socinians, on the other hand, regarded the Decalogue as abrogated by the more perfect law of Christ; and this view, especially in the shape that the Decalogue is a civil and not a moral law (J. D. Michaelis), was the current one in the period of 18th-century rationalism. The distinction of a permanent and a transitory element in the law of the Sabbath is found, not only in Luther and Melanchthon, but in Calvin and other theologians of the Reformed church. The main controversy which arose on the basis of this distinction was whether the prescription of one day in seven is of permanent obligation. It was admitted that such obligation must be not natural but positive; but it was argued by the stricter Calvinistic divines that the proportion of one in seven is agreeable to nature, based on the order of creation in six days, and in no way specially connected with anything Jewish. Hence it was regarded as a _universal positive_ law of God. But those who maintained the opposite view were not excluded from the number of the orthodox. The laxer conception found a place in the Cocceian school.
LITERATURE.--Geffcken, _Über die verschiedenen Eintheilungen des Dekalogs und den Einfluss derselben auf den Cultus_; W. Robertson Smith, _Old Test. Jew. Church_, pp. 331-345, where his earlier views (1877) in the _Ency. Brit._ are largely modified (cf. also _Eng. Hist. Rev._ (1888) p. 352); Montefiore, _Hibbert Lectures_ (1892), Appendix I; W. R. Harper, _Internat. Crit. Comm. on Amos and Hosea_, pp. 58-64 (on the position of the Decalogue in early pre-prophetic religion of Israel); C. A. Briggs, _Higher Criticism of Hexat_.^2 pp. 189-210; see also the references under EXODUS. (W. R. S.; S. A. C.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] A Hebrew fragment probably of the 2nd century A.D., in the University Library, Cambridge, containing the Decalogue with several variant readings; see S. A. Cook, _Proceed. Soc. Bibl. Archaeology_ (1903), pp. 34-56; F. C. Burkitt, _Jewish Quarterly Review_ (1903), pp. 392-408; N. Peters, _D. älteste Abschrift d. zehn Gebote_ (1905).
[2] So, for example, Augustine, l.c., Thomas, _Summa_ (_Prima Secundae_, qu. c. art. 4), and recently Sonntag and Kurtz. Purely arbitrary is the idea of Lutheran writers (Gerhard, Loc. xiii. § 46) that the ninth commandment forbids _concupiscentia actualis_, the tenth _conc. originalis_.
[3] It is generally assumed that the addition in Exodus is from a hand akin to Gen. ii. 2 sqq.; Ex. xxxi. 17 (P.).
[4] So Hitzig (_Ostern und Pfingsten im zweiten Dekalog_, Heidelberg, 1838), independently of a previous suggestion of Goethe in 1783, who in turn appears to have been anticipated by an early Greek writer (Nestle, _Zeit. für alt-test. Wissenschaft_ (1904), pp. 134 sqq.).
[5] See also W. E. Barnes, _Journ. Theol. Stud._ (1905), pp. 557-563.
[6] The last three sentences of this paragraph are taken almost bodily from Robertson Smith's later views (_Old Testament in the Jewish Church²_, pp. 335 seq.).
DE CAMP, JOSEPH (1858- ), American portrait and figure painter, was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1858. He was a pupil of Frank Duveneck and of the Royal Academy of Munich; became a member of the society of Ten American Painters, and a teacher in the schools of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts; and painted important mural decorations in the Philadelphia city hall.
DECAMPS, ALEXANDRE GABRIEL (1803-1860), French painter, was born in Paris on the 3rd of March 1803. In his youth he travelled in the East, and reproduced Oriental life and scenery with a bold fidelity to nature that made his works the puzzle of conventional critics. His powers, however, soon came to be recognized, and he was ranked along with Delacroix and Vernet as one of the leaders of the French school. At the Paris Exhibition of 1855 he received the grand or council medal. Most of his life was passed in the neighbourhood of Paris. He was passionately fond of animals, especially dogs, and indulged in all kinds of field sports. He died on the 22nd of August 1860 in consequence of being thrown from a vicious horse while hunting at Fontainebleau. The style of Decamps was characteristically and intensely French. It was marked by vivid dramatic conception, by a manipulation bold and rapid, sometimes even to roughness, and especially by original and startling use of decided contrasts of colour and of light and shade. His subjects embraced an unusually wide range. He availed himself of his travels in the East in dealing with scenes from Scripture history, which he was probably the first of European painters to represent with their true and natural local background. Of this class were his "Joseph sold by his Brethren," "Moses taken from the Nile," and his scenes from the life of Samson, nine vigorous sketches in charcoal and white. Perhaps the most impressive of his historical pictures is his "Defeat of the Cimbri," representing with wonderful skill the conflict between a horde of barbarians and a disciplined army. Decamps produced a number of genre pictures, chiefly of scenes from French and Algerine domestic life, the most marked feature of which is humour. The same characteristic attaches to most of his numerous animal paintings. He painted dogs, horses, &c., with great fidelity and sympathy; but his favourite subject was monkeys, which he depicted in various studies and sketches with a grotesque humour that could scarcely be surpassed. Probably the best known of all his works is "The Monkey Connoisseurs," a clever satire of the jury of the French Academy of Painting, which had rejected several of his earlier works on account of their divergence from any known standard. The pictures and sketches of Decamps were first made familiar to the English public through the lithographs of Eugène le Roux.
See Moreau's _Decamps et son oeuvre_ (Paris, 1869).
DECAPOLIS, a league of ten cities ([Greek: deka poleis]) with their surrounding district, situated with one exception on the eastern side of the upper Jordan and the Sea of Tiberias. Being essentially a confederation of _cities_ it is impossible precisely to fix Decapolis as a _region_ with definite boundaries. The names of the original ten cities are given by Pliny; these are as follows: Damascus, Philadelphia, Raphana, Scythopolis (= Beth-Shan, now _Beisan_, west of Jordan), Gadara, Hippos, Dion, Pella, Gerasa and Kanatha. Of these Damascus alone retains its importance. Scythopolis (as represented by the village of Beisan) is still inhabited; the ruins of Pella, Gerasa and Kanatha survive, but the other sites are unknown or disputed. Scythopolis, being in command of the communications with the sea and the Greek cities on the coast, was the most important member of the league. The league subsequently received additions and some of the original ten dropped out. In Ptolemy's enumeration Raphana has no place, and nine, such as Kapitolias, Edrei, Bosra, &c., are added. The purpose of the league was no doubt mutual defence against the marauding Bedouin tribes that surrounded them. These were hardly if at all checked by the Semitic kinglings to whom the Romans delegated the government of eastern Palestine.
It was probably soon after Pompey's campaign in 64-63 B.C. that the Decapolis league took shape. The cities comprising it were united by the main roads on which they lay, their respective spheres of influence touching, if not overlapping, one another. A constant communication was maintained with the Mediterranean ports and with Greece, and there was a vigorous municipal life which found expression in literature, in athletic contests, and in a thriving commerce, thus carrying a truly Hellenic influence into Perea and Galilee. From Josephus we learn that the cities were severally subject to the governor of Syria and taxed for imperial purposes; some of them afterwards came under Herod's jurisdiction, but reserved the substantial rights granted them by Pompey.
The best account is in G. A. Smith's _Historical Geography of the Holy Land_, chap. xxviii. (R. A. S. M.)
DECASTYLE (Gr. [Greek: deka], ten, and [Greek: stylos], column), the architectural term given to a temple where the front portico has ten columns; as in the temple of Apollo Didymaeus at Miletus, and the portico of University College, London. (See TEMPLE.)
DECATUR, STEPHEN (1779-1820), American naval commander, was born at Sinnepuxent, Maryland, on the 5th of January 1779, and entered the United States navy as a midshipman in 1798. He was promoted lieutenant a year later, and in that rank saw some service in the short war with France. In 1803 he was in command of the "Enterprise," which formed part of Commodore Preble's squadron in the Mediterranean, and in February 1804 led a daring expedition into the harbour of Tripoli for the purpose of burning the U.S. frigate "Philadelphia" which had fallen into Tripolitan hands. He succeeded in his purpose and made his escape under the fire of the batteries with a loss of only one man wounded. This brilliant exploit earned him his captain's commission and a sword of honour from Congress. Decatur was subsequently engaged in all the attacks on Tripoli between 1804 and 1805. In the War of 1812 his ship the "United States" captured H.M.S. "Macedonian" after a desperate fight, and in 1813 he was appointed commodore to command a squadron in New York harbour, which was soon blockaded by the British. In an attempt to break out in February 1815 Decatur's flagship the "President" was cut off and after a spirited fight forced to surrender to a superior force. Subsequently he commanded in the Mediterranean against the corsairs of Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli with great success. On his return he was made a navy commissioner (November 1815), an office which he held until his death, which took place in a duel with Commodore James Barron at Bladensburg, Md., on the 22nd of March 1820.
See Mackenzie, _Life of Decatur_ (Boston, 1846).
DECATUR, a city and the county-seat of Macon county, Illinois, U.S.A., in the central part of the state, near the Sangamon river, about 39 m. E. of Springfield. Pop. (1890) 16,841; (1900) 20,754, of whom 1939 were foreign-born; (1910 census) 31,140. Decatur is served by the Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton, the Illinois Central, the Wabash (which maintains car shops here), and the Vandalia railways, and is connected with Danville, Saint Louis, Springfield, Peoria, Bloomington and Champaign by the Illinois Traction System (electric). Decatur has three large parks and a public library; and S.E. of Fairview Park, with a campus of 35 acres, is the James Millikin University (co-educational; Cumberland Presbyterian), founded in 1901 by James Millikin, and opened in 1903. The university comprises schools of liberal arts, engineering (mechanical, electrical, and civil), domestic economy, fine and applied arts, commerce and finance, library science, pedagogy, music, and a preparatory school; in 1907-1908 it had 936 students, 440 being in the school of music. Among the city's manufactures are iron, brass castings, agricultural implements, flour, Indian corn products, soda fountains, plumbers' supplies, coffins and caskets, bar and store fixtures, gas and electric light fixtures, street cars, and car trucks. The value of the city's factory products increased from $5,133,677 in 1900 to $8,667,302 in 1905, or 68.8%. The city is also an important shipping point for agricultural products (especially grain), and for coal taken from the two mines in the city and from mines in the surrounding country. The first settlement in Decatur was made in 1829, and the place was incorporated in 1836. On the 22nd of February 1856 a convention of Illinois editors met at Decatur to determine upon a policy of opposition to the Kansas-Nebraska Bill. They called a state convention, which met at Bloomington, and which is considered to have taken the first step toward founding the Republican party in Illinois.
DECAZES, ÉLIE, DUC (1780-1860), French statesman, was born at Saint Martin de Laye in the Gironde. He studied law, became a judge in the tribunal of the Seine in 1806, was attached to the cabinet of Louis Bonaparte in 1807, and was counsel to the court of appeal at Paris in 1811. Immediately upon the fall of the empire he declared himself a Royalist, and remained faithful to the Bourbons through the Hundred Days. He made the personal acquaintance of Louis XVIII. during that period through Baron Louis, and the king rewarded his energy and tact by appointing him prefect of police at Paris on the 7th of July 1815. His marked success in that difficult position won for him the ministry of police, in succession to Fouché, on the 24th of September. In the interval he had been elected deputy for the Seine (August 1815) and both as deputy and as minister he led the moderate Royalists. His formula was "to royalize France and to nationalize the monarchy." The Moderates were in a minority in the chamber of 1815, but Decazes persuaded Louis XVIII. to dissolve the house, and the elections of October 1816 gave them a majority. During the next four years Decazes was called upon to play the leading rôle in the government. At first, as minister of police he had to suppress the insurrections provoked by the ultra-Royalists (the White Terror); then, after the resignation of the duc de Richelieu, he took the actual direction of the ministry, although the nominal president was General J. J. P. A. Dessolle (1767-1828). He held at the same time the portfolio of the interior. The cabinet, in which Baron Louis was minister of finance, and Marshal Gouvion Saint Cyr remained minister of war, was entirely Liberal; and its first act was to suppress the ministry of police, as Decazes held that it was incompatible with the régime of liberty. His reforms met with the strong hostility of the Chamber of Peers, where the ultra-Royalists were in a majority, and to overcome it he got the king to create sixty new Liberal peers. He then passed the laws on the press, suppressing the censorship. By reorganization of the finances, the protection of industry and the carrying out of great public works, France regained its economic prosperity, and the ministry became popular. But the powers of the Grand Alliance had been watching the growth of Liberalism in France with increasing anxiety. Metternich especially ascribed this mainly to the "weakness" of the ministry, and when in 1819 the political elections still further illustrated this trend, notably by the election of the celebrated Abbé Grégoire, it began to be debated whether the time had not come to put in force the terms of the secret treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. It was this threat of foreign intervention, rather than the clamour of the "Ultras," that forced Louis XVIII. to urge a change in the electoral law that should render such a "scandal" as Grégoire's election impossible for the future. Dessolle and Louis, refusing to embark on this policy, now resigned; and Decazes became head of the new ministry, as president of the council (November 1819). But the exclusion of Grégoire from the chamber and the changes in the franchise embittered the Radicals without conciliating the "Ultras." The news of the revolution in Spain in January 1820 added fuel to their fury; it was the foolish and criminal policy of the royal favourite that had once more unchained the demon of revolution. Decazes was denounced as the new Sejanus, the modern Catiline; and when, on the 13th of February, the duke of Berry was murdered, clamorous tongues loudly accused him of being an accomplice in the crime. Decazes, indeed, foreseeing the storm, at once placed his resignation in the king's hands. Louis at first refused. "They will attack," he exclaimed, "not your system, my dear son, but mine." But in the end he was forced to yield to the importunity of his family (February 17th); and Decazes, raised to the rank of duke, passed into honourable exile as ambassador to Great Britain.
This ended Decazes's meteoric career of greatness. In December 1821 he returned to sit in the House of Peers, when he continued to maintain his Liberal opinions. After 1830 he adhered to the monarchy of July, but after 1848 he remained in retirement. He had organized in 1826 a society to develop the coal and iron of the Aveyron, and the name of Decazeville was given in 1829 to the principal centre of the industry. He died on the 24th of October 1860.
His son, LOUIS CHARLES ÉLIE DECAZES, duc de Glücksberg (1819-1886), was born at Paris, and entered the diplomatic career. He became minister plenipotentiary at Madrid and at Lisbon, but the revolution of 1848 caused him to withdraw into private life, from which he did not emerge until in 1871 he was elected deputy to the National Assembly by the Gironde. There he sat in the right centre among the Orleanists, and was chosen by the duc de Broglie as minister of foreign affairs in November 1873. He voted with the Orleanists the "Constitutional Laws" of 1875, and approved of MacMahon's parliamentary _coup d'état_ on the 16th of May 1877. He was re-elected deputy in October 1877 by the arrondissement of Puget-Théniers, but his election was annulled by the chamber, and he was not re-elected. He died on the 16th of September 1886.
On the Duc Decazes see E. Daudet, _Louis XVIII. et le duc Decazes_ (1899), and his "L'ambassade du duc Decazes" in the _Revue des deux mondes_ for 1899.
DECAZEVILLE, a town of south-central France, in the department of Aveyron, 34 m. N.W. of Rodez by the Orleans railway. Pop. (1906) 9749. It possesses iron mines and is the centre of the coal-fields of the Aveyron, which supply the ironworks established by the Duc Decazes, minister of Louis XVIII. A statue commemorates the founder.
DECCAN (Sans. _Dakshina_, "the South"), a name applied, according to Hindu geographers, to the whole of the territories in India situated to the south of the river Nerbudda. In its more modern acceptation, however, it is sometimes understood as comprising only the country lying between that river and the Kistna, the latter having for a long period formed the southern boundary of the Mahommedan empire of Delhi. Assigning it the more extended of these limits, it comprehends the whole of the Indian peninsula, and in this view the mountainous system, consisting of the Eastern and Western Ghats, constitutes the most striking feature of the Deccan. These two mountain ranges unite at their northern extremities with the Vindhya chain of mountains, and thus is formed a vast triangle supporting at a considerable elevation the expanse of table-land which stretches from Cape Comorin to the valley of the Nerbudda. The surface of this table-land slopes from west to east, as indicated by the direction of the drainage of the country,--the great rivers, the Cauvery, Godavari, Kistna and Pennar, though deriving their sources from the base of the Western Ghats, all finding their way into the Bay of Bengal through fissures in the Eastern Ghats.
_History._--The detailed and authentic history of the Deccan only begins with the 13th century A.D. Of the early history the main facts established are the Aryan invasion (c. 700 B.C.), the growth of the Maurya empire (250 B.C.) and the invasion (A.D. 100) of the Scythic tribes known as the Sakas, Pahlavas and Yavanas, which led to the establishment of the power of the Kshaharata satraps in western India. In addition to this, modern study of monuments and inscriptions has recovered the names, and to a certain extent the records, of a succession of dynasties ruling in the Deccan; of these the most conspicuous are the Cholas, the Andhras or Satavahanas, the Chalukyas, the Rashtrakutas and the Yadavas of Devagiri (Deogiri). (See INDIA: _History_; BOMBAY; PRESIDENCY: _History_; INSCRIPTIONS: _Indian_.) In 1294 Ala-ud-Din Khilji, emperor of Delhi, invaded the Deccan, stormed Devagiri, and reduced the Yadava rajas of Maharashtra to the position of tributary princes (see DAULATABAD), then proceeding southward overran Telingana and Carnata (1294-1300). With this event the continuous history of the Deccan begins. In 1307, owing to non-payment of tribute, a fresh series of Mussulman incursions began, under Malik Kafur, issuing in the final ruin of the Yadava power; and in 1338 the reduction of the Deccan was completed by Mahommed ben Tughlak. The imperial sway was, however, of brief duration. Telingana and Carnata speedily reverted to their former masters; and this defection on the part of the Hindu states was followed by a general revolt of the Mussulman governors, resulting in the establishment in 1347 of the independent Mahommedan dynasty of Bahmani, and the consequent withdrawal of the power of Delhi from the territory south of the Nerbudda. In the struggles which ensued, the Hindu kingdom of Telingana fell bit by bit to the Bahmani dynasty, who advanced their frontier to Golconda in 1373, to Warangal in 1421, and to the Bay of Bengal in 1472. On the dissolution of the Bahmani empire (1482), its dominions were distributed into the five Mahommedan states of Golconda, Bijapur, Ahmednagar, Bidar and Berar. To the south of these the great Hindu state of Carnata or Vijayanagar still survived; but this, too, was destroyed, at the battle of Talikota (1565), by a league of the Mahommedan powers. These latter in their turn soon disappeared. Berar had already been annexed by Ahmednagar in 1572, and Bidar was absorbed by Bijapur in 1609. The victories of the Delhi emperors, Akbar, Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb, crushed the rest. Ahmednagar was incorporated in the Mogul empire in 1598, Bijapur in 1686, and Golconda in 1688. The rule of the Delhi emperors in the Deccan did not, however, long survive. In 1706 the Mahrattas acquired the right of levying tribute in southern India, and their principal chief, the Peshwa of Poona, became a practically independent sovereign. A few years later the emperor's viceroy in Ahmednagar, the nizam-al-mulk, threw off his allegiance and established the seat of an independent government at Hyderabad (1724). The remainder of the imperial possessions in the peninsula were held by chieftains acknowledging the supremacy of one or other of these two potentates. In the sequel, Mysore became the prize of the Mahommedan usurper Hyder Ali. During the contests for power which ensued about the middle of the 18th century between the native chiefs, the French and the English took opposite sides. After a brief course of triumph, the interests of France declined, and a new empire in India was established by the British. Mysore formed one of their earliest conquests in the Deccan. Tanjore and the Carnatic were shortly after annexed to their dominions. In 1818 the forfeited possessions of the Peshwa added to their extent; and these acquisitions, with others which have more recently fallen to the paramount power by cession, conquest or failure of heirs, form a continuous territory stretching from the Nerbudda to Cape Comorin. Its length is upwards of 1000 m., and its extreme breadth exceeds 800. This vast tract comprehends the chief provinces now distributed between the presidencies of Madras and Bombay, together with the native states of Hyderabad and Mysore, and those of Kolhapur, Sawantwari, Travancore, Cochin and the petty possessions of France and Portugal.
See J. D. B. Gribble, _History of the Deccan_ (1896); Prof. Bhandarkar, "Early History of the Dekkan" (_Bombay Gazetteer_); Vincent A. Smith, _Early History of India_ (2nd ed., Oxford, 1908), chap. xv. "The Kingdoms of the Deccan."
DECELEA (Gr. [Greek: Dekeleia]), an Attic deme, on the pass which led over the east end of Mt. Parnes towards Oropus and Chalcis. From its position it has a commanding view over the Athenian plain. Its eponymous hero, Decelus, was said to have indicated to the Tyndaridae, Castor and Pollux, the place where Theseus had hidden their sister Helen at Aphidnae; and hence there was a traditional friendship between the Deceleans and the Spartans (Herodotus ix. 73). This tradition, together with the advice of Alcibiades, led the Spartans to fortify Decelea as a basis for permanent occupation in Attica during the later years of the Peloponnesian War, from 413-404 B.C. Its position enabled them to harass the Athenians constantly, and to form a centre for fugitive slaves and other deserters. The royal palace of Tatoi has been built on the site.
See PELOPONNESIAN WAR; also Judeich in Pauly-Wissowa, _Realencyclopädie_.
DECEMBER (Lat. _decem_, ten), the last month of the year. In the Roman calendar, traditionally ascribed to Romulus, the year was divided into ten months, the last of which was called December, or the _tenth_ month, and this name, though etymologically incorrect, was retained for the last or twelfth month of the year as now divided. In the Romulian calendar December had thirty days; Numa reduced the number to twenty-nine; Julius Caesar added two days to this, giving the month its present length. The _Saturnalia_ occurred in December, which is therefore styled "acceptus geniis" by Ovid (_Fasti_, iii. 58); and this also explains the phrase of Horace "libertate Decembri utere" (_Sat._ ii. 7). Martial applies to the month the epithet _canus_ (hoary), and Ovid styles it _gelidus_ (frosty) and _fumosus_ (smoky). In the reign of Commodus it was temporarily styled _Amazonius_, in honour of the emperor's mistress, whom he had had painted as an Amazon. The Saxons called it _winter-monath_, winter month, and _heligh-monath_, holy month, from the fact that Christmas fell within it. Thus the modern Germans call it _Christmonat_. The 22nd of December is the date of the winter solstice, when the sun reaches the tropic of Capricorn.
DECEMVIRI ("the ten men"), the name applied by the Romans to any official commission of ten. The title was often followed by a statement of the purpose for which the commission was appointed, e.g. _Xviri legibus scribundis, stlitibus judicandis, sacris faciundis_.
I. Apart from such qualification, it signified chiefly the temporary commission which superseded all the ordinary magistrates of the Republic from 451 to 449 B.C., for the purpose of drawing up a code of laws. In 462 B.C. a tribune proposed that the appointment of a commission to draw up a code expressing the legal principles of the administration was necessary to secure for the _plebs_ a hold over magisterial caprice. Continued agitation to this effect resulted in an agreement in 452 B.C. between patricians and plebeians that decemvirs should be appointed to draw up a code, that during their tenure of office all other magistracies should be in abeyance, that they should not be subject to appeal, but that they should be bound to maintain the laws which guaranteed by religious sanctions the rights of the plebs. The first board of decemvirs (apparently consisting wholly of patricians) was appointed to hold office during 451 B.C.; and the chief man among them was Appius Claudius. Livy (iii. 32) says that only patricians were eligible. Mommsen, however, held that plebeians were legally eligible, though none were actually appointed for 451. The decemvirs ruled with singular moderation, and submitted to the _Comitia Centuriata_ a code of laws in ten headings, which was passed. So popular were the decemvirs that another board of ten was appointed for the following year, some of whom, if the extant list of names is correct, were certainly plebeians. These added two more to the ten laws of their predecessors, thus completing the Laws of the Twelve Tables (see ROMAN LAW). But their rule then became violent and tyrannical, and they fell before the fury of the _plebs_, though for some reason, not easily understood, they continued to have the support of the patricians. They were forced to abdicate (449 B.C.), and the ordinary magistrates were restored.
II. The judicial board of decemvirs (_stlitibus judicandis_) formed a civil court of ancient origin concerned mainly with questions bearing on the status of individuals. They were originally a body of jurors which gave a verdict under the presidency of the praetor (q.v.), but eventually became annual minor magistrates of the Republic, elected by the _Comitia Tributa_.
III. The priestly board of decemvirs (_sacris faciundis_) was an outcome of the claim of the _plebs_ to a share in the administration of the state religion. Five of the decemvirs were patricians, and five plebeians. They were first appointed in 367 B.C. instead of the patrician _duumviri_ who had hitherto performed these duties. The board was increased to fifteen in the last century of the Republic. Its chief function was the care of the Sibylline books, and the celebration of the games of Apollo (Livy x. 8) and the Secular Games (Tac. _Ann._ xi. 11).
IV. Decemvirs were also appointed from time to time to control the distribution of the public land (_agris dandis adsignandis_; see AGRARIAN LAWS).
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--B. G. Niebuhr, _History of Rome_ (Eng. trans.), ii. 309 et seq. (Cambridge, 1832); Th. Mommsen, _History of Rome_, bk. ii. c. 2, vol. i. pp. 361 et seq. (Eng. trans., new ed., 1894); _Römisches Staatsrecht_, ii. 605 et seq., 714 (Leipzig, 1887); A. H. J. Greenidge, _Legal Procedure of Cicero's Time_, p. 40 et seq., 263 (Oxford, 1901); J. Muirhead, _Private Law of Rome_, p. 73 et seq. (London, 1899); Pauly-Wissowa, _Realencyclopädie_, iv. 2256 et seq. (Kübler). (A. M. Cl.)
DECHEN, ERNST HEINRICH KARL VON (1800-1889), German geologist, was born in Berlin on the 25th of March 1800, and was educated in the university in that city. He subsequently studied mining in Bochum and Essen, and was in 1820 placed in the mining department of the Prussian state, serving on the staff until 1864, and becoming director in 1841 when he was stationed at Bonn. In early years he made journeys to study the mining systems of other countries, and with this object he visited England and Scotland in company with Karl von Oeynhausen (1797-1865). In the course of his work he paid special attention to the coal-formation of Westphalia and northern Europe generally, and he greatly furthered the progress made in mining and metallurgical works in Rhenish Prussia. He made numerous contributions to geological literature; notably the following:--_Geognostische Umrisse der Rheinländer zwischen Basel und Mainz mit besonderer Rücksicht auf das Vorkommen des Steinsalzes_ (with von Oeynhausen and La Roche), 2 vols. (Berlin, 1825); _Geognostische Führer in das Siebengebirge am Rhein_ (Bonn, 1861); _Die nutzbaren Mineralien und Gebirgsarten im deutschen Reiche_ (1873). But his main work was a geological map of Rhenish Prussia and Westphalia in 35 sheets on the scale of 1 : 80,000, issued with two volumes of explanatory text (1855-1882). He published also a small geological map of Germany (1869). He died at Bonn on the 15th of February 1889. (H. B. W.)
DECIDUOUS (from Lat. _decidere_, to fall down), a botanical and zoological term for "falling in season," as of petals after flowering, leaves in autumn, the teeth or horns of animals, or the wings of insects.
DECIMAL COINAGE.[1] Any currency in which the various denominations of coin are arranged in multiples or submultiples of ten (Lat. _decem_), with reference to a standard unit, is a decimal system. Thus if the standard unit be 1 the higher coins will be 10, 100, 1000, &c., the lower .1, .01, .001, &c. In a perfect system there would be no breaks or interpolations, but the actual currencies described as "decimal" do not show this rigid symmetry. In France the standard unit--the franc--has the 10 franc and the 100 franc pieces above it; the 10 centime below it; there are also, however, 50 franc, 20 franc, 5 franc, 2 franc pieces as well as 50 and 20 centime ones. Similar irregularities occur in the German and United States coinages, and indeed in all countries in which a decimal system has been established. Popular convenience has compelled this departure from the strict decimal form.
Subject to these practical modifications the leading countries of the world (Great Britain and India are the chief exceptions) have adopted decimal coinage. The United States led the way (1786 and 1792) with the dollar as the unit, and France soon followed (1799 and 1803), her system being extended to the countries of the Latin Union (1865). The German empire (1873), the Scandinavian States (1875), Austria-Hungary (1870, developed in 1892) and Russia (1839 and 1897) are further adherents to the decimal system. The Latin-American countries and Japan (1871) have also adopted it.
In England proposals for decimalizing the coinage have long been under discussion at intervals. Besides the inconvenience of altering the established currency, the difficulty of choosing between the different schemes propounded has been a considerable obstacle. One plan took the farthing as a base: then 10 farthings = 1 doit (2½d.), 10 doits = 1 florin (2s. 1d.), 10 florins = 1 pound (20s. 10d.). The advantages claimed for this scheme were (1) the preservation of the smaller coins (the penny = 4 farthings); and (2) the avoidance of interference with the smaller retail prices. Its great disadvantage was the destruction of the existing unit of value--the pound--and the consequent disturbance of all accounts. A second proposal would retain the pound as unit and the florin, but would subdivide the latter into 100 "units" (or farthings reduced 4%) and introduce a new coin = 10 units (2.4d.). By it the unit of account would remain as at present, and the shilling (as 50 units) would continue in use. The alteration of the bronze and several silver coins, and the need of readjusting all values and prices expressed in pence, formed the principal difficulties. A third scheme, which was connected with the assimilation of English to French and American money, proposed the establishment of an 8s. gold coin as unit, with the tenpenny or franc and the penny (reduced by 4%) as subdivisions. The new coin would be equivalent to 10 francs or (by an anticipated reduction of the dollar) 2 dollars. None of these plans has gained any great amount of popular support.
For the general question of monetary scales see MONEY, and for the decimal system in reference to weights and measures see METRIC SYSTEM and WEIGHTS AND MEASURES. (C. F. B.)
FOOTNOTE:
[1] For "decimal" in general see ARITHMETIC.
DECIUS, GAIUS MESSIUS QUINTUS TRAJANUS (201-251), Roman emperor, the first of the long succession of distinguished men from the Illyrian provinces, was born at Budalia near Sirmium in lower Pannonia in A.D. 201. About 245 the emperor Philip the Arabian entrusted him with an important command on the Danube, and in 249 (or end of 248), having been sent to put down a revolt of the troops in Moesia and Pannonia, he was forced to assume the imperial dignity. He still protested his loyalty to Philip, but the latter advanced against him and was slain near Verona. During his brief reign Decius was engaged in important operations against the Goths, who crossed the Danube and overran the districts of Moesia and Thrace. The details are obscure, and there is considerable doubt as to the part taken in the campaign by Decius and his son (of the same name) respectively. The Goths were surprised by the emperor while besieging Nicopolis on the Danube; at his approach they crossed the Balkans, and attacked Philippopolis. Decius followed them, but a severe defeat near Beroë made it impossible to save Philippopolis, which fell into the hands of the Goths, who treated the conquered with frightful cruelty. Its commander, Priscus, declared himself emperor under Gothic protection. The siege of Philippopolis had so exhausted the numbers and resources of the Goths, that they offered to surrender their booty and prisoners on condition of being allowed to retire unmolested. But Decius, who had succeeded in surrounding them and hoped to cut off their retreat, refused to entertain their proposals. The final engagement, in which the Goths fought with the courage of despair, took place on swampy ground in the Dobrudja near Abritum (Abrittus) or Forum Trebonii and ended in the defeat and death of Decius and his son. Decius was an excellent soldier, a man of amiable disposition, and a capable administrator, worthy of being classed with the best Romans of the ancient type. The chief blot on his reign was the systematic and authorized persecution of the Christians, which had for its object the restoration of the religion and institutions of ancient Rome. Either as a concession to the senate, or perhaps with the idea of improving public morality, Decius endeavoured to revive the separate office and authority of the censor. The choice was left to the senate, who unanimously selected Valerian (afterwards emperor). But Valerian, well aware of the dangers and difficulties attaching to the office at such a time, declined the responsibility. The invasion of the Goths and the death of Decius put an end to the abortive attempt.
See Aurelius Victor, _De Caesaribus_, 29, _Epit._ 29; Jordanes, _De rebus Geticis_, 18; fragments of Dexippus, in C. W. Müller, _Frag. Hist. Graec._ iii. (1849); Gibbon, _Decline and Fall_, chap. 10; H. Schiller, _Geschichte der römischen Kaiserzeit_, i. (pt. 2), 1883.
DECIZE, a town of central France, in the department of Nièvre, on an island in the Loire, 24 m. S.E. of Nevers by the Paris-Lyon railway. Pop. (1906) 3813. The most important of its buildings is the church of Saint Aré, which dates in part from the 11th and 12th centuries; there are also ruins of a castle of the counts of Nevers. The town has a statue of Guy Coquille, the lawyer and historian, who was born there in 1523. Decize is situated at the starting-point of the Nivernais canal. The coal mine of La Machine, which belongs to the Schneider Company of Le Creusot, lies four miles to the north. The industries of Decize and its suburbs on both banks of the Loire include the working of gypsum and lime, and the manufacture of ceramic products and glass. Trade is in horses from the Morvan, cattle, coal, iron, wood and stone.
Under the name of _Decetia_ the place is mentioned by Julius Caesar as a stronghold of the Aedui, and in 52 B.C. was the scene of a meeting of the senate held by him to settle the leadership of the tribe and to reply to his demand for aid against Vercingetorix. In later times it belonged to the counts of Nevers, from whom it obtained a charter of franchise in 1226.
DECKER, SIR MATTHEW, Bart. (1679-1749), English merchant and writer on trade, was born in Amsterdam in 1679. He came to London in 1702 and established himself there as a merchant. He was remarkably successful in his business life, gaining great wealth and having many honours conferred upon him. He was a director of the East India Company, sat in parliament for four years as member for Bishops Castle, and was high sheriff of Surrey in 1729. He was created a baronet by George I. in 1716. Decker's fame as a writer on trade rests on two tracts. The first, _Serious considerations on the several high duties which the Nation in general, as well as Trade in particular, labours under, with a proposal for preventing the removal of goods, discharging the trader from any search, and raising all the Publick Supplies by one single Tax_ (1743; name affixed to 7th edition, 1756), proposed to do away with customs duties and substitute a tax upon houses. He also suggested taking the duty off tea and putting instead a licence duty on households wishing to consume it. The second, an _Essay on the Causes of the Decline of the Foreign Trade, consequently of the value of the lands in Britain, and on the means to restore both_ (1744), has been attributed to W. Richardson, but internal evidence is strongly in favour of Decker's authorship. He advocates the licence plan in an extended form; urges the repeal of import duties and the abolition of bounties, and, in general, shows himself such a strong supporter of the doctrine of free trade as to rank as one of the most important forerunners of Adam Smith. Decker died on the 18th of March 1749.
DECKER, PIERRE DE (1812-1891), Belgian statesman and author, was educated at a Jesuit school, studied law at Paris, and became a journalist on the staff of the _Revue de Bruxelles_. In 1839 he was elected to the Belgian lower chamber, where he gained a great reputation for oratory. In 1855 he became minister of the interior and prime minister, and attempted, by a combination of the moderate elements of the Catholic and Liberal parties, the impossible task of effecting a settlement of the educational and other questions by which Belgium was distracted. In 1866 he retired from politics and went into business, with disastrous results. He became involved in financial speculations which lost him his good name as well as the greater part of his fortune; and, though he was never proved to have been more than the victim of clever operators, when in 1871 he was appointed by the Catholic cabinet governor of Limburg, the outcry was so great that he resigned the appointment and retired definitively into private life. He died on the 4th of January 1891. Decker, who was a member of the Belgian academy, wrote several historical and other works of value, of which the most notable are _Études historiques et critiques sur les monts-de-piété en Belgique_ (Brussels, 1844); _De l'influence du libre arbitre de l'homme sur les faits sociaux_ (1848); _L'Esprit de parti et l'esprit national_ (1852); _Étude politique sur le vicomte Ch. Vilain XIIII_ (1879); _Épisodes de l'hist. de l'art en Belgique_ (1883); _Biographie de H. Conscience_ (1885).
DECLARATION (from Lat. _declarare_, to make fully clear, _clarus_), formerly, in an action at English law, the first step in pleading--the precise statement of the matter in respect of which the plaintiff sued. It was divided into counts, in each of which a specific cause of action was alleged, in wide and general terms, and the same acts or omissions might be stated in several counts as different causes of actions. Under the system of pleading established by the Judicature Act 1875, the declaration has been superseded by a statement of claim setting forth the facts on which the plaintiff relies. Declarations are now in use only in the mayor's court of London and certain local courts of record, and in those of the United States and the British colonies in which the Common Law system of pleading survives. In the United States a declaration is termed a "complaint," which is the first pleading in an action. It is divided into parts,--the _title_ of the court and term; the _venue_ or county in which the facts are alleged to have occurred; the _commencement_, which contains a statement of the names of the parties and the character in which they appear; the _statement_ of the cause of action; and the _conclusion_ or claim for relief. (See PLEADING.)
The term is also used in other English legal connexions; e.g. the Declaration of Insolvency which, when filed in the Bankruptcy Court by any person unable to pay his debts, amounts to an act of bankruptcy (see BANKRUPTCY); the Declaration of Title, for which, when a person apprehends an invasion of his title to land, he may, by the Declaration of Title Act 1862, petition the Court of Chancery (see LAND REGISTRATION); or the Declaration of Trust, whereby a person acknowledges that property, the title of which he holds, belongs to another, for whose use he holds it; by the Statute of Frauds, declarations of trust of land must be evidenced in writing and signed by the party declaring the trust. (See TRUSTS.) By the Statutory Declarations Act 1835 (which was an act to make provision for the abolition of unnecessary oaths, and to repeal a previous act of the same session on the same subject), various cases were specified in which a solemn declaration was, or might be, substituted for an affidavit. In nearly all civilized countries an affirmation is now permitted to those who object to take an oath or upon whose conscience an oath is not binding. (See AFFIDAVIT; OATH.)
An exceptional position in law is accorded to a Dying or Deathbed Declaration. As a general rule, hearsay evidence is excluded on a criminal charge, but where the charge is one of homicide it is the practice to admit dying declarations of the deceased with respect to the cause of his death. But before such declarations can be admitted in evidence against a prisoner, it must be proved that the deceased when making the declaration had given up all hope of recovery. Unsworn declarations as to family matters, e.g. as to pedigree, may also be admitted as evidence, as well as declarations made by deceased persons in the course of their duty. (See EVIDENCE.)
DECLARATION OF PARIS, a statement of principles of international law adopted at the conclusion (16th of April 1856) of the negotiations for the treaty of Paris at the suggestion of Count Walewski, the French plenipotentiary. The declaration set out that maritime law in time of war had long been the subject of deplorable disputes, that the uncertainty of the rights and duties in respect of it gave rise to differences of opinion between neutrals and belligerents which might occasion serious difficulties and even conflicts, and that it was consequently desirable to agree upon some fixed uniform rules. The plenipotentiaries therefore adopted the four following principles:--
1. Privateering is and remains abolished; 2. The neutral flag covers enemy's goods, with the exception of contraband of war; 3. Neutral goods, with the exception of contraband of war, are not liable to capture under the enemy's flag; 4. Blockades, in order to be binding, must be effective, that is to say, maintained by a force sufficient really to prevent access to the coast of the enemy.
They also undertook to bring the declaration to the knowledge of the states which had not taken part in the congress of Paris and to invite them to accede to it. The text of the declaration concluded as follows:--"Convinced that the maxims which they now proclaim cannot but be received with gratitude by the whole world, the undersigned plenipotentiaries doubt not that the efforts of their governments to obtain the general adoption thereof will be crowned with full success."
The declaration is of course binding only on the powers which adopted it or have acceded to it. The majority which adopted it consisted of Great Britain, Austria, France, Prussia, Russia, Sardinia and Turkey. The United States government declined to sign the declaration on the ground that, not possessing a great navy, they would be obliged in time of war to rely largely upon merchant ships commissioned as war vessels, and that therefore the abolition of privateering would be entirely in favour of European powers, whose large navies rendered them practically independent of such aid. All other maritime states acceded to the declaration except Spain, Mexico[1] and Venezuela.
Although the United States and Spain were not parties to the declaration, both, during the Spanish-American War, observed its principles. The Spanish government, however, expressly gave notice that it reserved its right to issue letters of marque. At the same time both belligerents organized services of auxiliary cruisers composed of merchant ships under the command of naval officers. In how far this might operate as a veiled revival of the forbidden practice has now ceased to be a matter of much importance, the Hague Conference having adopted a series of rules on the subject which may be said to interpret the first of the four principles of the declaration with such precision as to take its place.
The New Convention on the subject (October 18th, 1907) sets out that, in view of the incorporation in time of war of merchant vessels in combatant fleets, it is desirable to define the conditions under which this can be effected, that, nevertheless, the contracting powers, not having been able to come to an understanding on the question whether the transformation of a merchant ship into a war vessel may take place on the high sea,[2] are agreed that the question of the place of transformation is in no way affected by the rules adopted, which are as follows:--
Art. i. No merchant ship transformed into a war vessel can have the rights and obligations attaching to this condition unless it is placed under the direct authority, the immediate control and the responsibility of the power whose flag it carries.
Art. ii. Merchant ships transformed into war vessels must bear the distinctive external signs of war vessels of their nationality.
Art. iii. The officer commanding must be in the service of the state, and properly commissioned by the competent authorities. His name must appear in the list of officers of the combatant fleet.
Art. iv. The crew must be subject to the rules of military discipline.
Art. v. Every merchant ship transformed into a war vessel is bound to conform, in its operation, to the laws and customs of war.
Art. vi. The belligerent who transforms a merchant ship into a war vessel must, as soon as possible, mention this transformation on the list of vessels belonging to its combatant fleet.
Art. vii. The provisions of the present convention are only applicable as among the contracting powers and provided the belligerents are all parties to the convention.
See T. Gibson Bowles, _Declaration of Paris_ (London, 1900); Sir T. Barclay, _Problems of International Practice and Diplomacy_ (London, 1907), chap. xv.². (T. Ba.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] At the 7th plenary sitting of the second Hague Conference (September 7th, 1907) the chiefs of the Spanish and Mexican delegations, M. de Villa Urratia and M. de la Barra, announced the determination of their respective governments to accede to the Declaration of Paris.
[2] This relates to the incident in the Russo-Japanese War of the transformation of Russian vessels which had passed through the Dardanelles unarmed.
DECLARATOR, in Scots law, a form of action by which some right of property, or of servitude, or of status, or some inferior right or interest, is sought to be judicially declared.
DECLINATION (from Lat. _declinare_, to decline), in magnetism the angle between true north and magnetic north, i.e. the variation between the true meridian and the magnetic meridian. In 1596 at London the angle of declination was 11° E. of N., in 1652 magnetic north was true north, in 1815 the magnetic needle pointed 24½° W. of N., in 1891 18° W., in 1896 17° 56´ W. and in 1906 17° 45´. The angle is gradually diminishing and the declination will in time again be 0°, when it will slowly increase in an easterly direction, the north magnetic pole oscillating slowly around the North Pole. Regular daily changes of declination also occur. Magnetic storms cause irregular variations sometimes of one or two degrees. (See MAGNETISM, TERRESTRIAL.)
In astronomy the declination is the angular distance, as seen from the earth, of a heavenly body from the celestial equator, thus corresponding with terrestrial latitude.
DECOLOURIZING, in practical chemistry and chemical technology, the removal of coloured impurities from a substance. The agent most frequently used is charcoal, preferably prepared from blood, which when shaken with a coloured solution frequently precipitates the coloured substances leaving the solution clear. Thus the red colour of wines may be removed by filtering the wine through charcoal; the removal of the dark-coloured impurities which arise in the manufacture of sugar may be similarly effected. Other "decolourizers" are sulphurous acid, permanganates and manganates, all of which have received application in the sugar industry.
DECORATED PERIOD, in architecture, the term given by Richman to the second pointed or Gothic style, 1307-1377. It is characterized by its window tracery, geometrical at first and flowing in the later period, owing to the omission of the circles in the tracery of windows, which led to the juxtaposition of the foliations and their pronounced curves of contre-flexure. This flowing or flamboyant tracery was introduced in the first quarter of the century and lasted about fifty years. The arches are generally equilateral, and the mouldings bolder than in the Early English, with less depth in the hollows and with the fillet largely used. The ball flower and a four-leaved flower take the place of the dog-tooth, and the foliage in the capitals is less conventional than in Early English and more flowing, and the diaper patterns in walls are more varied. The principal examples are those of the east end of Lincoln and Carlisle cathedral; the west fronts of York and Lichfield; the crossing of Ely cathedral, including the lantern and three west bays of choir and the Lady Chapel; and Melrose Abbey. (R. P. S.)
DE COSTA, BENJAMIN FRANKLIN (1831-1904), American clergyman and historical writer, was born in Charlestown, Massachusetts, on the 10th of July 1831. He graduated in 1856 at the Biblical Institute at Concord, New Hampshire (now a part of Boston University), became a minister in the Episcopal Church in 1857, and during the next three years was a rector first at North Adams, and then at Newton Lower Falls, Mass. After serving as chaplain in two Massachusetts regiments during the first two years of the Civil War, he became editor (1863) of _The Christian Times_ in New York, and subsequently edited _The Episcopalian_ and _The Magazine of American History_. He was rector of the church of St John the Evangelist in New York city from 1881 to 1899, when he resigned in consequence of being converted to Roman Catholicism. He was one of the organizers and long the secretary of the Church Temperance Society, and founded and was the first president (1884-1899) of the American branch of the White Cross Society. He became a high authority on early American cartography and the history of the period of exploration. He died in New York city on the 4th of November 1904. In addition to numerous monographs and valuable contributions to Winsor's _Narrative and Critical History of America_, he published _The Pre-Columbian Discovery of America by the Northmen_ (1868); _The Northmen in Maine_ (1870); _The Moabite Stone_ (1871); _The Rector of Roxburgh_ (1871), a novel under the _nom de plume_ of "William Hickling"; and _Verrazano the Explorer; being a Vindication of his Letter and Voyage_ (1880).
DE COSTER, CHARLES THÉODORE HENRI (1827-1879), Belgian writer, was born at Munich on the 20th of August 1827. His father, Augustin de Coster, was a native of Liége, who was attached to the household of the papal nuncio at Munich, but soon returned to Belgium. Charles was placed in a Brussels bank, but in 1850 he entered the university of Brussels, where he completed his studies in 1855. He was one of the founders of the _Société des Joyeux_, a small literary club, more than one member of which was to achieve literary distinction. De Coster made his début as a poet in the _Revue trimestrielle_, founded in 1854, and his first efforts in prose were contributed to a periodical entitled _Uylenspiegel_ (founded 1856). A correspondence covering the years 1850-1858, his _Lettres à Élisa_, were edited by Ch. Potvin in 1894. He was a keen student of Rabelais and Montaigne, and familiarized himself with 16th-century French. He said that Flemish manners and speech could not be rendered faithfully in modern French, and accordingly wrote his best works in the old tongue. The success of his _Légendes flamandes_ (1857) was increased by the illustrations of Félicien Rops and other friends. In 1861 he published his _Contes brabançons_, in modern French. His masterpiece is his _Légende de Thyl Uylenspiegel et de Lamme Goedzak_ (1867), a 16th-century romance, in which Belgian patriotism found its fullest expression. In the preparation for this prose epic of the _gueux_ he spent some ten years. Uylenspiegel (Eulenspiegel) has been compared to Don Quixote, and even to Panurge. He is the type of the 16th-century Fleming, and the history of his resurrection from the grave itself was accepted as an allegory of the destiny of the race. The exploits of himself and his friend form the thread of a semi-historical narrative, full of racy humour, in spite of the barbarities that find a place in it. This book also was illustrated by Rops and others. In 1870 De Coster became professor of general history and of French literature at the military school. His works however were not financially profitable; in spite of his government employment he was always in difficulties; and he died in much discouragement on the 7th of May 1879 at Ixelles, Brussels. The expensive form in which _Uylenspiegel_ was produced made it open only to a limited class of readers, and when a new and cheap edition in modern French appeared in 1893 it was received practically as a new book in France and Belgium.
DECOY, a contrivance for the capture or enticing of duck and other wild fowl within range of a gun, hence any trap or enticement into a place or situation of danger. Decoys are usually made on the following plan: long tunnels leading from the sea, channel or estuary into a pool or pond are covered with an arched net, which gradually narrows in width; the ducks are enticed into this by a tame trained bird, also known as a "decoy" or "decoy-duck." In America the "decoy" is an artificial bird, placed in the water as if it were feeding, which attracts the wild fowl within range of the concealed sportsman. The word "decoy" has, etymologically, a complicated history. It appears in English first in the 17th century in these senses as "coy" and "coy-duck," from the Dutch _kooi_, a word which is ultimately connected with Latin _cavea_, hollow place, "cage."[1] The _de_-, with which the word begins, is either a corruption of "duck-coy," the Dutch article _de_, or a corruption of the Dutch _eende-kooi_, _eende_, duck. The _New English Dictionary_ points out that the word "decoy" is found in the particular sense of a sharper or swindler as a slang term slightly earlier than "coy" or "decoy" in the ordinary sense, and, as the name of a game of cards, as early as 1550, apparently with no connexion in meaning. It is suggested that "coy" may have been adapted to this word.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Distinguish "coy," affectedly shy or modest, from O. Fr. _coi_, Lat. _quietus_, quiet.
DECREE (from the past participle, _decretus_, of Lat. _decernere_), in earlier form _Decreet_, an authoritative decision having the force of law; the judgment of a court of justice. In Roman law, a decree (_decretum_) was the decision of the emperor, as the supreme judicial officer, settling a case which had been referred to him. In ecclesiastical law the term was given to a decision of an ecclesiastical council settling a doubtful point of doctrine or discipline (cf. also DECRETALS). In English law decree was more particularly the judgment of a court of equity, but since the Judicature Acts the expression "judgment" (q.v.) is employed in reference to the decisions of all the divisions of the supreme court. A "decree _nisi_" is the conditional order for a dissolution of marriage made by the divorce court, and it is made "absolute" after six months (which period may, however, be shortened) in the absence of sufficient cause shown to the contrary. (See DIVORCE.) _Decreet arbitral_ is a Scottish phrase for the award of an arbitrator.
DECRETALS (_Epistolae decretales_), the name (see DECREE above), which is given in Canon Law to those letters of the pope which formulate decisions in ecclesiastical law; they are generally given in answer to consultations, but are sometimes due to the initiative of the popes. These furnish, with the canons of the councils, the chief source of the legislation of the church, and form the greater part of the _Corpus Juris_. In this connexion they are dealt with in the article on Canon Law (q.v.).
_The False Decretals._ A special interest, however, attaches to the celebrated collection known by this name. This collection, indeed, comprises at least as many canons of councils as decretals, and the decretals contained in it are not all forgeries. It is an amplification and interpolation, by means of spurious decretals, of the canonical collection in use in the Church of Spain in the 8th century, all the documents in which are perfectly authentic. With these amplifications, the collection dates from the middle of the 9th century. We shall give a brief account of its contents, its history and its influence on canon law.
The author assumes the name of Isidore, evidently the archbishop of Seville, who was credited with a preponderating part in the compilation of the _Hispana_; he takes in addition the surname of Mercator, perhaps because he has made use of two passages of Marius Mercator. Hence the custom of alluding to the author of the collection under the name of the pseudo-Isidore.
The collection itself is divided into three parts. The first, which is entirely spurious, contains, after the preface and various introductory sections, seventy letters attributed to the popes of the first three centuries, up to the council of Nicaea, i.e. up to but not including St Silvester; all these letters are a fabrication of the pseudo-Isidore, except two spurious letters of Clement, which were already known. The second part is the collection of councils, classified according to their regions, as it figures in the _Hispana_; the few spurious pieces which are added, and notably the famous Donation of Constantine, were already in existence. In the third part the author continues the series of decretals which he had interrupted at the council of Nicaea. But as the collection of authentic decretals does not begin till Siricius (385), the pseudo-Isidore first forges thirty letters, which he attributes to the popes from Silvester to Damasus; after this he includes the authentic decretals, with the intermixture of thirty-five apocryphal ones, generally given under the name of those popes who were not represented in the authentic collection, but sometimes also under the names of the others, for example, Damasus, St Leo, Vigilius and St Gregory; with one or two exceptions he does not interpolate genuine decretals. The series stops at St Gregory the Great (d. 604), except for one letter of Gregory II. (715-731). The forged letters are not, for the most part, entirely composed of fresh material; the author draws his inspiration from the notices on each of the popes given in the _Liber Pontificalis_; he inserts whole passages from ecclesiastical writers; and he antedates the evidences of a discipline which actually existed; so it is by no means all invented.
Thus the authentic elements were calculated to serve as a passport for the forgeries, which were, moreover, quite skilfully composed. In fact, the collection thus blended was passed from hand to hand without meeting with any opposition. At most all that was asked was whether those decretals which did not appear in the _Liber canonum_ (the collection of Dionysius Exiguus, accepted in France) had the force of law, but Pope Nicholas having answered that all the pontifical letters had the same authority (see _Decr. Gra._ Dist. xix. c. 1), they were henceforward accepted, and passed in turn into the later canonical collections. No doubts found an expression until the 15th century, when Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa (d. 1464) and Juan Torquemada (d. 1468) freely expressed their suspicions. More than one scholar of the 16th century, George Cassander, Erasmus, and the two editors of the _Decretum_ of Gratian, Dumoulin (d. 1568) and Le Conte (d. 1577), decisively rejected the False Decretals. This contention was again upheld, in the form of a violent polemic against the papacy, by the Centuriators of Magdeburg (_Ecclesiastica historia_, Basel, 1559-1574); the attempt at refutation by the Jesuit Torres (_Adversus Centur. Magdeburg. libri quinque_, Florence, 1572) provoked a violent rejoinder from the Protestant minister David Blondel (_Pseudo-Isidorus et Turrianus rapulantes_, Geneva, 1620). Since then, the conclusion has been accepted, and all researches have been of an almost exclusively historical character. One by one the details are being precisely determined, and the question may now almost be said to be settled.
Date.
In the first place, an exact determination of the date of the collection has been arrived at. On the one hand, it cannot go back further than 847, the date of the False Capitularies, with which the author of the False Decretals was acquainted.[1] On the other hand, in a letter of Lupus, abbot of Ferrières, written in 858, and in the synodical letter of the council of Quierzy in 857 are to be found quotations which are certainly from these false decretals; and further, an undoubted allusion in the statutes given by Hincmar to his diocese on the 1st of November 852. The composition of the collection must then be dated approximately at 850.
Aim of the author.
The object which the forger had in view is clearly stated in his preface; the reform of the canon law, or rather its better application. But, again, in what particular respects he wishes it to be reformed can be best deduced from certain preponderant ideas which make themselves felt in the apocryphal documents. He constantly harps upon accusations brought against bishops and the way they were judged; his wish is to prevent them from being unjustly accused, deposed or deprived of their sees; to this end he multiplies the safeguards of procedure, and secures the right of appeal to the pope and the possibility of restoring bishops to their sees. His object, too, was to protect the property, as well as the persons, of the clergy against the encroachments of the temporal power. In the second place, Isidore wishes to increase the strength and cohesion of the churches; he tries to give absolute stability to the diocese and the ecclesiastical province; he reinforces the rights of the bishop and his comprovincials, while he initiates a determined campaign against the _chorepiscopi_; finally, as the keystone of the arch he places the papacy. These aims are most laudable, and in no way subversive; but the author must have had some particular reasons for emphasizing these questions rather than others; and the examination of these reasons may help us to determine the nationality of this collection.
Nationality of the collection.
The name of Isidore usurped by the author at first led to the supposition that the False Decretals originated in Spain; this opinion no longer meets with any support; it is enough to point out that there is no Spanish manuscript of the collection, at least until the 13th century. In the 16th century the Protestants, who wished to represent the forgeries in the light of an attempt in favour of the papacy, ascribed the origin of the False Decretals to Rome, but neither the manuscript tradition nor the facts confirm this view, which is nowadays entirely abandoned. Everybody is agreed in placing the origin of the False Decretals within the Frankish empire. Within these limits, three different theories have successively arisen: "At first it was thought that Isidore's domicile could be fixed in the province of Mainz, it is now about fifty years ago that the balance of opinion was turned in favour of the province of Reims; and now, after the lapse of about twenty years, several authors have suggested the province of Tours" (P. Fournier, _Étude sur les Fausses Décrétales_). In favour of Mainz, especial stress was laid on the fact that it was the country of Benedictus Levita, the compiler of the False Capitularies, to which the False Decretals are closely related. But Benedict, the deacon of Otgar of Mainz, is as much of a hypothetical personage as Isidorus Mercator; moreover, in the middle of the 9th century the condition of the province of Mainz was not disturbed, nor were the _chorepiscopi_ menaced. In favour of Reims, it has been pointed out that it was there that the first judicial use of the False Decretals is recorded, in the trials of Rothad, bishop of Soissons (d. 869), and of Hincmar the younger, bishop of Laon (d. c. 882); and an application of the axiom has been attempted: _Is fecit cui prodest_. But both these trials took place later than 852, at which date the existence of the collection is an established fact; the texts of it were used, but they were in existence before. Between 847 and 852, the province of Reims was disturbed by another affair, that of the clergy ordained by Ebbo at the time of his short restoration to the see of Reims, in 840-841; these clerics, Vulfadus (afterwards archbishop of Bourges), and a few others, had been suspended by Hincmar on his election in 845. But the affair of Ebbo's clergy did not become critical till the council of Soissons in 853; up till then these clergy had, so far as we know, produced no documents, and the citations from the False Decretals made in their later writings do not prove that they had forged them. Moreover, Hincmar would not have cited the forged letters of the popes in 852; above all, this theory would not explain the chief preoccupation of the forger, which is to protect bishops against unjust judgments and depositions. We must, then, look for conditions in which the bishops were concerned. It is precisely this which has suggested the province of Tours. Brittany, which was dependent on the province of Tours, had just for a time recovered its independence, thanks to its duke Nominoé. The struggle between the two nationalities, the Celt and the Frank, found a reflexion in the sphere of religion. The Breton bishops were for the most part abbots of monasteries, who had but little consideration for the territorial limits of the civitates; and many of the religious usages of the Bretons differed profoundly from those of the Franks. Charlemagne had divided up the Breton dioceses and established in them Frankish bishops. Nominoé hastened to depose the four Frankish bishops, after wringing from them by force confessions of simony; he then established a metropolitan see at Dol. Hence arose incessant complaints on the part of the dispossessed bishops, of the metropolitan of Tours, and his suffragans, notably those of Angers and Le Mans, which were more exposed than the others to the incursions of the Bretons; and this gave rise to numerous papal letters, and all this throughout a period of thirty years. There were requests that the bishops should be judged according to the rules, protests against the interlopers, demands for the restoration of the bishops to their sees. These circumstances fall in perfectly with the questions about which, as we have pointed out, the pseudo-Isidore was mainly concerned: the judgment of bishops, and the stability of the ecclesiastical organizations.
In the province of Tours, attempts have been made to define more clearly the centre of the forgeries, and the most recent authorities fix upon Le Mans. The sole argument, though a very weighty one, is found in the undeniable relation, revealed in an astonishing similarity both in expressions and composition, which exists between these forgeries and some other documents certainly fabricated at Le Mans, under the episcopate of Aldric (832-856), notably the _Actus Pontificum Cenomanis in urbe degentium_, in which there is no lack of forged documents. These certainly bear the mark of the same hand.
Canonical influence.
Though we cannot admit that the False Decretals were composed in order to enforce the rights of the papacy, we may at least consider whether the popes did not make use of the False Decretals to support their rights. It is certain that in 864 Rothad of Soissons took with him to Rome, if not the collection, at least important extracts from the pseudo-Isidore; M. Fournier has pointed out in the letters of the pope of that time, "a literary influence, which is shown in the choice of expressions and metaphors," notably in those passages relating to the _restitutio spolii_; but he concludes by affirming that the ideas and acts of Nicholas were not modified by the new collection: even before 864 he acted in affairs concerning bishops, e.g. in the case of the Breton bishops or the adversaries of Photius, patriarch of Constantinople, exactly as he acted later; all that can be said is that the False Decretals, though not expressly cited by the pope, "led him to accentuate still further the arguments which he drew from the decrees of his predecessors," notably with regard to the _exceptio spolii_. In the papal letters of the end of the 9th and the whole of the 10th century, only two or three insignificant citations of the pseudo-Isidore have been pointed out; the use of the pseudo-Isidorian forged documents did not become prevalent at Rome till about the middle of the 11th century, in consequence of the circulation of the canonical collections in which they figured; but nobody then thought of casting any doubts on the authenticity of those documents. One thing only is established, and this may be said to have been the real effect of the False Decretals, namely, the powerful impulse which they gave in the Frankish territories to the movement towards centralization round the see of Rome, and the legal obstacles which they opposed to unjust proceedings against the bishops.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--The best edition is that of P. Hinschius, _Decretales pseudo-Isidorianae et capitula Angilramni_ (Leipzig, 1863). In it the authentic texts are printed in two columns, the forgeries across the whole width of the page; an important preface of ccxxviii. pages contains, besides the classification of the MSS., a profound study of the sources and other questions bearing on the collection. After the works cited above, the following dissertations should be noted. Placing the origin of the False Decretals at Rome is: A. Theiner, _De pseudo-Isidoriana canonum collectione_ (Breslau, 1827); at Mainz, the brothers Ballerini, _De antiquis collectionibus et collectoribus canonum_, iii. (_S. Leonis opera_, t. iii.; Migne, _Patrologia Lat._ t. 56); Blascus, _De coll. canonum Isidori Mercatoris_ (Naples, 1760); Wasserschleben, _Beiträge zur Geschichte der falschen Dekretalen_ (Breslau, 1844); in the province of Reims: Weizsäcker, "Die pseudoisidorianische Frage," in the _Histor. Zeitschrift_ of Sybel (1860); Hinschius, Preface, p. ccviii.; A. Tardif, _Histoire des sources du droit canonique_ (Paris, 1887); Schneider, _Die Lehre der Kirchenrechtsquellen_ (Regensburg, 1892). An excellent résumé of the question; seems more favourable to Le Mans in the article of the _Kirchenlexicon_ of Wetzer and Welte (2nd ed.); F. Lot, _Études sur le règne de Hugues Capet_ (Paris, 1903); Lesne, _La Hiérarchie episcopale en Gaule et Germanie_ (Paris, 1905); for the province of Tours and Le Mans: B. Simson, _Die Entstehung der pseudoisidor. Fälschungen in Le Mans_ (Leipzig, 1886. It is he who pointed out the connexion with the forgeries of Le Mans); especially Paul Fournier, "La Question des fausses décrétales," in the _Nouvelle Revue historique de droit français et étranger_ (1887, 1888); in the _Congrès internat. des savants cathol._ t. ii.; "Étude sur les fausses décrétales," in _Revue d'histoire ecclésiastique de Louvain_ (1906, 1907), to which the above article is greatly indebted. (A. Bo.*)
FOOTNOTE:
[1] The False Capitularies are for civil legislation what the False Decretals are for ecclesiastical legislation: three books of Capitularies of the Frankish kings, more of which are spurious than authentic. The author gives himself out as a certain Benedict, a deacon of the church of Mainz; hence the name by which he is usually known, Benedictus Levita. The two false collections are closely akin, and are doubtless the fabrication of the same hands.
DECURIO, a Roman official title, used in three connexions. (1) A member of the senatorial order in the Italian towns under the administration of Rome, and later in provincial towns organized on the Italian model (see CURIA 4). The number of _decuriones_ varied in different towns, but was usually 100. The qualifications for the office were fixed in each town by a special law for that community (_lex municipalis_). Cicero (_in Verr._ 2. 49, 120) alludes to an age limit (originally thirty years, until lowered by Augustus to twenty-five), to a property qualification (cf. Pliny, _Ep._ i. 19. 2), and to certain conditions of rank. The method of appointment varied in different towns and at different periods. In the early municipal constitution ex-magistrates passed automatically into the senate of their town; but at a later date this order was reversed, and membership of the senate became a qualification for the magistracy. Cicero (_l.c._) speaks of the senate in the Sicilian towns as appointed by a vote of the township. But in most towns it was the duty of the chief magistrate to draw up a list (_album_) of the senators every five years. The _decuriones_ held office for life. They were convened by the magistrate, who presided as in the Roman senate. Their powers were extensive. In all matters the magistrates were obliged to act according to their direction, and in some towns they heard cases of appeal against judicial sentences passed by the magistrate. By the time of the municipal law of Julius Caesar (45 B.C.) special privileges were conferred on the _decuriones_, including the right to appeal to Rome for trial in criminal cases. Under the principate their status underwent a marked decline. The office was no longer coveted, and documents of the 3rd and 4th centuries show that means were devised to compel members of the towns to undertake it. By the time of the jurists it had become hereditary and compulsory. This change was largely due to the heavy financial burdens which the Roman government laid on the municipal senates. (2) The president of a _decuria_, a subdivision of the _curia_ (q.v.). (3) An officer in the Roman cavalry, commanding a troop of ten men (_decuria_).
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--C. G. Bruns, _Fontes juris Romani_, c. 3, No. 18, c. 4, Nos. 27, 29, 30 (_leges municipales_); J. C. Orelli, _Inscr. Latinae_, No. 3721 (Album of Canusium); Godefroy, _Paratitl. ad cod. Theodosianam_, xii. 1 (vol. iv. pp. 352 et seq., ed. Ritter); J. Marquardt, _Römische Staatsverwaltung_, i. pp. 183 et seq. (Leipzig, 1881); P. Willems, _Droit public romain_, pp. 535 et seq. (Paris, 1884); Pauly-Wissowa, _Realencyclopädie_, IV. ii. pp. 2319 foll. (Stuttgart, 1901); W. Liebenam, _Städteverwaltung im römischen Kaiserreiche_ (Leipzig, 1900). (A. M. Cl.)
DÉDÉAGATCH, a seaport of European Turkey, in the vilayet of Adrianople, 10 m. N.W. of the Maritza estuary, on the Gulf of Enos, an inlet of the Aegean Sea. Pop. (1905) about 3000, mostly Greeks. Until 1871 Dédéagatch was a mere cluster of fishermen's huts. A new town then began to spring up, settlers being attracted by the prospect of opening up a trade in the products of a vast forest of valonia oaks which grew near. In 1873 it was made the chief town of a _Kaza_, to which it gave its name, and a _Kaimakam_ was appointed to it. In 1884 it was raised in administrative rank from a _Kaza_ to a _Sanjak_, and the governor became a _Mutessarif_. In 1889 the Greek archbishopric of Enos was transferred to Dédéagatch. On the opening, early in 1896, of the Constantinople-Salonica railway, which has a station here, a large proportion of the extensive transit trade which Enos, situated at the mouth of the Maritza, had acquired, was immediately diverted to Dédéagatch, and an era of unprecedented prosperity began; but when the railway connecting Burgas on the Black Sea with the interior was opened, in 1898, Dédéagatch lost all it had won from Enos. Owing to the lack of shelter in its open roadstead, the port has not become the great commercial centre which its position otherwise qualifies it to be. It is, however, one of the chief outlets for the grain trade of the Adrianople, Demotica and Xanthi districts. The valonia trade has also steadily developed, and is supplemented by the export of timber, tobacco and almonds. In 1871, while digging out the foundations of their houses, the settlers found many ancient tombs. Probably these are relics, not of the necropolis of the ancient _Zonê_, but of a monastic community of Dervishes, of the Dédé sect, which was established here in the 15th century, shortly after the Turkish conquest, and gave to the place its name.
DEDHAM, a township and the county seat of Norfolk county, Massachusetts, U.S.A., with an area of 23 sq. m. of comparatively level country. Pop. (1890) 7123; (1900) 7457, of whom 2186 were foreign-born; (1910 U.S. census) 9284. The township is traversed by the New York, New Haven & Hartford railway, and by interurban electric lines. It contains three villages, Dedham, East Dedham and Oakdale. Dedham has a public library (1854; incorporated 1871). The Dedham historical society was organized in 1859 and was incorporated in 1862. The Fairbanks house was erected in part as early as 1654. Carpets, handkerchiefs and woollen goods are manufactured, and a pottery here is reputed to make the only true crackleware outside the East. Dedham was "planted" in 1635 and was incorporated in 1636. It was one of the first two inland settlements of the colony, being coeval with Concord. The original plantation, about 20 m. long and 10 m. wide, extended from Roxbury and Dorchester to the present state line of Rhode Island: from this territory several townships were created, including Westwood (pop. in 1910, 1266), in 1897. A free public school, one of the first in America to be supported by direct taxation, was established in Dedham in 1645. In the Woodward tavern, the birthplace of Fisher Ames, a convention met in September 1774 and adjourned to Milton (q.v.), where it passed the Suffolk Resolves.
DEDICATION (Lat. _dedicatio_, from _dedicare_, to proclaim, to announce), properly the setting apart of anything by solemn proclamation. It is thus in Latin the term particularly applied to the consecration of altars, temples and other sacred buildings, and also to the inscription prefixed to a book, &c., and addressed to some particular person. This latter practice, which formerly had the purpose of gaining the patronage and support of the person so addressed, is now only a mark of affection or regard. In law, the word is used of the setting apart by a private owner of a road to public use. (See HIGHWAY.)
_The Feast of Dedication_ ([Hebrew: hanuka]; [Greek: ta egkainia]) was a Jewish festival observed for eight days from the 25th of Kislev (i.e. about December 12) in commemoration of the reconsecration (165 B.C.) of the temple and especially of the altar of burnt offering, after they had been desecrated in the persecution under Antiochus Epiphanes (168 B.C.). The distinguishing features of the festival were the illumination of houses and synagogues, a custom probably taken over from the feast of tabernacles, and the recitation of Psalm xxx. The biblical references are 1 Macc. i. 41-64, iv. 36-39; 2 Macc. vi. 1-11; John x. 22. See also 2 Macc. i. 9, 18; ii. 16; and Josephus, _Antiq._ xii. v. 4. J. Wellhausen suggests that the feast was originally connected with the winter solstice, and only afterwards with the events narrated in Maccabees.
_Dedication of Churches._--The custom of solemnly dedicating or consecrating buildings as churches or chapels set apart for Christian worship must be almost as old as Christianity itself. If we find no reference to it in the New Testament or in the very earliest apostolic or post-apostolic writings, it is merely due to the fact that Christian churches had not as yet begun to be built. Throughout the ante-Nicene period, until the reign of Constantine, Christian churches were few in number, and any public dedication of them would have been attended with danger in those days of heathen persecution. This is why we are ignorant as to what liturgical forms and what consecration ritual were employed in those primitive times. But when we come to the earlier part of the 4th century allusions to and descriptions of the consecration of churches become plentiful.
Like so much else in the worship and ritual of the Christian church this service is probably of Jewish origin. The hallowing of the tabernacle and of its furniture and ornaments (Exodus xl.); the dedication of Solomon's temple (1 Kings viii.) and of the second temple by Zerubbabel (Ezra vi.), and its rededication by Judas Maccabaeus (see above), and the dedication of the temple of Herod the Great (Josephus, _Antiq. of the Jews_, bk. xv. c. xi. § 6), and our Lord's recognition of the Feast of Dedication (St John xi. 22, 23)--all these point to the probability of the Christians deriving their custom from a Jewish origin, quite apart from the intrinsic appropriateness of such a custom in itself.
Eusebius (_Hist. Eccles._ lib. x. cap. 3) speaks of the dedication of churches rebuilt after the Diocletian persecution, including the church at Tyre in A.D. 314. The consecrations of the church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem in A.D. 335, which had been built by Constantine, and of other churches after his time, are described both by Eusebius and by other ecclesiastical historians. From them we gather that every consecration was accompanied by a celebration of the Holy Eucharist and a sermon, and special prayers of a dedicatory character, but there is no trace of the elaborate ritual, to be described presently, of the medieval pontificals dating from the 8th century onwards.
The separate consecration of altars is provided for by canon 14 of the council of Agde in 506, and by canon 26 of the council of Epaone in 517, the latter containing the first known reference to the usage of anointing the altar with chrism. The use of both holy water and of unction is attributed to St Columbanus, who died in 615 (Walafrid Strabo, _Vita S. Galli_, cap. 6).
There was an annual commemoration of the original dedication of the church, a feast with its octave extending over eight days, during which Gregory the Great encouraged the erection of booths and general feasting on the part of the populace, to compensate them for, and in some way to take the place of, abolished heathen festivities (Sozomen, _Hist. Eccles._ lib. ii. cap. 26; Bede, _Hist. Eccles._ lib. i. cap. 30).
At an early date the right to consecrate churches was reserved to bishops, as by canon 37 of the first council of Bracara in 563, and by the 23rd of the Irish collections of canons, once attributed to St Patrick, but hardly to be put earlier than the 8th century (Haddon and Stubbs, _Councils, &c._, vol. ii. pt. 2, p. 329).
When we come to examine the MS. and printed service-books of the medieval church, we find a lengthy and elaborate service provided for the consecration of churches. It is contained in the pontifical. The earliest pontifical which has come down to us is that of Egbert, archbishop of York (732-766), which, however, only survives in a 10th-century MS. copy. Later pontificals are numerous; we cannot describe all their variations. A good idea, however, of the general character of the service will be obtained from a skeleton of it as performed in this country before the Reformation according to the use of Sarum. The service in question is taken from an early 15th-century pontifical in the Cambridge University Library as printed by W. Makell in _Monumenta ritualia ecclesiae Anglicanae_, and ed., vol. i. pp. 195-239.
There is a preliminary office for laying a foundation-stone. On the day of consecration the bishop is to vest in a tent outside the church, thence to proceed to the door of the church on the outside, a single deacon being inside the church, and there to bless holy water, twelve lighted candles being placed outside, and twelve inside the church. He is then to sprinkle the walls all round outside, and to knock at the door; then to sprinkle the walls all round outside a second time and to knock at the door again; then to sprinkle the walls all round outside a third time, and a third time to knock at the door, by which he will then enter, all laity being excluded. The bishop is then to fix a cross in the centre of the church, after which the litany is said, including a special clause for the consecration of the church and altar. Next the bishop inscribes the alphabet in Greek letters on one of the limbs of St Andrew's cross from the left east corner to the right west corner on the pavement cindered for the purpose, and the alphabet in Latin on the other limb from the right east corner to the left west corner. Then he is to genuflect before the altar or cross. Then he blesses water, mingled with salt, ashes and wine, and sprinkles therewith all the walls of the church inside thrice, beginning at the altar; then he sprinkles the centre of the church longwise and crosswise on the pavement, and then goes round the outside of the church sprinkling it thrice. Next reentering the church and taking up a central position he sprinkles holy water to the four points of the compass, and toward the roof. Next he anoints with chrism the twelve internal and twelve external wall-crosses, afterwards perambulating the church thrice inside and outside, censing it.
Then there follows the consecration of the altar. First, holy water is blessed and mixed with chrism, and with the mixture the bishop makes a cross in the middle of the altar, then on the right and the left, then on the four horns of the altar. Then the altar is sprinkled seven times or three times with water not mixed with chrism, and the altar-table is washed therewith and censed and wiped with a linen cloth. The centre of the altar is next anointed with the oil of the catechumens in the form of a cross; and the altar-stone is next anointed with chrism; and then the whole altar is rubbed over with oil of the catechumens and with chrism. Incense is next blessed, and the altar censed, five grains of incense being placed crosswise in the centre and at the four corners, and upon the grains five slender candle crosses, which are to be lit. Afterwards the altar is scraped and cleansed; then the altar-cloths and ornaments having been sprinkled with holy water are placed upon the altar, which is then to be censed.
All this is subsidiary to the celebration of mass, with which the whole service is concluded. The transcription and description of the various collects, psalms, anthems, benedictions, &c., which make up the order of dedication have been omitted for the sake of brevity.
The Sarum order of dedication described above is substantially identical with the Roman order, but it would be superfluous to tabulate and describe the lesser variations of language or ritual. There is, however, one very important and significant piece of ritual, not found in the above-described English church order, but always found in the Roman service, and not infrequently found in the earlier and later English uses, in connexion with the presence and use of relics at the consecration of an altar. According to the Roman ritual, after the priest has sprinkled the walls of the church inside thrice all round and then sprinkled the pavement from the altar to the porch, and sideways from wall to wall, and then to the four quarters of the compass, he prepares some cement at the altar. He then goes to the place where the relics are kept, and starts a solemn procession with the relics round the outside of the church. There a sermon is preached, and two decrees of the council of Trent are read, and the founder's deed of gift or endowment. Then the bishop, anointing the door with chrism, enters the church with the relics and deposits them in the cavity or confession in the altar. Having been enclosed they are censed and covered in, and the cover is anointed. Then follows the censing and wiping of the altar as in the Sarum order.
This use of relics is very ancient and can be traced back to the time of St Ambrose. There was also a custom, now obsolete, of enclosing a portion of the consecrated Eucharist if relics were not obtainable. This was ordered by cap. 2 of the council of Celchyth (Chelsea) in 816. But though ancient the custom of enclosing relics was not universal, and where found in English church orders, as it frequently is found from the pontifical of Egbert onwards, it is called the "Mos Romanus" as distinguished from the "Mos Anglicanus" (_Archaeologia_, liv. 416). It is absent from the description of the early Irish form of consecration preserved in the _Leabhar Breac_, translated and annotated by Rev. T. Olden in the _Transactions of the St Paul's Ecclesiolog. Soc._ vol. iv. pt. ii. p. 98.
The curious ritual act, technically known as the _abecedarium_, i.e. the tracing of the alphabet, sometimes in Latin characters, sometimes in Latin and Greek, sometimes, according to Menard, in Latin, Greek and Hebrew, along the limbs of St Andrew's cross on the floor of the church, can be traced back to the 8th century and may be earlier. Its origin and meaning are unknown. Of all explanations we like best the recent one suggested by Rossi and adopted by the bishop of Salisbury. This interprets the St Andrew's cross as the initial Greek letter of Christus, and the whole act as significant of taking possession of the site to be consecrated in the name of Christ, who is the Alpha and Omega, the word of God, combining in himself all letters that lie between them, every element of human speech. The three languages may then have been suggested by the Latin, Greek and Hebrew, in which his title was written on the cross.
The disentangling the Gallican from the Roman elements in the early Western forms of service is a delicate and difficult task, undertaken by Monsignor Louis Duchesne, who shows how the former partook of a funerary and the latter of a baptismal character (_Christian Worship_ (London, 1904), cap. xii.).
The dedication service of the Greek Church is likewise long and elaborate. Relics are to be prepared and guarded on the day previous in some neighbouring sacred building. On the morning following, all ornaments and requisites having been got ready, the laity being excluded, the bishop and clergy vested proceed to fix in its place and consecrate the altar, a long prayer of dedication being said, followed by a litany. The altar is then sprinkled with warm water, then with wine, then anointed with chrism in the form of a cross. The altar, the book of the gospels, and all cloths are then censed, every pillar is crossed with chrism, while various collects are said and psalms recited. One lamp is then filled with oil and lit, and placed on the altar, while clergy bring in other lamps and other ornaments of the church. On the next day--if the service cannot be concluded in one day--the bishop and clergy go to the building where the relics have been kept and guarded. A procession is formed and advances thence with the relics, which are borne by a priest in a holy vessel (_discus_) on his head; the church having been entered, the relics are placed by him with much ceremonial in the "confession," the recess prepared in or about the altar for their reception, which is then anointed and sealed up. After this the liturgy is celebrated both on the feast of dedication and on seven days afterwards.
There is no authorized form for the dedication of a church in the reformed Church of England. A form was drawn up and approved by both houses of the convocation of Canterbury under Archbishop Tenison in 1712, and an almost identical form was submitted to convocation in 1715, but its consideration was not completed by the Lower House, and neither form ever received royal sanction. The consequence has been that Anglican bishops have fallen back on their undefined _jus liturgicum_, and have drawn up and promulgated forms for use in their various dioceses, some of them being content to borrow from other dioceses for this purpose. There is a general similarity, with a certain amount of difference in detail, in these various forms. In the diocese of London the bishop, attended by clergy and churchwardens, receives at the west door, outside, a petition for consecration; the procession then moves round the whole church outside, while certain psalms are chanted. On again reaching the west door the bishop knocks thrice for admission, and the door being opened the procession advances to the east end of the church. He there lays the keys on the table "which is to be hallowed." The _Veni Creator_ is then sung kneeling, followed by the litany with special suffrages. The bishop then proceeds to various parts of the church and blesses the font, the chancel, with special references to confirmation and holy matrimony, the lectern, the pulpit, the clergy stalls, the choir seats, the holy table. The deed of consecration is then read and signed, and the celebration of Holy Communion follows with special collects, epistle and gospel.
The Church of Ireland and the episcopal Church of Scotland are likewise without any completely authorized form of dedication, and their archbishops or bishops have at various times issued forms of service on their own authority. (F. E. W.)
DE DONIS CONDITIONALIBUS, a chapter of the statute of Westminster the Second (1285) which originated the law of entail. Strictly speaking, a form of entail was known before the Norman feudal law had been domesticated in England. The common form was a grant "to the feoffee and the heirs of his body," by which limitation it was sought to prevent alienation from the lineage of the first purchaser. These grants were also known as _feuda conditionata_, because if the donee had no heirs of his body the estate reverted to the donor. This right of reversion was evaded by the interpretation that such a gift was a conditional fee, which enabled the donee, if he had an heir of the body born alive, to alienate the land, and consequently disinherit the issue and defeat the right of the donor. To remedy this the statute _De Donis Conditionalibus_ was passed, which enacted that, in grants to a man and the heirs of his body, the will of the donor according to the form in the deed of gift manifestly expressed, should be from thenceforth observed; so that they to whom the land was given under such condition, should have no power to alienate the land so given, but that it should remain unto the issue of those to whom it was given after their death, or unto the giver or his heirs, if issue fail. Since the passing of the statute an estate given to a man and the heirs of his body has been known as an estate tail, or an estate in fee tail (_feudum talliatum_), the word tail being derived from the French _tailler_, to cut, the inheritance being by the statute cut down and confined to the heirs of the body. The operation of the statute soon produced innumerable evils: "children, it is said, grew disobedient when they knew they could not be set aside; farmers were deprived of their leases; creditors were defrauded of their debts; innumerable latent entails were produced to deprive purchasers of the land they had fairly bought; treasons also were encouraged, as estates tail were not liable to forfeiture longer than for the tenant's life" (Williams, _Real Property_). Accordingly, the power of alienation was reintroduced by the judges in Taltarum's case (_Year Book_, 12 Edward IV., 1472) by means of a fictitious suit or recovery which had originally been devised by the regular clergy for evading the statutes of mortmain. This was abolished by an act passed in 1833. (See FINE.)
DEDUCTION (from Lat. _deducere_, to take or lead from or out of, derive), a term used in common parlance for the process of taking away from, or subtracting (as in mathematics), and specially for the argumentative process of arriving at a conclusion from evidence, i.e. for any kind of inference.[1] In this sense it includes both arguments from particular facts and those from general laws to particular cases. In logic it is generally used in contradiction to "induction" for a kind of mediate inference, in which a conclusion (often itself called the deduction) is regarded as following necessarily under certain fixed laws from premises. This, the most common, form of deduction is the syllogism (q.v.; see also LOGIC), which consists in taking a general principle and deriving from it facts which are necessarily involved in it. This use of deduction is of comparatively modern origin; it was originally used as the equivalent of Aristotle's [Greek: apagôgê] (see _Prior Analytics_, B xxv.). The modern use of deduction is practically identical with the Aristotelian [Greek: syllogismos].
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Two forms of the verb are used, "deduce" and "deduct"; originally synonymous, they are now distinguished, "deduce" being confined to arguments, "deduct" to quantities.
DEE, JOHN (1527-1608), English mathematician and astrologer, was born on the 13th of July 1527, in London, where his father was, according to Wood, a wealthy vintner. In 1542 he was sent to St John's College, Cambridge. After five years spent in mathematical and astronomical studies, he went to Holland, in order to visit several eminent continental mathematicians. Having remained abroad nearly a year, he returned to Cambridge, and was elected a fellow of Trinity College, then first erected by King Henry VIII. In 1548 he took the degree of master of arts; but in the same year he found it necessary to leave England on account of the suspicions entertained of his being a conjurer; these were first excited by a piece of machinery, which, in the _Pax_ of Aristophanes, he exhibited to the university, representing the scarabaeus flying up to Jupiter, with a man and a basket of victuals on its back. He went first to the university of Louvain, where he resided about two years, and then to the college of Rheims, where he had extraordinary success in his public lectures on Euclid's _Elements_. On his return to England in 1551 King Edward assigned him a pension of 100 crowns, which he afterwards exchanged for the rectory of Upton-upon-Severn, Worcestershire. Soon after the accession of Mary he was accused of using enchantments against the queen's life; but after a tedious confinement he obtained his liberty in 1555, by an order of council.
When Elizabeth ascended the throne, Dee was asked by Lord Dudley to name a propitious day for the coronation. On this occasion he was introduced to the queen, who took lessons in the mystical interpretation of his writings, and made him great promises, which, however, were never fulfilled. In 1564 he again visited the continent, in order to present his _Monas hieroglyphica_ to the emperor Maximilian, to whom he had dedicated it. He returned to England in the same year; but in 1571 he was in Lorraine, whither two physicians were sent by the queen to his relief in a dangerous illness. Returning to his home at Mortlake, in Surrey, he continued his studies, and made a collection of curious books and manuscripts, and a variety of instruments. In 1578 Dee was sent abroad to consult with German physicians and astrologers in regard to the illness of the queen. On his return to England, he was employed in investigating the title of the crown to the countries recently discovered by British subjects, and in furnishing geographical descriptions. Two large rolls containing the desired information, which he presented to the queen, are still preserved in the Cottonian Library. A learned treatise on the reformation of the calendar, written by him about the same time, is also preserved in the Ashmolean Library at Oxford.
From this period the philosophical researches of Dee were concerned entirely with necromancy. In 1581 he became acquainted with Edward Kelly, an apothecary, who had been convicted of forgery and had lost both ears in the pillory at Lancaster. He professed to have discovered the philosopher's stone, and by his assistance Dee performed various incantations, and maintained a frequent imaginary intercourse with spirits. Shortly afterwards Kelly and Dee were introduced by the earl of Leicester to a Polish nobleman, Albert Laski, palatine of Siradz, devoted to the same pursuits, who persuaded them to accompany him to his native country. They embarked for Holland in September 1583, and arrived at Laski's residence in February following. Upon Dee's departure the mob, believing him a wizard, broke into his house, and destroyed a quantity of furniture and books and his chemical apparatus. Dee and Kelly lived for some years in Poland and Bohemia in alternate wealth and poverty, according to the credulity or scepticism of those before whom they exhibited. They professed to raise spirits by incantation; and Kelly dictated the utterances to Dee, who wrote them down and interpreted them.
Dee at length quarrelled with his companion, and returned to England in 1589. He was helped over his financial difficulties by the queen and his friends. In May of 1595 he became warden of Manchester College. In November 1604 he returned to Mortlake, where he died in December 1608, at the age of eighty-one, in the greatest poverty. Aubrey describes him as "of a very fair, clear sanguine complexion, with a long beard as white as milk--a very handsome man--tall and slender. He wore a goune like an artist's goune with hanging sleeves." Dee's _Speculum_ or mirror, a piece of solid pink-tinted glass about the size of an orange, is preserved in the British Museum.
His principal works are--_Propaedeumata aphoristica_ (London, 1558); _Monas hieroglyphica_ (Antwerp, 1564); _Epistola ad Fredericum Commandinum_ (Pesaro, 1570); _Preface Mathematical to the English Euclid_ (1570); _Divers Annotations and Inventions added after the tenth book of English Euclid_ (1570); _Epistola praefixa Ephemeridibus Joannis Feldi, a. 1557; Parallaticae commentationis praxeosque nucleus quidam_ (London, 1573). The catalogue of his printed and published works is to be found in his _Compendious Rehearsal_, as well as in his letter to Archbishop Whitgift. A manuscript of Dee's, relating what passed for many years between him and some spirits, was edited by Meric Casaubon and published in 1659. _The Private Diary of Dr John Dee, and the Catalogue of his Library of Manuscripts_, edited by J. O. Halliwell, was published by the Camden Society in 1842. There is a life of Dee in Thomas Smith's _Vitae illustrium virorum_ (1707); English translation by W. A. Ayton, the _Life of John Dee_ (1909).
DEE (Welsh, _Dyfrdwy_; Lat., and in Milton, _Deva_), a river of Wales and England. It rises in Bala Lake, Merionethshire, which is fed by a number of small streams. Leaving the lake near the town of Bala it follows a north-easterly course to Corwen, turns thence E. by S. past Llangollen to a point near Overton, and then bends nearly north to Chester, and thereafter north-west through a great estuary opening into the Irish Sea. In the Llangollen district the Dee crosses Denbighshire, and thereafter forms the boundary of that county with Shropshire, a detached part of Flint, and Cheshire. From Bala nearly down to Overton, a distance of 35 m., during which the river falls about 330 ft., its course lies through a narrow and beautiful valley, enclosed on the south by the steep lower slopes of the Berwyn Mountains and on the north by a succession of lesser ranges. The portion known as the Vale of Llangollen is especially famous. Here an aqueduct carrying the Pontcysyllte branch of the Shropshire Union canal bestrides the valley; it is a remarkable engineering work completed by Thomas Telford in 1805. The Dee has a total length of about 70 m. and a fall of 530 ft. Below Overton it debouches upon its plain track. Below Chester it follows a straight artificial channel to the estuary, and this is the only navigable portion. The estuary, which is 14 m. long, and 5¼ m. wide at its mouth, between Hilbre Point on the English and Point of Air on the Welsh side, is not a commercial highway like the neighbouring mouth of the Mersey, for though in appearance a fine natural harbour at high tide, it becomes at low tide a vast expanse of sand, through which the river meanders in a narrow channel. The navigation, however, is capable of improvement, and schemes have been set on foot to this end. The tide rushes in with great speed over the sands, and their danger is illustrated in the well-known ballad "The Sands of Dee" by Charles Kingsley. The Dee drains an area of 813 sq. m.
DEE, a river in the south of Aberdeenshire, Scotland, pursuing a generally easterly direction from its source in the extreme west of the county till it reaches the North Sea at the city of Aberdeen. It rises in the Wells of Dee, a spring on Ben Braeriach, one of the Cairngorms, at a height of 4061 ft. above the sea. It descends rapidly from this altitude, and by the time that it receives the Geusachan, on its right bank, about 6 m. from its source, it has fallen 2421 ft. From the mountains flanking its upper reaches it is fed by numerous burns named and unnamed. With its tributaries the river drains an area of 1000 sq. m. Rapid and turbulent during the first half of its course of 90 m., it broadens appreciably below Aboyne and the rate of flow is diminished. The channel towards its mouth was artificially altered in order to provide increased dock accommodation at Aberdeen, but, above, the stream is navigable for only barges and small craft for a few miles. It runs through scenery of transcendent beauty, especially in Braemar. About two miles above Inverey it enters a narrow rocky gorge, 300 yds. long and only a few feet wide at one part, and forms the rapids and cascades of the famous Linn of Dee. One of the finest of Scottish salmon streams, it retains its purity almost to the very end of its run. The principal places on the Dee, apart from private residences, are Castleton of Braemar, Ballater, Aboyne, Kincardine O'Neil, Banchory, Culter and Cults.
DEED (in O. Eng. _deâd_, from the stem of the verb "to do"), that which is done, an act, doing; particularly, in law, a contract in writing, sealed and delivered by the party bound to the party intended to benefit. Contracts or obligations under seal are called in English law _specialties_, and down to 1869 they took precedence in payment over _simple_ contracts, whether written or not. Writing, sealing and delivery are all essential to a deed. The signature of the party charged is not material, and the deed is not void for want of a date. Delivery, it is held, may be complete without the actual handing over of the deed; it is sufficient if the act of sealing were accompanied by words or acts signifying that the deed was intended to be presently binding; and delivery to a third person for the use of the party benefited will be sufficient. On the other hand, the deed may be handed over to a third person as an _escrow_,[1] in which case it will not take effect as a deed until certain conditions are performed. Such conditional delivery may be inferred from the circumstances attending the transaction, although the conditions be not expressed in words. A deed indented, or indenture (so called because written in counterparts on the same sheet of parchment, separated by cutting a wavy line between them so as to be identified by fitting the parts together), is between two or more parties who contract mutually. The actual indentation is not now necessary to an indenture. The _deed-poll_ (with a polled or smooth-cut edge, not indented) is a deed in which one party binds himself without reference to any corresponding obligations undertaken by another party. See CONTRACT.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] An Anglo-French law term meaning a "scroll" or strip of parchment, cognate with the English "shred." The modern French _écroue_ is used for the entry of a name on a prison register.
DEEMS, CHARLES (ALEXANDER) FORCE (1820-1893), American clergyman, was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on the 4th of December 1820. He was a precocious child and delivered lectures on temperance and on Sunday schools before he was fourteen years old. He graduated at Dickinson College in 1839, taught and preached in New York city for a few months, in 1840 took charge of the Methodist Episcopal church at Asbury, New Jersey, and removed in the next year to North Carolina, where he was general agent for the American Bible Society. He was professor of logic and rhetoric at the University of North Carolina in 1842-1847, and professor of natural sciences at Randolph-Macon College (then at Boydton, Virginia) in 1847-1848, and after two years of preaching at Newbern, N.C., he held for four years (1850-1854) the presidency of Greensboro (N.C.) Female College. He continued as a Methodist Episcopal clergyman at various pastorates in North Carolina from 1854 to 1865, for the last seven years being a presiding elder and in 1859 to 1863 being the proprietor of St Austin's Institute, Wilson. In 1865 he settled in New York City, where in 1866 he began preaching in the chapel of New York University, and in 1868 he established and became the pastor of the undenominational Church of the Strangers, which in 1870 occupied the former Mercer Street Presbyterian church, purchased and given to Dr Deems by Cornelius Vanderbilt; there he remained until his death in New York city on the 18th of November 1893. He was one of the founders (1881) and president of the American Institute of Christian Philosophy and for ten years was editor of its organ, _Christian Thought_. Dr Deems was an earnest temperance advocate, as early as 1852 worked (unsuccessfully) for a general prohibition law in North Carolina, and in his later years allied himself with the Prohibition party. He was influential in securing from Cornelius Vanderbilt the endowment of Vanderbilt University, in Nashville, Tennessee. He was a man of rare personal and literary charm; he edited _The Southern Methodist Episcopal Pulpit_ (1846-1852) and _The Annals of Southern Methodism_ (1855-1857); he compiled _Devotional Melodies_ (1842), and, with the assistance of Phoebe Cary, one of his parishioners, _Hymns for all Christians_ (1869; revised, 1881); and he published many books, among which were: _The Life of Dr Adam Clarke_ (1840); _The Triumph of Peace and other Poems_ (1840); _The Home Altar_ (1850); _Jesus_ (1872), which ran through many editions and several revisions, the title being changed in 1880 to _The Light of the Nations_; _Sermons_ (1885); _The Gospel of Common Sense_ (1888); _The Gospel of Spiritual Insight_ (1891) and _My Septuagint_ (1892). The Charles F. Deems Lectureship in Philosophy was founded in his honour in 1895 at New York University by the American Institute of Christian Philosophy.
His _Autobiography_ (New York, 1897) is autobiographical only to 1847, the memoir being completed by his two sons.
DEER (O. E. _déor_, _díor_, a common Teutonic word, meaning a wild animal, cf. Ger. _Tier_, Du. _dier_, &c., probably from a root _dhus_-, to breathe), originally the name of one of two British species, the red-deer or the fallow-deer, but now extended to all the members of the family _Cervidae_, in the section Pecora of the suborder Artiodactyla of the order Ungulata. (See PECORA; ARTIODACTYLA and UNGULATA.) Briefly, deer may be defined as Pecora presenting the following characteristics:--either antlers present in the male, or when these are absent, the upper canines large and sabre-like, and the lateral metacarpal bones represented only by their lower extremities. This definition will include the living and also most of the extinct forms, although in some of the latter the lateral metacarpal bones not only retain their lower ends, but are complete in their entire length.
The leading characters of antlers are described under PECORA, but these structures may be defined somewhat more fully in the following passage from the present writer's _Deer of all Lands_:--
"Antlers are supported on a pair of solid bony processes, or pedicles, arising from the frontal bones of the skull, of which they form an inseparable portion; and if in a fully adult deer these pedicles be sawn through, they will generally be found to consist of solid, ivory-like bone, devoid of perceptible channels for the passage of blood-vessels. The pedicles are always covered with skin well supplied with blood-vessels; and in young deer, or those in which the antlers have been comparatively recently shed, the covering of skin extends over their summits, when they appear as longer or shorter projections on the forehead, according to the species. When the first or a new antler is about to be formed, the summits of these pedicles become tender, and bear small velvet-like knobs, which have a high temperature, and are supplied by an extra quantity of blood, which commences to deposit bony matter. This deposition of bony matter progresses very rapidly, and although in young deer and the adults of some species the resulting antler merely forms a simple spike, or a single fork, in full-grown individuals of the majority it assumes a more or less complexly branched structure. All this time the growing antler is invested with a skin clothed with exceedingly fine short hairs, and is most liberally supplied with blood-vessels; this sensitive skin being called the velvet. Towards the completion of its growth a more or less prominent ring of bone, termed the burr or coronet, is deposited at its base just above the junction with the pedicle; this ring tending to constrict the blood-vessels, and thus cut off the supply of blood from the antlers....
"When the antlers are freed from the velvet--a process usually assisted by the animal rubbing them against tree stems or boughs--they have a more or less rugose surface, owing to the grooves formed in them by the nutrient blood-vessels. Although a few living species have the antlers in the form of simple spikes in the adult male, in the great majority of species they are more or less branched; while in some, like the elk and fallow-deer, they expand into broad palmated plates, with tines, or snags, on one or both margins. In the antlers of the red-deer group, which form the type of the whole series, the following names have been applied to their different component parts and branches. The main shaft is termed the beam; the first or lowest tine the brow-tine; the second the bez-tine; the third the trez-tine, or royal; and the branched portion forming the summit the crown, or surroyals. But the antlers of all deer by no means conform to this type; and in certain groups other names have to be adopted for the branches.
"The antlers of young deer are in the form of simple spikes; and this form is retained in the South American brockets, although the simple antlers of these deer appear due to degeneration, and are not primitive types. Indeed, no living deer shows such primitive spike-like antlers in the adult, and it is doubtful whether such a type is displayed by any known extinct form, although many have a simple fork. In the deer of the sambar group, where the antlers never advance beyond a three-tined type, the shedding is frequently, if not invariably, very irregular; but in the majority at least of the species with complex antlers the replacement is annual, the new appendages attaining their full development immediately before the pairing-season. In such species there is a more or less regular annual increase in the complexity of the antlers up to a certain period of life, after which they begin to degenerate."
The _Cervidae_ are distributed all over Europe, Asia, Northern Africa and America, but are unknown in Africa south of the Sahara. They are undoubtedly a group of European or Asiatic origin, and obtained an entrance into America at a time when that continent was connected with Asia by way of Bering Strait.
The existing members of the family are classified in the writer's _Deer of all Lands_ as follows:--
A. Subfamily CERVINAE.--Antlers, with one exception, present in the male; liver without a gall-bladder; a face-gland, and a gland-pit in the skull.
I. Reindeer, Genus _Rangifer_.--Lateral metacarpal bones represented only by their lower extremities; antlers present in both sexes, complex. Northern part of both hemispheres.
II. Elk, Genus _Alces_.--Lateral metacarpals as in preceding; antlers (as in the following genera) present only in the male, arising at right angles to the median longitudinal line of the skull, and extending at first in the plane of the forehead, after which, when in their fullest development, they expand into a broad palmation margined with snags. Northern portion of both hemispheres.
III. True Deer, Genus _Cervus_.--Lateral metacarpals represented only by their upper ends. Antlers arising at acute angles to the median line of the skull (as in the following genera), at first projecting from the plane of the forehead, and then continued upwards nearly in that plane, supported on short pedicles, and furnished with a brow-tine, never regularly forked at first division, but generally of large size, and with not less than three tines; the skull without ridges on the frontals forming the bases of the pedicles of the antlers. Upper canine teeth small, or wanting. Europe, Asia and N. America.
1. Red-deer Group, Subgenus _Cervus_.--Antlers rounded, usually with five or more tines, generally including a bez (second), and always a trez (third); coat of adult generally unspotted, with a large light-coloured disk surrounding the tail; young, spotted. Europe, Northern and Central Asia and North America.
2. Sika Deer, Subgenus _Pseudaxis_.--Antlers smaller and simpler, four-tined, with a trez (third), but no bez (second); coat of adult spotted, at least in summer, with a white area bordered by black in the region of the tail, which is also black and white. North-Eastern Asia.
3. Fallow-deer, Subgenus _Dama_.--Antlers without a bez, but with a trez-tine, above which the beam is more or less palmated, and generally furnished with numerous snags; coat of adult spotted in summer, uniform in winter, with black and white markings in the region of the tail similar to those of _Pseudaxis_; young, spotted. Mediterranean region, but more widely spread in Europe during the Pleistocene epoch, and also introduced into many European countries.
4. Sambar Group, Subgenus _Rusa_.--Antlers rounded, three-tined, with the bez- and trez-tines wanting, and the beam simply forked at the summit; coat either uniform or spotted at all seasons. Indo-Malay countries and part of China.
5. Barasingha Group, Subgenus _Rucervus_.--Antlers flattened or rounded, without bez- or trez-tine, the beam dichotomously forking, and one or both branches again forked, so that the number of tines is at least four; brow-tine forming a right angle or a continuous curve with the beam; coat of adult generally more or less uniform, of young spotted. Indo-Malay countries.
IV. Muntjacs, Genus _Cervulus_.--Lateral metacarpals as in _Cervus_; antlers small, with a brow-tine and an unbranched beam, supported on long bony pedicles, continued downwards as convergent ridges on the forehead; upper canines of male large and tusk-like. Indo-Malay countries and China.
V. Tufted Muntjacs, Genus _Elaphodus_.--Nearly related to the last, but the antlers still smaller, with shorter pedicles and divergent frontal ridges; upper canines of male not everted at the tips. Tibet and China.
VI. Water-deer, Genus _Hydrelaphus_.--Lateral metacarpals as in _Rangifer_; antlers wanting; upper canines of males tusk-like and growing from semi-persistent pulps; cheek-teeth tall-crowned (hypsodont); tail moderate. China.
VII. Roe-deer, Genus _Capreolus_.--Lateral metacarpals as in _Rangifer_; antlers rather small, without a brow-tine or sub-basal snag, dichotomously forked, with the upper or posterior prong again forking; tail rudimentary; vomer not dividing posterior nasal aperture of skull. Europe and Northern Asia.
VIII. Père David's Deer, Genus _Elaphurus_.--Lateral metacarpals as in _Cervus_; antlers large, without a brow-tine or sub-basal snag, dichotomously forked, with the upper prong of the fork curving forwards and dividing, and the lower prong long, simple, and projected backwards, the beam making a very marked angle with the plane of the face; tail very long; vomer as in _Capreolus_. North-East Asia.
IX. American Deer, Genus _Mazama_.--Lateral metacarpals as in _Rangifer_; antlers very variable in size, forming a marked angle with the plane of the face, without a brow-tine; when consisting of more than a simple prong, dichotomously forked, frequently with a sub-basal snag, and always with the lower prong of the fork projected from the front edge of the beam, in some cases the lower, in others the upper, and in others both prongs again dividing; tail long; tarsal gland generally present; metatarsal gland very variable, both as regards presence and position; vomer dividing the inner aperture of the nostrils in the skull into two distinct chambers. America.
1. White-tailed Group, Subgenus _Dorcelaphus_ or _Odocoileus_.--Antlers large and complex, with a sub-basal snag, and the lower prong more or less developed at the expense of the upper one; metatarsal gland usually present; tail long or moderate, and hairy below; face very long and narrow; the face-gland small, and the gland-pit in the skull of moderate extent; no upper canines; size generally large. North America to Northern South America.
2. Marsh-deer Group, Subgenus _Blastoceros_.--Antlers large and complex, without a sub-basal snag, and the upper prong more developed than the lower one; metatarsal gland absent; tail short; face moderately long; face-gland and gland-pit well developed; upper canines usually present in male. Size large or rather small. South America.
3. Guemals, Subgenus _Xenelaphus_.--Antlers small and simple, forming a single dichotomous fork; metatarsal gland absent; tail short; face moderately long; face-gland and gland-pit well developed; upper canines present in both sexes. Size medium. South America.
4. Brockets, Subgenus _Mazama_.--Antlers in the form of simple unbranched spikes; metatarsal, and in one case also the tarsal gland absent; tail very short; face elongated; face-gland small and gland-pit deep and triangular; hair of face radiating from two whorls: upper canines sometimes present in old males. Size small. Central and South America.
X. Genus _Pudua_.--Skull and metacarpals generally as in _Mazama_; size very small; hair coarse and brittle; antlers in the form of short, simple spikes; cannon-bones very short; tail very short or wanting; no whorls in the hair of the face; face-gland moderately large, and gland-pit deep and oval; tarsal and metatarsal glands wanting; ectocuneiform bone of tarsus united with the naviculocuboid. South America.
B. Subfamily MOSCHINAE.--Antlers wanting in both sexes; liver furnished with a gall-bladder; no face-gland or gland-pit.
XI. Musk-deer, Genus _Moschus_.--Hair coarse and brittle; upper canines of male very long; no tarsal or metatarsal glands or tufts; lateral metacarpals represented by their lower extremities; lateral hoofs very large; tail very short; naked portion of muzzle extensive; male with a large abdominal gland. Central Asia.
Of the above, Reindeer and Elk are dealt with in separate articles (qq.v.).
The first or typical group of the genus _Cervus_ includes the red-deer (_Cervus elaphus_) of Europe and western Asia, of which there are several local races, such as the large _C. elaphus maral_ of eastern Europe and Persia, which is often partially spotted above and dark-coloured below, the smaller _C. e. barbarus_ of Tunisia and Morocco, and the still smaller _C. e. corsicanus_ of Corsica. The Scandinavian red-deer is the typical form of the species. In all red-deer the antlers are rounded, and show a more or less marked tendency to form a cup at the summit. Wapiti, on the other hand, show a marked tendency to the flattening of the antlers, with a great development of the fourth tine, which is larger than all the others, and the whole of the tines above this in the same plane, or nearly so, this plane being the same as the long axis of the animal. Normally no cup is developed at the summit of the antler. The tail, too, is shorter than in the red-deer; while in winter the under parts become very dark, and the upper surface often bleaches almost white. The cry of the stags in the breeding season is also different. The typical representative of the group is the North American wapiti _C. canadensis_, but there are several closely allied races in Central Asia, such as _C. canadensis songaricus_ and _C. c. bactrianus_, while in Manchuria the subgroup is represented by _C. c. xanthopygus_, in which the summer coat is reddish instead of grey. The hangul (_C. cashmirianus_) of Kashmir is a distinct dark-coloured species, in which the antlers tend to turn in at the summit; while _C. yarcandensis_, of the Tarim Valley, Turkestan, is a redder animal, with a wholly rufous tail, and antlers usually terminating in a simple fork placed in a transverse plane. Another Asiatic species is the great shou (_C. affinis_) of the Chumbi Valley, in which the antlers curve forwards in a remarkable manner. Lastly _C. albirostris_, of Tibet, is easily recognized by its white muzzle, and smooth, whitish, flattened antlers, which have fewer tines than those of the other members of the group, all placed in one plane.
The second group of the genus _Cervus_, forming the subgenus _Pseudaxis_, is typified by the handsome little Japanese deer, or sika, _C. (P.) sika_, in which the antlers are four-tined, and covered with red "velvet" when first grown, while the coat is fully spotted in summer, but more or less uniformly brown in winter. The most distinctive feature of the deer of this group is, however, the patch of long erectile white hairs on the buttocks, which, although inconspicuous when the animals are quiescent, is expanded into a large chrysanthemum-like bunch when they start to run or are otherwise excited. The patch then forms a guiding signal for the members of the herd when in flight. On the mainland of Manchuria both the typical sika, and a larger race (_C. sika manchuricus_), occur. A still larger and finer animal is the Pekin sika (_C. hortulorum_), of northern Manchuria, which is as large as a small red-deer; it is represented in the Yang-tse valley by a local race, _C. h. kopschi_. Formosa possesses a species of its own (_C. taëvanus_), which, in correlation with the perpetual verdure of that island, is spotted at all seasons.
For the fallow-deer, _Cervus [Dama] dama_, see FALLOW-DEER.
The rusine or sambar group of _Cervus_, of which the characteristics are given above, comprises a considerable number of long-tailed species with three-tined antlers from the Indo-Malay countries and some parts of China. The largest and handsomest is the sambar of India (_Cervus [Rusa] unicolor_), characterized by its massive and rugged antlers. It is represented by a number of local races, mostly of smaller size, such as the Burmese and Malay _C. u. equinus_, the Formosan _C. u. swinhoei_, and the Philippine _C. u. philippinus_ and _C. u. nigricans_, of which the latter is not larger than a roe-buck, while the sambar itself is as large as a red-deer. Whether these local phases of a single variable type are best denominated races or species, must be largely a matter of individual opinion. The rusa, or Javan sambar, _C. (R.) hippelaphus_, is a lighter-coloured and smaller deer than the Indian sambar, with longer, slenderer and less rugged antlers. Typically from Java, this deer is also represented in the Moluccas and Timor, and has thus the most easterly range of the whole tribe. A black coat with white spots distinguishes the Philippine spotted deer, _C. alfredi_, which is about the size of a roe-buck; while other members of this group are the Calamianes deer of the Philippines (_C. culionensis_), the Bavian deer (_C. kuhli_) from a small island near Java, and the well-known Indian hog-deer or para (_C. porcinus_), all these three last being small, more or less uniformly coloured, and closely allied species. On the other hand, the larger and handsomer chital, or spotted deer (_C. axis_), stands apart by its white-spotted fawn-red coat and differently formed antlers.
Nearly allied to the preceding is the barasingha or rucervine group (subgenus _Rucervus_), in which the antlers are of a different and generally more complex character. The typical species is the Indian barasingha or swamp-deer, _Cervus (Rucervus) duvauceli_, a uniformly red animal, widely distributed in the forest districts of India. In Siam it is replaced by _C. (R.) schomburgki_, in which the antlers are of a still more complex type. Finally, we have the thamin, or Eld's deer, _C. (R.) eldi_, ranging from Burma to Siam, and characterized by the continuous curve formed by the beam and the brow-tine of the antlers.
For the small eastern deer, respectively known as muntjacs (_Cervulus_) and tufted muntjacs or tufted deer (_Elaphodus_), see MUNTJAC; while under WATER-DEER will be found a notice of the Chinese representative of the genus _Hydrelaphus_ (or _Hydropotes_). The roe-deer, or roe-buck (_Capreolus_), likewise form the subject of a separate article (see ROE-BUCK), as is also the case with Père David's deer, the sole representative of the genus _Elaphurus_.
The American deer include such New World species as are generically distinct from Old World types. All these differ from the members of the genus _Cervus_ in having no brow-tine to the antlers, which, in common with those of the roe-deer, belong to what is called the forked type. Including all these deer except one in the genus _Mazama_ (of which the typical representatives are the South American brockets), the North American species constitute the subgenus _Dorcelaphus_ (also known as _Cariacus_ and _Odocoileus_). One of the best known of these is the white-tailed deer _Mazama (Dorcelaphus) americana_, often known as the Virginian deer. It is typically an animal of the size of a fallow-deer, reddish in summer and greyish in winter, with a long tail, which is coloured like the back above but white below, and is carried elevated when the animal is running, so as to form with the white of the inner sides of the buttocks a conspicuous "blaze." A white fetlock-gland with a black centre is also distinctive of this species. The antlers are large and curve forwards, giving off an upright snag near the base, and several vertical tines from the upper surface of the horizontal portion. As we proceed southwards from the northern United States, deer of the white-tailed type decrease steadily in size, till in Central America, Peru and Guiana they are represented by animals not larger that a roe-buck. The most convenient plan appears to be to regard all these degenerate forms as local races of the white-tail, although here again there is room for difference of opinion, and many naturalists prefer to call them species. The large ears, brown-and-white face, short, black-tipped tail, and antlers without large basal snag serve to distinguish the mule-deer _M. (D.) hemionus_, of western North America; while the black tail, _M. (D.) columbiana_, ranging from British Columbia to California, is a smaller animal, recognizable by the larger and longer tail, which is black above and white below.
South America is the home of the marsh-deer or guazu, _M. (Blastoceros) dichotoma_, representing a subgenus in which the complex antlers lack a basal snag, while the hair of the back is reversed. This species is about the size of a red-deer, with a foxy red coat with black legs. The pampas-deer, _M. (B.) bezoartica_, of the Argentine pampas is a much smaller animal, of paler colour, with three-tined antlers. The Chilean and Peruvian Andes and Patagonia are the homes of two peculiar deer locally known as guemals (huemals), and constituting the subgenus _Xenelaphus_, or _Hippocamelus_. They are about the size of fallow-deer, and have simply forked antlers. The Chilian species is _M. (B.) bisulca_ and the Peruvian _M. (B.) antisiensis_. Brockets, of which there are numerous species, such as _M. rufa_ and _M. nemorivaga_, are Central and South American deer of the size of roe-bucks or smaller, with simple spike-like antlers, tufted heads and the hair of the face radiating from two whorls on the forehead so that on the nose the direction is downwards. The smallest of all deer is the Chilian pudu (_Pudua pudu_), a creature not much larger than a hare, with almost rudimentary antlers.
The musk-deer forms the subject of a separate article.
For deer in general, see R. Lydekker, _The Deer of all Lands_ (London, 1898, 1908). (R. L.*)
DEERFIELD, a township of Franklin county, Massachusetts, U.S.A., on the Connecticut and Deerfield rivers, about 33 m. N. of Springfield. Pop. (1900) 1969; (1910 U.S. census) 2209. Deerfield is served by the Boston & Maine and the New York, New Haven & Hartford railways. The natural beauty and the historic interest of Deerfield attract many visitors. There are several villages and hamlets in the township, the oldest and most interesting of which is that known as "The Street" or "Old Street." This extends along one wide thoroughfare over a hill and across a plateau or valley that is hemmed in on the E. by a range of highlands known as East Mountain and on the W. by the foothills of Hoosac Mountain. Many of the houses in this village are very old. In Memorial Hall, a building erected in 1797-1798 for the Deerfield academy, the Pocumtuck Valley memorial association (incorporated in 1870) has gathered an interesting collection of colonial and Indian relics. Deerfield was one of the first places in the United States to enter into the modern "arts and crafts movement"; in 1896 many of the old household industries were revived and placed upon a business basis. Most of the work is done by women in the homes. The products, including needlework and embroidery, textiles, rag rugs, netting, wrought iron, furniture, and metal-work in gold and silver embellished with precious and semi-precious stones, are annually exhibited in an old-fashioned house built in 1710, and a large portion of them are sold to tourists. There is an arts and crafts society, but the profits from the sales go entirely to the workers.
The territory which originally constituted the township of Deerfield (known as Pocumtuck until 1674) was a tract of 8000 acres granted in 1654 to the town of Dedham in lieu of 2000 acres previously taken from that town and granted to Rev. John Eliot to further his mission among the Natick Indians. The rights of the Pocumtuck Indians to the Deerfield tract were purchased at about fourpence per acre, settlement was begun upon it in 1669, and the township was incorporated in 1673. For many years, Deerfield was the N.W. frontier settlement of New England. It was slightly fortified at the beginning of King Philip's War, and after an attack by the Indians on the 1st of September 1675 it was garrisoned by a small force under Captain Samuel Appleton. A second attack was made on the 12th of September, and six days later, as Captain Thomas Lothrop and his company were guarding teams that were hauling wheat from Deerfield to the English headquarters at Hadley, they were surprised by Indians in ambush at what has since been known as Bloody Brook (in the village of South Deerfield), and Lothrop and more than sixty of his men were slain. From this time until the end of the war Deerfield was abandoned. In the spring of 1677 a few of the old settlers returned, but on the 19th of September some were killed and the others were captured by a party of Indians from Canada. Resettlement was undertaken again in 1682. On the 15th of September 1694 Deerfield narrowly escaped capture by a force of French and Indians from Canada. In the early morning of the 29th of February 1703-1704, Deerfield was surprised by a force of French and Indians (under Hertel de Rouville), who murdered 49 men, women and children, captured 111, burned the town, and on the way back to Canada murdered 20 of the captured. Among the captives was the Rev. John Williams (1664-1729), the first minister of Deerfield, who (with the other captives) was redeemed in 1706 and continued as pastor here until his death; in 1707 he published an account of his experiences as a prisoner, _The Redeemed Captive Returning to Zion_, which has frequently been reprinted. From the original township of Deerfield the territory of the following townships has been taken: Greenfield (1753 and 1896), Conway (1767, 1791 and 1811), Shelburne (1768) and a part of Whately (1810).
See George Sheldon, _A History of Deerfield_ (Deerfield, 1895); the _History and Proceedings of the Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association_ (Deerfield, 1890 et seq.); and Pauline C. Bouvé, "The Deerfield Renaissance," in _The New England Magazine_ for October 1905.
DEER PARK, an enclosure of rough wooded pastureland for the accommodation of red- or fallow-deer. The distinction between a deer "park" and a deer "forest" is that the former is always enclosed either by a wall or fence, and is relatively small, whereas the forest covers a much larger area, and is not only open but sometimes contains practically no trees at all. Originally, the possession of a deer park in England was a royal prerogative, and no subject could enclose one without a direct grant from the crown--a licence to impark, like a licence to embattle a house, was always necessary. When Domesday Book was compiled, there were already thirty-one deer parks in England, some of which may have existed in Saxon times; about one-fourth of them belonged to the king. After the Conquest they increased rapidly in number, but from about the middle of the 11th century this tendency was reversed. In the middle of the 16th century it was conjectured that one-twentieth of England and Wales was given up to deer and rabbits. Upon Saxton's maps, which were made between 1575 and 1580, over 700 parks are marked, and it is not improbable that the number was understated. Mr Evelyn Philip Shirley enumerated only 334 in his book on _English Deer Parks_ published in 1867. To these Mr Joseph Whitaker, in _A Descriptive List of the Deer Parks of England_ (1892), has added another fifty, and the total is believed to be now about 400. It is a curious circumstance that despite the rather minute detail of Domesday none of the parks there enumerated can now be identified. There is, however, a plausible case for Eridge Park in Sussex as the Reredfelle of Domesday. The state and consequence of the great barons of the middle ages depended in some measure upon the number of deer parks which they possessed. Most bishops and abbots had one or two, and at one time more than twenty were attached to the archbishopric of Canterbury. When the power of the barons was finally broken and a more settled period began with the accession of the house of Tudor, the deer park began to fall into decay. By Queen Elizabeth's time a considerable proportion of the ancestral acres of the great houses had passed into the possession of rich merchants and wealthy wool-staplers, and it had become more profitable to breed bullocks than to find pasture for deer, and even where the new men retained, and even in some cases created, deer parks, they reduced their area in order that more land might be available for grazing or for corn. Thus began that decadence of the deer park which has continued down to the present time. More than anything, however, the strife between Charles I. and parliament contributed to reduce both the number and size of English parks containing deer. By the Restoration the majority of the parks in England had for the time being been destroyed, the palings pulled down, the trees felled, and the deer stolen. Of the duke of Newcastle's eight parks seven were ruined, that at Welbeck alone remaining intact. Not a tree was left in Clipston Park, although the timber had been valued at £20,000. One of the results of the Restoration was to empty the parks of the Roundhead squires to replenish those of the Royalists, but this measure helped little, and great numbers of deer had to be brought from Germany to replenish the depleted stocks. A gentleman of the Isle of Ely was indeed given a baronetcy in return for a large present of deer which he made to Charles II. The largest existing deer park in England is that at Savernake (4000 acres), next comes Windsor, which contains about 2600 acres in addition to the 1450 acres of Windsor Forest. Lord Egerton of Tatton's park at Tatton in Cheshire, and Lord Abergavenny's at Eridge, each contain about 2500 acres. Other parks which are much about the same size are those of Blenheim, Richmond, Eastwell, Duncombe, Grimsthorpe, Thoresby and Knowsley. All these parks are famous either for their size, their beauty, or the number and long descent of the deer which inhabit them. The size of English parks devoted to deer varies from that of these historic examples down to a very few acres. A small proportion of the older enclosures contains red- as well as fallow-deer. In some of the larger ones many hundreds of head browse, whereas those of the smallest size may have only a dozen or two. Although many enclosures were disparked in very recent times, the 19th century saw the making of a considerable number of new ones, usually of small dimensions. The tendency, however, is still towards diminution both in number and extent, cattle taking the place of deer.
DEFAMATION (from the classical Lat. _diffamare_, to spread abroad an evil report--the English form in _de_ is taken from the Late Lat. _defamare_), the saying or writing something of another, calculated to injure his reputation or expose him to public hatred, contempt and ridicule. (See LIBEL AND SLANDER.)
DEFAULT (Fr. _défaut_, from _défailler_, to fail, Lat. _fallere_), in English law, a failure to do some act required by law either as a regular step in procedure or as being a duty imposed. Parties in an action may be in default as to procedure by failure to appear to the writ, or to take some other step, within the prescribed time. In such cases the opposing party gains some advantage by being allowed to sign judgment or otherwise. But as a rule, unless the party is much in default and is under a peremptory order to proceed, the penalty for default is by order to pay the costs occasioned. When there is default in complying with the terms of a judgment the remedy is by executing it by one of the processes admitted by the law. (See EXECUTION.) In the case of judgments in criminal or quasi-criminal cases, where a fine is imposed, it is in most cases legal and usual to order imprisonment if the fine is not paid or if the property of the defendant is insufficient to realize its amount. Default in compliance with a statute renders the defaulter liable to action by the person aggrieved or to indictment if the matter of command is of public concern, subject in either case to the qualification that the statute may limit the remedy for the default to some particular proceeding specifically indicated; and in some instances, e.g. in the case of local authorities, default in the execution of their public duties is dealt with administratively by a department of the government, and only in the last resort, if at all, by recourse to judicial tribunals.
DEFEASANCE, or DEFEAZANCE (Fr. _défaire_, to undo), in law, an instrument which defeats the force or operation of some other deed or estate; as distinguished from _condition_, that which in the same deed is called a condition is a defeasance in another deed. A defeasance should recite the deed to be defeated and its date, and it must be made between the same parties as are interested in the deed to which it is collateral. It must be of a thing defeasible, and all the conditions must be strictly carried out before the defeasance can be consummated. Defeasance in a bill of sale is the putting an end to the security by realizing the goods for the benefit of the mortgagee. It is not strictly a defeasance, because the stipulation is in the same deed; it is really a condition in the nature of a defeasance.
DEFENCE (Lat. _defendere_, to defend), in general, a keeping off or defending, a justification, protection or guard. Physical defence of self is the right of every man, even to the employment of force, in warding off an attack. A person attacked may use such force as he believes to be necessary for the warding off an attack, even to the extent of killing an assailant. The same right of reciprocal defence extends not only to defence of one's own person, but also to the defence of a husband or wife, parent or child, master or servant. (See ASSAULT; HOMICIDE.) As a legal term in English pleading, "defence" means the denial by the party proceeded against of the validity of a charge, or the steps taken by an accused person or his legal advisers for defending himself. In civil actions, a statement of defence is the second step in proceedings, being the answer of the defendant to the plaintiff's statement of claim. In the statement of defence must be set out every material fact upon which the defendant intends to rely at the trial. Every fact alleged in the statement of claim must be dealt with, and either admitted or denied; further facts may be pleaded in answer to those admitted; the whole pleading of the plaintiff may be objected to as insufficient in law, or a set-off or counter-claim may be advanced. A statement of defence must be delivered within ten days from the delivery of the statement of claim, or appearance if no statement of claim be delivered.
By the Poor Prisoners' Defence Act 1903, where it appears, having regard to the nature of the defence set up by any poor prisoner, as disclosed in the evidence given or statement made by him before the committing justices, that it is desirable in the interests of justice that he should have legal aid in the preparation and conduct of his defence, and that his means are insufficient to enable him to obtain such aid, it may be ordered either (1) on committal for trial by the committing justices, or (2) after reading the depositions by the judge or quarter sessions chairman. The defence includes the services of solicitor and counsel and the expenses of witnesses, the cost being payable in the same manner as the expenses of a prosecution for felony. Briefly, the object of the act is, not to give a prisoner legal assistance to find out if he has got a defence, but in order that a prisoner who has a defence may have every inducement to tell the truth about it at the earliest opportunity. Legal assistance under the act is only given where both (1) the nature of the defence as disclosed is such that in the interests of justice the prisoner should have legal aid to make his defence clear, and (2) where also his means are insufficient for that end (Lord Alverstone, C. J., at Warwick Summer Assizes, _The Times_, July 26, 1904).
DEFENDANT, in law, a person against whom proceedings are instituted or directed; one who is called upon to answer in any suit. At one time the term "defendant" had a narrower meaning, that of a person sued in a personal action only, the corresponding term in a real action being "tenant," but the distinction is now practically disregarded, except in a few states of the United States.
DEFENDER OF THE FAITH (_Fidei Defensor_), a title belonging to the sovereign of England in the same way as _Christianissimus_ belonged to the king of France, and _Catholicus_ belongs to the ruler of Spain. It seems to have been suggested in 1516, and although certain charters have been appealed to in proof of an earlier use of the title, it was first conferred by Pope Leo X. on Henry VIII. The Bull granting the title is dated the 11th of October 1521, and was a reward for the king's treatise, _Assertio, septem sacramentorum_, against Luther. When Henry broke with the papacy, Pope Paul III. deprived him of this designation, but in 1544 the title of "Defender of the Faith" was confirmed to Henry by parliament, and has since been used by all his successors on the English throne.
DEFERENT (Lat. _deferens_, bearing down), in ancient astronomy, the mean orbit of a planet, which carried the epicycle in which the planet revolved. It is now known to correspond to the actual orbit of the planet round the sun.
DEFFAND, MARIE ANNE DE VICHY-CHAMROND, MARQUISE DU (1697-1780), a celebrated Frenchwoman, was born at the chateau of Chamrond near Charolles (department of Saône-et-Loire) of a noble family in 1697. Educated at a convent in Paris, she showed, along with great intelligence, a sceptical and cynical turn of mind. The abbess, alarmed at the freedom of her views, arranged that Massillon should visit and reason with her, but he accomplished nothing. Her parents married her at twenty-one years of age to her kinsman, Jean Baptiste de la Lande, marquis du Deffand, without consulting her inclination. The union proved an unhappy one, and resulted in a separation as early as 1722. Madame du Deffand, young and beautiful, is said by Horace Walpole to have been for a short time the mistress of the regent, the duke of Orleans (Walpole to Gray, January 25, 1766). She appeared in her earlier days to be incapable of any strong attachment, but her intelligence, her cynicism and her _esprit_ made her the centre of attraction of a brilliant circle. In 1721 began her friendship with Voltaire, but their regular correspondence dates only from 1736. She spent much time at Sceaux, at the court of the duchesse du Maine, where she contracted a close friendship with the president Hénault. In Paris she was in a sense the rival of Madame Geoffrin, but the members of her salon were drawn from aristocratic society more than from literary cliques. There were, however, exceptions. Voltaire, Montesquieu, Fontenelle and Madame de Staal-Delaunay were among the habitués. When Hénault introduced D'Alembert, Madame du Deffand was at once captivated by him. With the encyclopaedists she was never in sympathy, and appears to have tolerated them only for his sake. In 1752 she retired from Paris, intending to spend the rest of her days in the country, but she was persuaded by her friends to return. She had taken up her abode in 1747 in apartments in the convent of St Joseph in the rue St Dominique, which had a separate entrance from the street. When she lost her sight in 1754 she engaged Mademoiselle de Lespinasse to help her in entertaining. This lady's wit made some of the guests, D'Alembert among others, prefer her society to that of Madame du Deffand, and she arranged to receive her friends for an hour before the appearance of her patron. When this state of things was discovered Mademoiselle de Lespinasse was dismissed (1764), but the salon was broken up, for she took with her D'Alembert, Turgot and the literary clique generally. From this time Madame du Deffand very rarely received any literary men. The principal friendships of her later years were with the duchesse de Choiseul and with Horace Walpole. Her affection for the latter, which dated from 1765, was the strongest and most durable of all her attachments. Under the stress of this tardy passion she developed qualities of style and eloquence of which her earlier writings had given little promise. In the opinion of Sainte-Beuve the prose of her letters ranks with that of Voltaire as the best of that classical epoch without excepting any even of the great writers. Walpole refused at first to acknowledge the closeness of their intimacy from an exaggerated fear of the ridicule attaching to her age, but he paid several visits to Paris expressly for the purpose of enjoying her society, and maintained a close and most interesting correspondence with her for fifteen years. She died on the 23rd of September 1780, leaving her dog Tonton to the care of Walpole, who was also entrusted with her papers. Of her innumerable witty sayings the best known is her remark on the cardinal de Polignac's account of St Denis's miraculous walk of two miles with his head in his hands,--_Il n'y a que le premier pas qui coûte_.
The _Correspondance inédite_ of Madame du Deffand with D'Alembert, Hénault, Montesquieu, and others was published in Paris (2 vols.) in 1809. _Letters of the marquise du Deffand to the Hon. Horace Walpole, afterwards earl of Orford, from the year 1766 to the year 1780_ (4 vols.), edited, with a biographical sketch, by Miss Mary Berry, were published in London from the originals at Strawberry Hill in 1810.
The standard edition of her letters is the _Correspondance complète de la marquise du Deffand ..._ by M. de Lescure (1865); the _Correspondance inédite_ with M. and Mme de Choiseul and others was edited in 1859 and again in 1866 by the marquis de Ste-Aulaire. Other papers of Madame du Deffand obtained at the breaking up of Walpole's collection are in private hands. Madame du Deffand returned many of Walpole's letters at his request, and subsequently destroyed those which she received from him. Those in his possession appear to have been destroyed after his death by Miss Berry, who printed fragments from them as footnotes to the edition of 1810. The correspondence between Walpole and Madame du Deffand thus remains one-sided, but seven of Walpole's letters to her are printed for the first time in the edition (1903) of his correspondence by Mrs Paget Toynbee, who discovered a quantity of her unedited letters. See Sainte-Beuve, _Causeries du lundi_, vols. i. and xiv.; and the notice by M. de Lescure in his edition of the correspondence.
DEFIANCE, a city and the county seat of Defiance county, Ohio, U.S.A., at the confluence of the Auglaize and Tiffin rivers with the Maumee, about 50 m. S.W. of Toledo. Pop. (1890) 7694; (1900) 7579 (960 foreign-born); (1910) 7327. It is served by the Baltimore & Ohio and the Wabash railways, and by the Ohio Electric railway to Lima (42 m.). The city commands a fine view of the rivers and the surrounding country, which is well adapted to agriculture; and has large machine shops and several flour mills, besides manufactories of agricultural implements, waggons, sashes and blinds, and wood-working machinery for the manufacture of artillery wheels. Here, too, is Defiance College, an institution of the Christian Denomination, opened in 1885. Defiance was long the site of an Indian village. In 1794 General Anthony Wayne built a fort here and named it Defiance. In 1822 Defiance was laid out as a town; in 1845 it was made the county seat of the newly erected county; and in 1881 it became a city of the second class.
DEFILE, a military expression for a passage, to march through which troops are compelled to "defile," or narrow their front (from the Fr. _défiler_, to march in a line, or by "files"). The word is usually applied to a ravine or gorge in a range of hills, but a causeway over a river, a bridge and even a village may equally be called a defile. The term is also used to express, without any special reference to military operations, a gorge in mountains. The verb "to defile" is used of troops marching on a narrow front, or narrowing their front, under all circumstances, and in this sense is the contrary of "deploy."
"Defile," in the sense of "pollute," is another form of "defoul"; though spelt alike, the two words are pronounced differently, the accent being on the first syllable for the former and on the second for the latter.
DEFINITION (Lat. _definitio_, from _de-finire_, to set limits to, describe), a logical term used popularly for the process of explaining, or giving the meaning of, a word, and also in the concrete for the proposition or statement in which that explanation is expressed. In logic, definition consists in determining the qualities which belong to given concepts or universals; it is not concerned with individuals, which are marked by an infinity of peculiarities, any one or all of which might be predicated of another individual. Individuals can be defined only in so far as they belong to a single kind. According to Aristotle, definition is the statement of the essence of a concept ([Greek: horismos men gar tou ti esti kai ousias], _Posterior Analytics_, B iii. 90 b 30); that is, it consists of the genus and the differentia. In other words, "man" is defined as "animal _plus_ rationality," or "rational animal,"[1] i.e. the concept is (1) referred to the next higher genus, and (2) distinguished from other modes in which that genus exists, i.e. from other species. It is sometimes argued that, there being no definition of individuals as such, definition is of names (see J. S. Mill, _Logic_, i. viii. 5), not of things; it is generally, however, maintained that definition is _of things, regarded as, or in so far as they are, of a kind_. Definition of words can be nothing more than the explanation of terms such as is given in a dictionary.
The following rules are generally given as governing accurate definition. (1) _The definition must be equivalent or commensurate with that which is defined_; it must be applicable to all the individuals included in the concept and to nothing else. Every man, and nothing else, is a rational animal. "Man is mortal" is not a definition, for mortality is predicable of irrational animals. (2) _The definition must state the essential attributes_; a concept cannot be defined by its accidental attributes; those attributes must be given which are essential and primary. (3) _The definition must be per genus et differentiam_ (or _differentias_), as we have already seen. These are the important rules. Three minor rules are: (4) _The definition must not contain the name of the concept to be defined_; if it does, no information is given. Such a proposition as "an archdeacon is one who performs archidiaconal functions" is not a definition. Concepts cannot be defined by their correlatives. Such a definition is known as a _circulus in definiendo_. (5) _Obscure and figurative language must be avoided_, and (6) _Definitions must not be in the negative when they can be in the affirmative_.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] "Rational animal" is thus the predicate of the statement constituting the definition. Sometimes the word "definition" is used to signify merely the predicate.
DEFOE, DANIEL (c. 1659-1731), English author, was born in the parish of St Giles, Cripplegate, London, in the latter part of 1659 or early in 1660, of a nonconformist family. His grandfather, Daniel Foe, lived at Etton, Northamptonshire, apparently in comfortable circumstances, for he is said to have kept a pack of hounds. As to the variation of name, Defoe or Foe, its owner signed either indifferently till late in life, and where his initials occur they are sometimes D. F. and sometimes D. D. F. Three autograph letters of his are extant, all addressed in 1705 to the same person, and signed respectively D. Foe, de Foe and Daniel Defoe. His father, James Foe, was a butcher and a citizen of London.
Daniel was well educated at a famous dissenting academy, Mr Charles Morton's of Stoke Newington, where many of the best-known nonconformists of the time were his schoolfellows. With few exceptions all the known events of Defoe's life are connected with authorship. In the older catalogues of his works two pamphlets, _Speculum Crapegownorum_, a satire on the clergy, and _A Treatise against the Turks_, are attributed to him before the accession of James II., but there seems to be no publication of his which is certainly genuine before _The Character of Dr Annesley_ (1697). He had, however, before this, taken up arms in Monmouth's expedition, and is supposed to have owed his lucky escape from the clutches of the king's troops and the law, to his being a Londoner, and therefore a stranger in the west country. On the 26th of January 1688 he was admitted a liveryman of the city of London, having claimed his freedom by birth. Before his western escapade he had taken up the business of hosiery factor. At the entry of William and Mary into London he is said to have served as a volunteer trooper "gallantly mounted and richly accoutred." In these days he lived at Tooting, and was instrumental in forming a dissenting congregation there. His business operations at this period appear to have been extensive and various. He seems to have been a sort of commission merchant, especially in Spanish and Portuguese goods, and at some time to have visited Spain on business. In 1692 he failed for £17,000. His misfortunes made him write both feelingly and forcibly on the bankruptcy laws; and although his creditors accepted a composition, he afterwards honourably paid them in full, a fact attested by independent and not very friendly witnesses. Subsequently, he undertook first the secretaryship and then the management and chief ownership of some tile-works at Tilbury, but here also he was unfortunate, and his imprisonment in 1703 brought the works to a standstill, and he lost £3000. From this time forward we hear of no settled business in which he engaged.
The course of Defoe's life was determined about the middle of the reign of William III. by his introduction to that monarch and other influential persons. He frequently boasts of his personal intimacy with the "glorious and immortal" king, and in 1695 he was appointed accountant to the commissioners of the glass duty, an office which he held for four years. During this time he produced his _Essay on Projects_ (1698), containing suggestions on banks, road-management, friendly and insurance societies of various kinds, idiot asylums, bankruptcy, academies, military colleges, high schools for women, &c. It displays Defoe's lively and lucid style in full vigour, and abounds with ingenious thoughts and apt illustrations, though it illustrates also the unsystematic character of his mind. In the same year Defoe wrote the first of a long series of pamphlets on the then burning question of occasional conformity. In this, for the first time, he showed the unlucky independence which, in so many other instances, united all parties against him. While he pointed out to the dissenters the scandalous inconsistency of their playing fast and loose with sacred things, yet he denounced the impropriety of requiring tests at all. In support of the government he published, in 1698, _An Argument for a Standing Army_, followed in 1700 by a defence of William's war policy called _The Two Great Questions considered_, and a set of pamphlets on the Partition Treaty. Thus in political matters he had the same fate as in ecclesiastical; for the Whigs were no more prepared than the Tories to support William through thick and thin. He also dealt with the questions of stock-jobbing and of electioneering corruption. But his most remarkable publication at this time was _The True-Born Englishman_ (1701), a satire in rough but extremely vigorous verse on the national objection to William as a foreigner, and on the claim of purity of blood for a nation which Defoe chooses to represent as crossed and dashed with all the strains and races in Europe. He also took a prominent part in the proceedings which followed the Kentish petition, and was the author, some say the presenter, of the _Legion Memorial_, which asserted in the strongest terms the supremacy of the electors over the elected, and of which even an irate House of Commons did not dare to take much notice. The theory of the indefeasible supremacy of the freeholders of England, whose delegates merely, according to this theory, the Commons were, was one of Defoe's favourite political tenets, and he returned to it in a powerfully written tract entitled _The Original Power of the Collective Body of the People of England examined and asserted_ (1701).
At the same time he was occupied in a controversy on the conformity question with John How (or Howe) on the practice of "occasional conformity." Defoe maintained that the dissenters who attended the services of the English Church on particular occasions to qualify themselves for office were guilty of inconsistency. At the same time he did not argue for the complete abolition of the tests, but desired that they should be so framed as to make it possible for most Protestants conscientiously to subscribe to them. Here again his moderation pleased neither party.
The death of William was a great misfortune to Defoe, and he soon felt the power of his adversaries. After publishing _The Mock Mourners_, intended to satirize and rebuke the outbreak of Jacobite joy at the king's death, he turned his attention once more to ecclesiastical subjects, and, in an evil hour for himself, wrote the anonymous _Shortest Way with the Dissenters_ (1702), a statement in the most forcible terms of the extreme "high-flying" position, which some high churchmen were unwary enough to endorse, without any suspicion of the writer's ironical intention. The author was soon discovered; and, as he absconded, an advertisement was issued offering a reward for his apprehension, and giving the only personal description we possess of him, as "a middle-sized spare man about forty years old, of a brown complexion and dark brown-coloured hair, but wears a wig; a hooked nose, a sharp chin, grey eyes, and a large mole near his mouth." In this conjuncture Defoe had really no friends, for the dissenters were as much alarmed at his book as the high-flyers were irritated. He surrendered, and his defence appears to have been injudiciously conducted; at any rate he was fined 200 marks, and condemned to be pilloried three times, to be imprisoned indefinitely, and to find sureties for his good behaviour during seven years. It was in reference to this incident that Pope, whose Catholic rearing made him detest the abettor of the Revolution and the champion of William of Orange, wrote in the _Dunciad_--
"Earless on high stands unabash'd Defoe"
--though he knew that the sentence to the pillory had long ceased to entail the loss of ears. Defoe's exposure in the pillory (July 29, 30, 31) was, however, rather a triumph than a punishment, for the populace took his side; and his _Hymn to the Pillory_, which he soon after published, is one of the best of his poetical works. Unluckily for him his condemnation had the indirect effect of destroying his business at Tilbury.
He remained in prison until August 1704, and then owed his release to the intercession of Robert Harley, who represented his case to the queen, and obtained for him not only liberty but pecuniary relief and employment, which, of one kind or another, lasted until the termination of Anne's reign. Defoe was uniformly grateful to the minister, and his language respecting him is in curious variance with that generally used. There is no doubt that Harley, who understood the influence wielded by Defoe, made some conditions. Defoe says he received no pension, but his subsequent fidelity was at all events indirectly rewarded; moreover, Harley's moderation in a time of the extremest party-insanity was no little recommendation to Defoe. During his imprisonment he was by no means idle. A spurious edition of his works having been issued, he himself produced a collection of twenty-two treatises, to which some time afterwards he added a second group of eighteen more. He also wrote in prison many short pamphlets, chiefly controversial, published a curious work on the famous storm of the 26th of November 1703, and started in February 1704 perhaps the most remarkable of all his projects, _The Review_. This was a paper which was issued during the greater part of its life three times a week. It was entirely written by Defoe, and extends to eight complete volumes and some few score numbers of a second issue. He did not confine himself to news, but wrote something very like finished essays on questions of policy, trade and domestic concerns; he also introduced a "Scandal Club," in which minor questions of manners and morals were treated in a way which undoubtedly suggested the _Tatlers_ and _Spectators_ which followed. Only one complete copy of the work is known to exist, and that is in the British Museum. It is probable that if bulk, rapidity of production, variety of matter, originality of design, and excellence of style be taken together, hardly any author can show a work of equal magnitude. After his release Defoe went to Bury St Edmunds, though he did not interrupt either his _Review_ or his occasional pamphlets. One of these, _Giving Alms no Charity, and Employing the Poor a Grievance to the Nation_ (1704), is extraordinarily far-sighted. It denounces both indiscriminate alms-giving and the national work-shops proposed by Sir Humphrey Mackworth.
In 1705 appeared _The Consolidator, or Memoirs of Sundry Transactions from the World in the Moon_, a political satire which is supposed to have given some hints for Swift's _Gulliver's Travels_; and at the end of the year Defoe performed a secret mission, the first of several of the kind, for Harley. In 1706 appeared the _True Relation of the Apparition of one Mrs Veal_, long supposed to have been written for a bookseller to help off an unsaleable translation of Drelincourt, _On Death_, but considerable doubt has been cast upon this by William Lee. Defoe's next work was _Jure divino_, a long poetical argument in (bad) verse; and soon afterwards (1706) he began to be much employed in promoting the union with Scotland. Not only did he write pamphlets as usual on the project, and vigorously recommend it in _The Review_, but in October 1706 he was sent on a political mission to Scotland by Sidney Godolphin, to whom Harley had recommended him. He resided in Edinburgh for nearly sixteen months, and his services to the government were repaid by a regular salary. He seems to have devoted himself to commercial and literary as well as to political matters, and prepared at this time his elaborate _History of the Union_, which appeared in 1709. In this year Henry Sacheverell delivered his famous sermons, and Defoe wrote several tracts about them and attacked the preacher in his _Review_.
In 1710 Harley returned to power, and Defoe was placed in a somewhat awkward position. To Harley himself he was bound by gratitude and by a substantial agreement in principle, but with the rest of the Tory ministry he had no sympathy. He seems, in fact, to have agreed with the foreign policy of the Tories and with the home policy of the Whigs, and naturally incurred the reproach of time-serving and the hearty abuse of both parties. At the end of 1710 he again visited Scotland. In the negotiations concerning the Peace of Utrecht, Defoe strongly supported the ministerial side, to the intense wrath of the Whigs, displayed in an attempted prosecution against some pamphlets of his on the all-important question of the succession. Again the influence of Harley saved him. He continued, however, to take the side of the dissenters in the questions affecting religious liberty, which played such a prominent part towards the close of Anne's reign. He naturally shared Harley's downfall; and, though the loss of his salary might seem a poor reward for his constant support of the Hanoverian claim, it was little more than his ambiguous, not to say trimming, position must have led him to expect.
Defoe declared that Lord Annesley was preparing the army in Ireland to join a Jacobite rebellion, and was indicted for libel; and prior to his trial (1715) he published an apologia entitled _An Appeal to Honour and Justice_, in which he defended his political conduct. Having been convicted of the libel he was liberated later in the year under circumstances that only became clear in 1864, when six letters were discovered in the Record Office from Defoe to a Government official, Charles Delafaye, which, according to William Lee, established the fact that in 1718 at least Defoe was doing not only political work, but that it was of a somewhat equivocal kind--that he was, in fact, sub-editing the Jacobite _Mist's Journal_, under a secret agreement with the government that he should tone down the sentiments and omit objectionable items. He had, in fact, been released on condition of becoming a government agent. He seems to have performed the same not very honourable office in the case of two other journals--_Dormer's Letter_ and the _Mercurius Politicus_; and to have written in these and other papers until nearly the end of his life. Before these letters were discovered it was supposed that Defoe's political work had ended in 1715.
Up to that time Defoe had written nothing but occasional literature, and, except the _History of the Union_ and _Jure Divino_, nothing of any great length. In 1715 appeared the first volume of _The Family Instructor_, which was very popular during the 18th century. The first volume of his most famous work, the immortal story--partly adventure, partly moralizing--of _The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe_, was published on the 25th of April 1719. It ran through four editions in as many months, and then in August appeared the second volume. Twelve months afterwards the sequel _Serious Reflections_, now hardly ever reprinted, appeared. Its connexion with the two former parts is little more than nominal, Crusoe being simply made the mouth-piece of Defoe's sentiments on various points of morals and religion. Meanwhile the first two parts were reprinted as a _feuilleton_ in _Heathcote's Intelligencer_, perhaps the earliest instance of the appearance of such a work in such a form. The story was founded on Dempier's _Voyage round the World_ (1697), and still more on Alexander Selkirk's adventures, as communicated by Selkirk himself at a meeting with Defoe at the house of Mrs Damaris Daniel at Bristol. Selkirk afterwards told Mrs Daniel that he had handed over his papers to Defoe. _Robinson Crusoe_ was immediately popular, and a wild story was set afloat of its having been written by Lord Oxford in the Tower. A curious idea, at one time revived by Henry Kingsley, is that the adventures of Robinson are allegorical and relate to Defoe's own life. This idea was certainly entertained to some extent at the time, and derives some colour of justification from words of Defoe's, but there seems to be no serious foundation for it. _Robinson Crusoe_ (especially the story part, with the philosophical and religious moralizings largely cut out) is one of the world's classics in fiction. Crusoe's shipwreck and adventures, his finding the footprint in the sand, his man "Friday,"--the whole atmosphere of romance which surrounds the position of the civilized man fending for himself on a desert island--these have made Defoe's great work an imperishable part of English literature. Contemporaneously appeared _The Dumb Philosopher_, or _Dickory Cronke_, who gains the power of speech at the end of his life and uses it to predict the course of European affairs.
In 1720 came _The Life and Adventures of Mr Duncan Campbell_. This was not entirely a work of imagination, its hero, the fortune-teller, being a real person. There are amusing passages in the story, but it is too desultory to rank with Defoe's best. In the same year appeared two wholly or partially fictitious histories, each of which might have made a reputation for any man. The first was the _Memoirs of a Cavalier_, which Lord Chatham believed to be true history, and which William Lee considers the embodiment at least of authentic private memoirs. The Cavalier was declared at the time to be Andrew Newport, made Lord Newport in 1642. His elder brother was born in 1620 and the Cavalier gives 1608 as the date of his birth, so that the facts do not fit the dates. It is probable that Defoe, with his extensive acquaintance with English history, and his astonishing power of working up details, was fully equal to the task of inventing it. As a model of historical work of a certain kind it is hardly surpassable, and many separate passages--accounts of battles and skirmishes--have never been equalled except by Carlyle. _Captain Singleton_, the last work of the year, has been unjustly depreciated by most of the commentators. The record of the journey across Africa, with its surprising anticipations of subsequent discoveries, yields in interest to no work of the kind known to us; and the semi-piratical Quaker who accompanies Singleton in his buccaneering expeditions is a most life-like character. There is also a Quaker who plays a very creditable part in _Roxana_ (1724), and Defoe seems to have been well affected to the Friends. In estimating this wonderful productiveness on the part of a man sixty years old, it should be remembered that it was a habit of Defoe's to keep his work in manuscript sometimes for long periods.
In 1721 nothing of importance was produced, but in the next twelvemonth three capital works appeared. These were _The Fortunes and Misfortunes of Moll Flanders_, _The Journal of the Plague Year_, and _The History of Colonel Jack_. _Moll Flanders_ and _The Fortunate Mistress_ (Roxana), which followed in 1724, have subjects of a rather more than questionable character, but both display the remarkable art with which Defoe handles such subjects. It is not true, as is sometimes said, that the difference between the two is that between gross and polished vice. The real difference is much more one of morals than of manners. Moll is by no means of the lowest class. Notwithstanding the greater degradation into which she falls, and her originally dependent position, she has been well educated, and has consorted with persons of gentle birth. She displays throughout much greater real refinement of feeling than the more high-flying Roxana, and is at any rate flesh and blood, if the flesh be somewhat frail and the blood somewhat hot. Neither of the heroines has any but the rudiments of a moral sense; but Roxana, both in her original transgression and in her subsequent conduct, is actuated merely by avarice and selfishness--vices which are peculiarly offensive in connexion with her other failing, and which make her thoroughly repulsive. The art of both stories is great, and that of the episode of the daughter Susannah in _Roxana_ is consummate; but the transitions of the later plot are less natural than those in _Moll Flanders_. It is only fair to notice that while the latter, according to Defoe's more usual practice, is allowed to repent and end happily, Roxana is brought to complete misery; Defoe's morality, therefore, required more repulsiveness in one case than in the other.
In the _Journal of the Plague Year_, more usually called, from the title of the second edition, _A History of the Plague_, the accuracy and apparent veracity of the details is so great that many persons have taken it for an authentic record, while others have contended for the existence of such a record as its basis. But here too the genius of Mrs Veal's creator must, in the absence of all evidence to the contrary, be allowed sufficient for the task. _The History of Colonel Jack_ is an unequal book. There is hardly in _Robinson Crusoe_ a scene equal, and there is consequently not in English literature a scene superior, to that where the youthful pickpocket first exercises his trade, and then for a time loses his ill-gotten gains. But a great part of the book, especially the latter portion, is dull; and in fact it may be generally remarked of Defoe that the conclusions of his tales are not equal to the beginning, perhaps from the restless indefatigability with which he undertook one work almost before finishing another.
To this period belong his stories of famous criminals, of Jack Sheppard (1724), of Jonathan Wild (1725), of the Highland Rogue i.e. Rob Roy (1723). The pamphlet on the first of these Defoe maintained to be a transcript of a paper which he persuaded Sheppard to give to a friend at his execution.
In 1724 appeared also the first volume of _A Tour through the whole Island of Great Britain_, which was completed in the two following years. Much of the information in this was derived from personal experience, for Defoe claims to have made many more tours and visits about England than those of which we have record; but the major part must necessarily have been dexterous compilation. In 1725 appeared _A New Voyage round the World_, apparently entirely due to the author's own fertile imagination and extensive reading. It is full of his peculiar verisimilitude and has all the interest of Anson's or Dampier's voyages, with a charm of style superior even to that of the latter.
In 1726 Defoe published a curious and amusing little pamphlet entitled _Everybody's Business is Nobody's Business, or Private Abuses Public Grievances, exemplified in the Pride, Insolence, and Exorbitant Wages of our Women-Servants, Footmen, &c._ This subject was a favourite one with him, and in the pamphlet he showed the immaturity of his political views by advocating legislative interference in these matters. Towards the end of this same year _The Complete English Tradesman_, which may be supposed to sum up the experience of his business life, appeared, and its second volume followed two years afterwards. This book has been variously judged. It is generally and traditionally praised, but those who have read it will be more disposed to agree with Charles Lamb, who considers it "of a vile and debasing tendency," and thinks it "almost impossible to suppose the author in earnest." The intolerable meanness advocated for the sake of the paltriest gains, the entire ignoring of any pursuit in life except money-getting, and the representation of the whole duty of man as consisting first in the attainment of a competent fortune, and next, when that fortune has been attained, in spending not more than half of it, are certainly repulsive enough. But there are no reasons for thinking the performance ironical or insincere, and it cannot be doubted that Defoe would have been honestly unable even to understand Lamb's indignation. To 1726 also belongs _The Political History of the Devil_. This is a curious book, partly explanatory of Defoe's ideas on morality, and partly belonging to a series of demonological works which he wrote, and of which the chief others are _A System of Magic_ (1726), and _An Essay on the History of Apparitions_ (1728), issued the year before under another title. In all these works his treatment is on the whole rational and sensible; but in _The History of the Devil_ he is somewhat hampered by an insufficiently worked-out theory as to the nature and personal existence of his hero, and the manner in which he handles the subject is an odd and not altogether satisfactory mixture of irony and earnestness. _A Plan of English Commerce_, containing very enlightened views on export trade, appeared in 1728.
During the years from 1715 to 1728 Defoe had issued pamphlets and minor works too numerous to mention. The only one of them perhaps which requires notice is _Religious Courtship_ (1722), a curious series of dialogues displaying Defoe's unaffected religiosity, and at the same time the rather meddling intrusiveness with which he applied his religious notions. This was more flagrantly illustrated in one of his latest works, _The Treatise Concerning the Use and Abuse of the Marriage Bed_ (1727), which was originally issued with a much more offensive name, and has been called "an excellent book with an improper title." The _Memoirs of Captain Carleton_ (1728) were long attributed to Defoe, but the internal evidence is strongly against his authorship. They have been also attributed to Swift, with greater probability as far as style is concerned. _The Life of Mother Ross_, reprinted in Bohn's edition, has no claim whatever to be considered Defoe's.
There is little to be said of Defoe's private life during this period. He must in some way or other have obtained a considerable income. In 1724 he had built himself a large house at Stoke Newington, which had stables and grounds of considerable size. From the negotiations for the marriage of his daughter Sophia it appears that he had landed property in more than one place, and he had obtained on lease in 1722 a considerable estate from the corporation of Colchester, which was settled on his unmarried daughter at his death. Other property was similarly allotted to his widow and remaining children, though some difficulty seems to have arisen from the misconduct of his son, to whom, for some purpose, the property was assigned during his father's lifetime, and who refused to pay what was due. There is a good deal of mystery about the end of Defoe's life; it used to be said that he died insolvent, and that he had been in jail shortly before his death. As a matter of fact, after great suffering from gout and stone, he died in Ropemaker's Alley, Moorfields, on Monday the 26th of April 1731, and was buried in Bunhill Fields. He left no will, all his property having been previously assigned, and letters of administration were taken out by a creditor. How his affairs fell into this condition, why he did not die in his own house, and why in the previous summer he had been in hiding, as we know he was from a letter still extant, are points not clearly explained. He was, however, attacked by Mist, whom he wounded, in prison in 1724. It is most likely that Mist had found out that Defoe was a government agent and quite probable that he communicated his knowledge to other editors, for Defoe's journalistic employment almost ceased about this time, and he began to write anonymously, or as "Andrew Moreton." It is possible that he had to go into hiding to avoid the danger of being accused as a real Jacobite, when those with whom he had contracted to assume the character were dead and could no longer justify his attitude.
Defoe married, on New Year's Day, 1684, Mary Tuffley, who survived until December 1732. They had seven children. His second son, Bernard or Benjamin Norton, has, like his father, a scandalous niche in the _Dunciad_. In April 1877 public attention was called to the distress of three maiden ladies, directly descended from Defoe, and bearing his name; and a crown pension of £75 a year was bestowed on each of them. His youngest daughter, Sophia, who married Henry Baker, left a considerable correspondence, now in the hands of her descendants. There are several portraits of Defoe, the principal one being engraved by Vandergucht.
In his lifetime, Defoe, as not belonging to either of the great parties at a time of the bitterest party strife, was subjected to obloquy on both sides. The great Whig writers leave him unnoticed. Swift and Gay speak slightingly of him,--the former, it is true, at a time when he was only known as a party pamphleteer. Pope, with less excuse, put him in the _Dunciad_ towards the end of his life, but he confessed to Spence in private that Defoe had written many things and none bad. At a later period he was unjustly described as "a scurrilous party writer," which he certainly was not; but, on the other hand, Johnson spoke of his writing "so variously and so well," and put _Robinson Crusoe_ among the only three books that readers wish longer. From Sir Walter Scott downwards the tendency to judge literary work on its own merits to a great extent restored Defoe to his proper place, or, to speak more correctly, set him there for the first time. Lord Macaulay's description of _Roxana_, _Moll Flanders_ and _Colonel Jack_ as "utterly nauseous and wretched" must be set aside as a freak of criticism.
Scott justly observed that Defoe's style "is the last which should be attempted by a writer of inferior genius; for though it be possible to disguise mediocrity by fine writing, it appears in all its naked inanity when it assumes the garb of simplicity." The methods by which Defoe attains his result are not difficult to disengage. They are the presentment of all his ideas and scenes in the plainest and most direct language, the frequent employment of colloquial forms of speech, the constant insertion of little material details and illustrations, often of a more or less digressive form, and, in his historico-fictitious works, as well as in his novels, the most rigid attention to vivacity and consistency of character. Plot he disregards, and he is fond of throwing his dialogues into regular dramatic form, with by-play prescribed and stage directions interspersed. A particular trick of his is also to divide his arguments after the manner of the preachers of his day into heads and subheads, with actual numerical signs affixed to them. These mannerisms undoubtedly help and emphasize the extraordinary faithfulness to nature of his fictions, but it would be a great mistake to suppose that they fully explain their charm. Defoe possessed genius, and his secret is at the last as impalpable as the secret of genius always is.
The character of Defoe, both mental and moral, is very clearly indicated in his works. He, the satirist of the true-born Englishman, was himself a model, with some notable variations and improvements, of the Englishman of his period. He saw a great many things, and what he did see he saw clearly. But there were also a great many things which he did not see, and there was often no logical connexion whatever between his vision and his blindness. The most curious example of this inconsistency, or rather of this indifference to general principle, occurs in his _Essay on Projects_. He there speaks very briefly and slightingly of life insurance, probably because it was then regarded as impious by religionists of his complexion. But on either side of this refusal are to be found elaborate projects of friendly societies and widows' funds, which practically cover, in a clumsy and roundabout manner, the whole ground of life insurance. In morals it is evident that he was, according to his lights, a strictly honest and honourable man. But sentiment of any "high-flying" description--to use the cant word of his time--was quite incomprehensible to him, or rather never presented itself as a thing to be comprehended. He tells us with honest and simple pride that when his patron Harley fell out, and Godolphin came in, he for three years held no communication with the former, and seems quite incapable of comprehending the delicacy which would have obliged him to follow Harley's fallen fortunes. His very anomalous position in regard to Mist is also indicative of a rather blunt moral perception. One of the most affecting things in his novels is the heroic constancy and fidelity of the maid Amy to her exemplary mistress Roxana. But Amy, scarcely by her own fault, is drawn into certain breaches of definite moral laws which Defoe did understand, and she is therefore condemned, with hardly a word of pity, to a miserable end. Nothing heroic or romantic was within Defoe's view; he could not understand passionate love, ideal loyalty, aesthetic admiration or anything of the kind; and it is probable that many of the little sordid touches which delight us by their apparent satire were, as designed, not satire at all, but merely a faithful representation of the feelings and ideas of the classes of which he himself was a unit.
His political and economical pamphlets are almost unmatched as clear presentations of the views of their writer. For driving the nail home no one but Swift excels him, and Swift perhaps only in _The Drapier's Letters_. There is often a great deal to be said against the view presented in those pamphlets, but Defoe sees nothing of it. He was perfectly fair but perfectly one-sided, being generally happily ignorant of everything which told against his own view.
The same characteristics are curiously illustrated in his moral works. The morality of these is almost amusing in its downright positive character. With all the Puritan eagerness to push a clear, uncompromising, Scripture-based distinction of right and wrong into the affairs of every-day life, he has a thoroughly English horror of casuistry, and his clumsy canons consequently make wild work with the infinite intricacies of human nature. He is, in fact, an instance of the tendency, which has so often been remarked by other nations in the English, to drag in moral distinctions at every turn, and to confound everything which is novel to the experience, unpleasant to the taste, and incomprehensible to the understanding, under the general epithets of wrong, wicked and shocking. His works of this class therefore are now the least valuable, though not the least curious, of his books.
The earliest regular life and estimate of Defoe is that of Dr Towers in the _Biographia Britannica_. George Chalmers's _Life_, however (1786), added very considerable information. In 1830 Walter Wilson wrote the standard _Life_ (3 vols.); it is coloured by political prejudice, but is a model of painstaking care, and by its abundant citations from works both of Defoe and of others, which are practically inaccessible to the general reader, is invaluable. In 1859 appeared a life of Defoe by William Chadwick, an extraordinary rhapsody in a style which is half Cobbett and half Carlyle, but amusing, and by no means devoid of acuteness. In 1864 the discovery of the six letters stirred up William Lee to a new investigation, and the results of this were published (London, 1869) in three large volumes. The first of these (well illustrated) contains a new life and particulars of the author's discoveries. The second and third contain fugitive writings assigned by Lee to Defoe for the first time. For most of these, however, we have no authority but Lee's own impressions of style, &c.; and consequently, though the best qualified judges will in most cases agree that Defoe may very likely have written them, it cannot positively be stated that he did. There is also a _Life_ by Thomas Wright (1894). The _Earlier Life and Chief Earlier Works_ of Defoe (1890) was included by Henry Morley in the "Carisbrooke Library." Charles Lamb's criticisms were made in three short pieces, two of which were written for Wilson's book, and the third for _The Reflector_. The volume on _Defoe_ (1879) in the "English Men of Letters" series is by W. Minto.
There is considerable uncertainty about many of Defoe's writings; and even if all contested works be excluded, the number is still enormous. Besides the list in Bohn's _Lowndes_, which is somewhat of an _omnium gatherum_, three lists drawn with more or less care were compiled in the 19th century. Wilson's contains 210 distinct works, three or four only of which are marked as doubtful; Hazlitt's enumerates 183 "genuine" and 52 "attributed" pieces, with notes on most of them; Lee's extends to 254, of which 64 claim to be new additions. The reprint (3 vols.) edited for the "Pulteney Library" by Hazlitt in 1840-1843 contains a good and full life mainly derived from Wilson, the whole of the novels (including the _Serious Reflections_ now hardly ever published with _Robinson Crusoe_), _Jure Divino_, _The Use and Abuse of Marriage_, and many of the more important tracts and smaller works. There is also an edition, often called Scott's, but really edited by Sir G. C. Lewis, in twenty volumes (London, 1840-1841). This contains the _Complete Tradesman_, _Religious Courtship_, _The Consolidator_ and other works not comprised in Hazlitt's. Scott had previously in 1809 edited for Ballantyne some of the novels, in twelve volumes. Bohn's "British Classics" includes the novels (except the third part of _Robinson Crusoe_), _The History of the Devil_, _The Storm_, and a few political pamphlets, also the undoubtedly spurious _Mother Ross_. In 1870 Nimmo of Edinburgh published in one volume an admirable selection from Defoe. It contains Chalmers's _Life_, annotated and completed from Wilson and Lee, _Robinson Crusoe_, pts. i. and ii., _Colonel Jack_, _The Cavalier_, _Duncan Campbell_, _The Plague_, _Everybody's Business_, _Mrs Veal_, _The Shortest Way with Dissenters_, _Giving Alms no Charity_, _The True-Born Englishman_, _Hymn to the Pillory_, and very copious extracts from _The Complete English Tradesman_. An edition of Defoe's _Romances and Narratives_ in sixteen volumes by G. A. Aitken came out in 1895.
If we turn to separate works, the bibliography of Defoe is practically confined (except as far as original editions are concerned) to _Robinson Crusoe_. _Mrs Veal_ has been to some extent popularized by the work which it helped to sell; _Religious Courtship_ and _The Family Instructor_ had a vogue among the middle class until well into the 19th century, and _The History of the Union_ was republished in 1786. But the reprints and editions of _Crusoe_ have been innumerable; it has been often translated; and the eulogy pronounced on it by Rousseau gave it special currency in France, where imitations (or rather adaptations) have also been common.
In addition to the principal authorities already mentioned see John Forster, _Historical and Biographical Essays_ (1858); G. Saintsbury, "Introduction" to Defoe's _Minor Novels_; and valuable notes by G. A. Aitken in _The Contemporary Review_ (February 1890), and _The Athenaeum_ (April 30, 1889; August 31, 1890). A facsimile reprint (1883) of _Robinson Crusoe_ has an introduction by Mr Austin Dobson. Dr Karl T. Bülbring edited two unpublished works of Defoe, _The Compleat English Gentleman_ (London, 1890) and _Of Royall Educacion_ (London, 1905), from British Museum Add. MS. 32,555. Further light was thrown on Defoe's work as a political agent by the discovery (1906) of an unpublished paper of his in the British Museum by G. F. Warner. This was printed in the _English Historical Review_, and afterwards separately.
DEGAS, HILAIRE GERMAIN EDGARD (1834- ), French painter, was born in Paris on the 19th of July 1834. Entering in 1855 the École des Beaux Arts, he early developed independence of artistic outlook, studying under Lamothe. He first exhibited in the Salon of 1865, contributing a "War in the middle ages," a work executed in pastel. To this medium he was ever faithful, using it for some of his best work. In 1866 his "Steeplechase" revealed him as a painter of the racecourse and of all the most modern aspects of life and of Parisian society, treated in an extremely original manner. He subsequently exhibited in 1867 "Family Portraits," and in 1868 a portrait of a dancer in the "Ballet of _La Source_." In 1869 and 1870 he restricted himself to portraits; but thenceforward he abandoned the Salons and attached himself to the Impressionists. With Manet and Monet he took the lead of the new school at its first exhibition in 1874, and repeatedly contributed to these exhibitions (in 1876, 1878, 1879 and 1880). In 1868 he had shown his first study of a dancer, and in numerous pastels he proclaimed himself the painter of the ballet, representing its figurantes in every attitude with more constant aim at truth than grace. Several of his works may be seen at the Luxembourg Gallery, to which they were bequeathed, among a collection of impressionist pictures, by M. Caillebotte. In 1880 Degas showed his powers of observation in a set of "Portraits of Criminals," and he attempted modelling in a "Dancer," in wax. He afterwards returned to his studies of the sporting world, exhibiting in December 1884 at the Petit Gallery two views of "Races" which had a great success, proving the increasing vogue of the artist among collectors. He is ranked with Manet as the leader of the "impressionist school." At the eighth Impressionist Exhibition, in 1886, Degas continued his realistic studies of modern life, showing drawings of the nude, of workwomen, and of jockeys. Besides his pastels and his paintings of genre and portraits--among these, several likenesses of Manet--Degas also handled his favourite subjects in etching and in aquatint; and executed several lithographs of "Singers at Cafés-concert," of "Ballet-girls," and indeed of every possible subject of night-life and incidents behind the scenes. His work is to be seen not only at the Luxembourg but in many of the great private collections in Paris, in England and America. In the Centenary Exhibition of 1900 he exhibited "The Interior of a Cotton-Broker's Office at New Orleans" (belonging to the Museum at Pau) and "The Rehearsal."
See also G. Moore, "Degas, the Painter of Modern Life," _Magazine of Art_ (1890); J. K. Huysmans, _Certains_ (Paris, 1889); G. Geffroy, _La Vie Artistique_ (3^e Série, Paris, 1894).
DE GEER, LOUIS GERHARD, BARON (1818-1896), Swedish statesman and writer, was born on the 18th of July 1818 at Finspång castle. He adopted the legal profession, and in 1855 became president of the Göta Hofret, or lord justice of one of the Swedish supreme courts. From the 7th of April 1858 to the 3rd of June 1870 he was minister of justice. As a member of the Upper House he took part in all the Swedish _Riksdags_ from 1851 onwards, though he seldom spoke. From 1867 to 1878 he was the member for Stockholm in the first chamber, and introduced and passed many useful reformatory statutes; but his greatest achievement, as a statesman, was the reform of the Swedish representative system, whereby he substituted a bi-cameral elective parliament, on modern lines, for the existing cumbersome representation by estates, a survival from the later middle ages. This great measure was accepted by the Riksdag in December 1865, and received the royal sanction on the 22nd of June 1866. For some time after this De Geer was the most popular man in Sweden. He retired from the ministry in 1870, but took office again, as minister of justice, in 1875. In 1876 he became minister of state, which position he retained till April 1880, when the failure of his repeated efforts to settle the armaments' question again induced him to resign. From 1881 to 1888 he was chancellor of the universities of Upsala and Lund. Besides several novels and aesthetic essays, De Geer has written a few political memoirs of supreme merit both as to style and matter, the most notable of which are: _Minnesteckning öfver A. J. v. Höpken_ (Stockholm, 1881); _Minnesteckning öfver Hans Järta_ (Stockholm, 1874); _Minnesteckning öfver B. B. von Platen_ (Stockholm, 1886); and his own _Minnen_ (Stockholm, 1892), an autobiography, invaluable as a historical document, in which the political experience and the matured judgments of a lifetime are recorded with singular clearness, sobriety and charm.
See _Sveriges historia_ (Stockholm, 1881, &c.), vi,; Carl Gustaf Malmström, _Historiska Studier_ (Stockholm, 1897). (R. N. B.)
DEGGENDORF, or DECKENDORF, a town of Germany, in the kingdom of Bavaria, 25 m. N.W. of Passau, on the left bank of the Danube, which is there crossed by two iron bridges. Pop. (1905) 7154. It is situated at the lower end of the beautiful valley of the Perlbach, and in itself it is a well-built and attractive town. It possesses an old town hall dating from 1566, a hospital, a lunatic asylum, an orphanage, and a large parish church rebuilt in 1756; but the chief interest centres in the church of the Holy Sepulchre, built in 1337, which attracts thousands of pilgrims to its _Porta Caeli_ or _Gnadenpforte_ (Gate of Mercy) opened annually on Michaelmas eve and closed again on the 4th of October. In 1837, on the celebration of the 500th anniversary of this solemnity, the number of pilgrims was reckoned at nearly 100,000. Such importance as the town possesses is now rather commercial than religious,--it being a depôt for the timber trade of the Bavarian forest, a station for the Danube steamboat company, and the seat of several mills, breweries, potteries and other industrial establishments. On the bank of the Danube outside the town are the remains of the castle of Findelstein; and on the Geiersberg (1243 ft.), in the immediate vicinity, stands another old pilgrimage church. About 6 m. to the north is the village of Metten, with a Benedictine monastery founded by Charlemagne in 801, restored as an abbey in 1840 by Louis I. of Bavaria, and well known as an educational institution. The first mention of Deggendorf occurs in 868, and it appears as a town in 1212. Henry (d. 1290) of the Landshut branch of the ruling family of Bavaria made it the seat of a custom-house; and in 1331 it became the residence of Henry III. of Natternberg (d. 1333), so called from a castle in the neighbourhood. In 1337 a wholesale massacre of the Jews, who were accused of having thrown the sacred host of the church of the Holy Sepulchre into a well, took place in the town; and it is probably from about this date that the pilgrimage above mentioned came into vogue. The town was captured by the Swedish forces in 1633, and in the war of the Austrian Succession it was more than once laid in ashes.
See Grüber and Müller, _Der bayerische Wald_ (Regensburg, 1851); Mittermüller, _Die heil. Hostien und die Jüden in Deggendorf_ (Landshut, 1866); and _Das Kloster Metten_ (Straubing, 1857).
DE HAAS, MAURITZ FREDERICK HENDRICK (1832-1895), American marine painter, was born on the 12th of December 1832 in Rotterdam, Holland. He studied art in the Rotterdam Academy and at The Hague, under Bosboom and Louis Meyer, and in 1851-1852 in London, following the English water-colourists of the day. In 1857 he received an artist's commission in the Dutch navy, but in 1859, under the patronage of August Belmont, who had recently been minister of the United States at The Hague, he resigned and removed to New York city. He became an associate of the National Academy in 1863 and an academician in 1867, and exhibited annually in the academy, and in 1866 he was one of the founders of the American Society of Painters in Water Colors. He died on the 23rd of November 1895. His "Farragut Passing the Forts at the Battle of New Orleans" and "The Rapids above Niagara," which were exhibited at the Paris Exposition of 1878, were his best known but not his most typical works, for his favourite subjects were storm and wreck, wind and heavy surf, and less often moonlight on the coasts of Holland, of Jersey, of New England, and of Long Island, and on the English Channel.
His brother, WILLIAM FREDERICK DE HAAS (1830-1880), who emigrated to New York in 1854, was also a marine painter.
DEHRA, a town of British India, headquarters of the Dehra Dun district in the United Provinces. Pop. (1901) 28,095. It lies at an elevation of 2300 ft. Here the Hardwar-Dehra railway terminates. Dehra is the headquarters of the Trigonometrical Survey and of the Forest Department, besides being a cantonment for a Gurkha force. The Forest School, which trains subordinate forest officials for all parts of India, is a fine building. Attached to it is an institution for the scientific study of sylvi-culture and the exploitation and administration of forests. The town of Dehra grew up round the temple built in 1699 by the heretical Sikh Guru, Ram Rai, the founder of the Udasi sect of Ascetics. This temple is a remarkable building in Mahommedan style. The central block, in imitation of the emperor Jahangir's tomb, contains the bed on which the Guru, after dying at will and coming back to life several times, ultimately died outright; it is an object of great veneration. At the corners of the central block are smaller monuments commemorating the Guru's wives.
DEHRA DUN, a district of British India, in the Meerut division of the United Provinces. Its area is 1209 sq. m. The district is bounded on the N. by the native state of Tehri or Garhwal, on the E. by British Garhwal, on the S. by the Siwálik hills, which separate it from Saharanpur district, and on the W. by the hill states of Sirmur, Jubbal and Taroch. The valley (the Dun) has an area of about 673 sq. m., and forms a parallelogram 45 m. from N.W. to S.E. and 15 m. broad. It is well wooded, undulating and intersected by streams. On the N.E. the horizon is bounded by the Mussoorie or lower range of the Himalayas, and on the S. by the Siwálik hills. The Himalayas in the north of the district attain a height between 7000 and 8000 ft., one peak reaching an elevation of 8565 ft.; the highest point of the Siwálik range is 3041 ft. above sea-level. The principal passes through the Siwálik hills are the Timli pass, leading to the military station of Chakráta, and the Mohand pass leading to the sanatoriums of Mussoorie and Landaur. The Ganges bounds the Dehra valley on the E.; the Jumna bounds it on the W. From a point about midway between the two rivers, and near the town of Dehra, runs a ridge which forms the watershed of the valley. To the west of this ridge the water collects to form the Asan, a tributary of the Jumna; whilst to the east the Suswa receives the drainage and flows into the Ganges. To the east the valley is characterized by swamps and forests, but to the west the natural depressions freely carry off the surface drainage. Along the central ridge, the water-level lies at a great depth from the surface (228 ft.), but it rises gradually as the country declines towards the great rivers. In 1901 the population was 178,195, showing an increase of 6% in the decade. A railway to Dehra from Hardwar, on the Oudh and Rohilkhand line (32 m.), was completed in 1900. The district is served by the Dun canals. Tea gardens cover a considerable area, and the valley contains a colony of European tea planters.
_History._--Dehra Dun only emerges from the mists of legend into authentic history in the 17th century A.D., when it formed part of the Garhwal kingdom. Towards the end of the century the heretical Sikh Guru, Ram Rai, expelled from the Punjab, sought refuge in the Dun and gathered round him a crowd of devotees. Fateh Sah, raja of Garhwal, endowed the temple which he built, round which grew up the town of Gurudwara or Dehra (q.v.). In the 18th century the fertility of the valley attracted the attention of Najib-ud-daula, governor of Saharanpur, who invaded it with an army of Rohillas in 1757 and annexed it to his dominion. His rule, which lasted till 1770, brought great prosperity to the Dun; but on his death it became a prey to the surrounding tribes, its desolation being completed after its conquest by the Gurkhas in 1803. In 1814 it was taken possession of by the British, and in the following year was annexed to Saharanpur. Under British administration the Dun rapidly recovered its prosperity.
DEIOCES ([Greek: Dêiokês]), according to Herodotus (i. 96 ff.) the first king of the Medes. He narrates that, when the Medes had rebelled against the Assyrians and gained their independence about 710 B.C., according to his chronology (cf. Diodor. ii. 32), they lived in villages without any political organization, and therefore the whole country was in a state of anarchy. Then Deioces, son of Phraortes, an illustrious man of upright character, was chosen judge in his village, and the justness of his decisions induced the inhabitants of the other villages to throng to him. At last the Medes resolved to make an end of the intolerable state of their country by erecting a kingdom, and chose Deioces king. He now caused them to build a great capital, Ecbatana, with a royal palace, and introduced the ceremonial of oriental courts; he surrounded himself with a guard and no longer showed himself to the people, but gave his judgments in writing and controlled the people by officials and spies. He united all the Median tribes, and ruled fifty-three years (c. 699-647 B.C.), though perhaps, as G. Rawlinson supposed, the fifty-three years of his reign are exchanged by mistake with the twenty-two years of his son Phraortes, under whom the Median conquests began.
The narration of Herodotus is only a popular tradition which derives the origin of kingship from its judicial functions, considered as its principal and most beneficent aspect. We know from the Assyrian inscriptions that just at the time which Herodotus assigns to Deioces the Medes were divided into numerous small principalities and subjected to the great Assyrian conquerors. Among these petty chieftains, Sargon in 715 mentions Dayukku, "lieutenant of Man" (he probably was, therefore, a vassal of the neighbouring king of Man in the mountains of south-eastern Armenia), who joined the Urartians and other enemies of Assyria, but was by Sargon transported to Hamath in Syria "with his clan." His district is called "bit-Dayaukki," "house of Deioces," also in 713, when Sargon invaded these regions again. So it seems that the dynasty, which more than half a century later succeeded in throwing off the Assyrian yoke and founded the Median empire, was derived from this Dayukku, and that his name was thus introduced into the Median traditions, which contrary to history considered him as founder of the kingdom. (Ed. M.)
DEÏOTARUS, a tetrarch of Galatia (Gallo-Graecia) in Asia Minor, and a faithful ally of the Romans. He is first heard of at the beginning of the third Mithradatic war, when he drove out the troops of Mithradates under Eumachus from Phrygia. His most influential friend was Pompey, who, when settling the affairs of Asia (63 or 62 B.C.), rewarded him with the title of king and an increase of territory (Lesser Armenia). On the outbreak of the civil war, Deïotarus naturally sided with his old patron Pompey, and after the battle of Pharsalus escaped with him to Asia. In the meantime Pharnaces, the son of Mithradates, had seized Lesser Armenia, and defeated Deïotarus near Nicopolis. Fortunately for Deïotarus, Caesar at that time (47) arrived in Asia from Egypt, and was met by the tetrarch in the dress of a suppliant. Caesar pardoned him for having sided with Pompey, ordered him to resume his royal attire, and hastened against Pharnaces, whom he defeated at Zela. In consequence of the complaints of certain Galatian princes, Deïotarus was deprived of part of his dominions, but allowed to retain the title of king. On the death of Mithradates of Pergamum, tetrarch of the Trocmi, Deïotarus was a candidate for the vacancy. Other tetrarchs also pressed their claims; and, further, Deïotarus was accused by his grandson Castor of having attempted to assassinate Caesar when the latter was his guest in Galatia. Cicero, who entertained a high opinion of Deïotarus, whose acquaintance he had made when governor of Cilicia, undertook his defence, the case being heard in Caesar's own house at Rome. The matter was allowed to drop for a time, and the assassination of Caesar prevented any final decision being pronounced. In his speech Cicero briefly dismisses the charge of assassination, the main question being the distribution of the provinces, which was the real cause of the quarrels between Deïotarus and his relatives. After Caesar's death, Mark Antony, for a large monetary consideration, publicly announced that, in accordance with instructions left by Caesar, Deïotarus was to resume possession of all the territory of which he had been deprived. When civil war again broke out, Deïotarus was persuaded to support Brutus and Cassius, but after the battle of Philippi went over to the triumvirs. He remained in possession of his kingdom till his death at a very advanced age.
See Cicero, _Philippica_, ii. 37; _Ad fam._ viii. 10, ix. 12, xv. 1, 2, 4; _Ad Att._ xiv. 1; _De divin._ i. 15, ii. 36, 37; _De harusp. resp._ 13, and above all _Pro rege Deiotaro_; Appian, _Bell. Mithrid._ 75, 114; _Bellum Alexandrinum_, 34-41, 65-77; Dio Cassius xli. 63, xlii. 45, xlvii. 24, 48, xlviii. 33.
DEIR, or DEIR EZ-ZOR, a town of Asiatic Turkey, on the right bank of the Euphrates, 27½ m. above its junction with the Khabor, lat. 35° 20´ N., long. 40° 12´ E. Pop. 8000 and upward, about one-tenth Christians; except in the official classes, there are no Turks. It is the capital and the only considerable town of the Zor sanjak, formed in 1857, which includes Ras el-'Ain on the north and Palmyra on the south, with a total area of 32,820 sq. m., chiefly desert, and an estimated population of 100,000, mostly Arab nomads. Deir itself is a thrifty and rising town, having considerable traffic; it is singularly European in appearance, with macadamized streets and a public garden. The name Deir means monastery, but there is no other trace or tradition of the occupation of the site before the 14th century, and until it became the capital of the sanjak it was an insignificant village. It is an important centre for the control of the Bedouin Arabs, and has a garrison of about 1000 troops, including a special corps of mule-riders. It is also a road centre, the roads from the Mediterranean to Bagdad by way of Aleppo and Damascus respectively meeting here. A road also leads northward, by Sinjar, to Mosul, crossing the river on a stone bridge, built in 1897, the only permanent bridge over the Euphrates south of Asia Minor. (J. P. Pe.)
DEIRA, the southern of the two English kingdoms afterwards united as Northumbria. According to Simeon of Durham it extended from the Humber to the Tyne, but the land was waste north of the Tees. York was the capital of its kings. The date of its first settlement is quite unknown, but the first king of whom we have any record is Ella or Ælle, the father of Edwin, who is said to have been reigning about 585. After his death Deira was subject to Æthelfrith, king of Northumbria, until the accession of Edwin, in 616 or 617, who ruled both kingdoms (see Edwin) till 633. Osric the nephew of Edwin ruled Deira (633-634), but his son Oswine was put to death by Oswio in 651. For a few years subsequently Deira was governed by Æthelwald son of Oswald.
See Bede, _Historia ecclesiastica_, ii. 14, iii. 1, 6, 14 (ed. C. Plummer, Oxford, 1896); Nennius, _Historia Brittonum_, § 64 (ed. Th. Mommsen, Berlin, 1898); Simeon of Durham, _Opera_, i. 339 (ed. T. Arnold, London, 1882-1885). (F. G. M. B.)
DEISM (Lat. _deus_, god), strictly the belief in one supreme God. It is however the received name for a current of rationalistic theological thought which, though not confined to one country, or to any well-defined period, was most conspicuous in England in the last years of the 17th and the first half of the 18th century. The deists, differing widely in important matters of belief, were yet agreed in seeking above all to establish the certainty and sufficiency of natural religion in opposition to the positive religions, and in tacitly or expressly denying the unique significance of the supernatural revelation in the Old and New Testaments. They either ignored the Scriptures, endeavoured to prove them in the main by a helpful republication of the _Evangelium aeternum_, or directly impugned their divine character, their infallibility, and the validity of their evidences as a complete manifestation of the will of God. The term "deism" not only is used to signify the main body of the deists' teaching, or the tendency they represent, but has come into use as a technical term for one specific metaphysical doctrine as to the relation of God to the universe, assumed to have been characteristic of the deists, and to have distinguished them from atheists, pantheists and theists,--the belief, namely, that the first cause of the universe is a personal God, who is, however, not only distinct from the world but apart from it and its concerns.
The words "deism" and "deist" appear first about the middle of the 16th century in France (cf. Bayle's _Dictionnaire, s.v._ "Viret," note D), though the deistic standpoint had already been foreshadowed to some extent by Averroists, by Italian authors like Boccaccio and Petrarch, in More's _Utopia_ (1515), and by French writers like Montaigne, Charron and Bodin. The first specific attack on deism in English was Bishop Stillingfleet's _Letter to a Deist_ (1677). By the majority of those historically known as the English deists, from Blount onwards, the name was owned and honoured. They were also occasionally called "rationalists." "Free-thinker" (in Germany, _Freidenker_) was generally taken to be synonymous with "deist," though obviously capable of a wider signification, and as coincident with _esprit fort_ and with _libertin_ in the original and theological sense of the word.[1] "Naturalists" was a name frequently used of such as recognized no god but nature, of so-called Spinozists, atheists; but both in England and Germany, in the 18th century, this word was more commonly and aptly in use for those who founded their religion on the _lumen naturae_ alone. It was evidently in common use in the latter half of the 16th century as it is used by De Mornay in _De la vérité de la religion chrétienne_ (1581) and by Montaigne. The same men were not seldom assaulted under the name of "theists"; the later distinction between "theist" and "deist," which stamped the latter word as excluding the belief in providence or in the immanence of God, was apparently formulated in the end of the 18th century by those rationalists who were aggrieved at being identified with the naturalists. (See also THEISM.)
The chief names amongst the deists are those of Lord Herbert of Cherbury (1583-1648), Charles Blount (1654-1693), Matthew Tindal (1657-1733), William Wollaston (1659-1724), Thomas Woolston (1669-1733), Junius Janus (commonly known as John) Toland (1670-1722), the 3rd earl of Shaftesbury (1671-1713), Viscount Bolingbroke (1678-1751), Anthony Collins (1676-1729), Thomas Morgan (?-1743), and Thomas Chubb (1679-1747).[2] Peter Annet (1693-1769), and Henry Dodwell (the younger; d. 1784), who made his contribution to the controversy in 1742, are of less importance. Of the eleven first named, ten appear to have been born within twenty-five years of one another; and it is noteworthy that by far the greater part of the literary activity of the deists, as well as of their voluminous opponents, falls within the same half century.
The impulses that promoted a vein of thought cognate to deism were active both before and after the time of its greatest notoriety. But there are many reasons to show why, in the 17th century, men should have set themselves with a new zeal, in politics, law and theology, to follow the light of nature alone, and to cast aside the fetters of tradition and prescriptive right, of positive codes, and scholastic systems, and why in England especially there should, amongst numerous free-thinkers, have been not a few free writers. The significance of the Copernican system, as the total overthrow of the traditional conception of the universe, dawned on all educated men. In physics, Descartes had prepared the way for the final triumph of the mechanical explanation of the world in Newton's system. In England the new philosophy had broken with time-honoured beliefs more completely than it had done even in France; Hobbes was more startling than Bacon. Locke's philosophy, as well as his theology, served as a school for the deists. Men had become weary of Protestant scholasticism; religious wars had made peaceful thinkers seek to take the edge off dogmatical rancour; and the multiplicity of religious sects, coupled with the complete failure of various attempts at any substantial reconciliation, provoked distrust of the common basis on which all were founded. There was a school of distinctively latitudinarian thought in the Church of England; others not unnaturally thought it better to extend the realm of the _adiaphora_ beyond the sphere of Protestant ritual or the details of systematic divinity. Arminianism had revived the rational side of theological method. Semi-Arians and Unitarians, though sufficiently distinguished from the free-thinkers by reverence for the letter of Scripture, might be held to encourage departure from the ancient landmarks. The scholarly labours of P. D. Huet, R. Simon, L. E. Dupin, and Jean Le Clerc (Clericus), of the orientalists John Lightfoot, John Spencer and Humphrey Prideaux, of John Mill, the collator of New Testament readings, and John Fell, furnished new materials for controversy; and the scope of Spinoza's _Tractatus theologico-politicus_ had naturally been much more fully apprehended than ever his _Ethica_ could be. The success of the English revolution permitted men to turn from the active side of political and theological controversy to speculation and theory; and curiosity was more powerful than faith. Much new ferment was working. The toleration and the free press of England gave it scope. Deism was one of the results, and is an important link in the chain of thought from the Reformation to our own day.
Long before England was ripe to welcome deistic thought Lord Herbert of Cherbury earned the name "Father of Deism" by laying down the main line of that religious philosophy which in various forms continued ever after to be the backbone of deistic systems. He based his theology on a comprehensive, if insufficient, survey of the nature, foundation, limits and tests of human knowledge. And amongst the divinely implanted, original, indefeasible _notitiae communes_ of the human mind, he found as foremost his five articles:--that there is one supreme God, that he is to be worshipped, that worship consists chiefly of virtue and piety, that we must repent of our sins and cease from them, and that there are rewards and punishments here and hereafter. Thus Herbert sought to do for the religion of nature what his friend Grotius was doing for natural law,--making a new application of the standard of Vincent of Lerins, _Quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus_. It is important to notice that Herbert, as English ambassador at Paris, united in himself the currents of French and English thought, and also that his De Veritate, published in Latin and translated into French, did not appear in an English version.
Herbert had hardly attempted a systematic criticism of the Christian revelation either as a whole or in its details. Blount, a man of a very different spirit, did both, and in so doing may be regarded as having inaugurated the second main line of deistic procedure, that of historico-critical examination of the Old and New Testaments. Blount adopted and expanded Hobbes's arguments against the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch; and, mainly in the words of Burnet's _Archeologiae philosophicae_, he asserts the total inconsistency of the Mosaic Hexaemeron with the Copernican theory of the heavens, dwelling with emphasis on the impossibility of admitting the view developed in Genesis, that the earth is the most important part of the universe. He assumes that the narrative was meant _ethically_, not _physically_, in order to eliminate false and polytheistic notions; and he draws attention to that double narrative in Genesis which was elsewhere to be so fruitfully handled. The examination of the miracles of Apollonius of Tyana, professedly founded on papers of Lord Herbert's, is meant to suggest similar considerations with regard to the miracles of Christ. Naturalistic explanations of some of these are proposed, and a mythical theory is distinctly foreshadowed when Blount dwells on the inevitable tendency of men, especially long after the event, to discover miracles attendant on the birth and death of their heroes. Blount assaults the doctrine of a mediator as irreligious. He dwells much more pronouncedly than Herbert on the view, afterwards regarded as a special characteristic of all deists, that much or most error in religion has been invented or knowingly maintained by sagacious men for the easier maintenance of good government, or in the interests of themselves and their class. And when he heaps suspicion, not on Christian dogmas, but on beliefs of which the resemblance to Christian tenets is sufficiently patent, the real aim is so transparent that his method seems to partake rather of the nature of literary eccentricity than of polemical artifice; yet by this disingenuous indirectness he gave his argument that savour of duplicity which ever after clung to the popular conception of deism.
Shaftesbury, dealing with matters for the most part different from those usually handled by the deists, stands almost wholly out of their ranks. But he showed how loosely he held the views he did not go out of his way to attack, and made it plain how little weight the letter of Scripture had for himself; and, writing with much greater power than any of the deists, he was held to have done more than any one of them to forward the cause for which they wrought. Founding ethics on the native and cultivable capacity in men to appreciate worth in men and actions, and, like the ancient Greek thinkers whom he followed, associating the apprehension of morality with the apprehension of beauty, he makes morality wholly independent of scriptural enactment, and still more, of theological forecasting of future bliss or agony. He yet insisted on religion as the crown of virtue; and, arguing that religion is inseparable from a high and holy enthusiasm for the divine plan of the universe, he sought the root of religion in feeling, not in accurate beliefs or meritorious good works. He set little store on the theology of those who in a system of dry and barren notions "pay handsome compliments to the Deity," "remove providence," "explode devotion," and leave but "little of zeal, affection, or warmth in what they call rational religion." In the protest against the scheme of "judging truth by counting noses," Shaftesbury recognized the danger of the standard which seemed to satisfy many deists; and in almost every respect he has more in common with those who afterwards, in Germany, annihilated the pretensions of complacent rationalism than with the rationalists themselves.
Toland, writing at first professedly without hostility to any of the received elements of the Christian faith, insisted that Christianity was not mysterious, and that the value of religion could not lie in any unintelligible or self-contradictory elements; though we cannot know the real essence of God or of any of his creatures, yet our beliefs about God must be thoroughly consistent with reason. Afterwards, Toland discussed, with considerable real learning and much show of candour, the comparative evidence for the canonical and apocryphal Scriptures, and demanded a careful and complete historical examination of the grounds on which our acceptance of the New Testament canon rests. He contributed little to the solution of the problem, but forced the investigation of the canon alike on theologians and the reading public. Again, he sketched a view of early church history, further worked out by Johann Salomo Semler (1725-1791), and surprisingly like that which was later elaborated by the Tübingen school. He tried to show, both from Scripture and extra-canonical literature, that the primitive church, so far from being an incorporate body of believers with the same creed and customs, really consisted of two schools, each possessing its "own gospel"--a school of Ebionites or Judaizing Christians, and the more liberal school of Paul. These parties, consciously but amicably differing in their whole relation to the Jewish law and the outside world, were subsequently forced into a non-natural uniformity. The cogency of Toland's arguments was weakened by his manifest love of paradox. Wollaston upheld the "intellectual" theory of morality, and all his reasoning is independent of any authority or evidence derived from revelation. His system was simplicity itself, all sin being reduced to the one form of lying. He favoured the idea of a future life as being necessary to set right the mistakes and inequalities of the present.
Collins, who had created much excitement by his _Discourse of Free-thinking_, insisting on the value and necessity of unprejudiced inquiry, published at a later stage of the deistic controversy the famous argument on the evidences of Christianity. Christianity is founded on Judaism; its main prop is the argument from the fulfilment of prophecy. Yet no interpretation or rearrangement of the text of Old Testament prophecies will secure a fair and non-allegorical correspondence between these and their alleged fulfilment in the New Testament. The inference is not expressly drawn, though it becomes perfectly clear from his refutation of William Whiston's curious counter theory that there were in the original Hebrew scriptures prophecies which were literally fulfilled in the New Testament, but had been expunged at an early date by Jewish scribes. Collins indicates the possible extent to which the Jews may have been indebted to Chaldeans and Egyptians for their theological views, especially as great part of the Old Testament would appear to have been remodelled by Ezra; and, after dwelling on the points in which the prophecies attributed to Daniel differ from all other Old Testament predictions, he states the greater number of the arguments still used to show that the book of Daniel deals with events past and contemporaneous, and is from the pen of a writer of the Maccabean period, a view now generally accepted. Collins resembles Blount in "attacking specific Christian positions rather than seeking for a foundation on which to build the edifice of Natural Religion." Amongst those who replied to him were Richard Bentley, Edward Chandler, bishop of Lichfield, and Thomas Sherlock, afterwards bishop of London, who also attacked Woolston. They refuted him easily on many specific points, but carefully abstained from discussing the real question at issue, namely the propriety of free inquiry.
Woolston, at first to all appearance working earnestly in behalf of an allegorical but believing interpretation of the New Testament miracles, ended by assaulting, with a yet unknown violence of speech, the absurdity of accepting them as actual historical events, and did his best to overthrow the credibility of Christ's principal miracles. The bitterness of his outspoken invective against the clergy, against all priestcraft and priesthood, was a new feature in deistic literature, and injured the author more than it furthered his cause.
Tindal's aim seems to have been a sober statement of the whole case in favour of natural religion, with copious but moderately worded criticism of such beliefs and usages in the Christian and other religions as he conceived to be either non-religious or directly immoral and unwholesome. The work in which he endeavoured to prove that true Christianity is as old as the creation, and is really but the republication of the gospel of nature, soon gained the name of the "Deist's Bible." It was against Tindal that the most important of the orthodox replies were directed, e.g. John Conybeare's _Defence of Revealed Religion_, William Law's _Case of Reason_ and, to a large extent, Butler's _Analogy_.
Morgan criticized with great freedom the moral character of the persons and events of Old Testament history, developing the theory of conscious "accommodation" on the part of the leaders of the Jewish church. This accommodation of truth, by altering the form and substance of it to meet the views and secure the favour of ignorant and bigoted contemporaries, Morgan attributes also to the apostles and to Jesus. He likewise expands at great length a theory of the origin of the Catholic Church much like that sketched by Toland, but assumes that Paul and his party, latterly at least, were distinctly hostile to the Judaical party of their fellow-believers in Jesus as the Messias, while the college of the original twelve apostles and their adherents viewed Paul and his followers with suspicion and disfavour. Persecution from without Morgan regards as the influence which mainly forced the antagonistic parties into the oneness of the catholic and orthodox church. Morgan "seems to have discerned the dawning of a truer and better method" than the others. "He saw dimly that things require to be accounted for as well as affirmed or denied," and he was "one of the pioneers of modern historical science as applied to biblical criticism."
Annet made it his special work to invalidate belief in the resurrection of Christ, and to discredit the work of Paul.
Chubb, the least learnedly educated of the deists, did more than any of them, save Herbert, to round his system into a logical whole. From the New Testament he sought to show that the teaching of Christ substantially coincides with natural religion as he understood it. But his main contention is that Christianity is not a doctrine but a life, not the reception of a system of truths or facts, but a pious effort to live in accordance with God's will here, in the hope of joining him hereafter. Chubb dwells with special emphasis on the fact that Christ preached the gospel to the poor, and argues, as Tindal had done, that the gospel must therefore be accessible to all men without any need for learned study of evidences for miracles, and intelligible to the meanest capacity. He sought to show that even in the New Testament there are essential contradictions, and instances the unconditional forgiveness preached by Christ in the gospels as compared with Paul's doctrine of forgiveness by the mediation of Christ. Externally Chubb is interesting as representing the deism of the people contrasted with that of Tindal the theologian.
Dodwell's ingenious thesis, that Christianity is not founded on argument, was certainly not meant as an aid to faith; and, though its starting-point is different from all other deistical works, it may safely be reckoned amongst their number.
Though himself contemporary with the earlier deists, Bolingbroke's principal works were posthumously published after interest in the controversy had declined. His whole strain, in sharp contrast to that of most of his predecessors, is cynical and satirical, and suggests that most of the matters discussed were of small personal concern to himself. He gives fullest scope to the ungenerous view that a vast proportion of professedly revealed truth was ingeniously palmed off by the more cunning on the more ignorant for the convenience of keeping the latter under. But he writes with keenness and wit, and knows well how to use the materials already often taken advantage of by earlier deists.
Before passing on to a summary of the deistic position, it is necessary to say something of the views of Conyers Middleton (q.v.), who, though he never actually severed himself from orthodoxy, yet advanced theories closely analogous to those of the deists. His most important theological work was that devoted to an exposure of patristic miracles. His attack was based largely on arguments which could be turned with equal force against the miracles of the New Testament, and he even went further than previous rationalists in impugning the credibility of statements as to alleged miracles emanating from martyrs and the fathers of the early church. That Middleton was prepared to carry this type of argument into the apostolic period is shown by certain posthumous essays (_Miscellaneous Works_; ii. pp. 255 ff.), in which he charges the New Testament writers with inconsistency and the apostles with suppressing their cherished beliefs on occasions of difficulty.
In the substance of what they received as natural religion, the deists were for the most part agreed; Herbert's articles continued to contain the fundamentals of their theology. Religion, though not identified with morality, had its most important outcome in a faithful following of the eternal laws of morality, regarded as the will of God. With the virtuous life was further to be conjoined a humble disposition to adore the Creator, avoiding all factitious forms of worship as worse than useless. The small value they attributed to all outward and special forms of service, and the want of any sympathetic craving for the communion of saints, saved the deists from attempting to found a free-thinking church. They seem generally to have inclined to a quietistic accommodation to established forms of faith, till better times came. They steadfastly sought to eliminate the miraculous from theological belief, and to expel from the system of religious truth all debatable, difficult or mysterious articles. They aimed at a rational and intelligible faith, professedly in order to make religion, in all its width and depth, the heritage of every man. They regarded with as much suspicion the notion of a "peculiar people" of God, as of a unique revelation, and insisted on the possibility of salvation for the heathen. They rejected the doctrine of the Trinity, and protested against mediatorship, atonement and the imputed righteousness of Christ, always laying more stress on the teaching of Christ than on the teaching of the church about him; but they repeatedly laid claim to the name of Christians or of Christian deists. Against superstition, fanaticism and priestcraft they protested unceasingly. They all recognized the soul of man--not regarded as intellectual alone--as the ultimate court of appeal. But they varied much in their attitude towards the Bible. Some were content to argue their own ideas into Scripture, and those they disliked out of it; to one or two it seemed a satisfaction to discover difficulties in Scripture, to point to historical inaccuracies and moral defects. Probably Chubb's position on this head is most fairly characteristic of deism. He holds that the narrative, especially of the New Testament, is in the main accurate, but, as written after the events narrated, has left room for misunderstandings and mistakes. The apostles were good men, to whom, after Christ, we are most indebted; but they were fairly entitled to their own private opinions, and naturally introduced these into their writings. The epistles, according to Chubb, contain errors of fact, false interpretations of the Old Testament, and sometimes disfigurement of religious truth.
The general tendency of the deistical writings is sufficiently self-consistent to justify a common name. But deism is not a compact system nor is it the outcome of any one line of philosophical thought. Of matters generally regarded as pertaining to natural religion, that on which they were least agreed was the certainty, philosophical demonstrability and moral significance of the immortality of the soul, so that the deists have sometimes been grouped into "mortal" and "immortal" deists. For some the belief in future rewards and punishments was an essential of religion; some seem to have questioned the doctrine as a whole; and, while others made it a basis of morality, Shaftesbury protested against the ordinary theological form of the belief as immoral. No two thinkers could well be more opposed than Shaftesbury and Hobbes; yet sometimes ideas from both were combined by the same writer. Collins was a pronounced necessitarian; Morgan regarded the denial of free will as tantamount to atheism. And nothing can be more misleading than to assume that the belief in a Creator, existent wholly apart from the work of his hands, was characteristic of the deists as a body. In none of them is any theory on the subject specially prominent, except that in their denial of miracles, of supernatural revelation, and a special redemptive interposition of God in history, they seem to have thought of providence much as the mass of their opponents did. Herbert starts his chief theological work with the design of vindicating God's providence. Shaftesbury vigorously protests against the notion of a wholly transcendent God. Morgan more than once expresses a theory that would now be pronounced one of immanence. Toland, the inventor of the name of pantheism, was notoriously, for a great part of his life, in some sort a pantheist. And while as thinkers they diverged in their opinions, so too they differed radically in character, in reverence for their subject and in religious earnestness and moral worth.
The deists were not powerful writers; none of them was distinguished by wide and accurate scholarship; hardly any was either a deep or comprehensive thinker. But though they generally had the best scholarship of England against them, they were bold, acute, well-informed men; they appreciated more fully than their contemporaries not a few truths now all but universally accepted; and they seemed therefore entitled to leave their mark on subsequent theological thought. Yet while the seed they sowed was taking deep root in France and in Germany, the English deists, the most notable men of their time, were soon forgotten, or at least ceased to be a prominent factor in the intellectual life of the century. The controversies they had provoked collapsed, and deism became a by-word even amongst those who were in no degree anxious to appear as champions of orthodoxy.
The fault was not wholly in the subjectivism of the movement. But the subjectivism that founded its theology on the "common sense" of the individual was accompanied by a fatal pseudo-universalism which, cutting away all that was peculiar, individual and most intense in all religions, left in any one of them but a lifeless form. A theology consisting of a few vague generalities was sufficient to sustain the piety of the best of the deists; but it had not the concreteness or intensity necessary to take a firm hold on those whom it emancipated from the old beliefs. The negative side of deism came to the front, and, communicated with fatal facility, seems ultimately to have constituted the deism that was commonly professed at the clubs of the wits and the tea-tables of polite society. But the intenser religious life before which deism fell was also a revolt against the abstract and argumentative orthodoxy of the time.
That the deists appreciated fully the scope of difficulties in Christian theology and the sacred books is not their most noteworthy feature; but that they made a stand, sometimes cautiously, often with outspoken fearlessness, against the presupposition that the Bible is the religion of Protestants. They themselves gave way to another presupposition equally fatal to true historical research, though in great measure common to them and their opponents. It was assumed by deists in debating against the orthodox, that the flood of error in the hostile camp was due to the benevolent cunning or deliberate self-seeking of unscrupulous men, supported by the ignorant with the obstinacy of prejudice.
Yet deism deserves to be remembered as a strenuous protest against bibliolatry in every degree and against all traditionalism in theology. It sought to look not a few facts full in the face, from a new point of view and with a thoroughly modern though unhistorical spirit. It was not a religious movement; and though, as a defiance of the accepted theology, its character was mainly theological, the deistical crusade belongs, not to the history of the church, or of dogma, but to the history of general culture. It was an attitude of mind, not a body of doctrine; its nearest parallel is probably to be found in the eclectic strivings of the Renaissance philosophy and the modernizing tendencies of cisalpine humanism. The controversy was assumed to be against prejudice, ignorance, obscurantism; what monks were to Erasmus the clergy as such were to Woolston. Yet English deism was in many ways characteristically English. The deists were, as usually happens with the leaders of English thought, no class of professional men, but represented every rank in the community. They made their appeal in the mother tongue to all men who could read and think, and sought to reduce the controversy to its most direct practical issue. And, with but one or two exceptions, they avoided wildness in their language as much as in the general scheme of theology they proposed. If at times they had recourse to ambiguity of speech and veiled polemic, this might be partly excused when we remember the hanging of Thomas Aikenhead in 1697 for ridiculing the Bible, and Woolston's imprisonment in 1729.
French deism, the direct progeny of the English movement, was equally short-lived. Voltaire during his three years' residence in England (1726-1729) absorbed an enthusiasm for freedom of thought, and provided himself with the arguments necessary to support the deism which he had learned in his youth; he was to the end a deist of the school of Bolingbroke. Rousseau, though not an active assailant of Christianity, could have claimed kindred with the nobler deists. Diderot was for a time heartily in sympathy with deistic thought; and the _Encyclopédie_ was in its earlier portion an organ of deism. Even in the Roman Catholic Church a large number of the leading divines were frankly deistic, nor were they for that reason regarded as irreligious. But as Locke's philosophy became in France sensationalism, and as Locke's pregnant question, reiterated by Collins, how we know that the divine power might not confer thought on matter, led the way to dogmatic materialism, so deism soon gave way to forms of thought more directly and completely subversive of the traditional theology. None the less it is unquestionable that in the period preceding the Revolution the bulk of French thinkers were ultimately deists in various degrees, and that deism was a most potent factor not only in speculative but also in social and political development. Many of the leaders of the revolutionary movement were deists, though it is quite false to say that the extreme methods of the movement were the result of widespread rationalism.
In Germany there was a native free-thinking theology nearly contemporary with that of England, whence it was greatly developed and supplemented. Among the earliest names are those of Georg Schade (1712-1795), J. B. Basedow (1723-1790), the educationist, Johann August Eberhard (q.v.); and K. F. Bahrdt, who regarded Christ as merely a noble teacher like Moses, Confucius and Luther. The compact rational philosophy of Wolff nourished a theological rationalism which in H. S. Reimarus was wholly undistinguishable from dogmatic deism, and was undoubtedly to a great extent adopted by Lessing; while, in the case of the historico-critical school to which J. S. Sender belonged, the distinction is not always easily drawn--although these rationalists professedly recognized in Scripture a real divine revelation, mingled with local and temporary elements. It deserves to be noted here that the former, the theology of the _Aufklärung_, was, like that of the deists, destined to a short-lived notoriety; whereas the solid, accurate and scholarly researches of the rationalist critics of Germany, undertaken with no merely polemical spirit, not only form an epoch in the history of theology, but have taken a permanent place in the body of theological science. Ere _rationalismus vulgaris_ fell before the combined assault of Schleiermacher's subjective theology and the deeper historical insight of the Hegelians, it had found a refuge successively in the Kantian postulates of the practical reason, and in the vague but earnest faith-philosophy of Jacobi.
Outside France, Germany and England, there were no great schools of thought distinctively deistic, though in most countries there is to be found a rationalistic anti-clerical movement which partakes of the character of deism. It seems probable, for example, that in Portugal the marquis de Pombal was in reality a deist, and both in Italy and in Spain there were signs of the same rationalistic revolt. More certain, and also more striking, is the fact that the leading statesmen in the American War of Independence were emphatically deists; Benjamin Franklin (who attributes his position to the study of Shaftesbury and Collins), Thomas Paine, Washington and Jefferson, although they all had the greatest admiration for the New Testament story, denied that it was based on any supernatural revelation. For various reasons the movement in America did not appear on the surface to any great extent, and after the comparative failure of Elihu Palmer's _Principles of Nature_ it expressed itself chiefly in the spread of Unitarianism.
In England, though the deists were forgotten, their spirit was not wholly dead. For men like Hume and Gibbon the standpoint of deism was long left behind; yet Gibbon's famous two chapters might well have been written by a deist. Even now many undoubtedly cling to a theology nearly allied to deism. Rejecting miracles and denying the infallibility of Scripture, protesting against Calvinistic views of sovereign grace and having no interest in evangelical Arminianism, the faith of such inquirers seems fairly to coincide with that of the deists. Even some cultured theologians, the historical representatives of latitudinarianism, seem to accept the great body of what was contended for by the deists. Moreover, the influence of the deistic writers had an incalculable influence in the gradual progress towards tolerance, and in the spread of a broader attitude towards intellectual problems, and this too, though, as we have seen, the original deists devoted themselves mainly to a crusade against the doctrine of revelation.
The original deists displayed a singular incapacity to understand the true conditions of history; yet amongst them there were some who pointed the way to the truer, more generous interpretation of the past. When Shaftesbury wrote that "religion is still a discipline, and progress of the soul towards perfection," he gave birth to the same thought that was afterwards hailed in Lessing's _Erziehung des Menschengeschlechtes_ as the dawn of a fuller and a purer light on the history of religion and on the development of the spiritual life of mankind.
AUTHORITIES.--See John Leland, _A View of the Principal Deistical Writers_ (2 vols., 1754-1756; ed. 1837); G. V. Lechler, _Geschichte des englischen Deismus_ (2 vols., 1841); L. Noack, _Die Freidenker in der Religion_ (Bern, 1853-1855); John Hunt, _Religious Thought in England_ (3 vols., 1870-1872); Leslie Stephen, _History of English Thought in the 18th Century_ (2 vols., 1876); A. S. Farrar, _A Critical History of Free Thought_ (1862, Bampton Lectures); J. H. Overton and F. Relton, _The English Church from the Accession of George I. to the end of the 18th Century_ (1906; especially chap. iv., "The Answer to Deism"); A. W. Benn, _History of English Rationalism in the 19th Century_ (1906); i. 111 ff.; J. M. Robertson, _Short History of Free Thought_ (1906); G. Ch. B. Pünjer, _Geschichte der christlichen Religionsphilosophie seit der Reformation_ (Brunswick, 1880); M. W. Wiseman, _Dynamics of Religion_ (London, 1897), pt. ii.; article "Deismus" in Herzog-Hauck, _Realencyklopädie_ (vol. iv., 1898).
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The right of the orthodox party to use this name was asserted by the publication in 1715 of a journal called _The Freethinker_, conducted by anti-deistic clergymen. The term _libertin_ appears to have been used first as a hostile epithet of the Brethren of the Free Spirit, a 13th-century sect which was accused not only of free-thought but also of licentious living.
[2] See the separate biographies of these writers. The three most significant names after Lord Herbert are those of Toland, Wollaston and Tindal.
DEISTER, a chain of hills in Germany, in the Prussian province of Hanover, about 15 m. S.W. of the city of Hanover. It runs in a north-westerly direction from Springe in the S. to Rodenberg in the N. It has a total length of 14 m., and rises in the Höfeler to a height of 1250 ft. The chain is well-wooded and abounds in game. There are some coal mines and sandstone quarries.
DÉJAZET, PAULINE VIRGINIE (1798-1875), French actress, born in Paris on the 30th of August 1798, made her first appearance on the stage at the age of five. It was not until 1820, when she began her seven years' connexion with the recently founded Gymnase, that she won her triumphs in soubrette and "breeches" parts, which came to be known as "_Dêjazets_." From 1828 she played at the Nouveautés for three years, then at the Variétés, and finally became manager, with her son, of the Folies, which was renamed the Théâtre Déjazet. Here, even at the age of sixty-five, she had marvellous success in youthful parts, especially in a number of Sardou's earlier plays, previously unacted. She retired in 1868, and died on the 1st of December 1875, leaving a great name in the annals of the French stage.
See Duval's _Virginie Déjazet_ (1876).
DE KALB, a city of De Kalb county, Illinois, U.S.A., in the N. part of the state, about 58 m. W. of Chicago. Pop. (1890) 2579; (1900) 5904 (1520 foreign-born); (1910) 8102. De Kalb is served by the Chicago Great Western, the Chicago & North-Western, and the Illinois, Iowa & Minnesota railways, and by interurban electric lines. It is the seat of the Northern Illinois state normal school (opened in 1899). The principal manufactures of De Kalb are woven and barbed wire, waggons and agricultural implements, pianos, shoes, gloves, and creamery packages. The city has important dairy interests also. De Kalb was first settled in 1832, was known as Buena Vista until 1840, was incorporated as a village in 1861, and in 1877 was organized under the general state law as a city.
DE KEYSER, THOMAS (1596 or 1597-1667), Dutch painter, was born at Amsterdam, the son of the architect and sculptor Hendrik de Keyser. We have no definite knowledge of his training, and but scant information as to the course of his life, though it is known that he owned a basalt business between 1640 and 1654. Aert Pietersz, Cornelis vanider Voort, Werner van Valckert and Nicolas Elias are accredited by different authorities with having developed his talent; and M. Karl Woermann, who has pronounced in favour of Nicolas Elias is supported by the fact that almost all that master's pictures were formerly attributed to De Keyser, who, in like fashion, exercised some influence upon Rembrandt when he first went to Amsterdam in 1631. De Keyser chiefly excelled as a portrait painter, though he also executed some historical and mythological pictures, such as the "Theseus" and "Ariadne" in the Amsterdam town hall. His portraiture is full of character and masterly in handling, and often, as in the "Old Woman" of the Budapest gallery, is distinguished by a rich golden glow of colour and Rembrandtesque chiaroscuro. Some of his portraits are life-size, but the artist generally preferred to keep them on a considerably smaller scale, like the famous "Group of Amsterdam Burgomasters" assembled to receive Marie de' Medici in 1638, now at the Hague museum. The sketch for this important painting, together with three other drawings, was sold at the Gallitzin sale in 1783 for the sum of threepence. The German emperor owns an "Equestrian Portrait of a young Dutchman," by De Keyser, a late work which in general disposition and in the soft manner of painting recalled the work of Cuyp. Similar pictures are in the Dresden and Frankfort museums, in the Heyl collection at Worms, and the Liechtenstein Gallery in Vienna. The National Gallery, London, owns a characteristic portrait group of a "Merchant with his Clerk"; the Hague museum, besides the group already referred to, a magnificent "Portrait of a Savant," and the Haarlem museum a fine portrait of "Claes Fabricius." At the Ryks Museum in Amsterdam there are no fewer than twelve works from his brush, and other important examples are to be found in Brussels, Munich, Copenhagen and St Petersburg.
DEKKER, EDWARD DOUWES (1820-1887), Dutch writer, commonly known as MULTATULI, was born at Amsterdam on the 2nd of March 1820. His father, a ship's captain, intended his son for trade, but this humdrum prospect disgusted him, and in 1838 he went out to Java, and obtained a post in the Inland Revenue. He rose from one position to another, until, in 1851, he found himself assistant-resident at Amboyna, in the Moluccas. In 1857 he was transferred to Lebak, in the Bantam residency of Java. By this time, however, all the secrets of Dutch administration were known to him, and he had begun to protest against the abuses of the colonial system. In consequence he was threatened with dismissal from his office for his openness of speech, and, throwing up his appointment, he returned to Holland in a state of fierce indignation. He determined to expose in detail the scandals he had witnessed, and he began to do so in newspaper articles and pamphlets. Little notice, however, was taken of his protestations until, in 1860, he published, under the pseudonym of "Multatuli," his romance entitled _Max Havelaar_. An attempt was made to ignore this brilliant and irregular book, but in vain; it was read all over Europe. The exposure of the abuse of free labour in the Dutch Indies was complete, although there were not wanting apologists who accused Dekker's terrible picture of being over-coloured. He was now fairly launched on literature, and he lost no time in publishing _Love Letters_ (1861), which, in spite of their mild title, proved to be mordant satires of the most rancorous and unsparing kind. The literary merit of Multatuli's work was much contested; he received an unexpected and most valuable ally in Vosmaer. He continued to write much, and to faggot his miscellanies in uniform volumes called _Ideas_, of which seven appeared between 1862 and 1877. Douwes quitted Holland, snaking off her dust from his feet, and went to live at Wiesbaden. He now made several attempts to gain the stage, and one of his pieces, _The School for Princes_, 1875 (published in the fourth volume of _Ideas_), pleased himself so highly that he is said to have styled it the greatest drama ever written. It is a fine poem, written in blank verse, like an English tragedy, and not in Dutch Alexandrines; but it is undramatic, and has not held the boards. Douwes Dekker moved his residence to Nieder Ingelheim, on the Rhine, and there he died on the 19th of February 1887.
Towards the end of his career he was the centre of a crowd of disciples and imitators, who did his reputation no service; he is now, again, in danger of being read too little. To understand his fame, it is necessary to remember the sensational way in which he broke into the dulness of Dutch literature fifty years ago, like a flame out of the Far East. He was ardent, provocative, perhaps a little hysterical, but he made himself heard all over Europe. He brought an exceedingly severe indictment against the egotism and brutality of the administrators of Dutch India, and he framed it in a literary form which was brilliantly original. Not satisfied with this, he attacked, in a fury that was sometimes blind, everything that seemed to him falsely conventional in Dutch religion, government, society and morals. He respected nothing, he left no institution untouched. Now that it is possible to look back upon Multatuli without passion, we see in him, not what Dutch enthusiasm saw,--"the second writer of Europe in the nineteenth century" (Victor Hugo being presumably the first),--but a great man who was a powerful and glowing author, yet hardly an artist, a reckless enthusiast, who was inspired by indignation and a burning sense of justice, who cared little for his means if only he could produce his effect. He is seen to his best and worst in _Max Havelaar_; his _Ideas_, hard, fantastic and sardonic, seldom offer any solid satisfaction to the foreign reader. But Multatuli deserves remembrance, if only on account of the unequalled effect his writing had in rousing Holland from the intellectual and moral lethargy in which she lay half a century ago. (E. G.)
DEKKER, JEREMIAS DE (1610-1666), Dutch poet, was born at Dort in 1610. His father was a native of Antwerp, who, having embraced the reformed religion, had been compelled to take refuge in Holland. Entering his father's business at an early age, he found leisure to cultivate his taste for literature and especially for poetry, and to acquire without assistance a competent knowledge of English, French, Latin and Italian. His first poem was a paraphrase of the Lamentations of Jeremiah (_Klaagliederen van Jeremias_), which was followed by translations and imitations of Horace, Juvenal and other Latin poets. The most important of his original poems were a collection of epigrams (_Puntdichten_) and a satire in praise of avarice (_Lof der Geldzucht_). The latter is his best-known work. Written in a vein of light and yet effective irony, it is usually ranked by critics along with Erasmus's _Praise of Folly_. Dekker died at Amsterdam in November 1666.
A complete collection of his poems, edited by Brouerius van Nideck, was published at Amsterdam in 1726 under the title _Exercices poétiques_ (2 vols. 4to.). Selections from his poems are included in Siegenbeck's _Proeven van nederduitsche Dichtkunde_ (1823), and from his epigrams in Geijsbeek's _Epigrammatische Anthologie_ (1827).
DEKKER (or DECKER), THOMAS (c. 1570-1641), English dramatist, was born in London. His name occurs frequently in Henslowe's _Diary_ during the last three years of the 16th century; he is mentioned there as receiving loans and payments for writing plays in conjunction with Ben Jonson, Drayton, Chettle, Haughton, Wilson, Day and others, and he would appear to have been then in the most active employment as a playwright. The titles of the plays on which he was engaged from April 1599 to March 1599/1600 are _Troilus and Cressida_, _Orestes Fures_, _Agamemnon_, _The Gentle Craft_, _The Stepmother's Tragedy_, _Bear a Brain_, _Pagge of Plymouth_, _Robert the Second_, _The Whole History of Fortunatus_, _Patient Grissel_, _Truth's Supplication to Candlelight_, _The Spanish Moor's Tragedy_, _The Seven Wise Masters_. At that date it is evident that Dekker's services were in great request for the stage. He is first mentioned in the Diary under date 8th of January 1597/1598, as having sold a book, i.e. the manuscript of a play; the payments in 1599 are generally made in advance, "in earnest" of work to be done. In the case of three of the above plays, _Orestes Fures_, _Truth's Supplication_ and _The Gentle Craft_, Dekker is paid as the sole author. Only _The Gentle Craft_ has been preserved; it was published anonymously in 1600 under the title of _The Shoemaker's Holiday_. It would be unsafe to argue from the classical subjects of some of these plays that Dekker was then a young man from the university, who had come up like so many others to make a living by writing for the stage. Classical knowledge was then in the air; playwrights in want of a subject were content with translations, if they did not know the originals. However educated, Dekker was then a young man just out of his teens, if he spoke with any accuracy when he said that he was threescore in 1637. And it was not in scholarly themes that he was destined to find his true vein. The call for the publication of _The Gentle Craft_, which deals with the life of the city, showed him where his strength lay.
To give a general idea of the substance of Dekker's plays, there is no better way than to call him the Dickens of the Elizabethan period. The two men were as unlike as possible in their habits of work, Dekker having apparently all the thriftlessness and impecunious shamelessness of Micawber himself. Henslowe's _Diary_ contains two notes of payments made in 1597/1598 and 1598/1599 to release Dekker from prison, and he is supposed to have spent the years between 1613 and 1616 in the King's Bench. Dekker's Bohemianism appears in the slightness and hurry of his work, a strong contrast to the thoroughness and rich completeness of every labour to which Dickens applied himself; perhaps also in the exquisite freshness and sweetness of his songs, and the natural charm of stray touches of expression and description in his plays. But he was like Dickens in the bent of his genius towards the representation of the life around him in London, as well as in the humorous kindliness of his way of looking at that life, his vein of sentiment, and his eye for odd characters, though the random pickings of Dekker, hopping here and there in search of a subject, give less complete results than the more systematic labours of Dickens. Dekker's Simon Eyre, the good-hearted, mad shoemaker, and his Orlando Friscobaldo, are touched with a kindly humour in which Dickens would have delighted; his Infelices, Fiamettas, Tormiellas, even his Bellafront, have a certain likeness in type to the heroines of Dickens; and his roaring blades and their gulls are prototypes of Sir Mulberry Hawk and Lord Frederick Verisopht. Only there is this great difference in the spirit of the two writers, that Dekker wrote without the smallest apparent wish to reform the life that he saw, desiring only to exhibit it; and that on the whole, apart from his dramatist's necessity of finding interesting matter, he cast his eye about rather with a liking for the discovery of good under unpromising appearances than with any determination to detect and expose vice. The observation must also be made that Dekker's personages have much more individual character, more of that mixture of good and evil which we find in real human beings. Hack-writer though Dekker was, and writing often under sore pressure, there is no dramatist whose personages have more of the breath of life in them; drawing with easy, unconstrained hand, he was a master of those touches by which an imaginary figure is brought home to us as a creature with human interests. A very large part of the motive power in his plays consists in the temporary yielding to an evil passion. The kindly philosophy that the best of natures may be for a time perverted by passionate desires is the chief animating principle of his comedy. He delights in showing women listening to temptation, and apparently yielding, but still retaining sufficient control over themselves to be capable of drawing back when on the verge of the precipice. The wives of the citizens were his heroines, pursued by the unlawful addresses of the gay young courtiers; and on the whole Dekker, from inclination apparently as well as policy, though himself, if Ben Jonson's satire had any point, a bit of a dandy in his youth, took the part of morality and the city, and either struck the rakes with remorse or made the objects of their machinations clever enough to outwit them. From Dekker's plays we get a very lively impression of all that was picturesque and theatrically interesting in the city life of the time, the interiors of the shops and the houses, the tastes of the citizens and their wives, the tavern and tobacco-shop manners of the youthful aristocracy and their satellites. The social student cannot afford to overlook Dekker; there is no other dramatist of that age, except Thomas Middleton, from whom we can get such a vivid picture of contemporary manners in London. He drew direct from life; in so far as he idealized, he did so not in obedience to scholarly precepts or dogmatic theories, but in the immediate interests of good-natured farce and tender-hearted sentiment.
In all the serious parts of Dekker's plays there is a charming delicacy of touch, and his smallest scraps of song are bewitching; but his plays, as plays, owe much more to the interest of the characters and the incidents than to any excellence of construction. We see what use could be made of his materials by a stronger intellect in _Westward Ho!_ which he wrote in conjunction with John Webster. The play, somehow, though the parts are more firmly knit together, and it has more unity of purpose, is not so interesting as Dekker's unaided work. Middleton formed a more successful combination with Dekker than Webster; there is some evidence that in _The Honest Whore_, or _The Converted Courtesan_, which is generally regarded as the best that bears Dekker's name, he had the assistance of Middleton, although the assistance was so immaterial as not to be worth acknowledging in the title-page. Still that Middleton, a man of little genius but of much practical talent and robust humour, was serviceable to Dekker in determining the form of the play may well be believed. The two wrote another play in concert, _The Roaring Girl_, for which Middleton probably contributed a good deal of the matter, as well as a more symmetrical form than Dekker seems to have been capable of devising. In _The Witch of Edmonton_, except in a few scenes, it is difficult to trace the hand of Dekker with any certainty; his collaborators were John Ford and William Rowley; to Ford probably belongs the intense brooding and murderous wrath of the old hag, which are too direct and hard in their energy for Dekker, while Rowley may be supposed to be responsible for the delineation of country life. _The Virgin Martyr_, one of the best constructed of his plays, was written in conjunction with Massinger, to whom the form is no doubt due. Dekker's plays contain a few songs which show him to have been possessed of very great lyrical skill, but of this he seems to have made sadly little use. His poem of _Canaans Calamitie_--if indeed it be his, which is hard to believe--is exceedingly poor stuff, and the verse portion of his _Dreame_, though containing some good lines, is, as a whole, not much better.
When Gerard Langbaine wrote his _Account of the English Dramatic Poets_ in 1691, he spoke of Dekker as being "more famous for the contention he had with Ben Jonson for the bays, than for any great reputation he had gained by his own writings." This is an opinion that could not be professed now, when Dekker's work is read. In the contention with Ben Jonson, one of the most celebrated quarrels of authors, the origin of which is matter of dispute, Dekker seems to have had very much the best of it. We can imagine that Jonson's attack was stinging at the time, because it seems to be full of sarcastic personalities, but it is dull enough now when nobody knows what Dekker was like, nor what was the character of his mother. There is nothing in the _Poetaster_ that has any point as applied to Dekker's powers as a dramatist, while, on the contrary, _Satiromastix, or the Untrussing of the Humorous Poet_ is full of pungent ridicule of Jonson's style, and of retorts and insults conceived in the happiest spirit of good-natured mockery. Dekker has been accused of poverty of invention in adopting the character of the _Poetaster_, but it is of the very pith of the jest that Dekker should have set on Jonson's own foul-mouthed Captain Tucca to abuse Horace himself.
WORKS.--_The Pleasant Comedie of Old Fortunatus_ (1600); _The Shomakers Holiday. Or The gentle Craft. With the humorous life of Simon Eyre, shoomaker, and Lord Maior of London_ (1600); _Satiromastix. Or The untrussing of the Humorous Poet_ (1602); _The Pleasant Comodie of Patient Grissill_ (1603), with Chettle and Haughton; _The Honest Whore. With The Humours of the Patient Man, and the Longing Wife_ (1604); _North-Ward Hoe_ (1607), with John Webster; _West-Ward Hoe_ (1607), with John Webster; _The Whore of Babylon_ (1607); _The Famous History of Sir Thomas Wyat. With the Coronation of Queen Mary, and the coming in of King Philip_ (1607), with John Webster; _The Roaring Girle. Or Moll Cut-Purse_ (1611), with Thomas Middleton; _The Virgin Martir_ (1622), with Massinger; _If It Be Not Good, the Divel is in it_ (1612); _The Second Part of the Honest Whore. With the Humors of the Patient Man, the Impatient Wife; the Honest Whore, perswaded by strong Arguments to turne Curtizan againe; her brave refuting those Arguments. And lastly, the Comicall Passages of an Italian Bridewell, where the Scaene ends_ (1630); _A Tragi-Comedy: Called, Match mee in London_ (1631); _The Wonder of a Kingdome_ (1636); _The Witch of Edmonton. A known true Story. Composed into a Tragi-Comedy_ (1658), with William Rowley and John Ford. _The Sun's Darling_ (1656) was possibly written by Ford and Dekker, or may be perhaps more correctly regarded as a recast by Ford of a masque by Dekker, perhaps his lost play of _Phaëton_. The pageants for the Lord Mayor's shows of 1612 and 1629 were written by Dekker, and both are preserved. His tracts are invaluable for the light which they throw on the London of his time, especially in their descriptions of the circumstances of the theatre. Their titles, many of which are necessarily abbreviated, are: _Canaans Calamitie, Jerusalems Miserie, and Englands Mirror_ (1598), in verse; _The Wonderfull Yeare 1603. Wherein is shewed the picture of London lying sicke of the Plague_ (1603); _The Batchelars Banquet_ (1603); a brilliant adaptation of _Les Quinze Joyes de mariage_; the _Seven Deadly Sinnes of London_ (1606); _Newes from Hell, Brought by the Divells Carrier_ (1606), reprinted in the next year with some interesting additions as _A Knights Conjuring; Jests to make you Merie_ (1607), with George Wilkins; _The Belman of London: Bringing to Light the most notorious villanies that are now practised in the Kingdome_ (1608); followed by a second part and enlarged editions under other titles; _The Dead Tearme_ (1608); _The Ravens Almanacke, foretelling of a Plague, Famine and Civill Warre_ (1609), ridiculing the almanac makers; _The Guls Horne-booke_ (1609), the most famous of all his tracts, providing a code of manners for the Elizabethan gallant, in the aisle of St Paul's, at the ordinary, at the playhouse, and other resorts; _Worke for Armorours, or the Peace is Broken_ (1609); _Foure Birds of Noahs Ark_ (1609); _A Strange Horse-Race_ (1613); _Dekker his Dreame ..._ (1620), in verse and prose, illustrated with a woodcut of the dreamer; and _A Rod for Run-awayes_ (1625). This long list does not exhaust Dekker's work, much of which is lost.
AUTHORITIES.--An edition of the collected dramatic works of Dekker by R. H. Shepherd appeared in 1873; his prose tracts and poems were included in Dr A. B. Grosart's _Huth Library_ (1884-1886): both these contain memoirs of him, but by far the most complete account of his life and writings is to be found in the article by A. H. Bullen in the _Dictionary of National Biography_. See also the elaborate discussion of his plays in Mr Fleay's _Biographical Chronicle_ (1891), i. 115, &c., and, for his quarrel with Ben Jonson, Prof. J. H. Penniman's _War of the Theatres_ (Boston, 1897) and Mr R. A. Small's _Stage Quarrel between Ben Jonson and the so-called Poetasters_ (Breslau, 1899). A selection from his plays was edited for the Mermaid Series (1887; new series, 1904) by Ernest Rhys. An essay on Dekker by A. C. Swinburne appeared in _The Nineteenth Century_ for January 1887. (W. M.; R. B. McK.)
DE LA BECHE, SIR HENRY THOMAS (1796-1855), English geologist, was born in the year 1796. His father, an officer in the army, possessed landed property in Jamaica, but died while his son was still young. The boy accordingly spent his youth with his mother at Lyme Regis among the interesting and picturesque coast cliffs of the south-west of England, where he imbibed a love for geological pursuits and cultivated a marked artistic faculty. When fourteen years of age, being destined, like his friend Murchison, for the military profession, he entered the college at Great Marlow, where he distinguished himself by the rapidity and skill with which he executed sketches showing the salient features of a district. The peace of 1815, however, changed his career and he devoted himself with ever-increasing assiduity to the pursuit of geology. When only twenty-one years of age he joined the Geological Society of London, continuing throughout life to be one of its most active, useful and honoured members. He was president in 1848-1849. Possessing a fortune sufficient for the gratification of his tastes, he visited many localities of geological interest, not only in Britain, but also on the continent, in France and Switzerland. His journeys seldom failed to bear fruit in suggestive papers accompanied by sketches. Early attachment to the south-west of England led him back to that region, where, with enlarged experience, he began the detailed investigation of the rocks of Cornwall and Devon. Thrown much into contact with the mining community of that part of the country, he conceived the idea that the nation ought to compile a geological map of the United Kingdom, and collect and preserve specimens to illustrate, and aid in further developing, its mineral industries. He showed his skilful management of affairs by inducing the government of the day to recognize his work and give him an appointment in connexion with the Ordnance Survey. This formed the starting point of the present Geological Survey of Great Britain, which was officially recognized in 1835, when De la Beche was appointed director. Year by year increasing stores of valuable specimens were transmitted to London; and the building at Craig's Court, where the young Museum of Economic Geology was placed, became too small. But De la Beche, having seen how fruitful his first idea had become, appealed to the authorities not merely to provide a larger structure, but to widen the whole scope of the scientific establishment of which he was the head, so as to impart to it the character of a great educational institution where practical as well as theoretical instruction should be given in every branch of science necessary for the conduct of mining work. In this endeavour he was again successful. Parliament sanctioned the erection of a museum in Jermyn Street, London, and the organization Of a staff of professors with laboratories and other appliances. The establishment, in which were combined the offices of the Geological Survey, the Museum of Practical Geology, The Royal School of Mines and the Mining Record Office, was opened in 1851. Many foreign countries have since formed geological surveys avowedly based upon the organization and experience of that of the United Kingdom. The British colonies, also, have in many instances established similar surveys for the development of their mineral resources, and have had recourse to the parent survey for advice and for officers to conduct the operations.
De la Beche published numerous memoirs on English geology in the _Transactions of the Geological Society of London_, as well as in the _Memoirs of the Geological Survey_, notably the _Report on the Geology of Cornwall, Devon and West Somerset_ (1839). He likewise wrote _A Geological Manual_ (1831; 3rd ed., 1833); and a work of singular breadth and clearness--_Researches in Theoretical Geology_ (1834)--in which he enunciated a philosophical treatment of geological questions much in advance of his time. An early volume, _How to Observe Geology_ (1835 and 1836), was rewritten and enlarged by him late in life, and published under the title of _The Geological Observer_ (1851; 2nd ed., 1853). It was marked by wide practical experience, multifarious knowledge, philosophical insight and a genius for artistic delineation of geological phenomena. He was elected F.R.S. in 1819. He received the honour of knighthood in 1848, and near the close of his life was awarded the Wollaston medal--the highest honour in the gift of the Geological Society of London. After a life of constant activity he began to suffer from partial paralysis, but, though becoming gradually worse, continued able to transact his official business until a few days before his death, which took place on the 13th of April 1855.
See Sir A. Geikie's _Memoir of Sir A. C. Ramsay_ (1895), which contains a sketch of the history of the Geological Survey, and of the life of De la Beche (with portrait); also _Summary of Progress of the Geological Survey for 1897_ (1898).
DELABORDE, HENRI FRANÇOIS, COUNT (1764-1833), French soldier, was the son of a baker of Dijon. At the outbreak of the French Revolution he joined the "Volunteers of the Côte-d'Or," and passing rapidly through all the junior grades, was made general of brigade after the combat of Rhein-Zabern (1793). As chief of the staff he was present at the siege of Toulon in the same year, and, promoted general of division, he was for a time governor of Corsica. In 1794 Delaborde served on the Spanish frontier, distinguishing himself at the Bidassoa (July 25) and Misquiriz (October 16). His next command was on the Rhine. At the head of a division he took part in the celebrated campaigns of 1795-97, and in 1796 covered Moreau's right when that general invaded Bavaria. Delaborde was in constant military employment during the Consulate and the early Empire. Made commander of the Legion of Honour in 1804, he received the dignity of count in 1808. In that year he was serving in Portugal under Junot. Against Sir Arthur Wellesley's English army he fought the skillful brilliant rear-guard action of Rolica. In 1812 he was one of Mortier's divisional leaders in the Russian War, and in the following year was grand cross and governor of the castle of Compiègne. Joining Napoleon in the Hundred Days, he was marked for punishment by the returning Bourbons, sent before a court-martial, and only escaped condemnation through a technical flaw in the wording of the charge. The rest of his life was spent in retirement.
DELACROIX, FERDINAND VICTOR EUGÈNE (1798-1863), French historical painter, leader of the Romantic movement, was born at Charenton-St-Maurice, near Paris, on the 26th of April 1798. His father Charles Delacroix (1741-1805) was a partisan of the most violent faction during the time of the Revolution, and was foreign minister under the Directory. The family affairs seem to have been conducted in the wildest manner, and the accidents that befell the child, well authenticated as they are said to be, make it almost a miracle that he survived. He was first nearly burned to death in the cradle by a nurse falling asleep over a novel and the candle dropping on the coverlet; this left permanent marks on his arms and face. He was next dropped into the sea by another _bonne_, who was climbing up a ship's side to see her lover. He was nearly poisoned, and nearly choked, and, to crown all, he tried to hang himself, without any thought of suicide, in imitation of a print exhibiting a man in that position of final ignominy. The prediction of a charlatan founded on his horoscope has been preserved: "Cet enfant deviendra un homme célèbre, mais sa vie sera des plus laborieuses, des plus tourmentées, et toujours livrée à la contradiction."
Delacroix the elder (also known as Delacroix de Contaut) died at Bordeaux when Eugène was seven years of age, and his mother returned to Paris and placed him in the Lycée Napoléon. Afterwards, on his determining to be a painter, he entered the _atelier_ of Baron Guérin, who affected to treat him as an amateur. His fellow-pupil was Ary Scheffer, who was alike by temperament and antecedents the opposite of the _bizarre_ Delacroix, and the two remained antagonistic to the end of life. Delacroix's acknowledged power and yet want of success with artists and critics--Thiers being his only advocate--perhaps mainly resulted from his bravura and rude dash in the use of the brush, at a time when smooth roundness of surface was general. His first important picture, "Dante and Virgil," was painted in his own studio; and when Guérin went to see it he flew into a passion, and told him his picture was absurd, detestable, exaggerated. "Why ask me to come and see this? You knew what I must say." Yet his work was received at the Salon, and produced an enthusiasm of debate (1822). Some said Géricault had worked on it, but all treated it with respect. Still in private his position, even after the larger tragic picture, the "Massacre of Chios," had been deposited in the Luxembourg by the government (1824), became that of an Ishmaelite. The war for the freedom of Greece then going on moved him deeply, and his next two pictures--"Marino Faliero Decapitated on the Giant's Staircase of the Ducal Palace" (which has always remained a European success), and "Greece Lamenting on the Ruins of Missolonghi"--with many smaller works, were exhibited for the benefit of the patriots in 1826. This exhibition was much visited by the public, and next year he produced another of his important works, "Sardanapalus," from Byron's drama. After this, he says, "I became the abomination of painting, I was refused water and salt,"--but, he adds with singularly happy naïveté, "J'étais enchanté de moi-même!" The patrimony he inherited, or perhaps it should be said, what remained of it, was 10,000 _livres de rente_, and with economy he lived on this, and continued the expensive process of painting large historical pictures. In 1831 he reappeared in the Salon with six works, and immediately after left for Morocco, where he found much congenial matter. Delacroix never went to Italy; he refused to go on principle, lest the old masters, either in spirit or manner, should impair his originality and self-dependence. His greatest admiration in literature was the poetry of Byron; Shakespeare also attracted him for tragic inspirations; and of course classic subjects had their turn of his easel.
He continued his work indefatigably, having his pictures very seldom favourably received at the Salon. These were sometimes very large, full of incidents, with many figures. "Drawing of Lots in the Boat at Sea," from Byron's _Don Juan_, and the "Taking of Constantinople by the Christians" were of that character, and the former was one of his noblest creations. In 1845 he was employed to decorate the library of the Luxembourg, that of the chamber of deputies in 1847, the ceiling of the gallery of Apollo in the Louvre in 1849 and that of the Salon de la Paix in the hôtel de ville in 1853. He died on the 13th of August 1863, and in August 1864 an exhibition of his works was opened on the Boulevard des Italiens. It contained 174 pictures, many of them of large dimensions, and 303 drawings, showing immense perseverance as well as energy and versatility. As a colourist, and a romantic painter, he now ranks among the greatest of French artists.
See also A. Robaut, _Delacroix_ (1885); E. Dargenty, _Delacroix par lui-même_ (1885); G. Moreau, _Delacroix et son oeuvre_ (1893); Dorothy Bussy, _Eugène Delacroix_ (1907).
DE LA GARDIE, MAGNUS GABRIEL, COUNT (1622-1686), Swedish statesman, the best-known member of an ancient family of French origin (the D'Escouperies of Languedoc) which had been settled in Sweden since the 14th century. After a careful education, completed by the usual grand tour, Magnus learned the art of war under Gustavus Horn, and during the reign of Christina (1644-1654), whose prime favourite he became, though the liaison was innocent enough, he was raised to the highest offices in the state and loaded with distinctions. In 1646 he was sent at the head of an extraordinary mission to France, and on his return married the queen's cousin Marie Euphrosyne of Zweibrücken, who, being but a poor princess, benefited greatly by her wedding with the richest of the Swedish magnates. Immediately afterwards, De la Gardie was made a senator, governor-general of Saxony during the last stages of the Thirty Years' War, and, in 1652, lord high treasurer. In 1653 he fell into disgrace and had to withdraw from court. During the reign of Charles X. (1654-1660) he was employed in the Baltic provinces both as a civilian and a soldier, although in the latter capacity he gave the martial king but little satisfaction. Charles X. nevertheless, in his last will, appointed De la Gardie grand-chancellor and a member of the council of regency which ruled Sweden during the minority of Charles XI. (1660-1672). During this period De la Gardie was the ruling spirit of the government and represented the party of warlike adventure as opposed to the party of peace and economy led by Counts Bonde and Brahe (qq.v.). After a severe struggle De la Gardie's party finally prevailed, and its triumph was marked by that general decline of personal and political morality which has given to this regency its unenviable reputation. It was De la Gardie who first made Sweden the obsequious hireling of the foreign power which had the longest purse. The beginning of this shameful "subsidy policy" was the treaty of Fontainebleau, 1661, by a secret paragraph of which Sweden, in exchange for a considerable sum of money, undertook to support the French candidate on the first vacancy of the Polish throne. It was not, however, till the 14th of April 1672 that Sweden, by the treaty of Stockholm, became a regular "mercenarius Galliae," pledging herself, in return for 400,000 _écus_ per annum in peace and 600,000 in war time, to attack with 16,000 men those German princes who might be disposed to assist Holland. The early disasters of the unlucky war of 1675-1679 were rightly attributed to the carelessness, extravagance, procrastination and general incompetence of De la Gardie and his high aristocratic colleagues. In 1675 a special commission was appointed to inquire into their conduct, and on the 27th of May 1682 it decided that the regents and the senate were solely responsible for dilapidations of the realm, the compensation due by them to the crown being assessed at 4,000,000 _daler_ or £500,000. De la Gardie was treated with relative leniency, but he "received permission to retire to his estates for the rest of his life" and died there in comparative poverty, a mere shadow of his former magnificent self. The best sides of his character were his brilliant social gifts and his intense devotion to literature and art.
See Martin Veibull, _Sveriges Storhetstid_ (Stockholm, 1881); _Sv. Hist._ iv.; Robert Nisbet Bain, _Scandinavia_ (Cambridge, 1905). (R. N. B.)
DELAGOA BAY (Port. for the bay "of the lagoon"), an inlet of the Indian Ocean on the east coast of South Africa, between 25° 40´ and 26° 20´ S., with a length from north to south of over 70 m. and a breadth of about 20 m. The bay is the northern termination of the series of lagoons which line the coast from Saint Lucia Bay. The opening is toward the N.E. The southern part of the bay is formed by a peninsula, called the Inyak peninsula, which on its inner or western side affords safe anchorage. At its N.W. point is Port Melville. North of the peninsula is Inyak Island, and beyond it a smaller island known as Elephant's Island.
In spite of a bar at the entrance and a number of shallows within, Delagoa Bay forms a valuable harbour, accessible to large vessels at all seasons of the year. The surrounding country is low and very unhealthy, but the island of Inyak has a height of 240 ft., and is used as a sanatorium. A river 12 to 18 ft. deep, known as the Manhissa or Komati, enters the bay at its northern end; several smaller streams, the Matolla, the Umbelozi, and the Tembi, from the Lebombo Mountains, meet towards the middle of the bay in the estuary called by the Portuguese the Espirito Santo, but generally known as the English river; and the Maputa, which has its headwaters in the Drakensberg, enters in the south, as also does the Umfusi river. These rivers are the haunts of the hippopotamus and the crocodile.
The bay was discovered by the Portuguese navigator Antonio de Campo, one of Vasco da Gama's companions, in 1502, and the Portuguese post of Lourenço Marques was established not long after on the north side of the English river. In 1720 the Dutch East India Company built a fort and "factory" on the spot where Lourenço Marques now stands; but in 1730 the settlement was abandoned. Thereafter the Portuguese had--intermittently--trading stations in the Espirito Santo. These stations were protected by small forts, usually incapable, however, of withstanding attacks by the natives. In 1823 Captain (afterwards Vice-Admiral) W. F. W. Owen, of the British navy, finding that the Portuguese exercised no jurisdiction south of the settlement of Lourenço Marques, concluded treaties of cession with native chiefs, hoisted the British flag, and appropriated the country from the English river southwards; but when he visited the bay again in 1824 he found that the Portuguese, disregarding the British treaties, had concluded others with the natives, and had endeavoured (unsuccessfully) to take military possession of the country. Captain Owen rehoisted the British flag, but the sovereignty of either power was left undecided till the claims of the Transvaal Republic rendered a solution of the question urgent. In the meantime Great Britain had taken no steps to exercise authority on the spot, while the ravages of Zulu hordes confined Portuguese authority to the limits of their fort. In 1835 Boers, under a leader named Orich, had attempted to form a settlement on the bay, which is the natural outlet for the Transvaal; and in 1868 the Transvaal president, Marthinus Pretorius, claimed the country on each side of the Maputa down to the sea. In the following year, however, the Transvaal acknowledged Portugal's sovereignty over the bay. In 1861 Captain Bickford, R.N., had declared Inyak and Elephant islands British territory; an act protested against by the Lisbon authorities. In 1872 the dispute between Great Britain and Portugal was submitted to the arbitration of M. Thiers, the French president; and on the 19th of April 1875 his successor, Marshal MacMahon, declared in favour of the Portuguese. It had been previously agreed by Great Britain and Portugal that the right of pre-emption in case of sale or cession should be given to the unsuccessful claimant to the bay. Portuguese authority over the interior was not established until some time after the MacMahon award; nominally the country south of the Manhissa river was ceded to them by the Matshangana chief Umzila in 1861. In 1889 another dispute arose between Portugal and Great Britain in consequence of the seizure by the Portuguese of the railway running from the bay to the Transvaal. This dispute was referred to arbitration, and in 1900 Portugal was condemned to pay nearly £1,000,000 in compensation to the shareholders in the railway company. (See LOURENÇO MARQUES and GAZALAND.)
For an account of the Delagoa Bay arbitration proceedings see Sir E. Hertslet, _The Map of Africa by Treaty_, iii. 991-998 (London, 1909). Consult also the British blue-book, _Delagoa Bay, Correspondence respecting the Claims of Her Majesty's Government_ (London, 1875); L. van Deventer, _La Hollande et la Baie Delagoa_ (The Hague, 1883); G. McC. Theal, _The Portuguese in South Africa_ (London, 1896), and _History of South Africa since September 1795_, vol. v. (London, 1908). _The Narrative of Voyages to explore the shores of Africa ... performed ... under direction of Captain W. F. W. Owen, R.N._ (London, 1833) contains much interesting information concerning the district in the early part of the 19th century.
DELAMBRE, JEAN BAPTISTE JOSEPH (1749-1822), French astronomer, was born at Amiens on the 19th of September 1749. His college course, begun at Amiens under the abbé Jacques Delille, was finished in Paris, where he took a scholarship at the college of Plessis. Despite extreme penury, he then continued to study indefatigably ancient and modern languages, history and literature, finally turning his attention to mathematics and astronomy. In 1771 he became tutor to the son of M. d'Assy, receiver-general of finances; and while acting in this capacity, attended the lectures of J. J. Lalande, who, struck with his remarkable acquirements, induced M. d'Assy in 1788 to install an observatory for his benefit at his own residence. Here Delambre observed and computed almost uninterruptedly, and in 1790 obtained for his Tables of Uranus the prize offered by the academy of sciences, of which body he was elected a member two years later. He was admitted to the Institute on its organization in 1795, and became, in 1803, perpetual secretary to its mathematical section. He, moreover, belonged from 1795 to the bureau of longitudes. From 1792 to 1799 he was occupied with the measurement of the arc of the meridian extending from Dunkirk to Barcelona, and published a detailed account of the operations in _Base du système métrique_ (3 vols., 1806, 1807, 1810), for which he was awarded in 1810 the decennial prize of the Institute. The first consul nominated him inspector-general of studies; he succeeded Lalande in 1807 as professor of astronomy at the Collège de France, and filled the office of treasurer to the imperial university from 1808 until its suppression in 1815. Delambre died at Paris on the 19th of August 1822. His last years were devoted to researches into the history of science, resulting in the successive publication of: _Histoire de l'astronomie ancienne_ (2 vols., 1817); _Histoire de l'astronomie au moyen âge_ (1819); _Histoire de l'astronomie moderne_ (2 vols., 1821); and _Histoire de l'astronomie au XVIII^e siècle_, issued in 1827 under the care of C. L. Mathieu. These books show marvellous erudition; but some of the judgments expressed in them are warped by prejudice; they are diffuse in style and overloaded with computations. He wrote besides: _Tables écliptiques des satellites de Jupiter_, inserted in the third edition of J. J. Lalande's _Astronomie_ (1792), and republished in an improved form by the bureau of longitudes in 1817; _Méthodes analytiques pour la détermination d'un arc du méridien_ (1799); _Tables du soleil (publiées par le bureau des longitudes)_ (1806); _Rapport historique sur les progrès des sciences mathématiques depuis l'an 1789_ (1810); _Abrégé d'astronomie_ (1813); _Astronomie théorique et pratique_ (1814); &c.
See J. B. J. Fourier's "Éloge" in _Mémoires de l'acad. des sciences_, t. iv.; Ch. Dupin, _Revue encyclopédique_, t. xvi. (1822); _Biog. universelle_, t. lxii. (C. L. Mathieu); Max. Marie, _Hist. des sciences_, x. 31; R. Grant, _Hist. of Physical Astr._ pp. 96, 142, 165; R. Wolf, _Geschichte der Astronomie_, p. 779, &c. (A. M. C.)
DELAMERE (or DE LA MER), GEORGE BOOTH, 1st BARON (1622-1684), son of William Booth, a member of an ancient family settled at Dunham Massey in Cheshire, and of Vere, daughter and co-heir of Sir Thomas Egerton, was born in August 1622. He took an active part in the Civil War with his grandfather, Sir George Booth, on the parliamentary side. He was returned for Cheshire to the Long Parliament in 1645 and to Cromwell's parliaments of 1654 and 1656. In 1655 he was appointed military commissioner for Cheshire and treasurer at war. He was one of the excluded members who tried and failed to regain their seats after the fall of Richard Cromwell in 1659. He had for some time been regarded by the royalists as a well-wisher to their cause, and was described to the king in May 1659 as "very considerable in his country, a presbyterian in opinion, yet so moral a man.... I think your Majesty may safely [rely] on him and his promises which are considerable and hearty."[1] He now became one of the chief leaders of the new "royalists" who at this time united with the cavaliers to effect the restoration. A rising was arranged for the 5th of August in several districts, and Booth took charge of operations in Cheshire, Lancashire and North Wales. He got possession of Chester on the 19th, issued a proclamation declaring that arms had been taken up "in vindication of the freedom of parliament, of the known laws, liberty and property," and marched towards York. The plot, however, was known to Thurloe. It had entirely failed in other parts of the country, and Lambert advancing with his forces defeated Booth's men at Nantwich Bridge. Booth himself escaped disguised as a woman, but was discovered at Newport Pagnell on the 23rd in the act of shaving, and was imprisoned in the Tower. He was, however, soon liberated, took his seat in the parliament of 1659-1660, and was one of the twelve members deputed to carry the message of the Commons to Charles II. at the Hague. In July 1660 he received a grant of £10,000, having refused the larger sum of £20,000 at first offered to him, and on the 20th of April 1661, on the occasion of the coronation, he was created Baron Delamere, with a licence to create six new knights. The same year he was appointed _custos rotulorum_ of Cheshire. In later years he showed himself strongly antagonistic to the reactionary policy of the government. He died on the 8th of August 1684, and was buried at Bowdon. He married (1) Lady Catherine Clinton, daughter and co-heir of Theophilus, 4th earl of Lincoln, by whom he had one daughter; and (2) Lady Elizabeth Grey, daughter of Henry, 1st earl of Stamford, by whom, besides five daughters, he had seven sons, the second of whom, Henry, succeeded him in the title and estates and was created earl of Warrington. The earldom became extinct on the death of the latter's son, the 2nd earl, without male issue, in 1758, and the barony of Delamere terminated in the person of the 4th baron in 1770; the title was revived in 1821 in the Cholmondeley family.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Clarendon, _State Papers_, iii. 472.
DE LAND, a town and the county-seat of Volusia county, Florida, U.S.A., 111 m. by rail S. of Jacksonville, 20 m. from the Atlantic coast and 4 m. from the St John's river. Pop. (1900) 1449; (1910) 2812. De Land is served by the Atlantic Coast Line and by steamboats on the St John's river. It has a fine winter climate, with an average temperature of 60° F., has sulphur springs, and is a health and winter resort. There is a starch factory here; and the surrounding country is devoted to fruit-growing. De Land is the seat of the John B. Stetson University (co-educational), an undenominational institution under Baptist control, founded in 1884, as an academy, by Henry A. De Land, a manufacturer of Fairport, New York, and in 1887 incorporated under the name of De Land University, which was changed in 1889 to the present name, in honour of John Batterson Stetson (1830-1906), a Philadelphia manufacturer of hats, who during his life gave nearly $500,000 to the institution. The university includes a college of liberal arts, a department of law, a school of technology, an academy, a normal school, a model school, a business college and a school of music. De Land was founded in 1876 by H. A. De Land, above mentioned, who built a public school here in 1877 and a high school in 1883.
DELANE, JOHN THADEUS (1817-1879), editor of _The Times_ (London), was born on the 11th of October 1817 in London. He was the second son of Mr W. F. A. Delane, a barrister, of an old Irish family, who about 1832 was appointed by Mr Walter financial manager of _The Times_. While still a boy he attracted Mr Walter's attention, and it was always intended that he should find work on the paper. He received a good general education at private schools and King's College, London, and also at Magdalen Hall, Oxford; after taking his degree in 1840 he at once began work on the paper, though later he read for the bar, being called in 1847. In 1841 he succeeded Thomas Barnes as editor, a post which he occupied for thirty-six years. He from the first obtained the best introductions into society and the chief political circles, and had a position there such as no journalist had previously enjoyed, using his opportunities with a sure intuition for the way in which events would move. His staff included some of the most brilliant men of the day, who worked together with a common ideal. The result to the paper, which in those days had hardly any real competitor in English journalism, was an excellence of information which gave it great power. (See NEWSPAPERS.) Delane was a man of many interests and great judgment; capable of long application and concentrated attention, with power to seize always on the main point at issue, and rapidly master the essential facts in the most complicated affair. His general policy was to keep the paper a national organ of opinion above party, but with a tendency to sympathize with the Liberal movements of the day. He admired Palmerston and respected Lord Aberdeen, and was of considerable use to both; and it was Lord Aberdeen himself who, in 1845, told him of the impending repeal of the Corn Laws, an incident round which many incorrect stories have gathered. The history, however, of the events during the thirteen administrations, between 1841 and 1877, in which _The Times_, and therefore Delane, played an important part cannot here be recapitulated. In 1877 his health gave way, and he retired from the editorship; and on the 22nd of November 1879 he died at Ascot.
A biography by his nephew, Arthur Irwin Dasent, was published in 1908.
DELANY, MARY GRANVILLE (1700-1788), an Englishwoman of literary tastes, was born at Coulston, Wilts, on the 14th of May 1700. She was a niece of the 1st Lord Lansdowne. In 1717 or 1718 she was unhappily married to Alexander Pendarves, a rich old Cornish landowner, who died in 1724. During a visit to Ireland she met Dean Swift and his intimate friend, the Irish divine, Patrick Delany, whose second wife she became in 1743. After his death in 1768 she passed all her summers with her bosom friend the dowager duchess of Portland--Prior's "Peggy"--and when the latter died George III. and Queen Charlotte, whose affection for their "dearest Mrs Delany" seems to have been most genuine, gave her a small house at Windsor and a pension of £300 a year. Fanny Burney (Madame D'Arblay) was introduced to her in 1783, and frequently visited her at her London home and at Windsor, and owed to her friendship her court appointment. At this time Mrs Delany was a charming and sweet old lady, with a reputation for cutting out and making the ingenious "paper mosaiks" now in the British Museum; she had known every one worth knowing in her day, had corresponded with Swift and Young, and left an interesting picture of the polite but commonplace English society of the 18th century in her six volumes of _Autobiography and Letters_. Burke calls her "a real fine lady"--"the model of an accomplished woman of former times." She died on the 15th of April 1788.
DE LA REY, JACOBUS HERCULES (1847- ), Boer soldier, was born in the Lichtenburg district, and in his youth and early manhood saw much service in savage warfare. In 1893 he entered the Volksraad of the South African Republic, and was an active supporter of the policy of General Joubert. At the outbreak of the war with Great Britain in 1899 De La Rey was made a general, and he was engaged in the western campaign against Lord Methuen and Lord Roberts. He won his first great success at Nitral's Nek on the 11th of July 1900, where he compelled the surrender of a strong English detachment. In the second or guerrilla stage of the war De La Rey became one of the most conspicuously successful of the Boer leaders. He was assistant to General Louis Botha and a member of the government, with charge of operations in the western Transvaal. The principal actions in which he was successful (see also TRANSVAAL: _History_) were Nooitgedacht, Vlakfontein and the defeat and capture of Lord Methuen at Klerksdorp (March 7, 1902). The British general was severely wounded in the action, and De La Rey released him at once, being unable to afford him proper medical assistance. This humanity and courtesy marked De La Rey's conduct throughout the war, and even more than his military skill and daring earned for him the esteem of his enemies. After the conclusion of peace De La Rey, who had borne a prominent part in the negotiations, visited Europe with the other generals, with the intention of raising funds to enable the Boers to resettle their country. In December 1903 he went on a mission to India, and induced the whole of the Boer prisoners of war detained at Ahmednagar to accept the new order of things and to take the oath of allegiance. In February 1907 General De La Rey was returned unopposed as member for Ventersdorp in the legislative assembly of the first Transvaal parliament under self-government.
DE LA RIVE, AUGUSTE ARTHUR (1801-1873), Swiss physicist, was born at Geneva on the 9th of October 1801. He was the son of Charles Gaspard de la Rive (1770-1834), who studied medicine at Edinburgh, and after practising for a few years in London, became professor of pharmaceutical chemistry at the academy of Geneva in 1802 and rector in 1823. After a brilliant career as a student, he was appointed at the age of twenty-two to the chair of natural philosophy in the academy of Geneva. For some years after his appointment he devoted himself specially, with François Marcet (1803-1883), to the investigation of the specific heat of gases, and to observations for determining the temperature of the earth's crust. Electrical studies, however, engaged most of his attention, especially in connexion with the theory of the voltaic cell and the electric discharge in rarefied gases. His researches on the last-mentioned subject led him to form a new theory of the aurora borealis. In 1840 he described a process for the electro-gilding of silver and brass, for which in the following year he received a prize of 3000 francs from the French Academy of Sciences. Between 1854 and 1858 he published a _Traité de l'électricité théorique et appliquée_, which was translated into several languages. De la Rive's birth and fortune gave him considerable social and political influence. He was distinguished for his hospitality to literary and scientific men, and for his interest in the welfare and independence of his native country. In 1860, when the annexation of Savoy and Nice had led the Genevese to fear French aggression, de la Rive was sent by his fellow-citizens on a special embassy to England, and succeeded in securing a declaration from the English government, which was communicated privately to that of France, that any attack upon Geneva would be regarded as a _casus belli_. On the occasion of this visit the university of Oxford conferred upon de la Rive the honorary degree of D.C.L. When on his way to pass the winter at Cannes he died suddenly at Marseilles on the 27th of November 1873.
His son, LUCIEN DE LA RIVE, born at Geneva on the 3rd of April 1834, published papers on various mathematical and physical subjects, and with Édouard Sarasin carried out investigations on the propagation of electric waves.
DELAROCHE, HIPPOLYTE, commonly known as PAUL (1797-1856), French painter, was born in Paris on the 17th of July 1797. His father was an expert who had made a fortune, to some extent, by negotiating and cataloguing, buying and selling. He was proud of his son's talent, and able to forward his artistic education. The master selected was Gros, then painting life-size histories, and surrounded by many pupils. In no haste to make an appearance in the Salon, his first exhibited picture was a large one, "Josabeth saving Joas" (1822). This picture led to his acquaintance with Géricault and Delacroix, with whom he remained on the most friendly terms, the three forming the central group of a numerous body of historical painters, such as perhaps never before lived in one locality and at one time.
From 1822 the record of his life is to be found in the successive works coming from his hand. He visited Italy in 1838 and 1843, when his father-in-law, Horace Vernet, was director of the French Academy. His studio in Paris was in the rue Mazarine, where he never spent a day without some good result, his hand being sure and his knowledge great. His subjects, definitely expressed and popular in their manner of treatment, illustrating certain views of history dear to partisans, yet romantic in their general interest, were painted with a firm, solid, smooth surface, which gave an appearance of the highest finish. This solidity, found also on the canvas of Vernet, Scheffer, Leopold Robert and Ingres, was the manner of the day. It repudiates the technical charm of texture and variety of handling which the English school inherited as a tradition from the time of Reynolds; but it is more easily understood by the world at large, since a picture so executed depends for its interest rather on the history, scene in nature or object depicted, than on the executive skill, which may or may not be critically appreciated. We may add that his point of view of the historical characters which he treated is not always just. "Cromwell lifting the Coffin-lid and looking at the Body of Charles" is an incident only to be excused by an improbable tradition; but "The King in the Guard-Room," with villainous roundhead soldiers blowing tobacco smoke in his patient face, is a libel on the Puritans; and "Queen Elizabeth dying on the Ground," like a she-dragon no one dares to touch, is sensational; while the "Execution of Lady Jane Grey" is represented as taking place in a dungeon. Nothing can be more incorrect than this last as a reading of English history, yet we forget the inaccuracy in admiration of the treatment which represents Lady Jane, with bandaged sight, feeling for the block, her maids covering their faces, and none with their eyes visible among the many figures. On the other hand, "Strafford led to Execution," when Laud stretches his lawn-covered arms out of the small high window of his cell to give him a blessing as he passes along the corridor, is perfect; and the splendid scene of Richelieu in his gorgeous barge, preceding the boat containing Cinq-Mars and De Thou carried to execution by their guards, is perhaps the most dramatic semi-historical work ever done. "The Princes in the Tower" must also be mentioned as a very complete creation; and the "Young female Martyr floating dead on the Tiber" is so pathetic that criticism feels hard-hearted and ashamed before it. As a realization of a page of authentic history, again, no picture can surpass the "Assassination of the duc de Guise at Blois." The expression of the murdered man stretched out by the side of the bed, the conspirators all massed together towards the door and far from the body, show exact study as well as insight into human nature. This work was exhibited in his meridian time, 1835; and in the same year he exhibited the "Head of an Angel," a study from Horace Vernet's young daughter Louise, his love for whom was the absorbing passion of his life, and from the shock of whose death, in 1845, it is said he never quite recovered. By far his finest productions after her death are of the most serious character, a sequence of small elaborate pictures of incidents in the Passion. Two of these, the Virgin and the other Maries, with the apostles Peter and John, within a nearly dark apartment, hearing the crowd as it passes haling Christ to Calvary, and St John conducting the Virgin home again after all is over, are beyond all praise as exhibiting the divine story from a simply human point of view. They are pure and elevated, and also dramatic and painful. Delaroche was not troubled by ideals, and had no affectation of them. His sound but hard execution allowed no mystery to intervene between him and his _motif_, which was always intelligible to the million, so that he escaped all the waste of energy that painters who try to be poets on canvas suffer. Thus it is that essentially the same treatment was applied by him to the characters of distant historical times, the founders of the Christian religion, and the real people of his own day, such as "Napoleon at Fontainebleau," or "Napoleon at St Helena," or "Marie Antoinette leaving the Convention" after her sentence.
In 1837 Delaroche received the commission for the great picture, 27 mètres long, in the hemicycle of the lecture theatre of the École des Beaux Arts. This represents the great artists of the modern ages assembled in groups on either hand of a central elevation of white marble steps, on the topmost of which are three thrones filled by the architects and sculptors of the Parthenon. To supply the female element in this vast composition he introduced the genii or muses, who symbolize or reign over the arts, leaning against the balustrade of the steps, beautiful and queenly figures with a certain antique perfection of form, but not informed by any wonderful or profound expression. The portrait figures are nearly all unexceptionable and admirable. This great and successful work is on the wall itself, an inner wall however, and is executed in oil. It was finished in 1841, and considerably injured by a fire which occurred in 1855, which injury he immediately set himself to remedy (finished by Robert-Fleury); but he died before he had well begun, on the 4th of November 1856.
Personally Delaroche exercised even a greater influence than by his works. Though short and not powerfully made, he impressed every one as rather tall than otherwise; his physiognomy was accentuated and firm, and his fine forehead gave him the air of a minister of state.
See Rees, _Delaroche_ (London, 1880). (W. B. Sc.)
DELARUE, GERVAIS (1751-1835), French historical investigator, formerly regarded as one of the chief authorities on Norman and Anglo-Norman literature, was a native of Caen. He received his education at the university of that town, and was ultimately raised to the rank of professor. His first historical enterprise was interrupted by the French Revolution, which forced him to take refuge in England, where he took the opportunity of examining a vast mass of original documents in the Tower and elsewhere, and received much encouragement, from Sir Walter Scott among others. From England he passed over to Holland, still in prosecution of his favourite task; and there he remained till in 1798 he returned to France. The rest of his life was spent in his native town, where he was chosen principal of his university. While in England he had been elected a member of the Royal Society of Antiquaries; and in his own country he was made a corresponding member of the Institute, and was enrolled in the Legion of Honour. Besides numerous articles in the _Memoirs of the Royal Society of London_, the _Mémoires de l'Institut_, the _Mémoires de la Société d'Agriculture de Caen_, and in other periodical collections, he published separately _Essais historiques sur les Bardes, les Jongleurs, et les Trouvères normands et anglo-normands_ (3 vols., 1834), and _Recherches historiques sur la Prairie de Caen_ (1837); and after his death appeared _Mémoires historiques sur le palinod de Caen_ (1841), _Recherches sur la tapisserie de Bayeux_ (1841), and _Nouveaux Essais historiques sur la ville de Caen_ (1842). In all his writings he displays a strong partiality for everything Norman, and rates the Norman influence on French and English literature as of the very highest moment.
DE LA RUE, WARREN (1815-1889), British astronomer and chemist, son of Thomas De la Rue, the founder of the large firm of stationers of that name in London, was born in Guernsey on the 18th of January 1815. Having completed his education in Paris, he entered his father's business, but devoted his leisure hours to chemical and electrical researches, and between 1836 and 1848 published several papers on these subjects. Attracted to astronomy by the influence of James Nasmyth, he constructed in 1850 a 13-in. reflecting telescope, mounted first at Canonbury, later at Cranford, Middlesex, and with its aid executed many drawings of the celestial bodies of singular beauty and fidelity. His chief title to fame, however, is his pioneering work in the application of the art of photography to astronomical research. In 1851 his attention was drawn to a daguerreotype of the moon by G. P. Bond, shown at the great exhibition of that year. Excited to emulation and employing the more rapid wet-collodion process, he succeeded before long in obtaining exquisitely defined lunar pictures, which remained unsurpassed until the appearance of the Rutherfurd photographs in 1865. In 1854 he turned his attention to solar physics, and for the purpose of obtaining a daily photographic representation of the state of the solar surface he devised the photo-heliograph, described in his report to the British Association, "On Celestial Photography in England" (1859), and in his Bakerian Lecture (_Phil. Trans._ vol. clii. pp. 333-416). Regular work with this instrument, inaugurated at Kew by De la Rue in 1858, was carried on there for fourteen years; and was continued at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, from 1873 to 1882. The results obtained in the years 1862-1866 were discussed in two memoirs, entitled "Researches on Solar Physics," published by De la Rue, in conjunction with Professor Balfour Stewart and Mr B. Loewy, in the _Phil. Trans._ (vol. clix. pp. 1-110, and vol. clx. pp. 389-496). In 1860 De la Rue took the photo-heliograph to Spain for the purpose of photographing the total solar eclipse which occurred on the 18th of July of that year. This expedition formed the subject of the Bakerian Lecture already referred to. The photographs obtained on that occasion proved beyond doubt the solar character of the prominences or red flames, seen around the limb of the moon during a solar eclipse. In 1873 De la Rue gave up active work in astronomy, and presented most of his astronomical instruments to the university observatory, Oxford. Subsequently, in the year 1887, he provided the same observatory with a 13-in. refractor to enable it to take part in the International Photographic Survey of the Heavens. With Dr Hugo Müller as his collaborator he published several papers of a chemical character between the years 1856 and 1862, and investigated, 1868-1883, the discharge of electricity through gases by means of a battery of 14,600 chloride of silver cells. He was twice president of the Chemical Society, and also of the Royal Astronomical Society (1864-1866). In 1862 he received the gold medal of the latter society, and in 1864 a Royal medal from the Royal Society, for his observations on the total eclipse of the sun in 1860, and for his improvements in astronomical photography. He died in London on the 19th of April 1889.
See _Monthly Notices Roy. Astr. Soc._ l. 155; _Journ. Chem. Soc._ lvii. 441; _Nature_, xl. 26; _The Times_ (April 22, 1889); Royal Society, _Catalogue of Scientific Papers_.
DELATOR, in Roman history, properly one who gave notice (_deferre_) to the treasury officials of moneys that had become due to the imperial fisc. This special meaning was extended to those who lodged information as to punishable offences, and further, to those who brought a public accusation (whether true or not) against any person (especially with the object of getting money). Although the word _delator_ itself, for "common informer," is confined to imperial times, the right of public accusation had long been in existence. When exercised from patriotic and disinterested motives, its effects were beneficial; but the moment the principle of reward was introduced, this was no longer the case. Sometimes the accuser was rewarded with the rights of citizenship, a place in the senate, or a share of the property of the accused. At the end of the republican period, Cicero (_De Officiis_, ii. 14) expresses his opinion that such accusations should be undertaken only in the interests of the state or for other urgent reasons. Under the empire the system degenerated into an abuse, which reached its height during the reign of Tiberius, although the delators continued to exercise their activity till the reign of Theodosius. They were drawn from all classes of society,--patricians, knights, freedmen, slaves, philosophers, literary men, and, above all, lawyers. The objects of their attacks were the wealthy, all possible rivals of the emperor, and those whose conduct implied a reproach against the imperial mode of life. Special opportunities were afforded by the law of majestas, which (originally directed against attacks on the ruler by word or deed) came to include all kinds of accusations with which it really had nothing to do; indeed, according to Tacitus, a charge of treason was regularly added to all criminal charges. The chief motive for these accusations was no doubt the desire of amassing wealth,[1] since by the law of majestas one-fourth of the goods of the accused, even if he committed suicide in order to avoid confiscation (which was always carried out in the case of those condemned to capital punishment), was assured to the accuser (who was hence called _quadruplator_). Pliny and Martial mention instances of enormous fortunes amassed by those who carried on this hateful calling. But it was not without its dangers. If the delator lost his case or refused to carry it through, he was liable to the same penalties as the accused; he was exposed to the risk of vengeance at the hands of the proscribed in the event of their return, or of their relatives; while emperors like Tiberius would have no scruples about banishing or putting out of the way those of his creatures for whom he had no further use, and who might have proved dangerous to himself. Under the better emperors a reaction set in, and the severest penalties were inflicted upon the delators. Titus drove into exile or reduced to slavery those who had served Nero, after they had first been flogged in the amphitheatre. The abuse naturally reappeared under a man like Domitian; the delators, with whom Vespasian had not interfered, although he had abolished trials for majestas, were again banished by Trajan, and threatened with capital punishment in an edict of Constantine; but, as has been said, the evil, which was an almost necessary accompaniment of autocracy, lasted till the end of the 4th century.
See Mayor's note on Juvenal iv. 48 for ancient authorities; C. Merivale, _Hist. of the Romans under the Empire_, chap. 44; W. Rein, _Criminalrecht der Römer_ (1842); T. Mommsen, _Römisches Strafrecht_ (1899); Kleinfeller in Pauly-Wissowa's _Realencyclopädie_.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] "Delatores, genus hominum publico exitio repertum ... per praemia eliciebantur" (Tacitus, _Annals_, iv. 30).
DELAUNAY, ELIE (1828-1891), French painter, was born at Nantes and studied under Flandrin and at the École des Beaux Arts. He worked in the classicist manner of Ingres until, after winning the Prix de Rome, he went to Italy in 1856, and abandoned the ideal of Raphaelesque perfection for the sincerity and severity of the quattrocentists. As a pure and firm draughtsman he stands second only to Ingres. After his return from Rome he was entrusted with many important commissions for decorative paintings, such as the frescoes in the church of St Nicholas at Nantes; the three panels of "Apollo," "Orpheus" and "Amphion" at the Paris opera-house; and twelve paintings for the great hall of the council of state in the Palais Royal. His "Scenes from the Life of St Geneviève," which he designed for the Pantheon, remained unfinished at his death. The Luxembourg Museum has his famous "Plague in Rome" and a nude figure of "Diana"; and the Nantes Museum, the "Lesson on the Flute." In the last decade of his life he achieved great popularity as a portrait painter.
DELAUNAY, LOUIS ARSÈNE (1826-1903), French actor, was born in Paris, the son of a wine-seller. He studied at the Conservatoire, and made his first formal appearance on the stage in 1845, in _Tartuffe_ at the Odéon. After three years at this house he made his début at the Comédie Française as Dorante in Corneille's _Le Menteur_, and began a long and brilliant career in young lover parts. He continued to act as _jeune premier_ until he was sixty, his grace, marvellous diction and passion enchanting his audiences. It was especially in the plays of Alfred de Musset that his gifts found their happiest expression. In the thirty-seven years during which he was a member of the Comédie Française, Delaunay took or created nearly two hundred parts. He retired in 1887, having been made a chevalier of the Legion of Honour in 1883.
DELAVIGNE, JEAN FRANÇOIS CASIMIR (1793-1843), French poet and dramatist, was born on the 4th of April 1793 at Havre. His father sent him at an early age to Paris, there to be educated at the Lycée Napoléon. Constitutionally of an ardent and sympathetic temperament, he enlarged his outlook by extensive miscellaneous reading. On the 20th of March 1811 the empress Marie Louise gave birth to a son, named in his very cradle king of Rome. This event was celebrated by Delavigne in a _Dithyrambe sur la naissance du roi de Rome_, which secured for him a sinecure in the revenue office.
About this time he competed twice for an academy prize, but without success. Delavigne, inspired by the catastrophe of 1815, wrote two impassioned poems, the first entitled Waterloo, the second, _Dévastation du musée_, both written in the heat of patriotic enthusiasm, and teeming with popular political allusions. A third, but of inferior merit, _Sur le besoin de s'unir après le départ des étrangers_, was afterwards added. These stirring pieces, termed by him _Messéniennes_, sounded a keynote which found an echo in the hearts of all. Twenty-five thousand copies were sold; Delavigne was famous. He was appointed to an honorary librarianship, with no duties to discharge. In 1819 his play _Les vêpres Siciliennes_ was performed at the Odéon, then just rebuilt; it had previously been refused for the Théâtre Français. On the night of the first representation, which was warmly received, Picard, the manager, threw himself into the arms of his elated friend, exclaiming, "You have saved us! You are the founder of the second French Theatre." This success was followed up by the production of the _Comédiens_ (1820), a poor play, with little plot, and the _Paria_ (1821), with still less, but containing some well-written choruses. The latter piece obtained a longer lease of life than its intrinsic literary merits warranted, on account of the popularity of the political opinions freely expressed in it--so freely expressed, indeed, that the displeasure of the king was incurred, and Delavigne lost his post. But Louis Philippe, duke of Orleans, willing to gain the people's good wishes by complimenting their favourite, wrote to him as follows: "The thunder has descended on your house; I offer you an apartment in mine." Accordingly Delavigne became librarian at the Palais Royal, a position retained during the remainder of his life. It was here that he wrote the _École des vieillards_ (1823), his best comedy, which gained his election to the Academy in 1825. To this period also belong _La Princesse Aurélie_ (1828), and _Marino Faliero_ (1829), a drama in the romantic style.
For his success as a writer Delavigne was in no small measure indebted to the stirring nature of the times in which he lived. The _Messéniennes_, which first introduced him to universal notice, had their origin in the excitement consequent on the occupation of France by the allies in 1815. Another crisis in his life and in the history of his country, the revolution of 1830, stimulated him to the production of a second masterpiece, _La Parisienne_. This song, set to music by Auber, was on the lips of every Frenchman, and rivalled in popularity the _Marseillaise_. A companion piece, _La Varsovienne_, was written for the Poles, by whom it was sung on the march to battle. Other works of Delavigne followed each other in rapid succession--_Louis XI_ (1832), _Les Enfants d'Édouard_ (1833), _Don Juan d'Autriche_ (1835), _Une Famille au temps du Luther_ (1836), _La Popularité_ (1838), _La Fille du Cid_ (1839), _Le Conseiller rapporteur_ (1840), and _Charles VI_ (1843), an opera partly written by his brother. In 1843 he quitted Paris to seek in Italy the health his labours had cost him. At Lyons his strength altogether gave way, and he died on the 11th of December.
By many of his own time Delavigne was looked upon as unsurpassed and unsurpassable. Every one bought and read his works. But the applause of the moment was gained at the sacrifice of lasting fame. As a writer he had many excellences. He expressed himself in a terse and vigorous style. The poet of reason rather than of imagination, he recognized his own province, and was rarely tempted to flights of fancy beyond his powers. He wrote always as he would have spoken, from sincere conviction. In private life he was in every way estimable,--upright, amiable, devoid of all jealousy, and generous to a fault.
His _Poésies_ and his _Théâtre_ were published in 1863. His _Oeuvres complètes_ (new edition, 1855) contains a biographical notice by his brother, Germain Delavigne, who is best known as a librettist in opera. See also Sainte-Beuve, _Portraits littéraires_, vol. v.; A. Favrot, _Étude sur Casimir Delavigne_ (1894); and F. Vuacheux, _Casimir Delavigne_ (1893).
DELAWARE, a South Atlantic state of the United States of America, one of the thirteen original states, situated between 38° 27´ and 39° 50´ N. lat. and between 75° 2´ and 75° 47´ W. long. (For map see MARYLAND.) It is bounded N. and N.W. by Pennsylvania, E. by the Delaware river and Delaware Bay, which separate it from New Jersey, and by the Atlantic Ocean; S. and W. by Maryland. With the exception of Rhode Island it is the smallest state in the Union, its area being 2370 sq. m., of which 405 sq. m. are water surface.
_Physical Features._--Delaware lies on the Atlantic coastal plain, and is for the most part level and relatively low, its average elevation above the sea being about 50 ft. It is situated in the eastern part of the peninsula formed by Chesapeake Bay and the estuary of the Delaware river. In the extreme N. the country is rolling, with moderately high hills, moderately deep valleys and rapid streams. West of Wilmington there rises a ridge which crosses the state in a north-westerly direction and forms a watershed between Christiana and Brandywine creeks, its highest elevation above sea-level being 280 ft. South of the Christiana there begins another elevation, sandy and marshy, which extends almost the entire length of the state from N.W. to S.E., and forms a second water-parting. The streams that drain the state are small and insignificant. Those of the N. flow into Brandywine and Christiana creeks, whose estuary into Delaware river forms Wilmington harbour; those of the S.W. have a common outlet in the Nanticoke river of Maryland; those of the E. empty into Delaware Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. The principal harbours are those of Wilmington, New Castle and Lewes. The shore of the bay is marshy, that of the Atlantic is sandy. In Kent county there are more than 60,000 acres of tidal marshland, some of which has been reclaimed by means of dykes; Cypress Swamp in the extreme S. has an area of 50,000 acres. The soils of the N. are clays, sometimes mixed with loam; those of the central part are mainly loams; while those of the S. are sands.
Minerals are found only in the N. part of the state. Those of economic value are kaolin, mined chiefly in the vicinity of Hockessin, New Castle county, the static kaolin product being exceeded in 1903 only by that of Pennsylvania among the states of the United States; granite, used for road-making and rough construction work, found near Wilmington; and brick and tile clays; but the value of their total product in 1902 was less than $500,000. In 1906 the total mineral product was valued at $814,126, of which $237,768 represented clay products and $146,346 stone. In 1902 only 2.2% of the wage-earners were engaged in mining.
The forests, which once afforded excellent timber, including white oak for shipbuilding, have been greatly reduced by constant cutting; in 1900 it was estimated that 700 sq. m. were wooded, but practically none of this stand was of commercial importance. The fisheries, chiefly oyster, sturgeon and shad, yield an annual product valued at about $250,000.
The proximity of the Delaware and Chesapeake bays help to give Delaware a mild and temperate climate. The mean annual temperature is approximately 55° F., ranging from 52° in the S. to 56° in the N., and the extremes of heat and cold are 103° in the summer and -17° in the winter. The annual rainfall, greater on the coast than inland, ranges from 40 to 45 in.
_Industry and Trade._--Delaware is pre-eminently an agricultural state. In 1900 85% of its total land surface was enclosed in farms--a slight decline since 1880. Seven-tenths of this was improved land, and the expenditure per farm for fertilizers, greater in 1890 than the average of the Atlantic states, approximated $55 per farm in 1900. In 1899 Delaware spent more per acre for fertilizers than any of the other states except New Jersey, Rhode Island and Maryland. The average size of farms, as in the other states, has declined, falling from 124.6 acres in 1880 to 110.1 acres in 1900. A large proportion of farms (49.7%) were operated by the owners, and the prevailing form of tenantry was the share system by which 42.5% of the farms were cultivated, while 8.24% of the farms were operated by negroes; these represented less than 4% of the total value of farm property, the average value of farms operated by negroes being $17 per acre, that of farms operated by whites, $23 per acre. The total value of farm products in 1900 was $9,190,777, an increase of 30% over that of 1890, while the cultivation of cereals suffered on account of the competition of the western states. Indian corn and wheat form the two largest crops, their product in 1900 being respectively 24% and 52% greater than in 1890; but these crops when compared with those of other states are relatively unimportant. In 1906 the acreage of Indian corn was 196,472 acres with a yield of 5,894,160 bushels valued at $2,475,547, and the acreage of wheat was 121,745 acres with a yield of 1,947,920 bushels valued at $1,383,023. The value of the fruit crop, for which Delaware has long been noted, also increased during the same decade, but disease and frost caused a marked decline in the production of peaches, a loss balanced by an increased production of apples, pears and other orchard fruits. Large quantities of small fruits, particularly of strawberries, raspberries and blackberries, are produced, the southern portion of Sussex county being particularly favourable for strawberry culture. The vicissitudes of fruit raising have also caused increasing attention to be paid to market gardening, dairying and stock raising, particularly to market gardening, an industry which is favoured by the proximity of large cities. The same influence also explains, partly at least, the decrease (of 13%) in the value of farm property between 1890 and 1900.
The development of manufacturing in Delaware has not been so extensive as its favourable situation relative to the other states, the facilities for water and railway transportation, and the proximity of the coal and iron fields of Pennsylvania, would seem to warrant. In 1905 the wage-earners engaged in manufacturing (under the factory system) numbered 18,475, and the total capital invested in manufacturing was $50,925,630; the gross value of products was $41,160,276; the net value (deducting the value of material purchased in partly manufactured form) was $16,276,470. The principal industry was the manufacture of iron and steel products, which, including steel and rolling mills, car, foundry and machine shops, and shipyards, represented more than 30% of the total capital, and approximately 25% of the total gross product of the manufactures in the state. The tanning, currying and finishing of leather ranks second in importance, with a gross product ($10,250,842) 9% greater than that of 1900, and constituting about one-fourth of the gross factory product of the state in 1905; and the manufacture of food products ranked third, the value of the products of the fruit canning and preserving industry having more than doubled in the decade 1890-1900, but falling off a little more than 7% in 1900-1905. The manufacture of paper and wood pulp showed an increased product in 1905 19.1% greater than in 1900; and flour and grist mill products were valued in 1905 43.6% higher than in 1900. In the grand total of manufactured products, however, the state showed in 1905 a decrease of 4% from 1900. The great manufacturing centre is Wilmington, where in 1905 almost two-thirds of the capital was invested, and nearly three-fourths of the product was turned out. There is much manufacturing also at New Castle.
Delaware has good facilities for transportation. Its railway mileage in January 1907 was 333.6 m; the Philadelphia, Baltimore & Washington (Pennsylvania system), the Baltimore & Philadelphia (Baltimore & Ohio system), and the Wilmington & Northern (Philadelphia & Reading system) cross the northern part of the state, while the Delaware railway (leased by the Philadelphia, Baltimore & Washington) runs the length of the state below Wilmington, and another line, the Maryland, Delaware & Virginia (controlled by the Baltimore, Chesapeake & Atlantic railway, which is related to the Pennsylvania system), connects Lewes, Del., with Love Point, Md., on the Chesapeake Bay. There is no state railway commission, and the farmers of southern Delaware have suffered from excessive freight rates. The Delaware & Chesapeake Canal (13½ m. long, 66 ft. wide and 10 ft. deep) crosses the N. part of the state, connecting Delaware river and Chesapeake Bay, and thus affords transportation by water from Baltimore to Philadelphia. The canal was completed in 1829; in 1907 a commission appointed by the president to report on a route for a waterway between Chesapeake and Delaware bays selected the route of this canal. The states of Maryland and Delaware aided in its construction, and in 1828 the national government also made an appropriation. Wilmington is a customs district in which New Castle and Lewes are included; but its trade is largely coastwise. Rehoboth and Indian River bays are navigable for vessels of less than 6 ft. draft. Opposite Lewes is the Delaware Breakwater (begun in 1818 and completed in 1869, at a cost of more than $2,000,000), which forms a harbour 16 ft. deep. In 1897-1901 the United States government constructed a harbour of refuge, formed by a second breakwater 2¼ m. N. of the existing one; its protected anchorage is 552 acres and the cost was more than $2,090,000. The harbour is about equidistant from New York, Philadelphia, and the capes of Chesapeake Bay, and is used chiefly by vessels awaiting orders to ports for discharge or landing. The national government also made appropriations for opening an inland waterway from Lewes to Chincoteague Bay, Virginia, for improving Wilmington harbour, and for making navigable several of the larger streams of the state.
_Population._--The population in 1880 was 146,608; in 1890, 168,493, an increase of 14.9%; in 1900, 184,735, a further increase of 9.6%; in 1910, 202,322. The rate of increase before 1850 was considerably smaller than the rate after that date. Of the population in 1900, 92.5% was native born and 7.5% was foreign-born. The negro population was 30,697, or 16.6% of the total. In Indian River Hundred, Sussex county, there formerly lived a community of people,--many of whom are of the fair Caucasian type,--called "Indians" or "Moors"; they are now quite generally dispersed throughout the state, especially in Kent and Sussex counties. Their origin is unknown, but according to local tradition they are the descendants of some Moorish sailors who were cast ashore many years ago in a shipwreck; their own tradition is that they are descended from the children of an Irish mother and a negro father, these children having intermarried with Indians of the Nanticoke tribe. They have, where practicable, separate churches and schools, the latter receiving state aid. The urban population of Delaware (i.e. of Wilmington, the only city having more than 5000 inhabitants) was, in 1900, 41.4% of the state's population. There were thirty-five incorporated cities and towns. The largest of these was the city of Wilmington, with 76,508 inhabitants. The city next in size, New Castle, had a population of 3380, while the largest town, Dover, the capital of the state, had 3329. The total number of communicants of all denominations in 1906 was 71,251,--32,402 Methodists, 24,228 Roman Catholics, 5200 Presbyterians, 3796 Protestant Episcopalians, and 2921 Baptists.
_Government._--The constitution by which Delaware is governed was adopted in 1897. Like the previous constitutions of 1776, 1792 and 1831, it was promulgated by a constitutional convention without submission to the people for ratification, and amendments may be adopted by a two-thirds vote of each house in two consecutive legislatures. Its character is distinctly democratic. The property qualification of state senators and the restriction of suffrage to those who have paid county or poll taxes are abolished; but suffrage is limited to male adults who can read the state constitution in English, and can write their names, unless physically disqualified, and who have registered. In 1907 an amendment to the constitution was adopted, which struck out from the instrument the clause requiring the payment of a registration fee of one dollar by each elector. Important innovations in the constitution of 1897 are the office of lieutenant-governor, and the veto power of the governor which may extend to parts and clauses of appropriation bills, but a bill may be passed over his veto by a three-fifths vote of each house of the legislature, and a bill becomes a law if not returned to the legislature within ten days after its reception by the governor, unless the session of the legislature shall have expired in the meantime. The governor's regular term in office is four years, and he is ineligible for a third term. All his appointments to offices where the salary is more than $500 must be confirmed by the senate; all pardons must be approved by a board of pardons. Representation in the legislature is according to districts, members of the lower house being chosen for two, and members of the upper house for four years. Members of the lower house must be at least twenty-four years of age, members of the senate at least twenty-seven; members of both houses must at the time of their election have been citizens of the state for at least three years. In November 1906 the people of the state voted (17,248 for; 2162 against) in favour of the provision of a system of advisory initiative and advisory referendum; and in March 1907 the general assembly passed an act providing initiative and referendum in the municipal affairs in the city of Wilmington. The organization of the judiciary is similar to that under the old English system. Six judges--a chancellor, a chief justice, and four associate justices--of whom there shall be at least one resident in each of the three counties, and not more than three shall belong to the same political party, are appointed by the governor, with the consent of the senate, for a term of twelve years. A certain number of them hold courts of chancery, general sessions, oyer and terminer, and an orphans' court; the six together constitute the supreme court, but the judge from whose decision appeal is made may not hear the appealed case unless the appeal is made at his own instance. Bribery may be punished by fine, imprisonment and disfranchisement for ten years. Corporations cannot be created by a special act of the legislature, and no corporation may issue stock except for an equivalent value of money, labour or property. In order to attract capital to the state, the legislature has reduced the taxes on corporations, has forbidden the repeal of charters, and has given permission for the organization of corporations with both the power and name of trust companies. Legislative divorces are forbidden by the constitution, and a statute of 1901 subjects wife-beaters to corporal punishment. Although punishment by whipping and by standing in the pillory was prohibited by an act of Congress in 1839, in so far as the Federal government had jurisdiction, both these forms of punishment were retained in Delaware, and standing in the pillory was prescribed by statute as a punishment for a number of offences, including various kinds of larceny and forgery, highway robbery, and even pretending "to exercise the art of witchcraft, fortune-telling or dealing with spirits," at least until 1893. In 1905, by a law approved on the 20th of March, the pillory was abolished. The whipping-post was in 1908 still maintained in Delaware, and whipping continued to be prescribed as a punishment for a variety of offences, although in 1889 a law was passed which prescribed that "hereafter no female convicted of any crime in this state shall be whipped or made to stand in the pillory," and a law passed in 1883 prescribed that "in case of conviction of larceny, when the prisoner is of tender years, or is charged for the first time (being shown to have before had a good character), the court may in its discretion omit from the sentence the infliction of lashes." An old law still on the statute-books when the edition of the revised statutes was issued in 1893, prescribes that "the punishment of whipping shall be inflicted publicly by strokes on the bare back, well laid on."
The unit of local government is the "hundred," which corresponds to the township of Pennsylvania. The employment of children under fourteen years of age in factories is forbidden by statute. Divorces are granted for adultery, desertion for three years, habitual drunkenness, impotence at the time of marriage, fraud, lack of marriageable age (eighteen for males, sixteen for females), and failure of husband to provide for his wife during three consecutive years. The marriages of whites with negroes and of insane persons are null; but the children of the married insane are legitimate.
In 1908 the state debt was $816,785, and the assets in bonds, railway mortgages and bank stocks exceeded the liabilities by $717,779. Besides the income from interest and dividends on investments, the state revenues are derived from taxes on licences, on commissions to public officers, on railway, telegraph and telephone, express, and banking companies, and to a slight extent from taxes on collateral inheritance.
_Education._--The charitable and penal administration of Delaware is not well developed. There is a state hospital for the insane at Farnhurst. Other dependent citizens are cared for in the institutions of other states at public expense. In 1899 a county workhouse was established in New Castle county, in which persons under sentence must labour eight hours a day, pay being allowed for extra hours, and a diminution of sentence for good behaviour. At Wilmington is the Ferris industrial school for boys, a private reformatory institution to which New Castle county gives $146 for each boy; and the Delaware industrial school for girls, also at Wilmington, receives financial support from both county and state.
The educational system of the state has been considerably improved within recent years. The maintenance of a system of public schools is rendered compulsory by the state constitution, and a new compulsory school law came into effect in 1907. The first public school law, passed in 1829, was based largely on the principle of "local option," each school district being left free to determine the character of its own school or even to decide, if it wished, against having any school at all. The system thus established proved to be very unsatisfactory, and a new school law in 1875 brought about a greater degree of uniformity and centralization through its provisions for the appointment of a state superintendent of free schools and a state board of education. In 1888, however, the state superintendency was abolished, and county superintendencies were created instead, the legislature thus returning, in a measure, to the old system of local control. Centralization was again secured, in 1898, by the passage of a law reorganizing and increasing the powers of the state board of education. The state school fund, ranging from about $150,000 to $160,000 a year, is apportioned among the school districts, according to the number of teachers employed, and is used exclusively for teachers' salaries and the supplying of free text-books. This fund is supplemented by local taxation. No discrimination is allowed on account of race or colour; but separate schools are provided for white and coloured children. Delaware College (non-sectarian) at Newark, founded in 1833 as Newark College and rechartered, after suspension from 1859 to 1870, under the present name, as a state institution, derives most of its financial support from the United States Land Grant of 1862 and the supplementary appropriation of 1890, and is the seat of an agricultural experiment station, established in 1888 under the so-called "Hatch Bill" of 1887. In 1906-1907 Delaware College had 20 instructors and 130 students. The college is a part of the free school system of Delaware, and tuition is free to all students from the state. There is an agricultural college for negroes at Dover; this college receives one-fifth of the appropriation made by the so-called "new Morrill Bill" of 1890.
_History._--Delaware river and bay were first explored on behalf of the Dutch by Henry Hudson in 1609, and more thoroughly in 1615-1616 by Cornelius Hendrikson, whose reports did much to cause the incorporation of the Dutch West India Company. The first settlement on Delaware soil was made under the auspices of members of this company in 1631 near the site of the present Lewes. The leaders, one of whom was Captain David P. de Vries, wished "to plant a colony for the cultivation of grain and tobacco as well as to carry on the whale fishery in that region." The settlement, however, was soon completely destroyed by the Indians. (See LEWES.) A more successful effort at colonization was made under the auspices of the South Company of Sweden, a corporation organized in 1624 as the "Australian Company," by William Usselinx, who had also been the chief organizer of the Dutch West India Company, and now secured a charter or _manifest_ from Gustavus Adolphus. The privileges of the company were extended to Germans in 1633, and about 1640 the Dutch members were bought out. In 1638 Peter Minuit on behalf of this company established a settlement at what is now Wilmington, naming it, in honour of the infant queen Christina, Christinaham, and naming the entire territory, bought by Minuit from the Minquas Indians and extending indefinitely westward from the Delaware river between Bombay Hook and the mouth of the Schuylkill river, "New Sweden." This territory was subsequently considerably enlarged. In 1642 mature plans for colonization were adopted. A new company, officially known as the West India, American, or New Sweden Company, but like its predecessor popularly known as the South Company, was chartered, and a governor, Johan Printz (c. 1600-1663) was sent out by the crown. He arrived early in 1643 and subsequently established settlements on the island of Tinicum, near the present Chester, Pennsylvania, at the mouth of Salem Creek, New Jersey, and near the mouth of the Schuylkill river. Friction had soon arisen with New Netherland, although, owing to their common dislike of the English, the Swedes and the Dutch had maintained a formal friendship. In 1651, however, Peter Stuyvesant, governor of New Netherland, and more aggressive than his predecessors, built Fort Casimir, near what is now New Castle. In 1654 Printz's successor, Johan Claudius Rising, who had arrived from Sweden with a large number of colonists, expelled the Dutch from Fort Casimir. In retaliation, Stuyvesant, in 1655, with seven vessels and as many hundred men, recaptured the fort and also captured Fort Christina (Wilmington). New Sweden thus passed into the control of the Dutch, and became a dependency of New Netherland. In 1656, however, the Dutch West India Company sold part of what had been New Sweden to the city of Amsterdam, which in the following year established a settlement called "New Amstel" at Fort Casimir (New Castle). This settlement was badly administered and made little progress.
In 1663 the whole of the Delaware country came under the jurisdiction of the city of Amsterdam, but in the following year this territory, with New Netherland, was seized by the English. For a brief interval, in 1673-1674, the Dutch were again in control, but in the latter year, by the treaty of Westminster, the "three counties on the Delaware" again became part of the English possessions in America held by the duke of York, later James II. His formal grant from Charles II. was not received until March 1683. In order that no other settlements should encroach upon his centre of government, New Castle, the northern boundary was determined by drawing an arc of a circle, 12 m. in radius, and with New Castle as the centre. This accounts for the present curved boundary line between Delaware and Pennsylvania. Previously, however, in August 1680, the duke of York had leased this territory for 10,000 years to William Penn, to whom he conveyed it by a deed of feoffment in August 1682; but differences in race and religion, economic rivalry between New Castle and the Pennsylvania towns, and petty political quarrels over representation and office holding, similar to those in the other American colonies, were so intense that Penn in 1691 appointed a special deputy governor for the "lower counties." Although reunited with the "province" of Pennsylvania in 1693, the so-called "territories" or "lower counties" secured a separate legislature in 1704, and a separate executive council in 1710; the governor of Pennsylvania, however, was the chief executive until 1776. A protracted boundary dispute with Maryland, which colony at first claimed the whole of Delaware under Lord Baltimore's charter, was not settled until 1767, when the present line separating Delaware and Maryland was adopted. In the War of Independence Delaware furnished only one regiment to the American army, but that was one of the best in the service. One of its companies carried a number of gamecocks said to have been the brood of a blue hen; hence the soldiers, and later the people of the state, have been popularly known as the "Blue Hen's Chickens."
In 1776 a state government was organized, representative of the Delaware state, the term "State of Delaware" being first adopted in the constitution of 1792. One of the peculiarities of the government was that in addition to the regular executive, legislative and judicial departments there was a privy council without whose approval the governor's power was little more than nominal. In 1786 Delaware was one of the five states whose delegates attended the Annapolis Convention (see ANNAPOLIS, Maryland), and it was the first (on the 7th of December 1787) to ratify the Federal constitution. From then until 1850 it was controlled by the Federalist or Whig parties. In 1850 the Democrats, who had before then elected a few governors and United States senators, secured control of the entire administration--a control unarrested, except in 1863, until the last decade of the 19th century. Although it was a slave state, the majority of the people of Delaware opposed secession in 1861, and the legislature promptly answered President Lincoln's call to arms; yet, while 14,000 of the 40,000 males between the ages of fourteen and sixty served in the Union army, there were many sympathizers with the Confederacy in the southern part of the state.
In 1866, 1867 and 1869, respectively, the legislature refused to ratify the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth amendments to the Federal constitution. The provision of the state constitution that restricted suffrage to those who had paid county or poll taxes and made the tax lists the basis for the lists of qualified voters, opened the way for the disfranchisement of many negroes by fraudulent means. Consequently the levy court of New Castle county was indicted in the United States circuit court in 1872, and one of its members was convicted. Again in 1880 the circuit court, by virtue of the Federal statute of 1872 on elections, appointed supervisors of elections in Delaware. The negro vote has steadily increased in importance, and in 1900 was approximately one-fifth of the total vote of the state. In 1901 the legislature ratified the three amendments rejected in former years. Another political problem has been that of representation. According to the constitution of 1831 the unit of representation in the legislature was the county; inasmuch as the population of New Castle county has exceeded after 1870 that of both Kent and Sussex, the inequality became a cause of discontent. This is partly eradicated by the new constitution of 1897, which reapportioned representation according to electoral districts, so that New Castle has seven senators and fifteen representatives, while each of the other counties has seven senators and ten representatives.
In 1889 the Republicans for the first time since the Civil War secured a majority in the legislature, and elected Anthony J. Higgins to the United States Senate. In that year a capitalist and promoter, J. Edward Addicks (b. 1841, in Pennsylvania), became a citizen of the state, and after securing for himself the control of the Wilmington gas supply, systematically set about building up a personal "machine" that would secure his election to the national Senate as a Republican. His purpose was thwarted in 1893, when a Democratic majority chose, for a second term, George Gray (b. 1840), who from 1879 to 1885 had been the attorney-general of the state and subsequently was a member of the Spanish-American Peace Commission at Paris in 1898 and became a judge of the United States circuit court, third judicial circuit, in 1899. Mr Addicks was an avowed candidate in 1895, but the opposition of the Regular Republicans, who accused him of corruption and who held the balance of power, prevented an election. In 1897, the legislature being again Democratic, Richard R. Kenney (b. 1856) was chosen to fill the vacancy for the remainder of the unexpired term. Meanwhile the two Republican factions continued to oppose one another, and both sent delegates to the national party convention in 1896, the "regular" delegation being seated. The expiration of Senator Gray's term in 1899 left a vacancy, but although the Republicans again had a clear majority the resolution of the Regulars prevented the Union Republicans, as the supporters of Addicks called themselves, from seating their patron. Both the Regular and Union factions sent delegations to the national party convention in 1900, where the refusal of the Regulars to compromise led to the recognition of the Union delegates. Despite this apparent abandonment of their cause by the national organization, the Regulars continued their opposition, the state being wholly without representation in the Senate from the expiration of Senator Kenney's term in 1901 until 1903, when a compromise was effected whereby two Republicans, one of each faction, were chosen, one condition being that Addicks should not be the candidate of the Union Republicans. Both factions were recognized by the national convention of 1904, but the legislature of 1905 adjourned without being able to fill a vacancy in the Senate which had again occurred. The deadlock, however, was broken at the special session of the legislature called in 1906, and in June of that year Henry A. Du Pont was elected senator.
GOVERNORS OF DELAWARE
I. _Swedish._
Peter Minuit 1638-1640 Peter Hollander 1640-1643 Johan Printz 1643-1653 Johan Papegoga (acting) 1653-1654 Johan Claudius Rising 1654-1655
II. _Dutch._
(Same as for New York.)
III. _English._
(Same as New York until 1682.) (Same as Pennsylvania 1682-1776.)
PRESIDENTS OF DELAWARE
John McKinley 1776-1778 Caesar Rodney 1778-1781 John Dickinson 1781-1783 Nicholas Van Dyke 1783-1786 Thomas Collins 1786-1789
GOVERNORS
Joshua Clayton 1789-1796 Federalist Gunning Bedford 1796-1797 " Daniel Rogers[1] 1797-1799 " Richard Bassett 1799-1801 " James Sykes[2] 1801-1802 " David Hall 1802-1805 Federalist Nathaniel Mitchell 1805-1808 " George Truett 1808-1811 " Joseph Haslett 1811-1814 " Daniel Rodney 1814-1817 " John Clarke 1817-1820 " Henry Malleston[3] 1820 " Jacob Stout[4] 1820-1821 " John Collins 1821-1822 Democratic-Republican Caleb Rodney[5] 1822 " Joseph Haslett 1822-1823 Democratic-Republican Charles Thomas[6] 1823-1824 " Samuel Paynter 1824-1827 Federalist Charles Polk 1827-1830 " David Hazzard 1830-1833 American-Republican Caleb P. Bennett 1833-1836 Democrat Charles Polk[7] 1836-1837 " Cornelius P. Comegys 1837-1841 Whig William B. Cooper 1841-1845 " Thomas Stockton 1845-1846 " Joseph Maul[8] 1846 " William Temple[9] 1846-1847 " William Tharp 1847-1851 Democrat William H. Ross 1851-1855 " Peter F. Causey 1855-1859 Whig-Know-Nothing William Burton 1859-1863 Democrat William Cannon 1863-1865 Republican Gove Saulsbury[10] 1865-1871 Democrat James Ponder 1871-1875 " John P. Cockran 1875-1879 " John W. Hall 1879-1883 " Charles C. Stockley 1883-1887 " Benjamin T. Biggs 1887-1891 " Robert J. Reynolds 1891-1895 " Joshua H. Marvil 1895 Republican William T. Watson[11] 1895-1897 Democrat Ebe W. Tunnell 1897-1901 " John Hunn 1901-1905 Republican Preston Lea 1905-1909 " Simeon S. Pennewill 1909 "
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--Information about manufactures, mining and agriculture may be found in the reports of the _Twelfth Census of the United States_, especially _Bulletins 69_ and _100_. The Agricultural Experiment Station, at Newark, publishes in its _Annual Report_ a record of temperature and rainfall. For law and administration see _Constitution of Delaware_ (Dover, 1899) and the _Revised Code_ of 1852, amended 1893 (Wilmington, 1893). For education see L. B. Powell, _History of Education in Delaware_ (Washington, 1893), and a sketch in the _Annual Report_ for 1902 of the United States Commissioner of Education. The most elaborate history is that of John Thomas Scharf, _History of the State of Delaware_ (2 vols., Philadelphia, 1888); the second volume is entirely biographical. Claes T. Odhner's brief sketch, _Kolonien Nya Sveriges Grundläggning, 1637-1642_ (Stockholm, 1876; English translation in the _Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography_, vol. iii.), and Carl K. S. Sprinchorn's _Kolonien Nya Sveriges Historia_ (1878; English translation in the _Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography_, vols. vii. and viii.) are based, in part, on documents in the Swedish Royal Archives and at the universities of Upsala and Lund, which were unknown to Benjamin Ferris (_History of the Original Settlements of the Delaware_, Wilmington, 1846) and Francis Vincent (_History of the State of Delaware_, Philadelphia, 1870), which ends with the English occupation in 1664. In vol. iv. of Justin Winsor's _Narrative and Critical History of America_ (Boston, 1884) there is an excellent chapter by Gregory B. Keen on "New Sweden, or the Swedes on the Delaware," to which a bibliographical chapter is appended. The _Papers_ of the Historical Society of Delaware (1879 seq.) contain valuable material. In part ii. of the _Report of the Superintendent of the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey_ for 1893 (Washington, 1905) there is "A Historical Account of the Boundary Line between the States of Pennsylvania and Delaware, by W. C. Hodgkins." The colonial records are preserved with those of New York and Pennsylvania; only one volume of the State Records has been published, and _Minutes of the Council of Delaware State, 1776-1792_ (Dover, 1886). For political conditions since the Civil War see vol. 141 of the _North American Review_, vol. 32 of the _Forum_, and vol. 73 of the _Outlook_--all published in New York.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Speaker of the senate. Filled unexpired term of Gunning Bedford (d. 1797).
[2] Speaker of senate. Filled unexpired term of Richard Bassett, who resigned 1801.
[3] Died before he was inaugurated.
[4] Speaker of the senate.
[5] Speaker of the senate, John Collins dying in 1822.
[6] Speaker of senate, Haslett dying in 1823.
[7] Speaker of senate.
[8] Speaker of senate, Stockton dying in 1846.
[9] Speaker of senate, Maul dying in 1846.
[10] As speaker of the senate filled the unexpired term of Cannon (d. 1865), and then became governor in 1867.
[11] President of senate, Marvil dying in 1895.
DELAWARE, a city and the county-seat of Delaware county, Ohio, U.S.A., on the Olentangy (or Whetstone) river, near the centre of the state. Pop. (1890) 8224; (1900) 7940 (572 being foreign-born and 432 negroes); (1910) 9076. Delaware is served by the Pennsylvania, the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St Louis (New York Central system), and the Hocking Valley railways, and by two interurban lines. The city is built on rolling ground about 900 ft. above sea-level. There are many sulphur and iron springs in the vicinity. Delaware is the seat of the Ohio Wesleyan University (co-educational), founded by the Ohio Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1841, and opened as a college in 1844; it includes a college of liberal arts (1844), an academic department (1841), a school of music (1877), a school of fine arts (1877), a school of oratory (1894), a business school (1895), and a college of medicine (the Cleveland College of Physicians and Surgeons, at Cleveland, Ohio; founded as the Charity Hospital Medical College in 1863, and the medical department of the university of Wooster until 1896, when, under its present name, it became a part of Ohio Wesleyan University). In 1877 the Ohio Wesleyan female college, established at Delaware in 1853, was incorporated in the university. In 1907-1908 the university had 122 instructors, 1178 students and a library of 55,395 volumes. At Delaware, also, are the state industrial school for girls, a Carnegie library, the Edwards Young Men's Christian Association building and a city hospital. The city has railway shops and foundries, and manufactures furniture, carriages, tile, cigars and gas engines. Delaware was laid out in 1808 and was first incorporated in 1815. It was the birthplace of Rutherford B. Hayes, president of the United States from 1877 to 1881.
DELAWARE INDIANS, the English name for the Leni Lenape, a tribe of North American Indians of Algonquian stock. When first discovered by the whites the tribe was settled on the banks of the Delaware river. The French called them Loups (wolves) from their chief totemic division. Early in the 17th century the Dutch began trading with them. Subsequently William Penn bought large tracts of land from them, and war followed, the Delawares alleging they had been defrauded; but, with the assistance of the Six Nations, the whites forced them back west of the Alleghenies. In 1789 they were placed on a reservation in Ohio and subsequently in 1818 were moved to Missouri. Various removals followed, until in 1866 they accepted lands in the Indian territory (Oklahoma) and gave up the tribal relation. They have remained there and now number some 1700.
DELAWARE RIVER, a stream of the Atlantic slope of the United States, meeting tide-water at Trenton, New Jersey, 130 m. above its mouth. Its total length, from the head of the longest branch to the capes, is 410 m., and above the head of the bay its length is 360 m. It constitutes in part the boundary between Pennsylvania and New York, the boundary between New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and, for a few miles, the boundary between Delaware and New Jersey. The main, west or Mohawk branch rises in Schoharie county, N.Y., about 1886 ft. above the sea, and flows tortuously through the plateau in a deep trough until it emerges from the Catskills. Other branches rise in Greene and Delaware counties. In the upper portion of its course the varied scenery of its hilly and wooded banks is exquisitely beautiful. After leaving the mountains and plateau, the river flows down broad Appalachian valleys, skirts the Kittatinny range, which it crosses at Delaware Water-Gap, between nearly vertical walls of sandstone, and passes through a quiet and charming country of farm and forest, diversified with plateaus and escarpments, until it crosses the Appalachian plain and enters the hills again at Easton, Pa. From this point it is flanked at intervals by fine hills, and in places by cliffs, of which the finest are the Hockamixon Rocks, 3 m. long and above 200 ft. high. At Trenton there is a fall of 8 ft. Below Trenton the river becomes a broad, sluggish inlet of the sea, with many marshes along its side, widening steadily into its great estuary, Delaware Bay. Its main tributaries in New York are Mongaup and Neversink rivers and Callicoon Creek; from Pennsylvania, Lackawaxen, Lehigh and Schuylkill rivers; and from New Jersey, Rancocas Creek and Musconetcong and Maurice rivers. Commerce was once important on the upper river, but only before the beginning of railway competition (1857). The Delaware division of the Pennsylvania Canal, running parallel with the river from Easton to Bristol, was opened in 1830. A canal from Trenton to New Brunswick unites the waters of the Delaware and Raritan rivers; the Morris and the Delaware and Hudson canals connect the Delaware and Hudson rivers; and the Delaware and Chesapeake canal joins the waters of the Delaware with those of the Chesapeake Bay. The mean tides below Philadelphia are about 6 ft. The magnitude of the commerce of Philadelphia has made the improvements of the river below that port of great importance. Small improvements were attempted by Pennsylvania as early as 1771, but apparently never by New Jersey. The ice floods at Easton are normally 10 to 20 ft., and in 1841 attained a height of 35 ft. These floods constitute a serious difficulty in the improvement of the lower river. In the "project of 1885" the United States government undertook systematically the formation of a 26-ft. channel 600 ft. wide from Philadelphia to deep water in Delaware Bay; $1,532,688.81 was expended--about $200,000 of that amount for maintenance--before the 1885 project was superseded by a paragraph of the River and Harbor Act of the 3rd of March 1899, which provided for a 30-ft. channel 600 ft. wide from Philadelphia to the deep water of the bay. In 1899 the project of 1885 had been completed except for three shoal stretches, whose total length, measured on the range lines, was 4(3/8) m. The project of 1899, estimated to cost $5,810,000, was not completed at the close of the fiscal year (June 30) 1907, when $4,936,550.63 had been expended by the Federal government on the work; in 1905 the state of Pennsylvania appropriated $750,000 for improvement of the river in Pennsylvania, south of Philadelphia.
DELAWARE WATER-GAP, a borough and summer resort of Monroe county, Pennsylvania, U.S.A., on the Delaware river, about 108 m. N. of Philadelphia and about 88 m. W. by N. of New York. Pop. (1890) 467; (1900) 469. It is served directly by the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western, and by the Belvidere division of the Pennsylvania railways; along the river on the opposite side (in New Jersey) runs the New York, Susquehanna & Western railway, and the borough is connected with Stroudsburg, Pa. (about 3 m. W. by N.) by an electric line. The borough was named from the neighbouring gorge, which is noted for the picturesqueness of its scenery, especially in winter, when the ice piles up in the river, sometimes to a height of 20 ft. Here the river cuts through the Kittatinny (Blue) Ridge to its base. On the New Jersey side is Mt. Tammany (about 1600 ft.); on the Pennsylvania side, Mt. Minsi (about 1500 ft.); the elevation of the river here is about 300 ft. The gap (about 2 m. long) through the mountain is the result of erosion by the waters of a great river which flowed northwards acting along a line of faulting at right angles to the strike of the tilted rock formations. The scenery and the delightful climate have made the place a popular summer resort. The borough was incorporated in 1889.
See L. W. Brodhead, _The Delaware Water-Gap_ (Philadelphia, 2nd ed., 1870).
DE LA WARR, or DELAWARE, an English barony, the holders of which are descended from Roger de la Warr of Isfield, Sussex, who was summoned to parliament as a baron in 1299 and the following years. He died about 1320; his great-grandson Roger, to whom the French king John surrendered at the battle of Poitiers, died in 1370; and the male line of the family became extinct on the death of Thomas, 5th baron, in 1426.
The 5th baron's half-sister Joan married Thomas West, 1st Lord West (d. 1405), and in 1415 her second son Reginald (1394-1451) succeeded his brother Thomas as 3rd Lord West. After the death of his uncle Thomas, 5th Baron De La Warr, whose estates he inherited, Reginald was summoned to parliament as Baron La Warr, and he is thus the second founder of the family. His grandson was Thomas, 3rd (or 8th) baron (d. 1525), a courtier during the reigns of Henry VII. and Henry VIII.; and the latter's son was Thomas, 4th (or 9th) baron (c. 1472-1554). The younger Thomas was a very prominent person during the reigns of Henry VIII. and Edward VI. After serving with the English army in France in 1513 and being present at the Field of the Cloth of Gold, he rebuilt the house at Halnaker in Sussex, which he had obtained by marriage, and here in 1526 he entertained Henry VIII. "with great cheer." He disliked the ecclesiastical changes introduced by the king, and he was one of the peers who tried Anne Boleyn; later he showed some eagerness to stand well with Thomas Cromwell, but this did not prevent his arrest in 1538. He is said to have denounced "the plucking down of abbeys," and he certainly consorted with many suspected persons. But he was soon released and pardoned, although he was obliged to hand over Halnaker to Henry VIII., receiving instead the estate of Wherwell in Hampshire. He died without children in September 1554, when his baronies of De La Warr and West fell into abeyance. His monument may still be seen in the church at Broadwater, Sussex.
He had settled his estates on his nephew William West (c. 1519-1595), who then tried to bring about his uncle's death by poison; for this reason he was disabled by act of parliament (1549) from succeeding to his honours. However, in 1563 he was restored, and in 1570 was created by patent Baron De La Warr. This was obviously a new creation, but in 1596 his son Thomas (c. 1556-1602) claimed precedency in the baronage as the holder of the ancient barony of De La Warr. His claim was admitted, and accordingly his son and successor, next mentioned, is called the 3rd or the 12th baron.
THOMAS WEST, 3rd or 12th Baron De La Warr (1577-1618), British soldier and colonial governor in America, was born on the 9th of July 1577, probably at Wherwell, Hampshire, where he was baptized. He was educated at Queen's College, Oxford, where he did not complete his course, but subsequently (1605) received the degree of M.A. In 1597 he was elected member of parliament for Lymington, and subsequently fought in Holland and in Ireland under the earl of Essex, being knighted for bravery in battle in 1599. He was imprisoned for complicity in Essex's revolt (1600-1601), but was soon released and exonerated. In 1602 he succeeded to his father's title and estates and became a privy councillor. Becoming interested in schemes for the colonization of America, he was chosen a member of the council of the Virginia Company in 1609, and in the same year was appointed governor and captain-general of Virginia for life. Sailing in March 1610 with three ships, 150 settlers and supplies, he himself bearing the greater part of the expense of the expedition, he arrived at Jamestown on the 10th of June, in time to intercept the colonists who had embarked for England and were abandoning the enterprise. Lord De La Warr's rule was strict but just; he constructed two forts near the mouth of the James river, rebuilt Jamestown, and in general brought order out of chaos. In March 1611 he returned to London, where he published at the request of the company's council, his _Relation_ of the condition of affairs in Virginia (reprinted 1859 and 1868). He remained in England until 1618, when the news of the tyrannical rule of the deputy, Samuel Argall, led him to start again for Virginia. He embarked in April, but died en route on the 7th of June 1618, and was buried at sea. The Delaware river and the state of Delaware were named in his honour.
A younger brother, Francis (1586-c. 1634), was prominent in the affairs of Virginia, and in 1627-1628 was president of the council, and acting-governor of the colony.
In 1761 the 3rd or 12th baron's descendant, John, 7th or 16th Baron De La Warr (1693-1766), was created Viscount Cantelupe and 1st Earl De La Warr. He was a prominent figure in the House of Lords, at first as a supporter of Sir Robert Walpole. He also served in the British army and fought at Dettingen, and was made governor of Guernsey in 1752.
George John West, 5th earl (1791-1869), married Elizabeth, sister and heiress of George John Frederick Sackville, 4th duke of Dorset, who was created Baroness Buckhurst in 1864; consequently in 1843 he and his sons took the name of Sackville-West. The earl was twice lord chamberlain to Queen Victoria, and he is celebrated as "Fair Euryalus" in the _Childish Recollections_ of his schoolfellow, Lord Byron. His son Charles Richard (1815-1873), 6th earl, served in the first Sikh war and in the Crimea; and being unmarried was succeeded by his brother Reginald (1817-1896) as 7th Earl De La Warr. Having inherited his mother's barony of Buckhurst on her death in 1870, he retained this title along with the barony and earldom of De La Warr, although the patent had contained a proviso that it should be kept separate from these dignities. In 1896 the 7th earl's son, Gilbert George Reginald Sackville-West (b. 1869), became 8th earl De La Warr.
See G. E. C(okayne), _Complete Peerage_ (1887-1898).
DELBRÜCK, HANS (1848- ), German historian, was born at Bergen on the island of Rügen on the 11th of November 1848, and studied at the universities of Heidelberg and Bonn. As a soldier he fought in the Franco-German War, after which he was for some years tutor to one of the princes of the German imperial family. In 1885 he became professor of modern history in the university of Berlin, and he was a member of the German Reichstag from 1884 to 1890. Delbrück's writings are chiefly concerned with the history of the art of war, his most ambitious work being his _Geschichte der Kriegskunst im Rahmen der politischen Geschichte_ (first section, _Das Altertum_, 1900; second, _Römer und Germanen_, 1902; third, _Das Mittelalter_, 1907). Among his other works are: _Die Perserkriege und die Burgunderkriege_ (Berlin, 1887); _Historische und politische Aufsätze_ (1886); _Erinnerungen, Aufsätze und Reden_ (1902); _Die Strategie des Perikles erläutert durch die Strategie Friedrichs des Grossen_ (1890); _Die Polenfrage_ (1894); and _Das Leben des Feldmarschalls Grafen Neithardt von Gneisenau_ (1882 and 1894). Delbrück began in 1883 to edit the _Preussische Jahrbücher_, in which he has written many articles, including one on "General Wolseley über Napoleon, Wellington und Gneisenau," and he has contributed to the _Europäischer Geschichtskalender_ of H. Schulthess.
DELBRÜCK, MARTIN FRIEDRICH RUDOLF VON, Prussian statesman (1817-1903), was born at Berlin on the 16th of April 1817. On completing his legal studies he entered the service of the state in 1837; and after holding a series of minor posts was transferred in 1848 to the ministry of commerce, which was to be the sphere of his real life's work. Both Germany and Austria had realized the influence of commercial upon political union. Delbrück in 1851 induced Hanover, Oldenburg and Schaumburg-Lippe to join the Zollverein; and the southern states, which had agreed to admit Austria to the union, found themselves forced in 1853 to renew the old union, from which Austria was excluded. Delbrück now began, with the support of Bismarck, to apply the principles of free trade to Prussian fiscal policy. In 1862 he concluded an important commercial treaty with France. In 1867 he became the first president of the chancery of the North German Confederation, and represented Bismarck on the federal tariff council (_Zollbundesrath_), a position of political as well as fiscal importance owing to the presence in the council of representatives of the southern states. In 1868 he became a Prussian minister without portfolio. In October 1870, when the union of Germany under Prussian headship became a practical question, Delbrück was chosen to go on a mission to the South German states, and contributed greatly to the agreements concluded at Versailles in November. In 1871 he became president of the newly constituted _Reichskanzleramt_. Delbrück, however, began to feel himself uneasy under Bismarck's leanings towards protection and state control. On the introduction of Bismarck's plan for the acquisition of the railways by the state, Delbrück resigned office, nominally on the ground of ill-health (June 1, 1876). In 1879 he opposed in the _Reichstag_ the new protectionist tariff, and on the failure of his efforts retired definitely from public life. In 1896 he received from the emperor the order of the Black Eagle. He died at Berlin on the 1st of February 1903.
DELCASSÉ, THÉOPHILE (1852- ), French statesman, was born at Pamiers, in the department of Ariège, on the 1st of March 1852. He wrote articles on foreign affairs for the _République française_ and _Paris_, and in 1888 was elected _conseiller général_ of his native department, standing as "un disciple fidèle de Gambetta." In the following year he entered the chamber as deputy for Foix. He was appointed under-secretary for the colonies in the second Ribot cabinet (January to April 1893), and retained his post in the Dupuy cabinet till its fall in December 1893. It was largely owing to his efforts that the French colonial office was made a separate department with a minister at its head, and to this office he was appointed in the second Dupuy cabinet (May 1894 to January 1895). He gave a great impetus to French colonial enterprise, especially in West Africa, where he organized the newly acquired colony of Dahomey, and despatched the Liotard mission to the Upper Ubangi. While in opposition he devoted special attention to naval affairs, and in speeches that attracted much notice declared that the function of the French navy was to secure and develop colonial enterprise, deprecated all attempts to rival the British fleet, and advocated the construction of commerce destroyers as France's best reply to England. On the formation of the second Brisson cabinet in June 1898 he succeeded M. Hanotaux at the foreign office, and retained that post under the subsequent premierships of MM. Dupuy, Waldeck-Rousseau, Combes and Rouvier. In 1898 he had to deal with the delicate situation caused by Captain Marchand's occupation of Fashoda, for which, as he admitted in a speech in the chamber on the 23rd of January 1899, he accepted full responsibility, since it arose directly out of the Liotard expedition, which he had himself organized while minister for the colonies; and in March 1899 he concluded an agreement with Great Britain by which the difficulty was finally adjusted, and France consolidated her vast colonial empire in North-West Africa. In the same year he acted as mediator between the United States and Spain, and brought the peace negotiations to a successful conclusion. He introduced greater cordiality into the relations of France with Italy: at the same time he adhered firmly to the alliance with Russia, and in August 1899 made a visit to St Petersburg, which he repeated in April 1901. In June 1900 he made an arrangement with Spain, fixing the long-disputed boundaries of the French and Spanish possessions in West Africa. Finally he concluded with England the important Agreements of 1904 covering colonial and other questions which had long been a matter of dispute, especially concerning Egypt, Newfoundland and Morocco. Suspicion of the growing _entente_ between France and England soon arose on the part of Germany, and in 1905 German assertiveness was shown in a crisis which was forced on in the matter of the French activity in Morocco (q.v.), in which the handling of French policy by M. Delcassé personally was a sore point with Germany. The situation became acute in April, and was only relieved by M. Delcassé's resignation of office. He retired into private life, but in 1908 was warmly welcomed on a visit to England, where the closest relations now existed with France.
DEL CREDERE (Ital. "of belief" or "trust"). A "del credere agent," in English law, is one who, selling goods for his principal on credit, undertakes for an additional commission to sell only to persons who are absolutely solvent. His position is thus that of a surety who is liable to his principal should the vendee make default. The agreement between him and his principal need not be reduced to or evidenced by writing, for his undertaking is not a guarantee within the Statute of Frauds. See also BROKER; GUARANTEE.
DELESCLUZE, LOUIS CHARLES (1809-1871), French journalist, was born at Dreux on the 2nd of October 1809. Having studied law in Paris, he early developed a strong democratic bent, and played a part in the July revolution of 1830. He became a member of various republican societies, and in 1836 was forced to take refuge in Belgium, where he devoted himself to republican journalism. Returning in 1840 he settled in Valenciennes, and after the revolution of 1848 removed to Paris, where he started a newspaper called _La Révolution démocratique et sociale_. His zeal so far outran his discretion that he was twice imprisoned and fined, his paper was suppressed and he himself fled to England, where he continued his journalistic work. He was arrested in Paris in 1853, and deported to French Guiana. Released under the amnesty of 1859, he returned to France with health shattered but energies unimpaired. His next venture was the publication of the _Réveil_, a radical organ upholding the principles of the _Association internationale des travailleurs_, known as the "_Internationale_." This journal, which brought him three condemnations, fine and imprisonment in one year, shared the fate of his Paris sheet, and its founder again fled to Belgium. In 1871 he was elected to the National Assembly, becoming afterwards a member of the Paris commune. At the siege of Paris he fought with reckless courage, and met his death on the last of the barricades (May 1871). He wrote an account of his imprisonment in Guiana, _De Paris à Cayenne, Journal d'un transporté_ (Paris, 1869).
DELESSE, ACHILLE ERNEST OSCAR JOSEPH (1817-1881), French geologist and mineralogist, was born at Metz on the 3rd of February 1817. At the age of twenty he entered the École Polytechnique, and subsequently passed through the École des Mines. In 1845 he was appointed to the chair of mineralogy and geology at Besançon; in 1850 to the chair of geology at the Sorbonne in Paris; and in 1864 professor of agriculture at the École des Mines. In 1878 he became inspector-general of mines. In early years as _ingénieur des mines_ he investigated and described various new minerals; he proceeded afterwards to the study of rocks, devising new methods for their determination, and giving particular descriptions of melaphyre, arkose, porphyry, syenite, &c. The igneous rocks of the Vosges, and those of the Alps, Corsica, &c., and the subject of metamorphism occupied his attention. He also prepared in 1858 geological and hydrological maps of Paris--with reference to the underground water, similar maps of the departments of the Seine and Seine-et-Marne, and an agronomic map of the Seine-et-Marne (1880), in which he showed the relation which exists between the physical and chemical characters of the soil and the geological structure. His annual _Revue des progrès de géologie_, undertaken with the assistance (1860-1865) of Auguste Laugel and afterwards (1865-1878) of Albert de Lapparent, was carried on from 1860 to 1880. His observations on the lithology of the deposits accumulated beneath the sea were of special interest and importance. His separate publications were: _Recherches sur l'origine des roches_ (Paris, 1865); _Étude sur le métamorphisme des roches_ (1869); _Lithologie des mers de France et des mers principales du globe_ (2 vols. and atlas, 1871). He died at Paris on the 24th of March 1881.
DELESSERT, JULES PAUL BENJAMIN (1773-1847), French banker, was born at Lyons on the 14th of February 1773, the son of Étienne Delessert (1735-1816), the founder of the first fire insurance company and the first discount bank in France. Young Delessert was travelling in England when the Revolution broke out in France, but he hastened back to join the Paris National Guard in 1790, becoming an officer of artillery in 1793. His father bought him out of the army, however, in 1795 in order to entrust him with the management of his bank. Gifted with remarkable energy, he started many commercial enterprises, founding the first cotton factory at Passy in 1801, and a sugar factory in 1802, for which he was created a baron of the empire. He sat in the chamber of deputies for many years, and was a strong advocate for many humane measures, notably the suppression of the "Tours" or revolving box at the foundling hospital, the suppression of the death penalty, and the improvement of the penitentiary system. He was made regent of the Bank of France in 1802, and was also member of, and, indeed, founder of many, learned and philanthropic societies. He founded the first savings bank in France, and maintained a keen interest in it until his death in 1847. He was also an ardent botanist and conchologist; his botanical library embraced 30,000 volumes, of which he published a catalogue--_Musée botanique de M. Delessert_ (1845). He also wrote _Des avantages de la caisse d'épargne et de prévoyance_ (1835), _Mémoire sur un projet de bibliothéque royale_ (1836), _Le Guide de bonheur_ (1839), and _Recueil de coquilles décrites par Lamarck_ (1841-1842).
DELFICO, MELCHIORRE (1744-1835), Italian economist, was born at Teramo in the Abruzzi on the 1st of August 1744, and was educated at Naples. He devoted himself specially to the study of jurisprudence and political economy, and his numerous publications exercised great practical influence in the correction and extinction of many abuses. Under Joseph Bonaparte Delfico was made a councillor of state, an office which he held until the restoration of Ferdinand IV., when he was appointed president of the commission of archives, from which he retired in 1825. He died at Teramo on the 21st of June 1835. His more important works were: _Saggio filosofico sul matrimonio_ (1774); _Memoria sul Tribunale della Grascia e sulle leggi economiche nelle provincie confinanti del regno_ (1785), which led to the abolition in Naples of the most vexatious and absurd restrictions on the sale and exportation of agricultural produce; _Riflessioni su la vendita dei feudi_ (1790) and _Lettera a Sua Ecc. il sig. Duca di Cantalupo_ (1795), which brought about the abolition of feudal rights over landed property and their sale; _Ricerche sul vero carattere della giurisprudenza Romana e dei suoi cultori_ (1791); _Pensieri su la storia e su l' incertezza ed inutilità della medesima_ (1806), both on the early history of Rome.
See F. Mozzetti, _Degli studii, delle opere e delle virtù di Melchiorre Delfico_; Tipaldo's _Biographia degli Italiani illustri_ (vol. ii.).
DELFT, a town of Holland in the province of South Holland, on the Schie, 5 m. by rail S.E. by S. of the Hague, with which it is also connected by steam-tramway. Pop. (1900) 31,582. It is a quiet, typically Dutch town, with its old brick houses and tree-bordered canals. The Prinsenhof, previously a monastery, was converted into a residence for the counts of Orange in 1575; it was here that William the Silent was assassinated. It is now used as a William of Orange Museum. The New Church, formerly the church of St Ursula (14th century), is the burial place of the princes of Orange. It is remarkable for its fine tower and chime of bells, and contains the splendid allegorical monument of William the Silent, executed by Hendrik de Keyser and his son Pieter about 1621, and the tomb of Hugo Grotius, born in Delft in 1583, whose statue, erected in 1886, stands in the market-place outside the church. The Old Church, founded in the 11th century, but in its present form dating from 1476, contains the monuments of two famous admirals of the 17th century, Martin van Tromp and Piet Hein, as well as the tomb of the naturalist Leeuwenhoek, born at Delft in 1632. In the town hall (1618) are some corporation pictures, portraits of the counts of Orange and Nassau, including several by Michiel van Mierevelt (1567-1641), one of the earliest Dutch portrait painters, and with his son Pieter (1595-1623), a native of Delft. There are also a Roman Catholic church (1882) and a synagogue. Two important educational establishments are the Indian Institute for the education of civil service students for the colonies, to which is attached an ethnographical museum; and the Royal Polytechnic school, which almost ranks as a university, and teaches, among other sciences, that of diking. A fine collection of mechanical models is connected with the polytechnic school. Among other buildings are the modern "Phoenix" club-house of the students; the hospital, containing some anatomical pictures, including one by the two Mierevelts (1617); a lunatic asylum; the Van Renswoude orphanage, the theatre, a school of design, the powder magazine and the state arsenal, originally a warehouse of the East India Company, and now used as a manufactory of artillery stores.
The name of Delft is most intimately associated with the manufacture of the beautiful faience pottery for which it was once famous. (See CERAMICS.) This industry was imported from Haarlem towards the end of the 16th century, and achieved an unrivalled position in the second half of the following century; but it did not survive the French occupation at the end of the 18th century. It has, however, been revived in modern times under the name of "New Delft." Other branches of industry are carpet-weaving, distilling, oil and oil-cake manufacture, dyeing, cooperage and the manufacture of arms and bullets. There is also an important butter and cheese market.
Delft was founded in 1075 by Godfrey III., duke of Lower Lorraine, after his conquest of Holland, and came subsequently into the hands of the counts of Holland. In 1246 it received a charter from Count William II. (see C. Hegel, _Städte und Gilden_, ii. 251). In 1536 it was almost totally destroyed by fire, and in 1654 largely ruined by the explosion of a powder magazine.
DELHI, DEHLI or DILLI, the ancient capital of the Mogul empire in India, and a modern city which gives its name to a district and division of British India. The city of Delhi is situated in 28° 38´ N., 77° 13´ E., very nearly due north of Cape Comorin, and practically in a latitudinal line with the more ancient cities of Cairo and Canton. It lies in the south-east corner of the province of the Punjab, to which it was added in 1858, and abuts on the right bank of the river Jumna. Though Lahore, the more ancient city, remains the official capital of the Punjab, Delhi is historically more famous, and is now more important as a commercial and railway centre.
Though the remains of earlier cities are scattered round Delhi over an area estimated to cover some 45 sq. m., modern Delhi dates only from the middle of the 17th century, when Shah Jahan rebuilt the city on its present site, adding the title Shah-jahanabad from his own name. It extends for nearly 2¼ m. along the right bank of the Jumna from the Water bastion to the Wellesley bastion in the south-east corner, nearly one-third of the frontage being occupied by the river wall of the palace. The northern wall, famous in the siege of Delhi in 1857, extends three-quarters of a mile from the Water bastion to the Shah, commonly known as the Mori, bastion; the length of the west wall from this bastion to the Ajmere gate is 1¼ m. and of the south wall to the Wellesley bastion again almost exactly the same distance, the whole land circuit being thus 3¼ m. The complete circuit of Delhi is 5½ m. In the north wall is situated the famous Kashmir gate, while the Mori or Drain gate, which was built by a Mahratta governor, has now been removed. In the west wall are the Farash Khana and Ajmere gates, while the Kabul and Lahore gates have been removed. In the south wall are the Turkman and Delhi gates. The gates on the river side of the city included the Khairati and Rajghat, the Calcutta and Nigambod--both removed; the Kela gate, and the Badar Rao gate, now closed. The great wall of Delhi, which was constructed by Shah Jahan, was strengthened by the English by the addition of a ditch and glacis, after Delhi was captured by Lord Lake in 1803; and its strength was turned against the British at the time of the Mutiny. The imperial palace (1638-1648), now known as the "Fort," is situated on the east of the city, and abuts directly on the river. It consists at present of bare and ugly British barracks, among which are scattered exquisite gems of oriental architecture. The two most famous among its buildings are the Diwan-i-Am or Hall of Public Audience, and the Diwan-i-Khas or Hall of Private Audience. The Diwan-i-Am is a splendid building measuring 100 ft. by 60 ft., and was formerly plastered with chunam and overlaid with gold. The most striking effect now lies in its engrailed arches. It was in the recess in the back wall of this hall that the famous Peacock Throne used to stand, "so called from its having the figures of two peacocks standing behind it, their tails being expanded and the whole so inlaid with sapphires, rubies, emeralds, pearls and other precious stones of appropriate colours as to represent life." Tavernier, the French jeweller, who saw Delhi in 1665, describes the throne as of the shape of a bed, 6 ft. by 4 ft., supported by four golden feet, 20 to 25 in. high, from the bars above which rose twelve columns to support the canopy; the bars were decorated with crosses of rubies and emeralds, and also with diamonds and pearls. In all there were 108 large rubies on the throne, and 116 emeralds, but many of the latter had flaws. The twelve columns supporting the canopy were decorated with rows of splendid pearls, and Tavernier considered these to be the most valuable part of the throne. The whole was valued at £6,000,000. This throne was carried off by the Persian invader Nadir Shah in 1739, and has been rumoured to exist still in the Treasure House of the Shah of Persia; but Lord Curzon, who examined the thrones there, says that nothing now exists of it, except perhaps some portions worked up in a modern Persian throne. The Diwan-i-Khas is smaller than the Diwan-i-Am, and consists of a pavilion of white marble, in the interior of which the art of the Moguls reached the perfection of its jewel-like decoration. On a marble platform rises a marble pavilion, the flat-coned roof of which is supported on a double row of marble pillars. The inner face of the arches, with the spandrils and the pilasters which support them, are covered with flowers and foliage of delicate design and dainty execution, crusted in green serpentine, blue _lapis lazuli_ and red and purple porphyry. During the lapse of years many of these stones were picked from their setting, and the silver ceiling of flowered patterns was pillaged by the Mahrattas; but the inlaid work was restored as far as possible by Lord Curzon. It is in this hall that the famous inscription "If a paradise be on the face of the earth, it is this, it is this, it is this," still exists. It is given in Persian characters twice in the panels over the narrow arches at the ends of the middle hall, beginning from the east on the north side, and from the west at the south side. At the time of the Delhi Durbar held in January 1903 to celebrate the proclamation of Edward VII. as emperor of India these two halls were used as a dancing-room and supper-room, and their full beauty was brought out by the electric light shining through their marble grille-work.
The native city of Delhi is like most other cities in India, a huddle of mean houses in mean streets, diversified with splendid mosques. The Chandni Chauk ("silver street"), the principal street of Delhi, which was once supposed to be the richest street in the world, has fallen from its high estate, though it is still a broad and imposing avenue with a double row of trees running down the centre. During the course of its history it was four times sacked, by Nadir Shah, Timur, Ahmad Shah and the Mahrattas, and its roadway has many times run with blood. Now it is the abode of the jewellers and ivory-workers of Delhi, but the jewels are seldom valuable and the carving has lost much of its old delicacy. A short distance south of the Chandni Chauk the Jama Masjid, or Great Mosque, rises boldly from a small rocky eminence. It was erected in 1648-1650, two years after the royal palace, by Shah Jahan. Its front court, 450 ft. square, and surrounded by a cloister open on both sides, is paved with granite inlaid with marble, and commands a fine view of the city. The mosque itself, a splendid structure forming an oblong 261 ft. in length, is approached by a magnificent flight of stone steps. Three domes of white marble rise from its roof, with two tall minarets at the front corners. The interior of the mosque is paved throughout, and the walls and roof are lined, with white marble. Two other mosques in Delhi itself deserve passing notice, the Kala Masjid or Black Mosque, which was built about 1380 in the reign of Feroz Shah, and the Moti Masjid or Pearl Mosque, a tiny building added to the palace by Aurangzeb, as the emperor's private place of prayer. It is only 60 ft. square, and the domes alone are seen above the red sandstone walls until the opening of two small fine brass gates.
To the west and north-west of Delhi considerable suburbs cluster beyond the walls. Here are the tombs of the imperial family. That of Humayun, the second of the Mogul dynasty, is a noble building of rose-coloured sandstone inlaid with white marble. It lies about 3 m. from the city, in a terraced garden, the whole surrounded by an embattled wall, with towers and four gateways. In the centre stands a platform about 20 ft. high by 200 ft. square, supported by arches and ascended by four flights of steps. Above, rises the mausoleum, also a square, with a great dome of white marble in the centre. About a mile to the west is another burying-ground, or collection of tombs and small mosques, some of them very beautiful. The most remarkable is perhaps the little chapel in honour of a celebrated Mussulman saint, Nizam-ud-din, near whose shrine the members of the imperial family, up to the time of the Mutiny, lie buried, each in a small enclosure surrounded by lattice-work of white marble.
Still farther away, some 10 m. south of the modern city, amid the ruins of old Delhi, stands the Kutb Minar, which is supposed to be the most perfect tower in the world, and one of the seven architectural wonders of India. The Minar was begun by Kutb-ud-din Aibak about A.D. 1200. The two top storeys were rebuilt by Feroz Shah. It consists of five storeys of red sandstone and white marble. The purplish red of the sandstone at the base is finely modulated, through a pale pink in the second storey, to a dark orange at the summit, which harmonizes with the blue of an Indian sky. Dark bands of Arabic writing round the three lower storeys contrast with the red sandstone. The height of the column is 238 ft. The plinth is a polygon of twenty sides. The basement storey has the same number of faces formed into convex flutes which are alternately angular and semicircular. The next has semicircular flutes, and in the third they are all angular. Then rises a plain storey, and above it soars a partially fluted storey, the shaft of which is adorned with bands of marble and red sandstone. A bold projecting balcony, richly ornamented, runs round each storey. After six centuries the column is almost as fresh as on the day it was finished. It stands in the south-east corner of the outer court of the mosque erected by Kutb-ud-din immediately after his capture of Delhi in 1193. The design of this mosque is Mahommedan, but the wonderfully delicate ornamentation of its western façade and other remaining parts is Hindu. In the inner courtyard of the mosque stands the Iron Pillar, which is probably the most ancient monument in the neighbourhood of Delhi, dating from about A.D. 400. It consists of a solid shaft of wrought iron some 16 in. in diameter and 23 ft. 8 in. in height, with an inscription eulogizing Chandragupta Vikramaditya. It was brought, probably from Muttra, by Anang Pal, a Rajput chief of the Tomaras, who erected it here in 1052.[1]
Among the modern buildings of Delhi may be mentioned the Residency, now occupied by a government high school, and the Protestant church of St James, built at a coast of £10,000 by Colonel Skinner, an officer well known in the history of the East India Company. About half-way down the Chandni Chauk is a high clock-tower. Near it is the town hall, with museum and library. Behind the Chandni Chauk, to the north, lie the Queen's Gardens; beyond them the "city lines" stretch away as far as the well-known rocky ridge, about a mile outside the town. From the summit of this ridge the view of the station and city is very picturesque. The principal local institution until 1877 was the Delhi College, founded in 1792. It was at first exclusively an oriental school, supported by the voluntary contributions of Mahommedan gentlemen, and managed by a committee of the subscribers. In 1829 an English department was added to it; and in 1855 the institution was placed under the control of the Educational Department. In the Mutiny of 1857 the old college was plundered of a very valuable oriental library, and the building completely destroyed. A new college was founded in 1858, and was affiliated to the university of Calcutta in 1864. The old college attained to great celebrity as an educational institution, and produced many excellent scholars, but it was abolished in 1877, in order to concentrate the grant available for higher-class education upon the Punjab University at Lahore.
The Ridge, famous as the British base during the siege of Delhi during the Mutiny, in 1857, is a last outcrop of the Aravalli Hills which rises in a steep escarpment some 60 ft. above the city. At its nearest point on the right of the British position, where the Mutiny Memorial now stands, the Ridge is only 1200 yds. from the walls of Delhi; at the Flagstaff Tower in the centre of the position it is a mile and a half away; and at the left near the river nearly two miles and a half. It was behind the Ridge at this point that the main portion of the British camp was pitched. The Mutiny Memorial, which was erected by the army before Delhi, is a rather poor specimen of a Gothic spire in red sandstone, while the memorial tablets are of inferior marble. Next to the Ridge the point of most interest to every English visitor to Delhi is Nicholson's grave, which lies surrounded by an iron railing in the Kashmir gate cemetery. The Kashmir gate itself bears a slab recording the gallant deed of the party under Lieutenants D. C. Home and P. Salkeld, who blew in the gate in broad daylight on the day that Delhi was taken by assault.
The population of Delhi according to the census of 1901 was 208,575, of whom 88,460 were Mahommedans and 114,417 were Hindus. The city is served by five different railways, the East Indian, the Oudh & Rohilkhand, the Rajputana-Malwa & Bombay-Baroda, the Southern Punjab, and the North-Western, and occupies a central position, being 940 m. from Karachi, 950 from Calcutta, and 960 from Bombay. Owing to the advantages it enjoys as a trade centre, Delhi is recovering much of the prominence which it lost at the time of the Mutiny. It has spinning-mills and other mills worked by steam. The principal manufactures are gold and silver filigree work and embroidery, jewelry, muslins, shawls, glazed pottery and wood-carving.
The DISTRICT OF DELHI has an area of 1290 sq. m. It consists of a strip of territory on the right or west bank of the Jumna river, 75 m. in length, and varying from 15 to 233 m. in breadth. Most of the district consists of hard and stony soil, depending upon irrigation, which is supplied by the Western Jumna canal, the Ali Mardan canal and the Agra canal. The principal crops are wheat, barley, sugar-cane and cotton.
When Lord Lake broke the Mahratta power in 1803, and the emperor was taken under the protection of the East India Company, the present districts of Delhi and Hissar were assigned for the maintenance of the royal family, and were administered by a British resident. In 1832 the office of resident was abolished, and the tract was annexed to the North-Western Provinces. After the Mutiny in 1858 it was separated from the North-Western Provinces and annexed to the Punjab. The population in 1901 was 689,039.
The DIVISION OF DELHI stretches from Simla to Rajputana, and is much broken up by native states. It comprises the seven districts of Hissar, Rohtak, Gurgaon, Delhi, Karnal, Umballa and Simla. Its total area is 15,393 sq. m., and in 1901 the population was 4,587,092.
_History._--According to legends, which may or may not have a substantial basis, Delhi or its immediate neighbourhood has from time immemorial been the site of a capital city. The neighbouring village of Indarpat preserves the name of Indraprashta, the semi-mythical city founded, according to the Sanscrit epic _Mahabharata_, by Yudisthira and his brothers, the five Pandavas. Whatever its dim predecessors may have been, however, the actual history of Delhi dates no further back than the 11th century A.D., when Anangapala (Anang Pal), a chief of the Tomara clan, built the Red Fort, in which the Kutb Minar now stands; in 1052 the same chief removed the famous Iron Pillar from its original position, probably at Muttra, and set it up among a group of temples of which the materials were afterwards used by the Mussulmans for the construction of the great Kutb Mosque. About the middle of the 12th century the Tomara dynasty was overthrown by Vigraha-raja (Visala-deva, Bisal Deo), the Chauhan king of Ajmere, who from inscribed records discovered of late years appears to have been a man of considerable culture (see V. A. Smith, _Early Hist. of India_, ed. 1908, p. 356). His nephew and successor was Prithwi-raja (Prithiraj, or Rai Pithora), lord of Sambhar, Delhi and Ajmere, whose fame as lover and warrior still lives in popular story. He was the last Hindu ruler of Delhi. In 1191 came the invasion of Mahommed of Ghor. Defeated on this occasion, Mahommed returned two years later, overthrew the Hindus, and captured and put to death Prithwi-raja. Delhi became henceforth the capital of the Mahommedan Indian empire, Kutb-ud-din (the general and slave of Mahommed of Ghor) being left in command. His dynasty is known as that of the slave kings, and it is to them that old Delhi owes its grandest remains, among them Kutb Mosque and the Kutb Minar. The slave dynasty retained the throne till 1290, when it was subverted by Jalal-ud-din Khilji. The most remarkable monarch of this dynasty was Ala-ud-din, during whose reign Delhi was twice exposed to attack from invading hordes of Moguls. On the first occasion Ala-ud-din defeated them under the walls of his capital; on the second, after encamping for two months in the neighbourhood of the city, they retired without a battle. The house of Khilji came to an end in 1321, and was followed by that of Tughlak. Hitherto the Pathan kings had been content with the ancient Hindu capital, altered and adorned to suit their tastes. But one of the first acts of the founder of the new dynasty, Ghias-ud-din Tughlak, was to erect a new capital about 4 m. farther to the east, which he called Tughlakabad. The ruins of his fort remain, and the eye can still trace the streets and lanes of the long deserted city. Ghias-ud-din was succeeded by his son Mahommed b. Tughlak, who reigned from 1325 to 1351, and is described by Elphinstone as "one of the most accomplished princes and most furious tyrants that ever adorned or disgraced human nature." Under this monarch the Delhi of the Tughlak dynasty attained its utmost growth. His successor Feroz Shah Tughlak transferred the capital to a new town which he founded some miles off, on the north of the Kutb, and to which he gave his own name, Ferozabad. In 1398, during the reign of Mahmud Tughlak, occurred the Tatar invasion of Timurlane. The king fled to Gujarat, his army was defeated under the walls of Delhi, and the city surrendered. The town, notwithstanding a promise of protection, was plundered and burned; the citizens were massacred. The invaders at last retired, leaving Delhi without a government, and almost without inhabitants. At length Mahmud Tughlak regained a fragment of his former kingdom, but on his death in 1412 the family became extinct. He was succeeded by the Sayyid dynasty, which held Delhi and a few miles of surrounding territory till 1444, when it gave way to the house of Lodi, during whose rule the capital was removed to Agra. In 1526 Baber, sixth in descent from Timurlane, invaded India, defeated and killed Ibrahim Lodi at the battle of Panipat, entered Delhi, was proclaimed emperor, and finally put an end to the Afghan empire. Baber's capital was at Agra, but his son and successor, Humayun, removed it to Delhi. In 1540 Humayun was defeated and expelled by Sher Shah, who entirely rebuilt the city, enclosing and fortifying it with a new wall. In his time Delhi extended from where Humayun's tomb now is to near the southern gate of the modern city. In 1555 Humayun, with the assistance of Persia, regained the throne; but he died within six months, and was succeeded by his son, the illustrious Akbar.
During Akbar's reign and that of his son Jahangir, the capital was either at Agra or at Lahore, and Delhi once more fell into decay. Between 1638 and 1658, however, Shah Jahan rebuilt it almost in its present form; and his city remains substantially the Delhi of the present time. The imperial palace, the Jama Masjid or Great Mosque, and the restoration of what is now the western Jumna canal, are the work of Shah Jahan. The Mogul empire rapidly expanded during the reigns of Akbar and his successors down to Aurungzeb, when it attained its climax. After the death of the latter monarch, in 1707, came the decline. Insurrections and civil wars on the part of the Hindu tributary chiefs, Sikhs and Mahrattas, broke out. Aurungzeb's successors became the helpless instruments of conflicting chiefs. His grandson, Jahandar Shah, was, in 1713, deposed and strangled after a reign of one year; and Farrakhsiyyar, the next in succession, met with the same fate in 1719. He was succeeded by Mahommed Shah, in whose reign the Mahratta forces first made their appearance before the gates of Delhi, in 1736. Three years later the Persian monarch, Nadir Shah, after defeating the Mogul army at Karnal, entered Delhi in triumph. While engaged in levying a heavy contribution, the Persian troops were attacked by the populace, and many of them were killed. Nadir Shah, after vainly attempting to stay the tumult, at last gave orders for a general massacre of the inhabitants. For fifty-eight days Nadir Shah remained in Delhi, and when he left he carried with him a treasure in money amounting, at the lowest computation, to eight or nine millions sterling, besides jewels of inestimable value, and other property to the amount of several millions more.
From this time (1740) the decline of the empire proceeded unchecked and with increased rapidity. In 1771 Shah Alam, the son of Alamgir II., was nominally raised to the throne by the Mahrattas, the real sovereignty resting with the Mahratta chief, Sindhia. An attempt of the puppet emperor to shake himself clear of the Mahrattas, in which he was defeated in 1788, led to a permanent Mahratta garrison being stationed at Delhi. From this date, the king remained a cipher in the hands of Sindhia, who treated him with studied neglect, until the 8th of September 1803, when Lord Lake overthrew the Mahrattas under the walls of Delhi, entered the city, and took the king under the protection of the British. Delhi, once more attacked by a Mahratta army under the Mahratta chief Holkar in 1804, was gallantly defended by Colonel Ochterlony, the British resident, who held out against overwhelming odds for eight days, until relieved by Lord Lake. From this date a new era in the history of Delhi began. A pension of £120,000 per annum was allowed to the king, with exclusive jurisdiction over the palace, and the titular sovereignty as before; but the city, together with the Delhi territory, passed under British administration.
Fifty-three years of quiet prosperity for Delhi were brought to a close by the Mutiny of 1857. Its capture by the mutineers, its siege, and its subsequent recapture by the British have been often told, and nothing beyond a short notice is called for here. The outbreak at Meerut occurred on the night of the 10th of May 1857. Immediately after the murder of their officers, the rebel soldiery set out for Delhi, about 35 m. distant, and on the following morning entered the city, where they were joined by the city mob. Mr Fraser, the commissioner, Mr Hutchinson, the collector, Captain Douglas, the commandant of the palace guards, and the Rev. Mr Jennings, the residency chaplain, were at once murdered, as were also most of the civil and non-official residents whose houses were situated within the city walls. The British troops in cantonments consisted of three regiments of native infantry and a battery of artillery. These cast in their lot with the mutineers, and commenced by killing their officers. The Delhi magazine, then the largest in the north-west of India, was in the charge of Lieutenant Willoughby, with whom were two other officers and six non-commissioned officers. The magazine was attacked by the mutineers, but the little band defended to the last the enormous accumulation of munitions of war stored there, and, when further defence was hopeless, fired the magazine. Five of the nine were killed by the explosion, and Lieutenant Willoughby subsequently died of his injuries; the remaining three succeeded in making their escape. The occupation of Delhi by the rebels was the signal for risings in almost every military station in North-Western India. The revolted soldiery with one accord thronged towards Delhi, and in a short time the city was garrisoned by a rebel army variously estimated at from 50,000 to 70,000 disciplined men. The pensioned king, Bahadur Shah, was proclaimed emperor; his sons were appointed to various military commands. About fifty Europeans and Eurasians, nearly all females, who had been captured in trying to escape from the town on the day of the outbreak, were confined in a stifling chamber of the palace for fifteen days; they were then brought out and massacred in the court-yard.
The siege which followed forms one of the memorable incidents of the British history of India. On the 8th June, four weeks after the outbreak, Sir H. Barnard, who had succeeded as commander-in-chief on the death of General Anson, routed the mutineers with a handful of Europeans and Sikhs, after a severe action at Badliki-Serai, and encamped upon the Ridge that overlooks the city. The force was too weak to capture the city, and he had no siege train or heavy guns. All that could be done was to hold the position till the arrival of reinforcements and of a siege train. During the next three months the little British force on the Ridge were rather the besieged than the besiegers. Almost daily sallies, which often turned into pitched battles, were made by the rebels upon the over-worked handful of Europeans, Sikhs and Gurkhas. A great struggle took place on the centenary of the battle of Plassey (June 23), and another on the 25th of August; but on both occasions the mutineers were repulsed with heavy loss. General Barnard died of cholera in July, and was succeeded by General Archdale Wilson. Meanwhile reinforcements and siege artillery gradually arrived, and early in September it was resolved to make the assault. The first of the heavy batteries opened fire on the 8th of September, and on the 13th a practicable breach was reported.
On the morning of the 14th Sept. the assault was delivered, the points of attack being the Kashmir bastion, the Water bastion, the Kashmir gate, and the Lahore gate. The assault was thoroughly successful, although the column which was to enter the city by the Lahore gate sustained a temporary check. The whole eastern part of the city was retaken, but at a cost of 66 officers and 1104 men killed and wounded, out of the total strength of 9866. Fighting continued more or less during the next six days, and it was not till the 20th of September that the entire city and palace were occupied, and the reconquest of Delhi was complete. During the siege, the British force sustained a loss of 1012 officers and men killed, and 3837 wounded. Among the killed was General John Nicholson, the leader of one of the storming parties, who was shot through the body in the act of leading his men, in the first day's fighting. He lived, however, to learn that the whole city had been recaptured, and died on the 23rd of September. On the flight of the mutineers, the king and several members of the royal family took refuge at Humayun's tomb. On receiving a promise that his life would be spared, the last of the house of Timur surrendered to Major Hodson; he was afterwards banished to Rangoon. Delhi, thus reconquered, remained for some months under military authority. Owing to the murder of several European soldiers who strayed from the lines, the native population was expelled the city. Hindus were soon afterwards readmitted, but for some time Mahommedans were rigorously excluded. Delhi was made over to the civil authorities in January 1858, but it was not till 1861 that the civil courts were regularly reopened. The shattered walls of the Kashmir gateway, and the bastions of the northern face of the city, still bear the marks of the cannonade of September 1857. Since that date Delhi has settled down into a prosperous commercial town, and a great railway centre. The lines which start from it to the north, south, east and west bring into its bazaars the trade of many districts. But the romance of antiquity still lingers around it, and Delhi was selected for the scene of the Imperial Proclamation on the 1st of January 1877, and for the great Durbar held in January 1903 for the proclamation of King Edward VII. as emperor of India.
AUTHORITIES.--The best modern account of the city is _Delhi, Past and Present_ (1901), by H. C. Fanshawe, a former commissioner of Delhi. Other authoritative works are _Cities of India_ (1903) and _The Mutiny Papers_ (1893), both by G. W. Forrest, and _Forty-one Years in India_ (1897), by Lord Roberts; while some impressionistic sketches will be found in _Enchanted India_ (1899), by Prince Bojidar Karageorgevitch. See also the chapter on Delhi in H. G. Keene, _Hist. of Hindustan ... to the fall of the Mughol Empire_ (1885). For the Delhi Durbar of 1903 see Stephen Wheeler, _Hist. of the Delhi Coronation Durbar_, compiled from official papers by order of the viceroy of India (London, 1904), which contains numerous portraits and other illustrations.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] See the paper by V. A. Smith in the _Journal of the Royal Asiatic Soc._ (1897), p. 13.
DELIA, a festival of Apollo held every five years at the great panegyris in Delos (Homeric _Hymn to Apollo_, 147). It included athletic and musical contests, at which the prize was a branch of the sacred palm. This festival was said to have been established by Theseus on his way back from Crete. Its celebration gradually fell into abeyance and was not revived till 426 B.C., when the Athenians purified the island and took so prominent a part in the maintenance of the Delia that it came to be regarded almost as an Athenian festival (Thucydides iii. 104). Ceremonial embassies ([Greek: theôriai]) from all the Greek cities were present.
See G. Gilbert, _Deliaca_ (1869); J. A. Lebègue, _Recherches sur Délos_ (1876); A. Mommsen, _Feste der Stadt Athen_ (1898); E. Pfuhl, _De Atheniensium pompis sacris_ (1900); G. F. Schömann, _Griechische Altertümer_ (4th ed., 1897-1902); P. Stengel, _Die griechischen Kultusaltertümer_ (1898); T. Homolle in Daremberg and Saglio's _Dictionnaire des antiquités_.
DELIAN LEAGUE, or CONFEDERACY OF DELOS, the name given to a confederation of Greek states under the leadership of Athens, with its headquarters at Delos, founded in 478 B.C. shortly after the final repulse of the expedition of the Persians under Xerxes I. This confederacy, which after many modifications and vicissitudes was finally broken up by the capture of Athens by Sparta in 404, was revived in 378-7 (the "Second Athenian Confederacy") as a protection against Spartan aggression, and lasted, at least formally, until the victory of Philip II. of Macedon at Chaeronea. These two confederations have an interest quite out of proportion to the significance of the detailed events which form their history. (See GREECE: _Ancient History_.) They are the first two examples of which we have detailed knowledge of a serious attempt at united action on the part of a large number of self-governing states at a relatively high level of conscious political development. The first league, moreover, in its later period affords the first example in recorded history of self-conscious imperialism in which the subordinate units enjoyed a specified local autonomy with an organized system, financial, military and judicial. The second league is further interesting as the precursor of the Achaean and Aetolian Leagues.
_History._--Several causes contributed to the formation of the first Confederacy of Delos. During the 6th century B.C. Sparta had come to be regarded as the chief power, not only in the Peloponnese, but also in Greece as a whole, including the islands of the Aegean. The Persian invasions of Darius and Xerxes, with the consequent importance of maritime strength and the capacity for distant enterprise, as compared with that of purely military superiority in the Greek peninsula, caused a considerable loss of prestige which Sparta was unwilling to recognize. Moreover, it chanced that at the time the Spartan leaders were not men of strong character or general ability. Pausanias, the victor of Plataea, soon showed himself destitute of the high qualities which the situation demanded. Personal cupidity, discourtesy to the allies, and a tendency to adopt the style and manners of oriental princes, combined to alienate from him the sympathies of the Ionian allies, who realized that, had it not been for the Athenians, the battle of Salamis would never have been even fought, and Greece would probably have become a Persian satrapy. The Athenian contingent which was sent to aid Pausanias in the task of driving the Persians finally out of the Thraceward towns was under the command of the Athenians, Aristides and Cimon, men of tact and probity. It is not, therefore, surprising that when Pausanias was recalled to Sparta on the charge of treasonable overtures to the Persians, the Ionian allies appealed to the Athenians on the grounds of kinship and urgent necessity, and that when Sparta sent out Dorcis to supersede Pausanias he found Aristides in unquestioned command of the allied fleet. To some extent the Spartans were undoubtedly relieved, in that it no longer fell to them to organize distant expeditions to Asia Minor, and this feeling was strengthened about the same time by the treacherous conduct of their king Leotychides (q.v.) in Thessaly. In any case the inelastic quality of the Spartan system was unable to adapt itself to the spirit of the new age. To Aristides was mainly due the organization of the new league and the adjustment of the contributions of the various allies in ships or in money. His assessment, of the details of which we know nothing, was so fair that it remained popular long after the league of autonomous allies had become an Athenian empire. The general affairs of the league were managed by a synod which met periodically in the temple of Apollo and Artemis at Delos, the ancient centre sanctified by the common worship of the Ionians. In this synod the allies met on an equality under the presidency of Athens. Among its first subjects of deliberation must have been the ratification of Aristides' assessment. Thucydides lays emphasis on the fact that in these meetings Athens as head of the league had no more than presidential authority, and the other members were called [Greek: summachoi] (allies), a word, however, of ambiguous meaning and capable of including both free and subject allies. The only other fact preserved by Thucydides is that Athens appointed a board called the Hellenotamiae ([Greek: tamias], steward) to watch over and administer the treasury of the league, which for some twenty years was kept at Delos, and to receive the contributions ([Greek: phoros]) of the allies who paid in money.
The league was, therefore, specifically a free confederation of autonomous Ionian cities founded as a protection against the common danger which threatened the Aegean basin, and led by Athens in virtue of her predominant naval power as exhibited in the war against Xerxes. Its organization, adopted by the common synod, was the product of the new democratic ideal embodied in the Cleisthenic reforms, as interpreted by a just and moderate exponent. It is one of the few examples of free corporate action on the part of the ancient Greek cities, whose centrifugal yearning for independence so often proved fatal to the Hellenic world. It is, therefore, a profound mistake to regard the history of the league during the first twenty years of its existence as that of an Athenian empire. Thucydides expressly describes the predominance of Athens as [Greek: hêgemonia] (leadership, headship), not as [Greek: archê] (empire), and the attempts made by Athenian orators during the second period of the Peloponnesian War to prove that the attitude of Athens had not altered since the time of Aristides are manifestly unsuccessful.
Of the first ten years of the league's history we know practically nothing, save that it was a period of steady, successful activity against the few remaining Persian strongholds in Thrace and the Aegean (Herod, i. 106-107, see ATHENS, CIMON). In these years the Athenian sailors reached a high pitch of training, and by their successes strengthened that corporate pride which had been born at Salamis. On the other hand, it naturally came to pass that certain of the allies became weary of incessant warfare and looked for a period of commercial prosperity. Athens, as the chosen leader, and supported no doubt by the synod, enforced the contributions of ships and money according to the assessment. Gradually the allies began to weary of personal service and persuaded the synod to accept a money commutation. The Ionians were naturally averse from prolonged warfare, and in the prosperity which must have followed the final rout of the Persians and the freeing of the Aegean from the pirates (a very important feature in the league's policy) a money contribution was only a trifling burden. The result was, however, extremely bad for the allies, whose status in the league necessarily became lower in relation to that of Athens, while at the same time their military and naval resources correspondingly diminished. Athens became more and more powerful, and could afford to disregard the authority of the synod. Another new feature appeared in the employment of coercion against cities which desired to secede. Athens might fairly insist that the protection of the Aegean would become impossible if some of the chief islands were liable to be used as piratical strongholds, and further that it was only right that all should contribute in some way to the security which all enjoyed. The result was that, in the cases of Naxos and Thasos, for instance, the league's resources were employed not against the Persians but against recalcitrant Greek islands, and that the Greek ideal of separate autonomy was outraged. Shortly after the capture of Naxos (c. 467 B.C.) Cimon proceeded with a fleet of 300 ships (only 100 from the allies) to the south-western and southern coasts of Asia Minor. Having driven the Persians out of Greek towns in Lycia and Caria, he met and routed the Persians on land and sea at the mouth of the Eurymedon in Pamphylía. In 463 after a siege of more than two years the Athenians captured Thasos, with which they had quarrelled over mining rights in the Strymon valley. It is said (Thuc. i. 101) that Thasos had appealed for aid to Sparta, and that the latter was prevented from responding only by earthquake and the Helot revolt. But this is both unproved and improbable. Sparta had so far no quarrel with Athens. Athens thus became mistress of the Aegean, while the synod at Delos had become practically, if not theoretically, powerless. It was at this time that Cimon (q.v.), who had striven to maintain a balance between Sparta, the chief military, and Athens, the chief naval power, was successfully attacked by Ephialtes and Pericles. During the ensuing years, apart from a brief return to the Cimonian policy, the resources of the league, or, as it has now become, the Athenian empire, were directed not so much against Persia as against Sparta, Corinth, Aegina and Boeotia. (See ATHENS; SPARTA, &c.) A few points only need be dealt with here. The first years of the land war brought the Athenian empire to its zenith. Apart from Thessaly, it included all Greece outside the Peloponnese. At the same time, however, the Athenian expedition against the Persians in Egypt ended in a disastrous defeat, and for a time the Athenians returned to a philo-Laconian policy, perhaps under the direction of Cimon (see CIMON and PERICLES). Peace was made with Sparta, and, if we are to believe 4th-century orators, a treaty, the Peace of Callias or of Cimon, was concluded between the Great King and Athens in 449 after the death of Cimon before the walls of Citium in Cyprus. The meaning of this so-called Peace of Callias is doubtful. Owing to the silence of Thucydides and other reasons, many scholars regard it as merely a cessation of hostilities (see CIMON and CALLIAS, where authorities are quoted). At all events, it is significant of the success of the main object of the Delian League, the Athenians resigning Cyprus and Egypt, while Persia recognized the freedom of the maritime Greeks of Asia Minor.
During this period the power of Athens over her allies had increased, though we do not know anything of the process by which this was brought about. Chios, Lesbos and Samos alone furnished ships; all the rest had commuted for a money payment. This meant that the synod was quite powerless. Moreover in 454 (probably) the changed relations were crystallized by the transference (proposed by the Samians) of the treasury to Athens (_Corp. Inscr. Attic._ i. 260). Thus in 448 B.C. Athens was not only mistress of a maritime empire, but ruled over Megara, Boeotia, Phocis, Locris, Achaea and Troezen, i.e. over so-called allies who were strangers to the old pan-Ionian assembly and to the policy of the league, and was practically equal to Sparta on land. An important event must be referred probably to the year 451,--the law of Pericles, by which citizenship (including the right to vote in the Ecclesia and to sit on paid juries) was restricted to those who could prove themselves the children of an Athenian father and mother ([Greek: ex amphoin astoin]). This measure must have had a detrimental effect on the allies, who thus saw themselves excluded still further from recognition as equal partners in a league (see PERICLES). The natural result of all these causes was that a feeling of antipathy rose against Athens in the minds of those to whom autonomy was the breath of life, and the fundamental tendency of the Greeks to disruption was soon to prove more powerful than the forces at the disposal of Athens. The first to secede were the land powers of Greece proper, whose subordination Athens had endeavoured to guarantee by supporting the democratic parties in the various states. Gradually the exiled oligarchs combined; with the defeat of Tolmides at Coroneia, Boeotia was finally lost to the empire, and the loss of Phocis, Locris and Megara was the immediate sequel. Against these losses the retention of Euboea, Nisaea and Pegae was no compensation; the land empire was irretrievably lost.
The next important event is the revolt of Samos, which had quarrelled with Miletus over the city of Priene. The Samians refused the arbitration of Athens. The island was conquered with great difficulty by the whole force of the league, and from the fact that the tribute of the Thracian cities and those in Hellespontine district was increased between 439 and 436 we must probably infer that Athens had to deal with a widespread feeling of discontent about this period. It is, however, equally noticeable on the one hand that the main body of the allies was not affected, and on the other that the Peloponnesian League on the advice of Corinth officially recognized the right of Athens to deal with her rebellious subject allies, and refused to give help to the Samians.
The succeeding events which led to the Peloponnesian War and the final disruption of the league are discussed in other articles. (See ATHENS: _History_, and PELOPONNESIAN War.) Two important events alone call for special notice. The first is the raising of the allies' tribute in 425 B.C. by a certain Thudippus, presumably a henchman of Cleon. The fact, though not mentioned by Thucydides, was inferred from Aristophanes (_Wasps_, 660), Andocides (_de Pace_, § 9), Plutarch (_Aristides_, c. 24), and pseudo-Andocides (_Alcibiad._ 11); it was proved by the discovery of the assessment list of 425-4 (Hicks and Hill, _Inscrip._ 64). The second event belongs to 411, after the failure of the Sicilian expedition. In that year the tribute of the allies was commuted for a 5% tax on all imports and exports by sea. This tax, which must have tended to equalize the Athenian merchants with those of the allied cities, probably came into force gradually, for beside the new collectors called [Greek: poristai] we still find Hellenotamiae (_C.I.A._ iv. [i.] p. 34).
_The Tribute._--Only a few problems can be discussed of the many which are raised by the insufficient and conflicting evidence at our disposal. In the first place there is the question of the tribute. Thucydides is almost certainly wrong in saying that the amount of the original tribute was 460 talents (about £106,000); this figure cannot have been reached for at least twelve, probably twenty years, when new members had been enrolled (Lycia, Caria, Eion, Lampsacus). Similarly he is probably wrong, or at all events includes items of which the tribute lists take no account, when he says that it amounted to 600 talents at the beginning of the Peloponnesian War. The moderation of the assessment is shown not only by the fact that it was paid so long without objection, but also by the individual items. Even in 425 Naxos and Andros paid only 15 talents, while Athens had just raised an _eisphora_ (income tax) from her own citizens of 200 talents. Moreover it would seem that a tribute which yielded less than the 5% tax of 411 could not have been unreasonable.
The number of tributaries is given by Aristophanes as 1000, but this is greatly in excess of those named in the tribute lists. Some authorities give 200; others put it as high as 290. The difficulty is increased by the fact that in some cases several towns were grouped together in one payment ([Greek: synteleis]). These were grouped into five main geographical divisions (from 443 to 436; afterwards four, Caria being merged in Ionia). Each division was represented by two elective assessment commissioners ([Greek: taktai]), who assisted the Boule at Athens in the quadrennial division of the tribute. Each city sent in its own assessment before the [Greek: taktai], who presented it to the Boule. If there was any difference of opinion the matter was referred to the Ecclesia for settlement. In the Ecclesia a private citizen might propose another assessment, or the case might be referred to the law courts. The records of the tribute are preserved in the so-called quota lists, which give the names of the cities and the proportion, one-sixtieth, of their several tributes, which was paid to Athens. No tribute was paid by members of a _cleruchy_ (q.v.), as we find from the fact that the tribute of a city always decreased when a cleruchy was planted in it. This highly organized financial system must have been gradually evolved, and no doubt reached its perfection only after the treasury was transferred to Athens.
_Government and Jurisdiction._--There is much difference of opinion among scholars regarding the attitude of imperial Athens towards her allies. Grote maintained that on the whole the allies had little ground for complaint; but in so doing he rather seems to leave out of account the Greek's dislike of external discipline. The very fact that the hegemony had become an empire was enough to make the new system highly offensive to the allies. No very strong argument can be based on the paucity of actual revolts. The indolent Ionians had seen the result of secession at Naxos and rebellion at Thasos; the Athenian fleet was perpetually on guard in the Aegean. On the other hand among the mainland cities revolt was frequent; they were ready to rebel [Greek: kai para dynamin]. Therefore, even though Athenian domination may have been highly salutary in its effects, there can be no doubt that the allies did not regard it with affection.
To judge only by the negative evidence of the decree of Aristoteles which records the terms of alliance of the second confederacy (below), we gather that in the later period at least of the first league's history the Athenians had interfered with the local autonomy of the allies in various ways--an inference which is confirmed by the terms of "alliance" which Athens imposed on Erythrae, Chalcis and Miletus. Though it appears that Athens made individual agreements with various states, and therefore that we cannot regard as general rules the terms laid down in those which we possess, it is undeniable that the Athenians planted garrisons under permanent Athenian officers ([Greek: phrourarchoi]) in some cities. Moreover the practice among Athenian settlers of acquiring land in the allied districts must have been vexatious to the allies, the more so as all important cases between Athenians and citizens of allied cities were brought to Athens. Even on the assumption that the Athenian dicasteries were scrupulously fair in their awards, it must have been peculiarly galling to the self-respect of the allies and inconvenient to individuals to be compelled to carry cases to Athens and Athenian juries. Furthermore we gather from the Aristoteles inscription and from the 4th-century orators that Athens imposed democratic constitutions on her allies; indeed Isocrates (_Paneg._, 106) takes credit for Athens on this ground, and the charter of Erythrae confirms the view (cf. Arist. _Polit._, viii., vi. 9 1307 b 20; Thuc. viii. 21, 48, 64, 65). Even though we admit that Chios, Lesbos and Samos (up to 440) retained their oligarchic governments and that Selymbria, at a time (409 B.C.) when the empire was _in extremis_, was permitted to choose its own constitution, there can be no doubt that, from whatever motive and with whatever result, Athens did exercise over many of her allies an authority which extended to the most intimate concerns of local administration.
Thus the great attempt on the part of Athens to lead a harmonious league of free Greek states for the good of Hellas degenerated into an empire which proved intolerable to the autonomous states of Greece. Her failure was due partly to the commercial jealousy of Corinth working on the dull antipathy of Sparta, partly to the hatred of compromise and discipline which was fatally characteristic of Greece and especially of Ionian Greece, and partly also to the lack of tact and restraint shown by Athens and her representatives in her relations with the allies.
_The Second League._--The conditions which led to the second Athenian or Delian Confederacy were fundamentally different, not only in virtue of the fact that the allies had learned from experience the dangers to which such a league was liable, but because the enemy was no longer an oriental power of whose future action there could be no certain anticipation, but Sparta, whose ambitious projects since the fall of Athens had shown that there could be no safety for the smaller states save in combination.
There can be no reasonable doubt that as soon as the Athenians began to recover from the paralysing effect of the victory of Lysander and the internal troubles in which they were involved by the government of the Thirty, their thoughts turned to the possibility of recovering their lost empire. The first step in the direction was the recovery of their sea-power, which was effected by the victory of Conon at Cnidus (August 394 B.C.). Gradually individual cities which had formed part of the Athenian empire returned to their alliance with Athens, until the Spartans had lost Rhodes, Cos, Nisyrus, Teos, Chios, Mytilene, Ephesus, Erythrae, Lemnos, Imbros, Scyros, Eretria, Melos, Cythera, Carpathus and Delos. Sparta had only Sestos and Abydos of all that she had won by the battle of Aegospotami. At the same time no systematic constructive attempt at a renewal of empire can as yet be detected. Athenian relations were with individual states only, and the terms of alliance were various. Moreover, whereas Persia had been for several years aiding Athens against Sparta, the revolt of the Athenian ally Evagoras (q.v.) of Cyprus set them at enmity, and with the secession of Ephesus, Cnidus and Samos in 391 and the civil war in Rhodes, the star of Sparta seemed again to be in the ascendant. But the whole position was changed by the successes of Thrasybulus, who brought over the Odrysian king Medocus and Seuthes of the Propontis to the Athenian alliance, set up a democracy in Byzantium and reimposed the old 10% duty on goods from the Black Sea. Many of the island towns subsequently came over, and from inscriptions at Clazomenae (_C.I.A._ ii. 14_b_) and Thasos (_C.I.A._ iv. 11_b_) we learn that Thrasybulus evidently was deliberately aiming at a renewal of the empire, though the circumstances leading to his death at Aspendus when seeking to raise money suggest that he had no general backing in Athens.
The peace of Antalcidas or the King's Peace (see ANTALCIDAS; SPARTA) in 386 was a blow to Athens in the interests of Persia and Sparta. Antalcidas compelled the Athenians to give their assent to it only by making himself master of the Hellespont by stratagem with the aid of Dionysius the Elder of Syracuse. By this peace all the Greek cities on the mainland of Asia with the islands of Cyprus and Clazomenae were recognized as Persian, all other cities except Imbros, Lemnos and Scyros as autonomous. Directly, this arrangement prevented an Athenian empire; indirectly, it caused the sacrificed cities and their kinsmen on the islands to look upon Athens as their protector. The gross selfishness of the Spartans, herein exemplified, was emphasized by their capture of the Theban citadel, and, after their expulsion, by the raid upon Attica in time of peace by the Spartan Sphodrias, and his immunity from punishment at Sparta (summer of 378 B.C.). The Athenians at once invited their allies to a conference, and the Second Athenian Confederacy was formed in the archonship of Nausinicus on the basis of the famous decree of Aristoteles. Those who attended the conference were probably Athens, Chios, Mytilene, Methymna, Rhodes, Byzantium, Thebes, the latter of which joined Athens soon after the Sphodrias raid. In the spring of 377 invitations were sent out to the maritime cities. Some time in that year Tenedos, Chios, Chalcis in Euboea, and probably the Euboean cities Eretria, Carystus and Arethusa gave in their adherence, followed by Perinthus, Peparethus, Sciathus and other maritime cities.
At this point Sparta was roused to a sense of the significance of the new confederacy, and the Athenian corn supply was threatened by a Spartan fleet of sixty triremes. The Athenians immediately fitted out a fleet under Chabrias, who gained a decisive victory over the Spartans between Naxos and Paros (battle of Naxos 376 B.C.), both of which were added to the league. Proceeding northwards in 375 Chabrias brought over a large number of the Thraceward towns, including Abdera, Thasos and Samothrace. It is interesting to notice that a garrison was placed in Abdera in direct contravention of the terms of the new confederacy (Meyer, _Gesch. d. Alt._, v. 394). About the same time the successes of Timotheus in the west resulted in the addition to the league of Corcyra and the cities of Cephallenia, and his moderation induced the Acarnanians and Alcetas, the Molossian king, to follow their example. Once again Sparta sent out a fleet, but Timotheus in spite of financial embarrassment held his ground. By this time, however, the alliance between Thebes and Athens was growing weaker, and Athens, being short of money, concluded a peace with Sparta (probably in July 374), by which the peace of Antalcidas was confirmed and the two states recognized each other as mistress of sea and land respectively. Trouble, however, soon arose over Zacynthus, and the Spartans not only sent help to the Zacynthian oligarchs but even besieged Corcyra (373). Timotheus was sent to relieve the island, but shortness of money compelled him to search for new allies, and he spent the summer of 373 in persuading Jason of Pherae (if he had not already joined), and certain towns in Thrace, the Chersonese, the Propontis and the Aegean to enrol themselves. This delay in sending help to Corcyra was rightly or wrongly condemned by the Athenians, who dismissed Timotheus in favour of Iphicrates. The expedition which followed produced negative successes, but the absence of any positive success and the pressure of financial difficulty, coupled with the defection of Jason (probably before 371), and the high-handed action of Thebes in destroying Plataea (373), induced Athens to renew the peace with Sparta which Timotheus had broken. With the support of Persia an agreement was made by a congress at Sparta on the basis of the autonomy of the cities, Amphipolis and the Chersonese being granted to Athens. The Thebans at first accepted the terms, but on the day after, realizing that they were thus balked of their pan-Boeotian ambition, withdrew and finally severed themselves from the league.
The peace of 371 may be regarded as the conclusion of the first distinct period in the league's existence. The original purpose of the league--the protection of the allies from the ambitions of Sparta--was achieved. Athens was recognized as mistress of the sea; Sparta as the chief land power. The inherent weakness of the coalition had, however, become apparent. The enthusiasm of the allies (numbering about seventy) waned rapidly before the financial exigencies of successive campaigns, and it is abundantly clear that Thebes had no interest save the extension of her power in Boeotia. Though her secession, therefore, meant very little loss of strength, there were not wanting signs that the league was not destined to remain a power in the land.
The remaining history may be broken up into two periods, the first from 371 to 357, the second from 357 to 338. Throughout these two periods, which saw the decline and final dissolution of the alliance, there is very little specific evidence for its existence. The events seem to belong to the histories of the several cities, and examples of corporate action are few and uncertain. None the less the known facts justify a large number of inferences as to the significance of events which are on the surface merely a part of the individual foreign policy of Athens.
_Period 371-357._--The first event in this period was the battle of Leuctra (July 371), in which, no doubt to the surprise of Athens, Thebes temporarily asserted itself as the chief land power in Greece. To counterbalance the new power Athens very rashly plunged into Peloponnesian politics with the ulterior object of inducing the states which had formerly recognized the hegemony of Sparta to transfer their allegiance to the Delian League. It seems that all the states adopted this policy with the exception of Sparta (probably) and Elis. The policy of Athens was mistaken for two reasons: (1) Sparta was not entirely humiliated, and (2) alliance with the land powers of Peloponnese was incalculably dangerous, inasmuch as it involved Athens in enterprises which could not awake the enthusiasm of her maritime allies. This new coalition naturally alarmed Sparta, which at once made overtures to Athens on the ground of their common danger from Thebes. The alliance was concluded in 369. About the same time Iphicrates was sent to take possession of Amphipolis according to the treaty of 371. Some success in Macedonia roused the hostility of Thebes, and the subsequent attempts on Amphipolis caused the Chalcidians to declare against the league. It would appear that the old suspicion of the allies was now thoroughly awakened, and we find Athens making great efforts to conciliate Mytilene by honorific decrees (Hicks and Hill, 109). This suspicion, which was due primarily, no doubt, to the agreement with Sparta, would find confirmation in the subsequent exchange of compliments with Dionysius I. of Syracuse, Sparta's ally, who with his sons received the Athenian citizenship. It is not clear that the allies officially approved this new friendship; it is certain that it was actually distasteful to them. The same dislike would be roused by the Athenian alliance with Alexander of Pherae (368-367). The maritime allies naturally had no desire to be involved in the quarrels of Sicily, Thessaly and the Peloponnese.
In 367 Athens and Thebes sent rival ambassadors to Persia, with the result that Athens was actually ordered to abandon her claim to Amphipolis, and to remove her navy from the high seas. The claim to Amphipolis was subsequently affirmed, but the Greek states declined to obey the order of Persia. In 366 Athens lost Oropus, a blow which she endeavoured to repair by forming an alliance with Arcadia and by an attack on Corinth. At the same time certain of the Peloponnesian states made peace with Thebes, and some hold that Athens joined this peace (Meyer, _Gesch. d. Alt._ v. 449). Timotheus was sent in 366-365 to make a demonstration against Persia. Finding Samos in the hands of Cyprothemis, a servant of the satrap Tigranes, he laid siege to it, captured it after a ten months' siege and established a cleruchy. Though Samos was not apparently one of the allies, this latter action could not but remind the allies of the very dangers which the second confederacy had set out to avoid.
The next important event was the serious attempt on the part of Epaminondas to challenge the Athenian naval supremacy. Though Timotheus held his ground the confederacy was undoubtedly weakened. In 362 Athens joined in the opposition to the Theban expedition which ended in the battle of Mantineia (July). In the next year the Athenian generals failed in the north in their attempt to control the Hellespont. In Thessaly Alexander of Pherae became hostile and after several successes even attacked the Peiraeus. Chares was ordered to make reprisals, but instead sailed to Corcyra, where he made the mistake of siding with the oligarchs. The last event of the period was a success, the recovery of Euboea (357), which was once more added to the league.
During these fourteen years the policy of Athens towards her maritime allies was, as we have seen, shortsighted and inconsistent. Alliances with various land powers, and an inability to understand the true relations which alone could unite the league, combined to alienate the allies, who could discover no reason for the expenditure of their contributions on protecting Sparta or Corinth against Thebes. The [Greek: Synedrion] of the league is found taking action in several instances, but there is evidence (cf. the expedition of Epaminondas in 363) that there was ground for suspecting disloyalty in many quarters. On the other hand, though the Athenian fleet became stronger and several cities were captured, the league itself did not gain any important voluntary adherents. The generals were compelled to support their forces by plunder or out of their private resources, and, frequently failing, diverted their efforts from the pressing needs of the allies to purely Athenian objects.
_Period 357-338._--The latent discontent of the allies was soon fanned into hostility by the intrigues of Mausolus, prince of Cardia, who was anxious to extend his kingdom. Chios, Rhodes, Cos, Byzantium, Erythrae and probably other cities were in revolt by the spring of 356, and their attacks on loyal members of the confederacy compelled Athens to take the offensive. Chabrias had already been killed in an attack on Chios in the previous autumn, and the fleet was under the command of Timotheus, Iphicrates and Chares, who sailed against Byzantium. The enemy sailed north from Samos and in a battle off Embata (between Erythrae and Chios) defeated Chares, who, without the consent of his colleagues, had ventured to engage them in a storm. The more cautious generals were accused of corruption in not supporting Chares. Iphicrates was acquitted and Timotheus condemned. Chares sought to replenish his resources by aiding the Phrygian satrap Artabazus against Artaxerxes Ochus, but a threat from the Persian court caused the Athenians to recall him, and peace was made by which Athens recognized the independence of the revolted towns. The league was further weakened by the secession of Corcyra, and by 355 was reduced to Athens, Euboea and a few islands. By this time, moreover, Philip II. of Macedon had begun his career of conquest, and had shattered an embryonic alliance between the league and certain princes of Thrace (Cetriporis), Paeonia (Lyppeius) and Illyria (Grabus). In 355 his advance temporarily ceased, but, as we learn from Isocrates and Xenophon, the financial exhaustion of the league was such that its destruction was only a matter of time. Resuming operations in 354, Philip, in spite of temporary checks at the hands of Chares, and the spasmodic opposition of a few barbarian chiefs, took from the league all its Thracian and Macedonian cities (Abdera, Maronea, Neapolis, Methone.) In 352-351 Philip actually received help from former members of the confederacy. In 351 Charidemus, Chares and Phocion were sent to oppose him, and we find that the contributions of the Lesbian cities were assigned to them for supplies, but no successes were gained. In 349 Euboea and Olynthus were lost to the league, of which indeed nothing remained but an empty form, in spite of the facts that the expelled Olynthians appealed to it in 348 and that Mytilene rejoined in 347. In 346 the peace of Philocrates was made between the league and Philip on terms which were accepted by the Athenian Boule. It is very remarkable that, in spite of the powerlessness of the confederacy, the last recorded event in its history is the steady loyalty of Tenedos, which gave money to Athens about 340 (Hicks and Hill, 146). The victory of Philip at Chaeronea in 338 finally destroyed the league.
In spite of the precautions taken by the allies to prevent the domination of Athens at their expense, the policy of the league was almost throughout directed rather in the interests of Athens. Founded with the specific object of thwarting the ambitious designs of Sparta, it was plunged by Athens into enterprises of an entirely different character which exhausted the resources of the allies without benefiting them in any respect. There is no doubt that, with very few exceptions, the cities were held to their allegiance solely by the superior force of the Athenian navy. The few instances of its action show that the [Greek: Synedrion] was practically only a tool in the hands of Athens.
AUTHORITIES.--_The First League._--The general histories of Greece, especially those of A. Holm (Eng. trans., London, 1894), G. Busolt (2nd ed., Gotha, 1893), J. Beloch (Strassburg, 1893 foll.), and G. Grote (the one-vol. ed. of 1907 has some further notes on later evidence). E. Meyer's _Gesch. des Altertums_ (Stuttgart, 1892 foll.) and _Forschungen_ (Halle, 1892 foll.) are of the greatest value. For inscriptions, G. F. Hill, _Sources of Greek History_, 478-431 (2nd ed., 1907); E. L. Hicks and G. F. Hill, _Greek Hist. Inscr._ (Oxford, 1901). On the tribute see also U. Köhler in _Abhandlungen d. Berliner Akademie_ (1869) and U. Pedroli, "I Tributi degli alleati d' Atene" in Beloch's _Studi di storia antica_. See also articles ARISTIDES; THEMISTOCLES; PERICLES; CIMON, &c., and GREECE: _History_, with works quoted. For the last years of the league see also PELOPONNESIAN WAR.
_The Second League._--The chief modern works are G. Busolt, "Der zweite athenische Bund" in _Neue Jahrbücher für classische Philologie_ (supp. vol. vii., 1873-1875, pp. 641-866), and F. H. Marshall, _The Second Athenian Confederacy_ (1905), one of the Cambridge Historical Essays (No. xiii.). The latter is based on Busolt's monograph and includes subsequent epigraphic evidence, with a full list of authorities. For inscriptions see Hicks and Hill, op. cit., and the _Inscriptiones Atticae_, vol. ii. pt. 5. The meagre data given by ancient writers are collected by Busolt and Marshall. (J. M. M.)
DELIBES, CLÉMENT PHILIBERT LÉO (1836-1891), French composer, was born at Saint Germain du Val on the 21st of February 1836. He studied at the Paris Conservatoire under Adolphe Charles Adam, through whose influence he became accompanist at the Théâtre Lyrique. His first essay in dramatic composition was his _Deux sous de charbon_ (1853), and during several years he produced a number of operettas. His cantata _Alger_ was heard at the Paris opera in 1865. Having become second chorus master at the Grand Opéra, he wrote the music of a ballet entitled _La Source_ for this theatre, in collaboration with Minkous, a Polish composer. La Source was produced with great success in 1866. The composer returned to the operetta style with _Malbrouk s'en va-t-en guerre_,--written in collaboration with Georges Bizet, Émile Jonas and Legouix, and given at the Théâtre de l'Athénée in 1867. Two years later came _L'Écossais de Chatou_, a one-act piece, and _La Cour du roi Pétaud_, a three-act opera-bouffe. The ballet _Coppélia_ was produced at the Grand Opéra on the 25th of May 1870 with enormous success.
Delibes gave up his post as second chorus master at the Grand Opéra in 1872 when he married the daughter of Mademoiselle Denain, formerly an actress at the Comédie Française. In this year he published a collection of graceful melodies including _Myrto_, _Les Filles de Cadiz_, _Bonjour_, _Suzon_ and others. His first important dramatic work was _Le Roi l'a dit_, a charming comic opera, produced on the 24th of May 1873 at the Opéra Comique. Three years later, on the 14th of June 1876, _Sylvia_, a ballet in three acts, one of the composer's most delightful works, was produced at the Grand Opéra. This was followed by _La Mort d'Orphée_, a grand scena produced at the Trocadéro concerts in 1878; by _Jean de Nivelle_, a three-act opera brought out at the Opéra Comique on the 8th of March 1880; and by _Lakmé_, an opera in three acts produced at the same theatre on the 14th of April 1883. Lakmé has remained his most popular opera. The composer died in Paris on the 16th of January 1891, leaving _Kassya_, a four-act opera, in an unfinished state. This work was completed by E. Guiraud, and produced at the Opéra Comique on the 21st of March 1893. In 1877 Delibes became a chevalier of the Legion of Honour; in 1881 he became a professor of advanced composition at the Conservatoire; in 1884 he took the place of Victor Massé at the Institut de France.
Leo Delibes was a typically French composer. His music is light, graceful and refined. He excelled in ballet music, and _Sylvia_ may well be considered a masterpiece. His operas are constructed on a conventional pattern. The harmonic texture, however, is modern, and the melodic invention abundant, while the orchestral treatment is invariably excellent.
DELILAH, in the Bible, the heroine of Samson's last love-story and the cause of his downfall (Judg. xvi.). She was a Philistine of Sorek (mod. Surik), west of Zorah, and when her countrymen offered her an enormous bribe to betray him, she set to work to find out the source of his strength. Thrice Samson scoffingly told her how he might be bound, and thrice he readily broke the bonds with which she had fettered him in his sleep; seven green bow-strings, new ropes, and even the braiding of his hair into the frame of the loom failed to secure him. At length he disclosed the secret of his power. Delilah put him to sleep upon her lap, called in a man to shave off his seven locks, and this time he was easily captured. See SAMSON.
DELILLE, JACQUES (1738-1813), French poet, was born on the 22nd of June 1738 at Aigue-Perse in Auvergne. He was an illegitimate child, and was descended by his mother from the chancellor De l'Hôpital. He was educated at the college of Lisieux in Paris and became an elementary teacher. He gradually acquired a reputation as a poet by his epistles, in which things are not called by their ordinary names but are hinted at by elaborate periphrases. Sugar becomes "le miel américain que du suc des roseaux exprima l'Africain." The publication (1769) of his translation of the _Georgics_ of Virgil made him famous. Voltaire recommended the poet for the next vacant place in the Academy. He was at once elected a member, but was not admitted until 1774 owing to the opposition of the king, who alleged that he was too young. In his _Jardins, ou l'art d'embellir les paysages_ (1782) he made good his pretensions as an original poet. In 1786 he made a journey to Constantinople in the train of the ambassador M. de Choiseul-Gouffier.
Delille had become professor of Latin poetry at the Collège da France, and abbot of Saint-Sévérin, when the outbreak of the Revolution reduced him to poverty. He purchased his personal safety by professing his adherence to revolutionary doctrine, but eventually quitted Paris, and retired to St Dié, where he completed his translation of the _Aeneid_. He emigrated first to Basel and then to Glairesse in Switzerland. Here he finished his _Homme des champs_, and his poem on the _Trois règnes de la nature_. His next place of refuge was in Germany, where he composed his _La Pitié_; and finally, he passed some time in London, chiefly employed in translating _Paradise Lost_. In 1802 he was able to return to Paris, where, although nearly blind, he resumed his professorship and his chair at the Academy, but lived in retirement. He fortunately did not outlive the vogue of the descriptive poems which were his special province, and died on the 1st of May 1813.
Delille left behind him little prose. His preface to the translation of the _Georgics_ is an able essay, and contains many excellent hints on the art and difficulties of translation. He wrote the article "La Bruyère" in the _Biographie universelle_. The following is the list of his poetical works:--_Les Géorgiques de Virgile, traduites en vers français_ (Paris, 1769, 1782, 1785, 1809); _Les Jardins_, en quatre chants (1780; new edition, Paris, 1801); _L'Homme des champs, ou les Géorgiques françaises_ (Strassburg, 1802); _Poésies fugitives_ (1802); _Dithyrambe sur l'immortalité de l'âme, suivi du passage du Saint Gothard_, poëme traduit de l'Anglais de Madame la duchesse de Devonshire (1802); _La Pitié_, poëme en quatre chants (Paris, 1802); _L'Énéide de Virgile, traduite en vers français_ (4 vols., 1804); _Le Paradis perdu_ (3 vols., 1804); _L'Imagination_, poëme en huit chants (2 vols., 1806); _Les trois règnes de la nature_ (2 vols., 1808); _La Conversation_ (1812). A collection given under the title of _Poésies diverses_ (1801) was disavowed by Delille.
His _Oeuvres_ (16 vols.) were published in 1824. See Sainte-Beuve, _Portraits littéraires_, vol. ii.
DELIRIUM (a Latin medical term for madness, from _delirare_, to be mad, literally to wander from the _lira_, or furrow), a temporary form of brain disorder, generally occurring in connexion with some special form of bodily disease. It may vary in intensity from slight and occasional wandering of the mind and incoherence of expression, to fixed delusions and violent maniacal excitement, and again it may be associated with more or less of coma or insensibility. (See INSANITY, and NEUROPATHOLOGY.) Delirium is apt to occur in most diseases of an acute nature, such as fevers or inflammatory affections, in injuries affecting the brain, in blood diseases, in conditions of exhaustion, and as the result of the action of certain specific poisons, such as opium, Indian hemp, belladonna, chloroform and alcohol.
Delirium tremens is one of a train of symptoms of what is termed in medical nomenclature acute alcoholism, or excessive indulgence in alcohol. It must, however, be observed that this disorder, although arising in this manner, rarely comes on as the result of a single debauch in a person unaccustomed to the abuse of stimulants, but generally occurs in cases where the nervous system has been already subjected for a length of time to the poisonous action of alcohol, so that the complaint might be more properly regarded as acute supervening on chronic alcoholism. It is equally to be borne in mind that many habitual drunkards never suffer from delirium tremens.
It was long supposed, and is indeed still believed by some, that delirium tremens only comes on when the supply of alcohol has been suddenly cut off; but this view is now generally rejected, and there is abundant evidence to show that the attack comes on while the patient is still continuing to drink. Even in those cases where several days have elapsed between the cessation from drinking and the seizure, it will be found that in the interval the premonitory symptoms of delirium tremens have shown themselves, one of which is aversion to drink as well as food--the attack being in most instances preceded by marked derangement of the digestive functions. Occasionally the attack is precipitated in persons predisposed to it by the occurrence of some acute disease, such as pneumonia, by accidents, such as burns, also by severe mental strain, and by the deprivation of food, even where the supply of alcohol is less than would have been likely to produce it otherwise. Where, on the other hand, the quantity of alcohol taken has been very large, the attack is sometimes ushered in by fits of an epileptiform character.
One of the earliest indications of the approaching attack of delirium tremens is sleeplessness, any rest the patient may obtain being troubled by unpleasant or terrifying dreams. During the day there is observed a certain restlessness and irritability of manner, with trembling of the hands and a thick or tremulous articulation. The skin is perspiring, the countenance oppressed-looking and flushed, the pulse rapid and feeble, and there is evidence of considerable bodily prostration. These symptoms increase each day and night for a few days, and then the characteristic delirium is superadded. The patient is in a state of mental confusion, talks incessantly and incoherently, has a distressed and agitated or perplexed appearance, and a vague notion that he is pursued by some one seeking to injure him. His delusions are usually of transient character, but he is constantly troubled with visual hallucinations in the form of disagreeable animals or insects which he imagines he sees all about him. He looks suspiciously around him, turns over his pillows, and ransacks his bedclothes for some fancied object he supposes to be concealed there. There is constant restlessness, a common form of delusion being that he is not in his own house, but imprisoned in some apartment from which he is anxious to escape to return home. In these circumstances he is ever wishing to get out of bed and out of doors, and, although in general he may be persuaded to return to bed, he is soon desiring to get up again. The trembling of the muscles from which the name of the disease is derived is a prominent but not invariable symptom. It is most marked in the muscles of the hands and arms and in the tongue. The character of the delirium is seldom wild or noisy, but is much more commonly a combination of busy restlessness and indefinite fear. When spoken to, the patient can answer correctly enough, but immediately thereafter relapses into his former condition of incoherence. Occasionally maniacal symptoms develop themselves, the patient becoming dangerously violent, and the case thus assuming a much graver aspect than one of simple delirium tremens.
In most cases the symptoms undergo abatement in from three to six days, the cessation of the attack being marked by the occurrence of sound sleep, from which the patient awakes in his right mind, although in a state of great physical prostration, and in great measure if not entirely oblivious of his condition during his illness.
Although generally the termination of an attack of delirium tremens is in recovery, it occasionally proves fatal by the supervention of coma and convulsions, or acute mania, or by exhaustion, more especially when any acute bodily disease is associated with the attack. In certain instances delirium tremens is but the beginning of serious and permanent impairment of intellect, as is not infrequently observed in confirmed drunkards who have suffered from frequent attacks of this disease. The theory once widely accepted, that delirium tremens was the result of the too sudden breaking off from indulgence in alcohol, led to its treatment by regular and often large doses of stimulants, a practice fraught with mischievous results, since however much the delirium appeared to be thus calmed for the time, the continuous supply of the poison which was the original source of the disease inflicted serious damage upon the brain, and led in many instances to the subsequent development of insanity. The former system of prescribing large doses of opium, with the view of procuring sleep at all hazards, was no less pernicious. In addition to these methods of treatment, mechanical restraint of the patient was the common practice.
The views of the disease which now prevail, recognizing the delirium as the effect at once of the poisonous action of alcohol upon the brain and of the want of food, encourage reliance to be placed for its cure upon the entire withdrawal, in most instances, of stimulants, and the liberal administration of light nutriment, in addition to quietness and gentle but firm control, without mechanical restraint. In mild attacks this is frequently all that is required. In more severe cases, where there is great restlessness, sedatives have to be resorted to, and many substances have been recommended for the purpose. Opiates administered in small quantity, and preferably by hypodermic injection, are undoubtedly of value; and chloral, either alone or in conjunction with bromide of potassium, often answers even better. Such remedies, however, should be administered with great caution, and only under medical supervision.
Stimulants may be called for where the delirium assumes the low or adynamic form, and the patient tends to sink from exhaustion, or when the attack is complicated with some other disease. Such cases are, however, in the highest degree exceptional, and do not affect the general principle of treatment already referred to, which inculcates the entire withdrawal of stimulants in the treatment of ordinary attacks of delirium tremens.
DELISLE, JOSEPH NICOLAS (1688-1768), French astronomer, was born at Paris on the 4th of April 1688. Attracted to astronomy by the solar eclipse of the 12th of May 1706, he obtained permission in 1710 to lodge in the dome of the Luxembourg, procured some instruments, and there observed the total eclipse of the 22nd of May 1724. He proposed in 1715 the "diffraction-theory" of the sun's corona, visited England and was received into the Royal Society in 1724, and left Paris for St Petersburg on a summons from the empress Catherine, towards the end of 1725. Having founded an observatory there, he returned to Paris in 1747, was appointed geographical astronomer to the naval department with a salary of 3000 livres, and installed an observatory in the Hôtel Cluny. Charles Messier and J. J. Lalande were among his pupils. He died of apoplexy at Paris on the 12th of September 1768. Delisle is chiefly remembered as the author of a method for observing the transits of Venus and Mercury by instants of contacts. First proposed by him in a letter to J. Cassini in 1743, it was afterwards perfected, and has been extensively employed. As a preliminary to the transit of Mercury in 1743, which he personally observed, he issued a map of the world showing the varied circumstances of its occurrence. Besides many papers communicated to the academy of sciences, of which he became a member in 1714, he published _Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire et au progrès de l'astronomie_ (St Petersburg, 1738), in which he gave the first method for determining the heliocentric co-ordinates of sun-spots; _Mémoire sur les nouvelles découvertes au nord de la mer du sud_ (Paris, 1752), &c.
See _Mémoires de l'acad. des sciences_ (Paris, 1768), _Histoire_, p. 167 (G. de Fouchy); J. B. J. Delambre, _Hist. de l'astronomie au XVIII^e siècle_, pp. 319, 533; Max. Marie, _Hist. des sciences_, vii. 254; Lalande, Bibl. astr. p. 385; and _Le Nécrologe des hommes célèbres de France_ (1770). The records of Delisle's observations at St Petersburg are preserved in manuscript at the Pulkowa observatory. A report upon them was presented to the St Petersburg academy of sciences by O. Struve in 1848, and those relating to occultations of the Pleiades were discussed by Carl Linsser in 1864. See also S. Newcomb, _Washington Observations_ for 1875, app. ii. pp. 176-189. (A. M. C.)
DELISLE, LÉOPOLD VICTOR (1826- ), French bibliophile and historian, was born at Valognes (Manche) on the 24th of October 1826. At the École des Chartes, where his career was remarkably brilliant, his valedictory thesis was an _Essai sur les revenus publics en Normandie au XII^e siècle_ (1849), and it was to the history of his native province that he devoted his early works. Of these the _Études sur la condition de la classe agricole et l'état de l'agriculture en Normandie au moyen âge_ (1851), condensing an enormous mass of facts drawn from the local archives, was reprinted in 1905 without change, and remains authoritative. In November 1852 he entered the manuscript department of the Bibliothèque Impériale (Nationale), of which in 1874 he became the official head in succession to Jules Taschereau. He was already known as the compiler of several invaluable inventories of its manuscripts. When the French government decided on printing a general catalogue of the printed books in the Bibliothèque, Delisle became responsible for this great undertaking and took an active part in the work; in the preface to the first volume (1897) he gave a detailed history of the library and its management. Under his administration the library was enriched with numerous gifts, legacies and acquisitions, notably by the purchase of a part of the Ashburnham MSS. Delisle proved that the bulk of the MSS. of French origin which Lord Ashburnham had bought in France, particularly those bought from the bookseller Barrois, had been purloined by Count Libri, inspector-general of libraries under King Louis Philippe, and he procured the repurchase of the MSS. for the library, afterwards preparing a catalogue of them entitled _Catalogue des MSS. des fonds Libri et Barrois_ (1888), the preface of which gives the history of the whole transaction. He was elected member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres in 1859, and became a member of the staff of the _Recueil des historiens de la France_, collaborating in vols. xxii. (1865) and xxiii. (1876) and editing vol. xxiv. (1904), which is valuable for the social history of France in the 13th century. The jubilee of his fifty years' association with the Bibliothèque Nationale was celebrated on the 8th of March 1903. After his retirement (February 21, 1905) he brought out in two volumes a catalogue and description of the printed books and MSS. in the Musée Condé at Chantilly, left by the due d'Aumale to the French Institute. He produced many valuable official reports and catalogues and a great number of memoirs and monographs on points connected with palaeography and the study of history and archaeology (see his _Mélanges de paléographie et de bibliographie_ (1880) with atlas; and his articles in the _Album paléographique_ (1887). Of his purely historical works special mention must be made of his _Mémoire sur les actes d'Innocent III_ (1857), and his _Mémoire sur les opérations financières des Templiers_ (1889), a collection of documents of the highest value for economic history. The thirty-second volume of the _Histoire littéraire de la France_, which was partly his work, is of great importance for the study of 13th and 14th century Latin chronicles. Delisle was undoubtedly the most learned man in Europe with regard to the middle ages; and his knowledge of diplomatics, palaeography and printing was profound. His output of work, in catalogues, &c., was enormous, and his services to the Bibliothèque Nationale in this respect cannot be overestimated. His wife, a daughter of Eugène Burnouf, was for many years his collaborator.
The _Bibliographie des travaux de L. Delisle_ (1902), by Paul Lacombe, may be consulted for a full list of his numerous works.
DELITZSCH, FRANZ (1813-1890), German Lutheran theologian and orientalist, of Jewish descent, was born at Leipzig on the 23rd of February 1813. He studied theology and oriental languages in the university of his native town, and in 1850 was appointed professor ordinarius of theology at Erlangen, where the school of theologians became almost as famous as that of Tübingen. In 1867 he accepted a call to Leipzig, where he died on the 4th of March 1890. Delitzsch was a strict Lutheran. "By the banner of our Lutheran confession let us stand," he said in 1888; "folding ourselves in it, let us die" (T. K. Cheyne, _Founders_, p. 160). Greatly interested in the Jews, he longed ardently for their conversion to Christianity; and with a view to this he edited the periodical _Saat auf Hoffnung_ from 1863, revived the "Institutum Judaicum" in 1880, founded a Jewish missionary college for the training of theologians, and translated the _New Testament_ into Hebrew. He acquired such a mastery of post-biblical, rabbinic and talmudic literature that he has been called the "Christian Talmudist." Though never an advanced critic, his article on Daniel in the second edition of Herzog's _Realencyklopädie_, his _New Commentary on Genesis_ and the fourth edition of his _Isaiah_ show that as years went on his sympathy with higher criticism increased--so much so indeed that Prof. Cheyne has included him among its founders.
He wrote a number of very valuable commentaries on _Habakkuk_ (1843), _Genesis_ (1852, 4th ed. 1872), _Neuer Kommentar über die Genesis_ (1887, Eng. trans. 1888, &c.), _Psalms_ (4th ed. 1883, Eng. trans. 1886, &c.), _Job_ (2nd ed., 1876), _Isaiah_ (4th ed. 1889, Eng. trans. 1890, &c.), _Proverbs_ (1873), _Epistle to the Hebrews_ (1857, Eng. trans. 1865, &c.), _Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes_ (4th ed., 1875). Other works are _Geschichte der jüd. Poesie_ (1836); _Jesus und Hillel_ (1867, 3rd ed. 1879); _Handwerkerleben zur Zeit Jesu_ (1868, 3rd ed. 1878, Eng. trans. in the "Unit Library," 1902); _Ein Tag in Kapernaum_ (1871, 3rd ed. 1886); _Poesieen aus vormuhammedanischer Zeit_ (1874); _Iris, Farbenstudien und Blumenstücke_ (1888, Eng. trans. 1889); _Messianische Weissagungen in geschichtlicher Folge_ (1890, 2nd ed. 1898). His Hebrew _New Testament_ reached its eleventh edition in 1891, and his popular devotional work _Das Sakrament des wahren Leibes und Blutes Jesu Christi_ its seventh edition in 1886.
His son, FRIEDRICH DELITZSCH (b. 1850), became well known as professor of Assyriology in Berlin, and the author of many books of great research and learning, especially on oriental philology. Among other works of importance he wrote _Wo lag das Paradies?_ (1881), and _Babel und Bibel_ (1902, 1903, Eng. trans. 1903).
DELITZSCH, a town of Germany, in the Prussian province of Saxony, on the Lober, an affluent of the Mulde, 12 m. north of Leipzig at the junction of the railways, Bitterfeld-Leipzig and Halle-Cottbus. Pop. (1905) 10,479. Its public buildings comprise an old castle of the 14th century now used as a female penitentiary, a Roman Catholic and three Protestant churches, a normal college (_Schullehrerseminar_) established in 1873 and several other educational institutions. Besides _Kuhschwanz_, a peculiar kind of beer, it manufactures tobacco, cigars, shoes and hosiery; and coal-mining is carried on in the neighbourhood, It was the birthplace of the naturalist Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg (1795-1876), and the political economist Hermann Schulze-Delitzsch (1808-1883), to the latter of whom a statue has been erected. Originally a settlement of the Sorbian Wends, and in the 12th century part of the possessions of the bishops of Merseburg, Delitzsch ultimately passed to the Saxe-Merseburg family, and, on their extinction in 1738, was incorporated with Electoral Saxony.
DELIUS, NIKOLAUS (1813-1888), German philologist and Shakespearean scholar, was born at Bremen on the 19th of September 1813. He was educated at Bonn and Berlin, and took the degree of doctor in philosophy in 1838. After travelling for some time in England, France and Germany, he returned to Bonn in 1846, where in 1855 he was appointed professor of Sanskrit, Provençal and English literature, a post he held until his death, which took place at Bonn on the 18th of November 1888. His greatest literary achievement was his scholarly edition of Shakespeare (1854-1861). He also edited Wace's _St Nicholas_ (1850), a volume of Provençal songs (1853), and published a _Shakspere-Lexikon_ (1852). His original works include: _Über das englische Theaterwesen zu Shaksperes Zeit_ (1853), _Gedichte_ (1853), _Der sardinische Dialekt des dreizehnten Jahrhunderts_ (1868), and _Abhandlungen zu Shakspere_ (two series, 1878 and 1888). As a critic of Shakespeare's text he stands in the first rank.
See the biographical notice by J. Schipper in _Englische Studien_, vol. 14.
DELLA BELLA, STEFANO (1610-1664), Italian engraver, was born at Florence. He was apprenticed to a goldsmith; but some prints of Callot having fallen into his hands, he began to turn his attention entirely towards engraving, and studied the art under Canta Gallina, who had also been the instructor of Callot. By the liberality of Lorenzo de' Medici he was enabled to spend three years in study at Rome. In 1642 he went to Paris, where Cardinal Richelieu engaged him to go to Arras and make drawings of the siege and taking of that town by the royal army. After residing a considerable time at Paris he returned to Florence, where he obtained a pension from the grand duke, whose son, Cosmo, he instructed in drawing. His productions were very numerous, amounting to over 1400 separate pieces.
DELLA CASA, GIOVANNI (1503-1556), Italian poet, was born at Mugillo, in Tuscany, in 1503. He studied at Bologna, Florence and Rome, and by his learning attracted the patronage of Alexander Farnese, who, as Pope Paul III., made him nuncio to Florence, where he received the honour of being elected a member of the celebrated academy, and then to Naples, where his oratorical ability brought him considerable success. His reward was the archbishopric of Benevento, and it was believed that it was only his openly licentious poem, _Capitoli del forno_, and the fact that the French court seemed to desire his elevation, which prevented him from being raised to a still higher dignity. He died in 1556. Casa is chiefly remarkable as the leader of a reaction in lyric poetry against the universal imitation of Petrarch, and as the originator of a style, which, if less soft and elegant, was more nervous and majestic than that which it replaced. His prose writings gained great reputation in their own day, and long afterwards, but are disfigured by apparent straining after effect, and by frequent puerility and circumlocution. The principal are--in Italian, the famous _Il Galateo_ (1558), a treatise of manners, which has been translated into several languages, and in Latin, _De officiis_, and translations from Thucydides, Plato and Aristotle.
A complete edition of his works was published at Florence in 1707, to which is prefixed a life by Casotti. The best edition is that of Venice, 1752.
DELLA COLLE, RAFFAELLINO, Italian painter, was born at Colle, near Borgo San Sepolcro, in Tuscany, about 1490. A pupil of Raphael, whom he is held to have assisted in the Farnesina and the Vatican, Della Colle, after his master's death, was the assistant of his chief scholar, Giulio Romano, at Rome and afterwards at Mantua. In 1536, on the occasion of the entry of Charles V. into Florence, he took service in that city under Vasari. In his later years Della Colle resided at Borgo San Sepolcro, where he kept a school of design; among his many pupils of note may be mentioned Gherardi and Vecchi. His works, which are to be found at Urbino, at Perugia, at Pesaro and at Gubbio, are fine examples of the Roman school of Raphael. The best are a painting of the Almighty supported by angels, a Resurrection and an Assumption, all preserved in churches at Borgo San Sepolcro.
DELLA GHERARDESCA, UGOLINO (c. 1220-1289), count of Donoratico, was the head of the powerful family of Gherardesca, the chief Ghibelline house of Pisa. His alliance with the Visconti, the leaders of the Guelph faction, through the marriage of his sister with Giovanni Visconti, judge of Gallura, aroused the suspicions of his party, and the Ghibellines being then predominant in Pisa, the disorders in the city caused by Ugolino and Visconti in 1271-1274 led to the arrest of the former and the banishment of the latter. Visconti died soon afterwards, and Ugolino, no longer regarded as dangerous, was liberated and banished. But he immediately began to intrigue with the Guelph towns opposed to Pisa, and with the help of Charles I. of Anjou (q.v.) attacked his native city and forced it to make peace on humiliating terms, pardoning him and all the other Guelph exiles. He lived quietly in Pisa for some years, although working all the time to extend his influence. War having broken out between Pisa and Genoa in 1284, Count Ugolino was given the command of a division of the Pisan fleet. It was by his flight--usually attributed to treachery--that the fortunes of the day were decided and the Pisans totally defeated at La Meloria (October 1284). But the political ability which he afterwards displayed led to his being appointed _podestà_ for a year and _capitano del popolo_ for ten years. Florence and Lucca took advantage of the Pisan defeat to attack the republic, but Ugolino succeeded in pacifying them by ceding certain castles. He was however less anxious to make peace with Genoa, for the return of the Pisan prisoners, including most of the leading Ghibellines, would have diminished his power. He was now the most influential man in Pisa, and was preparing to establish his absolute sovereignty, when for some reason not clearly understood he was forced to share his power with his nephew Nino Visconti, son of Giovanni. The duumvirate did not last, and the count and Nino soon quarrelled. Then Ugolino tried to consolidate his position by entering into negotiations with the archbishop, Ruggieri degli Ubaldini, the leader of the Ghibellines. But that party having revived once more, the archbishop obliged both Nino and Ugolino to leave the city, and had himself elected _podestà_ and _capitano del popolo_. However, he allowed Ugolino to return soon afterwards, and was even ready to divide the government of the city with him, although he refused to admit his armed followers. The count, determined to be sole master, attempted to get his followers into the city by way of the Arno, and Ruggieri, realizing the danger, aroused the citizens, accusing Ugolino of treachery for having ceded the castles, and after a day's street fighting (July 1, 1288), Gherardesca was captured and immured together with his sons Gaddo and Uguccione, and his grandsons Nino (surnamed _il Brigata_) and Anselmuccio, in the Muda, a tower belonging to the Gualandi family; here they were detained for nine months, and then starved to death.
The historic details of the episode are still involved in some obscurity, and although mentioned by Villani and other writers, it owes its fame entirely to Dante, who placed Ugolino and Ruggieri in the second ring (_Antenora_) of the lowest circle of the _Inferno_ (canto xxxii. 124-140 and xxxiii. 1-90). This terrible but magnificent passage, which includes "thirty lines unequalled by any other thirty lines in the whole dominion of poetry" (Landor), has been paraphrased by Chaucer in the "Monk's Tale" and more recently by Shelley. But the reason why Dante placed Ugolino among the traitors is not by any means clear, as the flight from La Meloria was not regarded as treachery by any writer earlier than the 16th century, although G. del Noce, in _Il Conte U. della Gherardesca_ (Città di Castello, 1894), states that that was the only motive; Bartoli, in vol. vi. of his _Storia della Letteratura italiana_, suggests Ugolino's alliance with the Ghibellines as the motive. The cession of the castles was not treachery but an act of necessity, owing to the desperate conditions of Pisa.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--Besides the above-quoted works see P. Tronci, _Annali Pisani_ (2 vols., Pisa, 1868-1871); S. de Sismondi, _Histoire des républiques italiennes_ (Brussels, 1838); also the various annotated editions of Dante, especially W. W. Vernon's _Readings from the Inferno_, vol. ii. (2nd ed., London, 1905). (L. V.*)
DELLA PORTA, GIOVANNI BATTISTA (c. 1538-1615), Italian natural philosopher, was born of a noble and ancient family at Naples about the year 1538. He travelled extensively not only in Italy but also in France and Spain, and he was still a youth when he published _Magia naturalis, sive de miraculis rerum naturalium lib. IV._ (1558), the first draft of his _Magia naturalis_, in twenty books, published in 1589. He founded in Naples the Academia Secretorum Naturae, otherwise known as the Accademia dei Oziosi; and in 1610 he became a member of the Accademia dei Lincei at Rome. He died at Naples on the 4th of February 1615.
The following is a list of his principal writings:--_De miraculis rerum naturalium_, in four books (1558); _De furtivis litterarum notis_, in five books (1563, and frequently afterwards, entitling him to high rank among the early writers on cryptography); _Phytognomonica_ (1583, a bulky treatise on the physiology of plants as then understood); _Magia naturalis_ (1589, and often reprinted); _De humana physiognomonia_, in six books (1591); _Villa_, in twelve books (1592, an interesting practical treatise on farming, gardening and arboriculture, based upon his own observations at his country-seat near Naples); _De refractione, optices parte_, in nine books (1593); _Pneumatica_, in three books (1601); _De coelesti physiognomonia_, in six books (1601); _Elementa curvilinea_ (1601); _De distillatione_, in nine books (1604); _De munitione_, in three books (1608); and _De aëris transmutationibus_, in four books (1609). He also wrote several Italian comedies _Olimpia_ (1589); _La Fantesca_ (1592); _La Trappolaria_ (1597); _I' Due Fratelli rivali_ (1601); _La Sorella_ (1607); _La Chiappinaria_ (1609); _La Carbonaria_ (1628); _La Cintia_ (1628). Among all the above-mentioned works the chief interest attaches to the _Magia naturalis_, in which a strange medley of subjects is discussed, including the reproduction of animals, the transmutation of metals, pyrotechny, domestic economy, statics, hunting, the preparation of perfumes. In book xvii. he describes a number of optical experiments, including a description of the camera obscura (q.v.).
DELLA QUERCIA, or DELLA FONTE, JACOPO (1374-1438), Italian sculptor, was born at Siena. He was the son of a goldsmith of repute, Pietro d'Agnolo, to whom he doubtless owed much of his training. There are no records of his early life until the year 1394, when he made an equestrian statue of Gian Tedesco. He is next heard of at Florence in 1402, when he was one of six artists who submitted designs for the great gates of the baptistery, in which competition Ghiberti was the victor. From Florence he seems to have gone to Lucca, where in 1406 he executed one of his finest works, the monument of Ilaria del Caretto, wife of Paolo Guinigi. It is uncertain if he visited Ferrara in 1408; but at the end of that year he was engaged in negotiations which resulted in his acceptance of the commission for the famous Fonte Gaia, at Siena, early in 1409. This work was not seriously begun by him until 1414, and was only finished in 1419. In 1858 the remains of the fountain were removed to the Opera del Duomo, where they are now preserved; a copy of the original by Sarrocchi being erected on the site. After another visit to Lucca in 1422, he returned to Siena, and in March 1425 undertook the contract for the doors of S. Petronio, Bologna. He is known, in following years, to have been to Milan, Verona, Ferrara and Venice; but the rest of his life was chiefly divided between his native city and Bologna. In 1430 he finished the great font of S. Giovanni at Siena, which he had begun in 1417, contributing himself only one of the bas-reliefs, "Zacharias in the Temple," the others being by Ghiberti, Donatello and other sculptors. Among the work known to have been done by Jacopo, may be mentioned also the reliefs of the _predella_ of the altar of S. Frediano at Lucca (1422); and the Bentivoglio monument which was unfinished at the time of his death on the 20th of October 1438. Jacopo della Quercia's work exercised a powerful influence on that of the artists of the later Italian Renaissance. He himself reflects not a little of the Gothic spirit, admirably intermixed with some of the best qualities of neo-classicism. He was an artist whose powers have hardly yet received the recognition they undoubtedly deserve.
See C. Cornelius, _Jacopo della Quercia: eine Kunsthistorische Studie_ (1896), and works relating generally to the arts in Siena. (E. F. S.)
DELLA ROBBIA, the name of a family of great distinction in the annals of Florentine art. Its members are enumerated in chronological order below.[1]
I. LUCA DELLA ROBBIA (1399 or 1400[2]-1482) was the son of a Florentine named Simone di Marco della Robbia. According to Vasari, whose account of Luca's early life is little to be trusted, he was apprenticed to the silversmith Leonardo di Ser Giovanni, who from 1355 to 1371 was working on the grand silver altar frontal for the cathedral at Pistoia (q.v.); this, however, appears doubtful from the great age which it would give to Leonardo, and it is more probable that Luca was the pupil of Ghiberti. During the early part of his life Luca executed many important and exceedingly beautiful pieces of sculpture in marble and bronze. In technical skill he was quite the equal of Ghiberti, and, while possessing all Donatello's vigour, dramatic power and originality, he very frequently excelled him in grace of attitude and soft beauty of expression. No sculptured work of the great 15th century ever surpassed the singing gallery which Luca made for the cathedral at Florence between 1431 and 1440, with its ten magnificent panels of singing angels and dancing boys, far exceeding in beauty those which Donatello in 1433 sculptured for the opposite gallery in the same choir. This splendid work is now to be found in the Museo del Duomo. The general effect of the whole can also be seen at the Victoria and Albert Museum, where a complete cast is fixed to the wall. The same museum possesses a study in _gesso duro_ for one of the panels, which appears to be the original sketch by Luca's own hand.
In May 1437 Luca received a commission from the signoria of Florence to execute five reliefs for the north side of the campanile, to complete the series begun by Giotto and Andrea Pisano. These panels are so much in the earlier style of Giotto that we must conclude that he had left drawings from which Luca worked. They have representative figures chosen to typify grammar, logic, philosophy, music, and science,--the last represented by Euclid and Ptolemy.[3] In 1438 Luca in association with Donatello received an order for two marble altars for chapels in the cathedral. The reliefs from one of them--St Peter's Deliverance from Prison and his Crucifixion--are now in the Bargello. It is probable that these altars were never finished. A tabernacle for the host, made by Luca in 1442, is now at Peretola, near Florence, in the church of S. Maria. A document in the archives of S. Maria Nuova at Florence shows that he received for this 700 florins 1 lira 16 soldi (about £1400 of modern money). In 1437 Donatello received a commission to cast a bronze door for one of the sacristies of the cathedral; but, as he delayed to execute this order, the work was handed over to Luca on the 28th of February 1446, with Michelozzo and Maso di Bartolomeo as his assistants. Part of this wonderful door was cast in 1448, and the last two panels were finished by Luca in 1467, with bronze which was supplied to him by Verrocchio.[4] The door is divided into ten square panels, with small heads in the style of Ghiberti projecting from the framing. The two top subjects are the Madonna and Child and the Baptist, next come the four Evangelists, and below are the four Latin Doctors, each subject with attendant angels. The whole is modelled with perfect grace and dignified simplicity; the heads throughout are full of life, and the treatment of the drapery in broad simple folds is worthy of a Greek sculptor of the best period of Hellenic art. These exquisite reliefs are perfect models of plastic art, and are quite free from the over-elaboration and too pictorial style of Ghiberti. Fig. 1 shows one of the panels.
The most important existing work in marble by Luca (executed in 1454-1456) is the tomb of Benozzo Federighi, bishop of Fiesole, originally placed in the church of S. Pancrazio at Florence, but removed to S. Francesco di Paola on the Bellosguardo road outside the city in 1783. In 1898 it was again removed to the church of SS. Trinita in Florence. A very beautiful effigy of the bishop in a restful pose lies on a sarcophagus sculptured with graceful reliefs of angels holding a wreath which contains the inscription. Above are three-quarter length figures of Christ between St John and the Virgin, of conventional type. The whole is surrounded by a rectangular frame formed of painted tiles of exquisite beauty, but out of keeping with the memorial. On each tile is painted, with enamel pigments, a bunch of flowers and fruit in brilliant realistic colours, the loveliness of which is very hard to describe. Though the bunch of flowers on each is painted on one slab, the ground of each tile is formed of separate pieces, fitted together like a kind of mosaic, probably because the pigment of the ground required a different degree of heat in firing from that needed for the enamel painting of the centre. The few other works of this class which exist do not approach the beauty of this early essay in tile painting, on which Luca evidently put forth his utmost skill and patience.
In the latter part of his life Luca was mainly occupied with the production of terra-cotta reliefs covered with enamel, a process which he improved upon, but did not invent, as Vasari asserts. The _rationale_ of this process was to cover the clay relief with an enamel formed of the ordinary ingredients of glass (_marzacotto_), made white and opaque by oxide of tin. (See CERAMICS: _Italian Majolica_.) Though Luca was not the inventor of the process, yet he extended its application to fine sculptured work in terra-cotta, so that it is not unnaturally known now as Della Robbia ware; it must, however, be remembered that by far the majority of these reliefs which in Italy and elsewhere are ascribed to Luca are really the work of some of the younger members of the family or of the _atelier_ which they founded. Comparatively few exist which can with certainty be ascribed to Luca himself. Among the earliest of these are medallions of the four Evangelists in the vault of Brunelleschi's Pazzi chapel in S. Croce. These fine reliefs are coloured with various metallic oxides in different shades of blue, green, purple, yellow and black. It has often been asserted that the very polychromatic reliefs belong to Andrea or his sons, and that Luca's were all in pure white, or in white and blue; this, however, is not the case; colours were used as freely by Luca as by his successors. A relief in the Victoria and Albert Museum furnishes a striking example of this and is of especial value from its great size, and also because its date is known. This is an enormous medallion containing the arms of René of Anjou and other heraldic devices; it is surrounded by a splendidly modelled wreath of fruit and flowers, especially apples, lemons, oranges and fir cones, all of which are brilliantly coloured. This medallion was set up on the façade of the Pazzi Palace to commemorate René's visit to Florence in 1442. Other reliefs by Luca, also in glazed terra-cotta, are those of the Ascension and Resurrection in the tympani of the doors of the sacristies in the cathedral, executed in 1443 and 1446. Other existing works of Luca in Florence are the tympanum reliefs of the Madonna between two Angels in the Via dell' Agnolo, a work of exquisite beauty, and another formerly over the door of S. Pierino del Mercato Vecchio, but now removed to the Bargello (No. 29). The only existing statues by Luca are two lovely enamelled figures of kneeling angels holding candlesticks, now in the canons' sacristy.[5] A very fine work by Luca, executed between 1449 and 1452, is the tympanum relief of the Madonna and four Monastic Saints over the door of S. Domenico at Urbino.[6] Luca also made the four coloured medallions of the Virtues set in the vault over the tomb of the young cardinal-prince of Portugal in a side chapel of S. Miniato in Florence (see ROSSELLINO). By Luca also are various polychromatic medallions outside Or San Michele.[7] One of his chief decorative works which no longer exists was a small library or study for Piero de' Medici, wholly lined with enamelled plaques and reliefs.[8] The Victoria and Albert Museum possesses twelve circular plaques of majolica ware painted in blue and white with the Occupations of the Months; these have been attributed to Luca, under the idea that they formed part of the decoration of this room, but their real origin is doubtful.
In 1471 Luca was elected president of the Florentine Gild of Sculptors, but he refused this great honour on account of his age and infirmity. It shows, however, the very high estimation in which he was held by his contemporaries. He died on the 20th of February 1482, leaving his property to his nephews Andrea and Simone.[9] His chief pupil was his nephew Andrea, and Agostino di Duccio, who executed many pieces of sculpture at Rimini, and the graceful but mannered marble reliefs of angels on the façade of S. Bernardino at Perugia, may have been one of his assistants.[10] Vasari calls this Agostino Luca's brother, but he was not related to him at all.
II. ANDREA DELLA ROBBIA (1435-1525), the nephew and pupil of Luca, carried on the production of the enamelled reliefs on a much larger scale than his uncle had ever done; he also extended its application to various architectural uses, such as friezes and to the making of lavabos (lavatories), fountains and large retables. The result of this was that, though the finest reliefs from the workshop of Andrea were but little if at all inferior to those from the hand of Luca, yet some of them, turned out by pupils and assistants, reached only a lower standard of merit. Only one work in marble by Andrea is known, namely, an altar in S. Maria delle Grazie near Arezzo, mentioned by Vasari (ed. Milanesi, ii. p. 179), and still well preserved.
One variety of method was introduced by Andrea in his enamelled work; sometimes he omitted the enamel on the face and hands (nude parts) of his figures, especially in those cases where he had treated the heads in a realistic manner; as, for example, in the noble tympanum relief of the meeting of St Domenic and St Francis in the loggia of the Florentine hospital of S. Paolo,--a design suggested by a fresco of Fra Angelico's in the cloister of St Mark's. One of the most remarkable works by Andrea is the series of medallions with reliefs of Infants in white on a blue ground set on the front of the foundling hospital at Florence. These lovely child-figures are modelled with wonderful skill and variety, no two being alike. Andrea produced, for gilds and private persons, a large number of reliefs of the Madonna and Child varied with much invention, and all of extreme beauty of pose and sweetness of expression. These are frequently framed with realistic yet decorative garlands of fruit and flowers painted with coloured enamels, while the main relief is left white. Fig. 2 shows a good example of these smaller works. The hospital of S. Paolo, near S. Maria Novella, has also a number of fine medallions with reliefs of saints, two of Christ Healing the Sick, and two fine portraits, under which are white plaques inscribed--"DALL ANNO 1451 ALL ANNO 1495"[11]; the first of these dates is the year when the hospital was rebuilt owing to a papal brief sent to the archbishop of Florence. Arezzo possesses a number of fine enamelled works by Andrea and his sons--a retable in the cathedral with God holding the Crucified Christ, surrounded by angels, and below, kneeling figures of S. Donato and S. Bernardino; also in the chapel of the Campo Santo is a fine relief of the Madonna and Child with four saints at the sides. In S. Maria in Grado is a very noble retable with angels holding a crown over a standing figure of the Madonna; a number of small figures of worshippers take refuge in the folds of the Virgin's mantle, a favourite motive for sculpture dedicated by gilds or other corporate bodies. Perhaps the finest collection of works of this class is at La Verna, not far from Arezzo (see Vasari, ed. Milanesi, ii. p. 179). The best of these, three large retables with representations of the Annunciation, the Crucifixion, and the Madonna giving her Girdle to St Thomas, are probably the work of Andrea himself, the others being by his sons. In 1489 Andrea made a beautiful relief of the Virgin and two Angels, now over the archive-room door in the Florentine Opera del Duomo; for this he was paid twenty gold florins (see Cavallucci, _S. Maria del Fiore_). In the same year he modelled the fine tympanum relief over a door of Prato cathedral, with a half-length figure of the Madonna between St Stephen and St Lawrence, surrounded by a frame of angels' heads.
In 1491 he was still working at Prato, where many of his best reliefs still exist. A fine bust of S. Lino exists over the side door of the cathedral at Volterra, which is attributed to Andrea. Other late works of known date are a magnificent bust of the Protonotary Almadiano, made in 1510 for the church of S. Giovanni de' Fiorentini at Viterbo, now preserved in the Palazzo Communale there, and a medallion of the Virgin in Glory, surrounded by angels, made in 1505 for Pistoia cathedral.[12] The latest work attributed to Andrea, though apparently only a workshop production of 1515, is a relief representing the Adoration of the Magi, made for a little church, St Maria, in Pian di Mugnone, near Florence.[13] Portions of this work are still in the church, but some fragments of it are at Oxford.
III., IV. Five of Andrea's seven sons worked with their father, and after his death carried on the Robbia fabrique; the dates of their birth are shown in the table on p. 838 _ante_. Early in life two of them came under the influence of Savonarola, and took monastic orders at his Dominican convent; these were MARCO, who adopted the name of Fra Luca, and PAOLO, called Fra Ambrogio. One relief by the latter, a Nativity with four life-sized figures of rather poor work, is in the Cappella degli Spagnuoli in the Sienese convent of S. Spirito; a MS. in the convent archives records that it was made in 1504.
V. The chief existing work known to be by the second LUCA[14] is the very rich and beautiful tile pavement in the uppermost story of Raphael's loggie at the Vatican, finely designed and painted in harmonious majolica colours. This was made by Luca at Raphael's request and under his supervision in 1518.[15] It is still in very fine preservation.
VI. GIOVANNI DELLA ROBBIA (1460-1529?) during a great part of his life worked as assistant to his father, Andrea, and in many cases the enamelled sculpture of the two cannot be distinguished. Some of Giovanni's independent works are of great merit, especially the earlier ones; during the latter part of his life his reliefs deteriorated in style, owing mainly to the universal decadence of the time. A very large number of pieces of Robbia ware which are attributed to Andrea, and even to the elder Luca, were really by the hand of Giovanni. One of his finest works is a large retable at Volterra in the church of S. Girolamo, dated 1501; it represents the Last Judgment, and is remarkable for the fine modelling of the figures, especially that of the archangel Michael, and a nude kneeling figure of a youth who has just risen from his tomb. Quite equal in beauty to anything of his father's, from whom the design of the figures was probably taken, is the washing-fountain in the sacristy of S. Maria Novella at Florence, made in 1497.[16] It is a large arched recess with a view of the seashore, not very decorative in style, painted on majolica tiles at the back. There are also two very beautiful painted majolica panels of fruit-trees let into the lower part. In the tympanum of the arch is a very lovely white relief of the Madonna between two Adoring Angels (see fig. 3). Long coloured garlands of fruit and flowers are held by nude boys reclining on the top of the arch and others standing on the cornice. All this part is of enamelled clay, but the basin of the fountain is of white marble. Neither Luca nor Andrea was in the habit of signing his work, but Giovanni often did so, usually adding the date, probably because other potters had begun to imitate the Robbia ware.[17]
Giovanni lacked the original talent of Luca and Andrea, and so he not only copied their work but even reproduced in clay the marble sculpture of Pollaiuolo, Da Settignano, Verrocchio and others. A relief by him, evidently taken from Mino da Fiesole, exists in the Palazzo Castracane Staccoli. Among the very numerous other works of Giovanni are a relief in the wall of a suppressed convent in the Via Nazionale at Florence, and two reliefs in the Bargello dated 1521 and 1522. That dated 1521 is a many-coloured relief of the Nativity, and was taken from the church of S. Girolamo in Florence; it is a too pictorial work, marred by the use of many different planes. Its predella has a small relief of the Adoration of the Magi, and is inscribed "Hoc opus fecit Ioaes Andee de Robia, ac a posuit hoc in tempore die ultima lulli ANO. DNI. M.D. XXI." At Pisa in the Campo Santo is a relief in Giovanni's later and poorer manner dated 1520; it is a Madonna surrounded by angels, with saints below--the whole overcrowded with figures and ornaments. Giovanni's largest and perhaps finest work is the polychromatic frieze on the outside of the Del Ceppo hospital at Pistoia, for which he received various sums of money between 1525 and 1529, as is recorded in documents which still exist among the archives of the hospital.[18] The subjects of this frieze are the Seven Works of Mercy, forming a continuous band of sculpture in high relief, well modelled and designed in a very broad sculpturesque way, but disfigured by the crudeness of some of its colouring. Six of these reliefs are by Giovanni, namely, Clothing the Naked, Washing the Feet of Pilgrims, Visiting the Sick, Visiting Prisoners, Burying the Dead, and Feeding the Hungry. The seventh, Giving drink to the Thirsty, was made by Filippo Paladini of Pistoia in 1585; this last is simply made of painted stucco. The large figures of the virtues placed between the scenes, and the medallions between the pillars, are the work of assistants or imitators.
A large octagonal font of enamelled clay, with pilasters at the angles and panels between them with scenes from the life of the Baptist, in the church of S. Leonardo at Cerreto Guidi, is a work of the school of Giovanni; the reliefs are pictorial in style and coarse in execution. Giovanni's chief pupil was a man named Benedetto Buglioni (1461-1521), and a pupil of his, one Santi Buglioni (b. 1494), entered the Robbia workshops in 1521, and assisted in the later works of Giovanni.
VII. GIROLAMO DELLA ROBBIA (1488-1566), another of Andrea's sons, was an architect and a sculptor in marble and bronze as well as in enamelled clay. During the first part of his life he, like his brothers, worked with his father, but in 1528 he went to France and spent nearly forty years in the service of the French Royal family. Francis I. employed him to build a palace in the Bois de Boulogne called the Château de Madrid. This was a large well-designed building, four storeys high, two of them having open loggie in the Italian fashion. Girolamo decorated it richly with terra-cotta medallions, friezes and other architectural features.[19] For this purpose he set up kilns at Suresnes. Though the palace itself has been destroyed, drawings of it exist.[20]
The best collections of Robbia ware are in the Florentine Bargello, Accademia and Museo del Duomo; the Victoria and Albert Museum (the finest out of Italy); the Louvre, the Cluny and the Berlin Museums; while fine examples are to be found in New York, Boston, St Petersburg and Vienna. Many fine specimens exist in private collections in England, France, Germany and the United States. The greater part of the Robbia work still remains in the churches and other buildings of Italy, especially in Florence, Fiesole, Arezzo, La Verna, Volterra, Barga, Montepulciano, Lucca, Pistoia, Prato and Siena.
LITERATURE.--H. Barbet de Jouy, _Les della Robbia_ (Paris, 1855); W. Bode, _Die Künstlerfamilie della Robbia_ (Leipzig, 1878); "Luca della Robbia ed i suoi precursori in Firenze," _Arch. stor. dell' arte_ (1899); "Über Luca della Robbia," _Sitzungsbericht von der Berliner kunstgeschichtlichen Gesellschaft_ (1896); _Florentiner Bildhauer der Renaissance_ (Berlin, 1902); G. Carocci, _I Dintorni de Firenze_ (Florence, 1881); "Il Monumento di Benozzo Federighi," _Arte e Storia_ (1894); "Opere Robbiane poco noti," _Arte e storia_ (1898, 1899); Cavallucci et Molinier, _Les della Robbia_ (Paris, 1884); Maud Crutwell, _Luca and Andrea della Robbia and their Successors_ (London, 1902); A. du Cerceau, _Les plus excellents bastiments de France_ (Paris, 1586); G. Milanesi, _Le Vite scritte da Vasari_ (Florence, 1878); M. Reymond, _Les della Robbia_ (Florence, 1897); _La Sculpture Florentine_ (Florence, 1898); I. B. Supino, _Catalogo del R. Museo di Firenze_ (Rome 1898); Vasari (see Milanesi's edition). (J. H. M.; W. B.*)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Genealogical tree of Della Robbia sculptors:--
Simone di Marco. | +----------------+------------------+ | | Marco. Luca | (1400-1482). Andrea (1435-1525). | +------+-------+------------+-------------+------------+ | | | | | Girolamo Luca Paolo Giovanni Marco (1488-1566), (1475-1550?), (1470-?), (1469-1529?), (1468-?), worked mostly worked in Dominican worked Dominican in France. Florence monk. mainly in monk. and Rome. Florence.
[2] Not 1388, as Vasari says. See a document printed by Gaye, _Carteggio inedito_, i. pp. 182-186.
[3] Vasari is not quite right in his account of these reliefs: he speaks of Euclid and Ptolemy as being in different panels.
[4] See Cavallucci, _S. Maria del Fiore_, pt. ii. p. 137.
[5] The Victoria and Albert Museum possesses what seem to be fine replicas of these statues.
[6] The document in which the order for this and the price paid for it are recorded is published by Yriarte, _Gaz. d. beaux arts_, xxiv. p. 143.
[7] One of these medallions, that of the Physicians, is now removed to the inside of the church.
[8] It is fully described by Filarete in his _Trattato dell' architectura_, written in 1464, and therefore was finished before that date; see also Vasari, ed. Milanesi (Florence, 1880), ii. p. 174.
[9] His will, dated 19th February 1471, is published by Gaye, _Cart. ined._ i. p. 185.
[10] In the works of Perkins and others on Italian sculpture these Perugian reliefs are wrongly stated to be of enamelled clay.
[11] Professor Marquand has discovered, beneath 1451, the inscription Prete Benino, and, under 1495, De Benini; probably the names of the governors of the hospital at these dates.
[12] See Gualandi, _Memorie risguardanti le belle arti_ (Bologna, 1845), vi. pp. 33-35, where original documents are printed recording the dates and prices paid for these and other works of Andrea.
[13] See a document printed by Milanesi in his Vasari, ii. p. 180.
[14] It appears certain that this Luca was a layman and not the Fra Luca referred to above.
[15] It is illustrated by Gruner, _Fresco Decorations of Italy_ (London, 1854), pl. iv.; see also Müntz, _Raphaël, sa vie_, &c. (Paris, 1881), p. 452, note i., and Vasari, ed. Milanesi, ii. p. 182.
[16] See a document printed by Milanesi in his Vasari, ii. 193.
[17] Examples of these imitations are a retable in S. Lucchese near Poggibonsi dated 1514, another of the Madonna and Saints at Monte San Savino of 1525, and a third in the Capuchin church of Arceria near Sinigaglia; they are all inferior to the best works of the Robbia family, though some of them may have been made by assistants trained in the Robbia workshops.
[18] The hospital itself was begun in 1514.
[19] The Sèvres Museum possesses some fragments of these decorations.
[20] See Laborde, _Château de Madrid_ (Paris, 1853), and _Comptes des bâtiments du roi_ (Paris, 1877-1880), in which a full account is given of Girolamo's work in connexion with this palace.
DELMEDIGO, a Cretan Jewish family, of whom the following are the most important:
ELIJAH DELMEDIGO (1460-1497), philosopher, taught in several Italian centres of learning. He translated some of Averroes' commentaries into Latin at the instigation of Pico di Mirandola. In the sphere of religion, Delmedigo represents the tendency to depart from the scholastic attitude in which religion and philosophy were identified. His most important work was devoted to this end; it was entitled _Behinath ha-Dath_ (Investigation of Religion).
JOSEPH SOLOMON DELMEDIGO (1591-1655), pupil of Galileo, wrote many books on science and philosophy, and bore a considerable part in initiating the critical movement in Judaism. He belonged to the sceptical school, and though his positive contributions to literature were not of lasting worth, Graetz includes him among the important formative influences within the synagogue of the 17th century. (I. A.)
DELMENHORST, a town of Germany, grand duchy of Oldenburg, on the Delme, 8 m. by rail W. from Bremen, at the junction of a line to Vechta. Pop. (1905) 20,147. It has a Protestant and a Roman Catholic church, and is the seat of considerable industries; notably wool-combing, weaving, jute-spinning and the manufacture of linoleum. Delmenhorst was founded in 1230, and from 1247 to 1679, when it was destroyed by the French, was protected by a strong castle.
DELOLME, JEAN LOUIS (1740-1806), Swiss jurist and constitutional writer, was born at Geneva in 1740. He studied for the bar, and had begun to practise when he was obliged to emigrate on account of a pamphlet entitled _Examen de trois parts de droit_, which gave offence to the authorities of the town. He took refuge in England, where he lived for several years on the meagre and precarious income derived from occasional contributions to various journals. In 1775 he found himself compelled to accept aid from a charitable society to enable him to return home. He died at Sewen, a village in the canton of Schwyz, on the 16th of July 1806.
During his protracted exile in England Delolme made a careful study of the English constitution, the results of which he published in his _Constitution de l'Angleterre_ (Amsterdam, 1771), of which an enlarged and improved edition in English appeared in 1772, and was several times reprinted. The work excited much interest as containing many acute observations on the causes of the excellence of the English constitution as compared with that of other countries. It is, however, wanting in breadth of view, being written before the period when constitutional questions were treated in a scientific manner. Along with a translation of Hume's _History of England_ it supplied the _philosophes_ with most of their ideas about the English constitution. It thus was used somewhat as a political pamphlet. Several editions were published after the author's death. Delolme also wrote in English _Parallel between the English Government and the former Government of Sweden_ (1772); A _History of the Flagellants_ (1782), based upon a work of Boileau's; _An Essay on the Union of Scotland with England_ (1787), and one or two smaller works.
DELONEY (or DELONE), THOMAS, English ballad-writer and pamphleteer, produced his earliest indisputable work in 1586, and died about 1600. In 1596 Thomas Nashe, in his _Have with you to Saffron Walden_, wrote: "Thomas Deloney, the ballating silk-weaver, hath rime enough for all myracles, and wit to make a Garland of Good Will more than the premisses ... and this deare yeare, together with the silencing of his looms, scarce that, he being constrained to betake himself to carded ale; whence it proceedeth that since Candlemas, or his jigge, John for the king, not one merrie dittie will come from him, but, the Thunderbolt against Swearers,--Repent, England, Repent--and, the strange Judgements of God." In 1588 the coming of the Armada inspired him for three broadsides, which were reprinted (1860) by J. O. Halliwell-Phillipps. They are entitled "The Queenes visiting of the Campe at Tilsburie with her entertainment there," "A Joyful new Ballad, declaring the happie obtaining of the great Galleazzo ...," and "A new Ballet of the straunge and Most cruell Whippes which the Spaniards had prepared." A collection of _Strange Histories_ (1607) consists of historical ballads by Deloney, with some poems from other hands. This collection, known in later and enlarged editions as _The Royal Garland of Love and Delight_ and _The Garland of Delight_, contains the ballad of Fair Rosamond. J. H. Dixon in his preface to _The Garland of Good Will_ (Percy Society, 1851) ascribes to Deloney _The Blind Beggar of Bednall Green_, and _The Pleasant and sweet History of Patient Grissel_, in prose, with the whole of the _Garland of Good Will_, including some poems such as "The Spanish Lady's Love" generally supposed to be by other hands. His other works include _The Gentle Craft_ (1597) in praise of shoemakers, _The Pleasant Historie of John Winchecombe_ (8th ed., 1619), and _Thomas of Reading or the Sixe Worthie Yeomen of the West_ (earliest extant edition, 1612). Kempe, the actor, jeers at these histories in his _Nine Daies Wonder_, but they were very popular, being reprinted as penny chap-books.
DE LONG, GEORGE WASHINGTON (1844-1881), American explorer, was born in New York city on the 22nd of August 1844. He graduated at the U.S. Naval Academy in 1865, and spent the next fourteen years in naval service in various parts of the world, attaining the rank of lieutenant in 1869, and lieutenant-commander in 1879. In 1873 he took part in the voyage of the "Juniata," sent to search for and relieve the American Arctic expedition under Hall in the "Polaris," commanding a steam launch which was sent out from Upernivik, Greenland, to make a thorough search of Melville Bay. On his return to New York the same year he proposed to James Gordon Bennett, of _The New York Herald_, that the latter should fit out a Polar expedition. It was not until 1879 that the final arrangements were made, the "Pandora," a yacht which had already made two Arctic voyages under Sir Allen Young, being purchased and rechristened the "Jeannette" for this voyage. The story of this expedition (see POLAR REGIONS) is chiefly remarkable on account of the long and helpless drifting of the "Jeannette" with the polar ice-pack in which she was caught (September 5, 1879) and by which she was finally crushed and sunk on the 13th of June 1881. The members of the expedition set out in three boats, one of which was lost in a gale, while another boat-load under De Long died from starvation after reaching the mouth of the Lena river. He was the last survivor of his party. His journal, in which he made regular entries up to the day on which he died (October 30, 1881) was edited by his wife and published in 1883 under the title _Voyage of the "Jeannette"_; and an account of the search which was made for him and his comrades by his heroic companion George W. Melville, who was chief engineer of the expedition and commanded the third of the retreating parties, was published a year later under the title of _In the Lena Delta_. The fate of the "Jeannette" was still more remarkable in its sequel. Three years after she had sunk several articles belonging to her crew were found on an ice-floe near Julianshaab on the south-west coast of Greenland; thus adding fresh evidence to the theory of a continuous ocean current passing across the unknown Polar regions, which was to be finally demonstrated by Nansen's voyage in the "Fram." By direction of the United States government, the remains of De Long and his companions were brought home and interred with honour in his native city.
DELORME, MARION (c. 1613-1650), French courtesan, was the daughter of Jean de Lou, sieur de l'Orme, president of the treasurers of France in Champagne, and of Marie Chastelain. She was born at her father's château near Champaubert. Initiated into the philosophy of pleasure by the epicurean and atheist Jacques Vallée, sieur Desbarreaux, she soon left him for Cinq Mars, at that time at the height of his popularity, and succeeded, it is said, in marrying him in secret. From this time Marion Delorme's salon became one of the most brilliant centres of elegant Parisian society. After the execution of Cinq Mars she is said to have numbered among her lovers Charles de St Evremond (1610-1703) the wit and littérateur, Buckingham (Villiers), the great Condé, and even Cardinal Richelieu. Under the Fronde her salon became a meeting place for the disaffected, and Mazarin is said to have sent to arrest her when she suddenly died. Her last years have been adorned with considerable legend (cf. Merecourt, _Confessions de Marie Delorme_, Paris, 1856). It seems established that she died in 1650. But she was believed to have lived until 1706 or even 1741, after having had the most fantastic adventures, including marriage with an English lord, and an old age spent in poverty in Paris. Her name has been popularized by various authors, especially by Alfred de Vigny in his novel _Cinq Mars_, by Victor Hugo in the drama _Marion Delorme_, and by G. Bottesini in an opera of the same title.
See P. J. Jacob, _Marion Delorme et Ninon Lenclos_ (Paris, 1859); J. Peladan, _Histoire et légende de Marion de Lorme_ (Paris, 1882).
DE L'ORME, PHILIBERT (c. 1510-1570), French architect, one of the great masters of the Renaissance, was born at Lyons, the son of Jehan de L'Orme, who practised the same art and brought his son up to it. At an early age Philibert was sent to Italy to study (1533-1536) and was employed there by Pope Paul III. Returning to France he was patronized by Cardinal du Bellay at Lyons, and was sent by him about 1540 to Paris, where he began the Château de St Maur, and enjoyed royal favour; in 1545 he was made architect to Francis I. and given the charge of works in Brittany. In 1548 Henry II. gave him the supervision of Fontainebleau, Saint-Germain and the other royal buildings; but on his death (1559) Philibert fell into disgrace. Under Charles IX., however, he returned to favour, and was employed to construct the Tuileries, in collaboration with Jean Brillant. He died in Paris on the 8th of January 1570. Much of his work has disappeared, but his fame remains. An ardent humanist and student of the antique, he yet vindicated resolutely the French tradition in opposition to Italian tendencies; he was a man of independent mind and a vigorous originality. His masterpiece was the Château d'Anet (1552-1559), built for Diane de Poitiers, the plans of which are preserved in Du Cerceau's _Plus excellens bastimens de France_, though part of the building alone remains; and his designs for the Tuileries (also given by Du Cerceau), begun by Catherine de' Medici in 1565, were magnificent. His work is also seen at Chenonceaux and other famous châteaux; and his tomb of Francis I. at St Denis remains a perfect specimen of his art. He wrote two books on architecture (1561 and 1567).
See Marius Vachon, _Philibert de L'Orme_ (1887); Chevalier, _Lettres et devis relatifs à la construction de Chenonceaux_ (1864); Pfror, _Monographie du château d'Anet_ (1867); Herbet, _Travaux de P. de L'Orme à Fontainebleau_ (1890).
DELOS (mod. _Mikra Dili_, or Little Delos, to distinguish it from Megali Dili, or Great Delos), an island in the Aegean, the smallest but most famous of the Cyclades, and, according to the ancient belief, the spot round which the group arranged itself in a nearly circular form. It is a rugged mass of granite, about 3 m. long and 1 m. to ½ m. broad, about ½ m. E. of Megali Dili or Rheneia, and 2 m. W. of Myconus. Towards the centre it rises to its greatest height of 350 ft. in the steep and rocky peak of Mount Cynthus, which, though overtopped by several eminences in the neighbouring islands, is very conspicuous from the surrounding sea. It is now completely destitute of trees, but it abounds with brushwood of lentisk and cistus, and here and there affords a patch of corn-land to the occasional sower from Myconus.
I. _Archaeology._--Excavations have been made by the French School at Athens upon the island of Delos since 1877, chiefly by Th. Homolle. They have proceeded slowly but systematically, and the method adopted, though scientific and economical, left the site in some apparent confusion, but the débris have more recently been cleared away to a considerable extent. The complete plan of the sacred precinct of Apollo has been recovered, as well as those of a considerable portion of the commercial quarter of Hellenistic and Roman times, of the theatre, of the temples of the foreign gods, of the temples on the top of Mount Cynthus, and of several very interesting private houses. Numerous works of sculpture of all periods have been found, and also a very extensive series of inscriptions, some of them throwing much light upon the subject of temple administration in Greece.
The most convenient place for landing is protected by an ancient mole; it faces the channel between Delos and Rheneia, and is about opposite the most northerly of the two little islands now called [Greek: Rheumatiari]. From this side the sacred precinct of Apollo is approached by an avenue flanked by porticoes, that upon the seaside bearing the name of Philip V. of Macedon, who dedicated it about 200 B.C. This avenue must have formed the usual approach for sacred embassies and processions; but it is probable that the space to the south was not convenient for marshalling them, since Nicias, on the occasion of his famous embassy, built a bridge from the island of Hecate (the Greater Rhevmatiari) to Delos, in order that the imposing Athenian procession might not miss its full effect. Facing the avenue were the propylaea that formed the chief entrance of the precinct of Apollo. They consisted of a gate faced on the outside with a projecting portico of four columns, on the inside with two columns _in antis_. Through this one entered a large open space, filled with votive offerings and containing a large exedra. The sacred road continued its course to the north-east corner of this open space, with the precinct of Artemis on its west side, and, on its east side, a terrace on which stood three temples. The southernmost of these was the temple of Apollo, but only its back was visible from this side. Though there is no evidence to show to whom the other two were dedicated, the fact that they faced west seems to imply that they were either dedicated to heroes or minor deities, or that they were treasuries. Beyond them a road branches to the right, sweeping round in a broad curve to the space in front of the temple of Apollo. The outer side of this curve is bounded by a row of treasuries, similar to those found at Delphi and Olympia, and serving to house the more costly offerings of various islands or cities. The space to the east and south of the temple of Apollo could also be approached directly from the propylaea of entrance, by turning to the right through a passage-like building with a porch at either end. Just to the north of this may be seen the basis of the colossal statue of Apollo dedicated by the Naxians, with its well-known archaic inscription; two large fragments of the statue itself may still be seen a little farther to the north.
The temple of Apollo forms the centre of the whole precinct, which it dominates by the height of its steps as well as of the terrace already mentioned; its position must have been more commanding in ancient times than it is now that heaps of earth and débris cover so much of the level. The temple was of Doric style, with six columns at the front and back and thirteen at the sides; it was built early in the 4th century B.C.; little if any traces have been found of the earlier building which it superseded. Its sculptural decoration appears to have been but scanty; the metopes were plain. The groups which ornamented, as acroteria, the two gables of the temple have been in part recovered, and may now be seen in the national museum at Athens; at the one end was Boreas carrying off Oreithyia, at the other Eos and Cephalus, the centre in each case being occupied by the winged figure that stood out against the sky--a variation on the winged Victories that often occupy the same position on temples.
To the east of the space in front of the temple was an oblong building of two chambers, with a colonnade on each side but not in front; this may have been the Prytaneum or some other official building; beyond it is the most interesting and characteristic of all the monuments of Delphi. This is a long narrow hall, running from north to south, and entered by a portico at its south end. At the north end was the famous altar, built out of the horns of the victims, which was sometimes reckoned among the seven wonders of the world. The rest of the room is taken up by a paved space, surrounded by a narrow gangway; and on this it is supposed that the [Greek: geranos] or stork-dance took place. The most remarkable architectural feature of the building is the partition that separated the altar from this long gallery; it consists of two columns between _antae_, with capitals of a very peculiar form, consisting of the fore parts of bulls set back to back; from these the whole building is sometimes called the sanctuary of the bulls. Beyond it, on the east, was a sacred wood filling the space up to the wall of the precinct; and at the south end of this was a small open space with the altar of Zeus Polieus.
At the north of the precinct was a broad road, flanked with votive offerings and exedrae, and along the boundary were porticoes and chambers intended for the reception of the [Greek: theôriai] or sacred embassies; there are two entrances on this side, each of them through extensive propylaea.
At the north-west corner of the precinct is a building of limestone, the [Greek: pôrinos oikos] often mentioned in the inventories of the treasures of the Delian shrine. South of it is the precinct of Artemis, containing within it the old temple of the goddess; her more recent temple was to the south of her precinct, opening not into it but into the open space entered through the southern propylaea of the precinct of Apollo. The older temple is mentioned in some of the inventories as "the temple in which were the seven statues"; and close beside it was found a series of archaic draped female statues, which was the most important of its kind until the discovery of the finer and better preserved set from the Athenian Acropolis.
Within the precinct there were found many statues and other works of art, and a very large number of inscriptions, some of them giving inventories of the votive offerings and accounts of the administration of the temple and its property. The latter are of considerable interest, and give full information as to the sources of the revenue and its financial administration.
Outside the precinct of Apollo, on the south, was an open place; between this and the precinct was a house for the priests, and within it, in a kind of court, a set of small structures that may perhaps be identified as the tombs of the Hyperborean maidens. Just to the east was the temple of Dionysus, which is of peculiar plan, and faces the open place; on the other side of it is a large rectangular court, surrounded by colonnades and chambers which served as offices, the whole forming a sort of commercial exchange; in the middle of it was a temple dedicated to Aphrodite and Hermes.
To the north of the precinct of Apollo, between it and the sacred lake, there are very extensive ruins of the commercial town of Delos; these have been only partially cleared, but have yielded a good many inscriptions and other antiquities. The most extensive building is a very large court surrounded by chambers, a sort of club or exchange. Beyond this, on the way to the east coast, are the remains of the new and the old palaestra, also partially excavated.
The shore of the channel facing Rheneia is lined with docks and warehouses, and behind them, as well as elsewhere in the island, there have been found several private houses of the 2nd or 3rd century B.C. Each of these consists of a single court surrounded by columns and often paved with mosaic; various chambers open out of the court, including usually one of large proportions, the [Greek: andrôn] or dining-room for guests.
The theatre, which is set in the lower slope of Mount Cynthus, has the wings of the auditorium supported by massive substructures. The most interesting feature is the _scena_, which is unique in plan; it consisted of an oblong building of two storeys, surrounded on all sides by a low portico or terrace reaching to the level of the first floor. This was supported by pillars, set closer together along the front than at the sides and back. An inscription found in the theatre showed that this portico, or at least the front portion of it, was called the proscenium or logeum, two terms of which the identity was previously disputed.
On the summit of Mount Cynthus, above the primitive cave-temple which has always been visible, there have been found the remains of a small precinct dedicated to Zeus Cynthius and Athena Cynthia. Some way down the slope of the hill, between the cave-temple and the ravine of the Inopus, is a terrace with the temples of the foreign gods, Isis and Serapis, and a small odeum.
II. _History._--Many alternative names for Delos are given by tradition; one of these, Ortygia, is elsewhere also assigned to an island sacred to Artemis. Of the various traditions that were current among the ancient Greeks regarding the origin of Delos, the most popular describes it as drifting through the Aegean till moored by Zeus as a refuge for the wandering Leto. It supplied a birthplace to Apollo and Artemis, who were born beneath a palm tree beside its sacred lake, and became for ever sacred to these twin deities. The island first appears in history as the seat of a great Ionic festival to which the various Ionic states, including Athens, were accustomed annually to despatch a sacred embassy, or Theoria, at the anniversary of the birth of the god on the 7th of Thargelion (about May). In the 6th century B.C. the influence of the Delian Apollo was at its height; Polycrates of Samos dedicated the neighbouring island of Rheneia to his service and Peisistratus of Athens caused all the area within sight of the temple to be cleared of the tombs by which its sanctity was impaired. After the Persian wars, the predominance of Athens led to the transformation of the Delian amphictyony into the Athenian empire. (See DELIAN LEAGUE.) In 426 B.C., in connexion with a reorganization of the festival, which henceforth was celebrated in the third year of every Olympiad, the Athenians instituted a more elaborate lustration, caused every tomb to be removed from the island, and established a law that ever after any one who was about to die or to give birth to a child should be at once conveyed from its shores. And even this was not accounted sufficient, for in 422 they expelled all its secular inhabitants, who were, however, permitted to return in the following year. At the close of the Peloponnesian War the Spartans gave to the people of Delos the management of their own affairs; but the Athenian predominance was soon after restored, and survived an appeal to the amphictyony of Delphi in 345 B.C. During Macedonian times, from 322 to 166 B.C., Delos again became independent; during this period the shrine was enriched by offerings from all quarters, and the temple and its possessions were administered by officials called [Greek: hieropoioi]. After 166 B.C. the Romans restored the control of Delian worship to Athens, but granted to the island various commercial privileges which brought it great prosperity. In 87 B.C. Menophanes, the general of Mithradates VI. of Pontus, sacked the island, which had remained faithful to Rome. From this blow it never recovered; the Athenian control was resumed in 42 B.C., but Pausanias (viii. 33. 2) mentions Delos as deserted but for a few Athenian officials; and several epigrams of the 1st or 2nd century A.D. attest the same fact, though the temple and worship were probably kept up until the official extinction of the ancient religion. A museum has now been built to contain the antiquities found in the excavations; otherwise Delos is now uninhabited, though during the summer months a few shepherds cross over with their flocks from Myconus or Rheneia. As a religious centre it is replaced by Tenos and as a commercial centre by the flourishing port of Syra.
See Lebègue, _Recherches sur Délos_ (Paris, 1876). Numerous articles in the _Bulletin de correspondance hellénique_ record the various discoveries at Delos as they were made. See also Th. Homolle, _Les Archives de l'intendance sacrée à Délos_ (with plan). The best consecutive account is given in the _Guide Joanne, Grèce_, ii. 443-464. For history, see Sir R. C. Jebb, _Journal of Hellenic Studies_, i. (1889), pp. 7-62. For works of art found at Delos see GREEK ART. (E. Gr.)
DE LOUTHERBOURG, PHILIP JAMES (1740-1812), English artist, was born at Strassburg on the 31st of October 1740, where his father, the representative of a Polish family, practised miniature painting; but he spent the greater part of his life in London, where he was naturalized, and exerted a considerable influence on the scenery of the English stage, as well as on the artists of the following generation. De Loutherbourg was intended for the Lutheran ministry, and was educated at the university of Strassburg. As the calling, however, was foreign to his nature, he insisted on being a painter, and placed himself under Vanloo in Paris. The result was an immediate and precocious development of his powers, and he became a figure in the fashionable society of that day. In 1767 he was elected into the French Academy below the age required by the law of the institution, and painted landscapes, sea storms, battles, all of which had a celebrity above those of the specialists then working in Paris. His début was made by the exhibition of twelve pictures, including "Storm at Sunset," "Night," "Morning after Rain." He is next found travelling in Switzerland, Germany and Italy, distinguishing himself as much by mechanical inventions as by painting. One of these, showing quite new effects produced in a model theatre, was the wonder of the day. The exhibition of lights behind canvas representing the moon and stars, the illusory appearance of running water produced by clear blue sheets of metal and gauze, with loose threads of silver, and so on, were his devices. In 1771 he came to London, and was employed by Garrick, who offered him £500 a year to apply his inventions to Drury Lane, and to superintend the scene-painting, which he did with complete success, making a new era in the adjuncts of the stage. Garrick's own piece, the _Christmas Tale_, and the pantomime, 1781-1782, introduced the novelties to the public, and the delight not only of the masses, but of Reynolds and the artists, was unbounded. The green trees gradually became russet, the moon rose and lit the edges of passing clouds, and all the world was captivated by effects we now take little notice of. A still greater triumph awaited him on his opening an entertainment called the "Eidophusicon," which showed the rise, progress and result of a storm at sea--that which destroyed the great Indiaman, the "Halsewell,"--and the Fallen Angels raising the Palace of Pandemonium. De Loutherbourg has been called the inventor of the panorama, but this honour does not belong to him, although it first appeared about the same time as the eidophusicon. The first panorama was painted and exhibited by Robert Barker.
All this mechanism did not prevent De Loutherbourg from painting. "Lord Howe's Victory off Ushant" (1794), and other large naval pictures were commissioned for Greenwich Hospital Gallery, where they still remain. His finest work was the "Destruction of the Armada." He painted also the Great Fire of London, and several historical works, one of these being the "Attack of the Combined Armies on Valenciennes" (1793). He was made R.A., in addition to other distinctions, in 1781, shortly after which date we find an entirely new mental impulse taking possession of him. He joined Balsamo, comte de Cagliostro, and travelled about with this extraordinary person--leaving him, however, before his condemnation to death. We do not hear that Mesmer had attracted De Loutherbourg, nor do we find an exact record of his connexion with Cagliostro. A pamphlet published in 1789, _A List of a few Cures performed by Mr and Mrs De Loutherbourg without Medicine_, shows that he had taken up faith-healing, and there is a story that a successful projection of the philosopher's stone was only spoiled by the breaking of the crucible by a relative. He died on the 11th of March 1812. His publications are few--some sets of etchings, and _English Scenery_ (1805).
DELPHI (the Pytho of Homer and Herodotus; in Boeotian inscriptions [Greek: Belphoi], on coins [Greek: Dalphoi]), a place in ancient Greece in the territory of Phocis, famous as the seat of the most important temple and oracle of Apollo. It was situated about 6 m. inland from the shores of the Corinthian Gulf, in a rugged and romantic glen, closed on the N. by the steep wall-like under-cliffs of Mount Parnassus known as the Phaedriades or Shining Rocks, on the E. and W. by two minor ridges or spurs, and on the S. by the irregular heights of Mount Cirphis. Between the two mountains the Pleistus flowed from east to west, and opposite the town received the brooklet of the Castalian fountain, which rose in a deep gorge in the centre of the Parnassian cliff. About 7 m. to the north, on the side of Mount Parnassus, was the famous Corycian cave, a large grotto in the limestone rock, which afforded the people of Delphi a refuge during the Persian invasion. It is now called in the district the Sarant' Aulai or Forty Courts, and is said to be capable of holding 3000 people.
I. _The Site._--The site of Delphi was occupied by the modern village of Castri until it was bought by the French government in 1891, and the peasant proprietors expropriated and transferred to the new village of Castri, a little farther to the west. Excavations had been made previously in some parts of the precinct; for example, the portico of the Athenians was laid bare in 1860. The systematic clearing of the site began in the spring of 1892, and it was rapidly cleared of earth by means of a light railway. The plan of the precinct is now easily traced, and with the help of Pausanias many of the buildings have been identified.
The ancient wall running east and west, commonly known as the Hellenico, has been found extant in its whole length, and the two boundary walls running up the hill at each end of it, traced. In the eastern of these was the main entrance by which Pausanias went in along the Sacred Way. This paved road is easily recognized as it zigzags up the hill, with treasuries and the bases of various offerings facing it on both sides. It mounts first westwards to an open space, then turns eastwards till it reaches the eastern end of the terrace wall that supports the temple, and then turns again and curves up north and then west towards the temple. Above this, approached by a stair, are the Lesche and the theatre, occupying respectively the north-east and north-west corner of the precinct. On a higher level still, a little to the west, is the stadium. There are several narrow paths and stairs that cut off the zigzags of the Sacred Way.
In describing the monuments discovered by the French excavators, the simplest plan is to follow the route of Pausanias. Outside the entrance is a large paved court of Roman date, flanked by a colonnade. On the north side of the Sacred Way, close to the main entrance, stood the offering dedicated by the Lacedaemonians after the battle of Aegospotami. It was a large quadrangular building of conglomerate, with a back wall faced with stucco, and stood open to the road. On a stepped pedestal facing the open stood the statues of the gods and the admirals, perhaps in rows above one another.
The statues of the Epigoni stood on a semicircular basis on the south side of the way. Opposite them stood another semicircular basis which carried the statues of the Argive kings, whose names are cut on the pedestal in archaic characters, reading from right to left. Farther west was the Sicyonian treasury on the south of the way. It was in the form of a small Doric temple _in antis_, and had its entrance on the east. The present foundations are built of architectural fragments, probably from an earlier building of circular form on the same site. The sculptures from this treasury are in the museum, as are the other sculptures found on the site. These sculptures, which are in rough limestone, most likely belong to the earlier building, as their surface is in a better state of preservation than could be possible if they had been long exposed to the air. The earlier treasury was probably destroyed either by earthquake or by the percolation of water through the terracing.
The Cnidian treasury stands on the south side of the way farther west. This building was originally surmised by the excavators to be the treasury of Siphnos, but further evidence led them to change their opinion. The treasury was raised on a quadrangular structure, supported on its south side by the Hellenico, and built of tufa. The lower courses are left rough and were most likely hidden. A small Ionic temple of marble with two caryatids between antae stood on this substructure. The sculpture from this treasury, which ornamented its frieze and pediment, is of great interest in the history of the development of the art, and the fragments of architectural mouldings are of great delicacy and beauty. The whole work is perhaps the most perfect example we possess of the transitional style of the early 5th century. Standing back somewhat from the path just as it bends round up the hill is the Theban treasury. Farther north, where the path turns again, is the Athenian treasury. This structure, which was in the form of a small Doric temple _in antis_, appears to have suffered from the building above it having been shaken down by an earthquake. It has now been rebuilt with the original blocks. There can be no doubt about the identity of the building, for the basis on which it stands bears the remains of the dedicatory inscription, stating that it was erected from the spoils of Marathon. Almost all the sculptured metopes are in the museum, and are of the highest interest to the student of archaic art. The famous inscriptions with hymns to Apollo accompanied by musical notation were found on stones belonging to this treasury.
Above the Athenian treasury is an open space, in which is a rock which has been identified as the Sybil's rock. It has steps hewn in it, and has a cleft. The ground round it has been left rough like the space on the Acropolis at Athens identified as the ancient altar of Athena. Here too was placed the curious column, with many flutes and an Ionic capital, on which stood the colossal sphinx, dedicated by the Naxians, that has been pieced together and placed in the museum.
A little farther on, but below the Sacred Way, is another open space, of circular form, which is perhaps the [Greek: halôs] or sacred threshing-floor on which the drama of the slaying of the Python by Apollo was periodically performed. Opposite this space, and backed against the beautifully jointed polygonal wall which has for some time been known, and which supports the terrace on which the temple stands, is the colonnade of the Athenians. A dedicatory inscription runs along the face of the top step, and has been the subject of much dispute. Both the forms of the letters and the style of the architecture show that the colonnade cannot date, as Pausanias says, from the time of the Peloponnesian War; Th. Homolle now assigns it to the end of the 6th century. The polygonal terrace wall at the back, on being cleared, proves to be covered with inscriptions, most of them concerning the manumission of slaves.
After rounding the east end of the terrace wall, the Sacred Way turns northward, leaving the Great Altar, dedicated by the Chians, on the left. After passing the altar, it turns to the left again at right angles, and so enters the space in front of the temple. Remains of offerings found in this region include those dedicated by the Cyrenians and by the Corinthians. The site of the temple itself carries the remains of successive structures. Of that built by the Alcmaeonids in the 6th century B.C. considerable remains have been found, some in the foundations of the later temple and some lying where they were thrown by the earthquake. The sculptures found have been assigned to this building, probably to the gables, as they are archaic in character, and show a remarkable resemblance to the sculptures from the pediment of the early temple of Athena at Athens. The existing foundations are these of the temple built in the 4th century. They give no certain information as to the sacred cleft and other matters relating to the oracle. Though there are great hollow spaces in the structure of the foundations, these appear merely to have been intended to save material, and not to have been put to any religious or other use. Up in the north-eastern corner of the precinct, standing at the foot of the cliffs, are the remains of the interesting Cnidian Lesche or Clubhouse. It was a long narrow building accessible only from the south, and the famous paintings were probably disposed around the walls so as to meet in the middle of the north side. Some scanty fragments of the lower part of the frescoed walls have survived; but they are not enough to give any information as to the work of Polygnotus.
At the north-western corner of the precinct is the theatre, one of the best preserved in Greece. The foundations of the stage are extant, as well as the orchestra, and the walls and seats of the auditorium. There are thirty-three tiers of seats in seven sets, and a paved diazoma. The sculptures from the stage front, now in the museum, have the labours of Heracles as their subject. The date of the theatre is probably early 2nd century B.C.
The stadium lies, as Pausanias says, in the highest part of the city to the north-west. It stands on a narrow plateau of ground supported on the south-east by a terrace wall. The seats have been cleared, and are in a state of extraordinary preservation. A few of those at the east end are hewn in the rock. No trace of the marble seats mentioned by Pausanias has been found, but they have probably been carried off for lime or building, as they could easily be removed. An immense number of inscriptions have been found in the excavations, and many works of art, including a bronze charioteer, which is one of the most admirable statues preserved from ancient times.
II. _History._--Our information as to the oracle at Delphi and the manner in which it was consulted is somewhat confused; there probably was considerable variation at different periods. The tale of a hole from which intoxicating "mephitic" vapour arose has no early authority, nor is it scientifically probable (see A. P. Oppé in _Journal of Hellenic Studies_, xxiv. 214). The questions had to be given in writing, and the responses were uttered by the Pythian priestess, in early times a maiden, later a woman over fifty attired as a maiden. After chewing the sacred bay and drinking of the spring Cassotis, which was conducted into the temple by artificial channels, she took her seat on the sacred tripod in the inner shrine. Her utterances were reduced to verse and edited by the prophets and the "holy men" ([Greek: hosioi]). For the influence and history of the oracle see ORACLE.
Delphi also contained the "Omphalos," a sacred stone bound with fillets, supposed to mark the centre of the earth. It was said Zeus had started two eagles from the opposite extremities and they met there. Other tales said the stone was the one given by Rhea to Cronus as a substitute for Zeus.
For the history of the Delphic Amphictyony see under AMPHICTYONY. The oracle at Delphi was asserted by tradition to have existed before the introduction of the Apolline worship and to have belonged to the goddess Earth (Ge or Gaia). The Homeric Hymn to Apollo evidently combines two different versions, one of the approach of Apollo from the north by land, and the other of the introduction of his votaries from Crete. The earliest stone temple was said to have been built by Trophonius and Agamedes. This was destroyed by fire in 548 B.C., and the contract for rebuilding was undertaken by the exiled Alcmaeonidae from Athens, who generously substituted marble on the eastern front for the poros specified (see CLEISTHENES, _ad init._). Portions of the pediments of this temple have been found in the excavations; but no sign has been found of the pediments mentioned by Pausanias, representing on the east Apollo and the Muses, and on the west Dionysus and the Thyiades (Bacchantes), and designed by Praxias, the pupil of Calanias. The temple which was seen by Pausanias, and of which the foundations were found by the excavators, was the one of which the building is recorded in inscriptions of the 4th century. A raid on Delphi attempted by the Persians in 480 B.C. was said to have been frustrated by the god himself, by means of a storm or earthquake which hurled rocks down on the invaders; a similar tale is told of the raid of the Gauls in 279 B.C. But the sacrilege thus escaped at the hands of foreign invaders was inflicted by the Phocian defenders of Delphi during the Sacred War, 356-346 B.C., when many of the precious votive offerings were melted down. The Phocians were condemned to replace their value to the amount of 10,000 talents, which they paid in instalments. In 86 B.C. the sanctuary and its treasures were put under contribution by L. Cornelius Sulla for the payment of his soldiers; Nero removed no fewer than 500 bronze statues from the sacred precincts; Constantine the Great enriched his new city by the sacred tripod and its support of intertwined snakes dedicated by the Greek cities after the battle of Plataea. This still exists, with its inscription, in the Hippodrome at Constantinople. Julian afterwards sent Oribasius to restore the temple; but the oracle responded to the emperor's enthusiasm with nothing but a wail over the glory that had departed.
Provisional accounts of the excavations have appeared during the excavations in the _Bulletin de correspondance hellénique_. A summary is given in J. G. Frazer, _Pausanias_, vol. v. The official account is entitled _Fouilles de Delphes_. For history see Hiller von Gärtringen in Pauly-Wissowa, _Realencyclopädie, s.v._ "Delphi." For cult see L. R. Farnell, _Cults of the Creek States_, iv. 179-218. For the works of art discovered see GREEK ART. (E. Gr.)
DELPHINIA, a festival of Apollo Delphinius held annually on the 6th (or 7th) of the month Munychion (April) at Athens. All that is known of the ceremonies is that a number of girls proceeded to his temple (Delphinium) carrying suppliants' branches and seeking to propitiate Apollo, probably as a god having influence on the sea. It was at this time of year that navigation began again after the storms of winter. According to the story in Plutarch (_Theseus_, 18), Theseus, before setting out to Crete to slay the Minotaur, repaired to the Delphinium and deposited, on his own behalf and that of his companions on whom the lot had fallen, an offering to Apollo, consisting of a branch of consecrated olive, bound about with white wool; after which he prayed to the god and set sail. The sending of the maidens to propitiate the god during the Delphinia commemorates this event in the life of Theseus.
See A. Mommsen, _Festeder Stadt Athen_ (1898); L. Preller, _Griechische Mythologie_ (4th ed., 1887); P. Stengel, _Die griechische Kultusaltertümer_ (1898); Daremberg and Saglio, _Dictionnaire des antiquités_; G. F. Schömann, _Griechische Altertümer_ (4th ed., 1897-1902).
DELPHINUS ("THE DOLPHIN"), in astronomy, a constellation of the northern hemisphere, mentioned by Eudoxus (4th century B.C.) and Aratus (3rd century B.C.); and catalogued by Ptolemy (10 stars), Tycho Brahe (10 stars), and Hevelius (14 stars), [Gamma] _Delphini_ is a double star: a yellowish of magnitude 4, and a bluish of magnitude 5.
DELTA (from the shape of the Gr. letter [Delta], delta, originally used of the mouth of the Nile), a tract of land enclosed by the diverging branches of a river's mouth and the seacoast, and traversed by other branches of the stream. This triangular tract is formed from the fine silt brought down in suspension by a muddy river and deposited when the river reaches the sea. When tidal currents are feeble, the delta frequently advances some distance seawards, forming a local prolongation of the coast.
DELUC, JEAN ANDRÉ (1727-1817), Swiss geologist and meteorologist, born at Geneva on the 8th of February 1727, was descended from a family which had emigrated from Lucca and settled at Geneva in the 15th century. His father, François Deluc, was the author of some publications in refutation of Mandeville and other rationalistic writers, which are best known through Rousseau's humorous account of his ennui in reading them; and he gave his son an excellent education, chiefly in mathematics and natural science. On completing it he engaged in commerce, which principally occupied the first forty-six years of his life, without any other interruption than that which was occasioned by some journeys of business into the neighbouring countries, and a few scientific excursions among the Alps. During these, however, he collected by degrees, in conjunction with his brother Guillaume Antoine, a splendid museum of mineralogy and of natural history in general, which was afterwards increased by his nephew J. André Deluc (1763-1847), who was also a writer on geology. He at the same time took a prominent part in politics. In 1768 he was sent to Paris on an embassy to the duc de Choiseul, whose friendship he succeeded in gaining. In 1770 he was nominated one of the Council of Two Hundred. Three years later unexpected reverses in business made it advisable for him to quit his native town, which he only revisited once for a few days. The change was welcome in so far as it set him entirely free for scientific pursuits, and it was with little regret that he removed to England in 1773. He was made a fellow of the Royal Society in the same year, and received the appointment of reader to Queen Charlotte, which he continued to hold for forty-four years, and which afforded him both leisure and a competent income. In the latter part of his life he obtained leave to make several tours in Switzerland, France, Holland and Germany. In Germany he passed the six years from 1798 to 1804; and after his return he undertook a geological tour through England. When he was at Göttingen, in the beginning of his German tour, he received the compliment of being appointed honorary professor of philosophy and geology in that university; but he never entered upon the active duties of a professorship. He was also a correspondent of the Academy of Sciences at Paris, and a member of several other scientific associations. He died at Windsor on the 7th of November 1817.
His favourite studies were geology and meteorology. The situation of his native country had naturally led him to contemplate the peculiarities of the earth's structure, and the properties of the atmosphere, as particularly displayed in mountainous countries, and as subservient to the measurement of heights. According to Cuvier, he ranked among the first geologists of his age. His principal geological work, _Lettres physiques et morales sur les montagnes el sur l'histoire de la terre et de l'homme_, first published in 1778, and in a more complete form in 1779, was dedicated to Queen Charlotte. It dealt with the appearance of mountains and the antiquity of the human race, explained the six days of the Mosaic creation as so many epochs preceding the actual state of the globe, and attributed the deluge to the filling up of cavities supposed to have been left void in the interior of the earth. He published later an important series of volumes on geological travels in the north of Europe (1810), in England (1811), and in France, Switzerland and Germany (1813). These were translated into English.
Deluc's original experiments relating to meteorology were valuable to the natural philosopher; and he discovered many facts of considerable importance relating to heat and moisture. He noticed the disappearance of heat in the thawing of ice about the same time that J. Black founded on it his ingenious hypothesis of latent heat. He ascertained that water was more dense about 40° F. (4° C.) than at the temperature of freezing, expanding equally on each side of the maximum; and he was the originator of the theory, afterward readvanced by John Dalton, that the quantity of aqueous vapour contained in any space is independent of the presence or density of the air, or of any other elastic fluid.
His _Recherches sur les modifications de l'atmosphère_ (2 vols. 4to, Geneva, 1772; 2nd ed., 4 vols. 8vo, Paris, 1784) contains many accurate and ingenious experiments upon moisture, evaporation and the indications of hygrometers and thermometers, applied to the barometer employed in determining heights. In the _Phil. Trans._, 1773, appeared his account of a new hygrometer, which resembled a mercurial thermometer, with an ivory bulb, which expanded by moisture, and caused the mercury to descend. The first correct rules ever published for measuring heights by the barometer were those he gave in the _Phil. Trans._, 1771, p. 158. His _Lettres sur l'histoire physique de la terre_ (8vo, Paris, 1798), addressed to Professor Blumenbach, contains an essay on the existence of a General Principle of Morality. It also gives an interesting account of some conversations of the author with Voltaire and Rousseau. Deluc was an ardent admirer of Bacon, on whose writings he published two works--_Bacon tel qu'il est_ (8vo, Berlin, 1800), showing the bad faith of the French translator, who had omitted many passages favourable to revealed religion, and _Précis de la philosophie de Bacon_ (2 vols. 8vo, Paris, 1802), giving an interesting view of the progress of natural science. _Lettres sur le Christianisme_ (Berlin and Hanover, 1801, 1803) was a controversial correspondence with Dr Teller of Berlin in regard to the Mosaic cosmogony. His _Traité élémentaire de géologie_ (8vo, Paris, 1809, also in English, by de la Fite, the same year) was principally intended as a refutation of the Vulcanian system of Hutton and Playfair, who deduced the changes of the earth's structure from the operation of fire, and attributed a higher antiquity to the present state of the continents than is required in the Neptunian system adopted by Deluc after D. Dolomieu. He sent to the Royal Society, in 1809, a long paper on separating the chemical from the electrical effect of the pile, with a description of the electric column and aerial electroscope, in which he advanced opinions so little in unison with the latest discoveries of the day, that the council deemed it inexpedient to admit them into the _Transactions_. The paper was afterwards published in Nicholson's _Journal_ (xxvi.), and the dry column described in it was constructed by various experimental philosophers. This dry pile or electric column has been regarded as his chief discovery.
Many other of his papers on subjects kindred to those already mentioned are to be found in the _Transactions_ and in the _Philosophical Magazine_. See _Philosophical Magazine_ (November 1817).
DELUGE, THE (through the Fr. from Lat. _diluvium_, flood, _diluere_, to wash away), a great flood or submersion of the earth (so far as the earth was known to the narrators), or of heaven and earth, or simply of heaven, by which, according to primitive and semi-primitive races, chaos was restored. It is, of course, not meant that all the current flood stories, as they stand, answer to this description. There are flood stories which, at first sight, may plausibly be held to be only exaggerated accounts of some ancient historical occurrences. The probability of such traditions being handed down is, however, extremely slight. If some flood stories are apparently local, and almost or quite without mythical colouring, it may be because the original myth-makers had a very narrow conception of the earth, and because in the lapse of time the original mythic elements had dwindled or even disappeared. The relics of the traditional story may then have been adapted by scribes and priests to a new theory. Many deluge stories may in this way have degenerated. It is at any rate undeniable that flood stories of the type described above, and even with similar minor details, are fairly common. A conspectus of illustrative flood stories from different parts of the world would throw great light on the problems before us; see the article COSMOGONY, especially for the North American tales, which show clearly enough that the deluge is properly a second creation, and that the serpent is as truly connected with the second chaos as with the first. One of them, too, gives a striking parallel to the Babylonian name Hasis-andra (the Very Wise), whence comes the corrupt form Xisuthrus; the deluge hero of the Hare Indians is called Kunyan, "the intelligent." Polynesia also gives us most welcome assistance, for its flood stories still present clear traces of the primitive imagination that the sky was a great blue sea, on which the sun, moon and stars (or constellations) were voyagers. Greece too supplies some stimulus to thought, nor are Iran and Egypt as unproductive as some have supposed. But the only pauses that we can allow ourselves are in Hindustan, Babylonia and Canaan. The peoples of these three countries, which are religiously so prominent in antiquity, have naturally connected their name equally with thoughts about earth production and earth destruction.
Indian Tradition.
The Indian tradition exists in several forms.[1] The earliest is preserved in the Satapatha Brahmana. It is there related that Manu, the first man, the son of the sun-god Vivasvat, found, in bathing, a small fish, which asked to be tended, and in reward promised to save him in the coming flood. The fish grew, and at last had to be carried to the sea, where it revealed to Manu the time of the flood, and bade him construct a ship for his deliverance. When the time came, Manu, unaccompanied, went on board; the grateful fish towed the ship through the water to the summit of the northern mountain, where it bade Manu bind the vessel to a tree. Gradually, as the waters fell, Manu descended the mountain; he then sacrificed and prayed. In a year's time his prayer was granted. A woman appeared, who called herself his daughter Ida (goddess of fertility). It is neither stated, nor even hinted, that sin was the cause of the flood.
Another version occurs in the great epic, the Mahabharata. The lacunae of the earlier story are here supplied. Manu, for instance, embarks with the seven "rishis" or wise men, and takes with him all kinds of seed. The fish announces himself as the God Brahman, and enables Manu to create both gods and men. A third account is given in the Bhagavata Purana. It contains the details of the announcement of the flood seven days beforehand (cf. Gen. vii. 4) and of the taking of pairs of all kinds of animals (cf. Gen. vi. 19), besides the seeds of plants (as the epic; cf. Gen. vi. 21). This story, however, is a late composition, not earlier than the 12th century A.D. A first glance at these stories is somewhat bewildering. We shall return, however, to this problem later with a good hope of mastering it.
Israelite and Babylonian.
The Israelite (Biblical) and the Babylonian deluge-stories remain to be considered. Neither need be described here in detail; for the former see Gen. vi. 5-ix. 17, and for the latter GILGAMESH. As most students are aware, the Biblical deluge-story is composite, being made up of two narratives, the few lacunae in which are due to the ancient redactor who worked them together.[2] The narrators are conventionally known as J. (= the Yahwist, from the divine name Yahweh) and P. (= the Priestly Writer) respectively. It is important to notice that P., though chronologically later than J., reproduces certain elements which must be archaic. For instance, while J. speaks only of a rain-storm, P. states that "all the fountains of the great ocean were broken up, and the windows of heaven opened" (Gen. vii. 11), i.e. the lower and the upper waters met together and produced the deluge. It is also P. who tells the story of the appointment of the rainbow (Gen ix. 12-17), which is evidently ancient, though only paralleled in a Lithuanian flood-story, and near it we find the divine declaration (Gen. ix. 2-6) that the golden age of universal peace (cf. Gen. i. 29, 30), already sadly tarnished, is over.[3] Surely this too has a touch of the archaic; nor can we err in connecting it with the tradition of man's first home in Paradise, where no enemy could come, because, in the original form of the tradition, Paradise was the abode of God. (See PARADISE.)
Berossus: four points.
The Babylonian tradition exists in two main forms,[4] nor can we affirm that the shorter form, due to Berossus, is superseded by the larger one in the Gilgamesh epic, for it communicates four important points: (1) Xisuthrus, the hero of the deluge, was also the tenth Babylonian king; cf. Noah, in P., the tenth patriarch as well as the survivor from the deluge; (2) the destination of Xisuthrus is said to be "to the gods," a statement which virtually records his divine character. In accordance with this, the final reward of the hero is declared to be "living with the gods." This suggests that Noah (?) may originally have been represented as a supernatural man, a demigod. True, Gen. ix. 20, 21 is not consistent with this, but it is very possible that Noah was substituted by a scribe's error for Enoch,[5] who, like Xisuthrus, "walked with God (learning the heavenly wisdom) and disappeared, for God had taken him" (Gen. v. 22, 24); (3) the birds, when sent out by Xisuthrus the second time, return with mud on their feet. This detail reminds us of points in some archaic North American myths which probably supply the key to its meaning;[6] (4) in the time of Berossus the mountain on which the ark grounded was considered to be in Armenia.
Details on relation of Israelite story to Babylonian.
We pass on to the relation of J. and P. to the Babylonian story. (1) The polytheistic colouring of the latter contrasts strongly with the far simpler religious views of J. and P. Note the capricious character of the god Bel who sends the deluge, while at the end of the story the catastrophe is represented as a judgment upon human sins. It is the latter view which is adopted by J. and P. We cannot, however, infer from this that the narratives which doubtless underlie J. and P. were directly taken from some such story as that in the Gilgamesh epic. The theory of an indirect and unconscious borrowing on the part of the Israelitish compilers will satisfy all the conditions of the case. (2) In the general scheme the three accounts very nearly agree, for J. must originally have contained directions as to the building of the vessel, and a notice that the ark grounded on a certain mountain. P.'s omission of the sacrifice at the close seems to be arbitrary. His theory of religious history forbade a reference to an altar so early, but his document must have contained it. J. expressly mentions it (Gen. viii. 20, 21), though not in such an original way as the cuneiform text. (3) As to the directions for building the ship (epic) or chest (J. and P.). Here the Babylonian story and P. have a strong general resemblance; note, e.g., the mention of bitumen in both. Whether the Hebrew reference to a chest (_tebah_) is, or is not, more archaic than the Babylonian reference to a ship (_elippu_) is a question which admits of different answers. (4) As to the material cause of the deluge. According to P. (see above) the water came both from above and from below; J. only speaks of continuous rain. The Gilgamesh epic, however, mentions besides thunder, lightning and rain, a hurricane which drove the sea upon the land. We can hardly regard this as more original than P.'s representation. (5) As to the extent of the flood. From the opening of the story in the epic we should naturally infer that only a single S. Babylonian city was affected. The sequel, however, implies that the flood extended all over Babylonia and the region of Nisir. More than this can hardly be claimed. Similarly the earlier story which underlies J. and P. need only have referred to the region of the myth-framers, i.e. either Canaan or N. Arabia. (6) As to the duration of the flood the traditions differ. P. reckons it at 365 days, i.e. a solar year, which is parallel to the 365 years of the life of Enoch (who, as we have seen, may have been the original hero of the flood). It is probable (see below) that P.'s ultimate authority, far back in the centuries, represented the deluge as a celestial occurrence. The origin of J.'s story is not quite so clear, owing to the lacunae in the narrative. If the text may be followed, this narrator made the flood last forty days and nights, after which two periods of seven days elapse, and then the patriarch leaves the ark. The epic shortens the duration of the flood to seven days, after which the ship remains another seven days (more strictly six full days) on the mountain of the land of Nisir (P., the mountains of Ararat; J., unrecorded). (7) As to the despatch of the birds. J. begins, the epic closes, with the raven. Clearly the epic is more original. Besides, one of the two missions of the dove is evidently superfluous. Dove, swallow, raven, as in the epic, must be more primitive than raven, dove, dove.
That the Hebrew deluge-story in both its forms has been at least indirectly influenced by the Babylonian is obvious. We cannot indeed reconstruct the form either of the Canaanitish (or N. Arabian) story, which was recast partly at least under the influence of a recast Babylonian myth, nor can we conjecture where the sanctuary was, the priests of which, yielding to a popular impulse, adopted and modified the fascinating story. But the fact of the ultimate Babylonian origin of the Israelitish narratives cannot seriously be questioned. The Canaanites or the N. Arabians handed on at least a portion of their myths to the Israelites, and the creation and deluge stories were among these. That the Israelitish priests gradually recast them is an easy and altogether satisfactory conjecture.
History and significance of deluge-myths.
It remains to ask, What is the history and significance of the deluge-myth? The question carries us into far-off times. We have no version of the Babylonian myth which goes back to about 2100 B.C., while its text was apparently derived from a still older tablet. But even this is not primitive; behind it there must have been a much shorter and simpler myth. The recast represented by the existing versions of the myth must have been produced partly by the insertion, partly by the omission or modification, of mythic details, and by the application to the story thus produced of a particular mythic theory respecting the celestial world. The shorter myth referred to may--if we take hints from the very primitive myths of N. America--have run somewhat thus, omitting minor details: "The earth (a small enough earth, doubtless) and its inhabitants proved so imperfect that the beneficent superhuman Being, who had created it, or perhaps another such Being, determined to remake it. He, therefore, summoned the serpent or dragon who controlled the cosmic ocean, and had been subjugated at creation, to overwhelm the earth, after which the creator remade it better,[7] and the survivor and his family became the ancestors of a new human race."
This, however, is only one possible representation. It may have been said that the serpent of his own accord, not having been killed by the creator, maliciously flooded the earth (cf. the Algonquian myth), but was again overcome in battle, or that the serpent, after filling the earth with violence and wrong, was at length slain by the Good Being, and that his blood, streaming, out, produced a deluge.[8] In any case it is unnatural to hold that the first flood (that which preceded creation) had a dragon, but not the second. An old cuneiform text, recopied late, however, appears to call the year of the deluge (i.e. of what we here call the second flood) "the year of the raging (or red-shining) serpent,"[9] and certainly the N. American myths distinctly connect serpents with the deluges.
Among the probable minor details (omitted above) of the presumed shorter and older myth we may include: (1) the warning of "Very-Wise,"[10] either by friendly animals or by a dream; (2) the construction of a chest to contain "Very-Wise," his wife and his sons, together with animals;[11] (3) the despatch of three birds with a special object (see below); (4) the landing of the survivors on a mountain. As to (1), Berossus suggests that the notice came to Xisuthrus in a dream; in the Indian myth it is the sacred fish which warns Manu. In the archaic N. American myths, however, it is some animal which gives the notice--an eagle or a coyote (a kind of wolf). As to (2), nothing is more common than the story of a divine child cast into the sea in a box.[12] The ship-motive is also found,[13] but it is not too rash to assume that the box-motive is the earlier, and, in accordance with the parallels, that the hero of the deluge was originally a god or a demigod. The translation of the hero to be with the gods is a transparent modification of the original tradition. As to (3), the original object of sending out the birds was probably not to find out where dry land was, but to use them as helpers in the work of re-creation. Take the story of the Tlatlasik Indians, where the diving-bird (one of three sent out) comes back with a branch of a fir-tree, out of which O'meatl made mountains, earth and heaven;[14] so, too, the Caingangs relate[15] that those who escaped from the flood, as they tarried on a mountain, heard the song of the _saracura_ birds, who came carrying earth in baskets, and threw it into the waters, which slowly subsided. As to (4), the mountain would naturally be thought of as a place of refuge even in the old, simple flood-story. But when Babylonian mythology effected an entrance, the mountain would receive a new and much grander significance. It would then come to represent the summit of that great and most holy mountain, which, save by the special favour of the gods, no human eye has seen.
That a didactic element entered the deluge-tradition but slowly, may be surmised, not only from the genuinely old N. American stories, but from the inconsistent statements, to which Jastrow has already referred, in the Babylonian story. We may imagine that between the creation and the deluge some great and wise Being had initiated the early men, not only in the necessary arts of life, but in the "ways" that were pleasing to the heavenly powers. The Babylonians apparently think of neglected sacrifices, the Australians of a desecrated mystery as the cause of the flood. Some such violation of a sacred rule is the origin that naturally occurs to an adapter or expander of primitive myths.
Celestial myth theory.
And now as to the application of the celestial mythic theory to the early deluge-story. In the agricultural stage it was natural that men should take a deeper interest than before in the appearance of the sky, and especially of the sun and moon, and of the constellations, even though an astrological science or quasi-science would very slowly, if at all, grow up. That the Polynesian myths (which show no vestige of science) originally referred to the supposed celestial ocean, seems to be plain. Schirren[16] regarded the New Zealand cosmogonies as myths of sunrise, and the deluge-stories as myths of sunset. We may at any rate plausibly hold, with the article "Deluge" (by Cheyne) in the ninth edition of this work[17] (1877), that the deluge-stories of Polynesia and early Babylonia (we may now probably add India) were accommodated to an imaginative conception of the sun and moon as voyagers on the celestial ocean. "When this story had been told and retold a long time, rationalism suggested that the sea was not in heaven but on earth, and observation of the damage wrought in winter by excessive rains and the inundations of great rivers suggested the introduction of corresponding details into the new earthly deluge-myth." "This accounts for the strongly mythological character of Par-napishti (Ut-napishti) in Babylonia and Maui in New Zealand, who are in fact solar personages. Enoch, too, must be classed in this category, his perfect righteousness and superhuman wisdom now first become intelligible. Moreover, we now comprehend how the goddess Sabitu (the guardian of the entrance to the sea) can say to Gilgamesh (himself a solar personage), 'Shamash the mighty (i.e. the sun-god) has crossed the sea; besides (?) Shamash, who can cross it?' For though the sea in the epic is no doubt the earth-circling ocean, it was hardly this in the myth from which the words were taken."[18] And, what is still more important, we can understand better how, in the Gilgamesh epic (lines 115-116), the gods, after cowering like dogs, go up to the "heaven of Ana." They, too, fear the deluge, and only in the highest heaven can they feel themselves secure.
Such an explanation seems indispensable if the wide influence of the Babylonian form of the deluge-myth is to be accounted for. As Gunkel well remarks,[19] neither the tenacity and self-propagating character of this myth, nor the solemn utterance of Yahweh (who corresponds to the Babylonian Marduk) in Gen. viii. 21_b_ (J.) and ix. 8-17 (P.) can be understood, if the deluge-story is nothing more than an exaggerated account of a historical, earthly occurrence. We, therefore, venture to hold that it is an insufficient account to give of the story in the Gilgamesh epic that it is a combination of a local tradition of the destruction of a single city with a myth of the destruction of mankind--a myth exaggerated in its present form, but based on accurate knowledge of the yearly recurring phenomenon of the overflow of the Euphrates.[20] There are no doubt points in the story as it now stands which indicate a composite origin, but it is probable that even the tradition which apparently limits the destruction to a single city, equally with many other local flood-stories, has a basis in what we may fairly call a celestial myth.
Indian myth reconsidered.
We can now return with some confidence to the Indian deluge-story. It is unlikely that so richly gifted a race as the Aryans of India should not have produced their own flood-story out of the same primeval germs which grew up into the earliest Babylonian flood-story,[21] and almost inconceivable that in its second form the Indian story should not have become adapted to what may be called the celestial mythic theory. The phrase "the northern mountain" for the place where the ship grounded may quite well be the name of an earthly substitute (the epic has "the highest summit of the Himalaya") for the mythic mountain of heaven. Nor is it unimportant that Manu is the son of the sun-god, and that the phrase "the seven rishis" in classical Sanskrit is a designation of the seven stars of the Great Bear. For such problems all that we can hope for is a probable solution. The opposite view[22] that the deluge is a historical occurrence implies a self-propagating power in early tradition which is not justified by critical research, and leaves out of sight many important facts revealed by comparative study.
For a conspectus of deluge-stories see Andree, _Die Flutsagen, ethnographisch betrachtet_ (1891), by a competent anthropologist; E. Suess, _Face of the Earth_, i. 17 (1904); also Elwood Worcester, _Genesis in the Light of Modern Knowledge_ (New York, 1901), Appendix ii., in tabular form, from Schwarz's _Sintfluth und Völkerwanderungen_. Dr Worcester's work is popular, but based on well-chosen authorities. The article "Flood" in Hastings' D. B. is comprehensive; it represents the difficult view that flood-stories, &c., are generally highly-coloured traditions of genuine facts. (T. K. C.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] See Muir, _Sanscrit Texts_, i. 182, 206 ff.
[2] Cf. Carpenter and Harford-Battersby, _The Hexateuch_, ii. 9, where the documents are printed separately in a tabular form.
[3] Isa. xi. 6-8 prophesies that one day this idyllic state shall be restored.
[4] For a discussion of the Babylonian version of the Deluge Legend, recently discovered among the tablets from Nippur, see NIPPUR.
[5] The genealogy in Gen. v. is hardly in its original form. Enoch is probably misplaced, and Noah inserted in error.
[6] Cf. COSMOGONY, and Cheyne's _Traditions and Beliefs of Ancient Israel_ (on deluge-story).
[7] Cf. the myths of the Pawnees and the Quichés of Guatemala.
[8] See the cuneiform text described in _KAT_³, pp. 498-499.
[9] Zimmern, _KAT_³, p. 554.
[10] i.e. Atrahasis (Xisuthrus).
[11] To have omitted the animals would have been an offence against primitive views of kinship.
[12] Usener, _Die Sintflutsagen_, pp. 80-108, 115-127.
[13] Ib. p. 254.
[14] Stucken, _Astralmythen_, pp. 233-234.
[15] _Amer. Journ. of Folklore_, xviii. 223 ff.
[16] Schirren, _Wandersagen der Neuseeländer_ (1856), p. 193.
[17] Referring for Polynesia to Gerland in Waitz-Gerland, _Anthropologie der Naturvölker_, vi. 270-273 (1872). After a long interval, this theory has been taken up by Zimmern, _KAT_³, p. 355, and by Jensen, _Das Gilgamesch-Epos_ (1906), p. 120; Winckler (_AOF_, 3rd series, i. 96) also speaks of the deluge as a "celestial occurrence." For other forms of this view see Jeremias, _ATAO_, pp. 134-136; Usener, p. 239.
[18] Cheyne, _Ency. Bib._ cols. 1063-1064.
[19] _Genesis_, p. 67.
[20] Jastrow, _Religion of Babylonia and Assyria_ (1898), pp. 502, 506.
[21] The view here adopted is that of Lindner and Usener. On the opposite side are Zimmern, Tiele, Jensen, Oldenberg, Nöldeke, Stucken, Lenormant.
[22] Held by Franz Delitzsch, Dillmann and Lenormant.
DELYANNI, THEODOROS (1826-1905), Greek statesman, was born at Kalavryta, Peloponnesus, in 1826. He studied law at Athens, and in 1843 entered the ministry of the interior, of which department he became permanent secretary in 1859. In 1862, on the deposition of King Otho, he became minister for foreign affairs in the provisional government. In 1867 he was minister at Paris. On his return to Athens he became a member of successive cabinets in various capacities, and rapidly collected a party around him consisting of those who opposed his great rival, Tricoupi. In the so-called "Oecumenical Ministry" of 1877 he voted for war with Turkey, and on its fall he entered the cabinet of Koumoundoros as minister for foreign affairs. He was a representative of Greece at the Berlin Congress in 1878. From this time forward, and particularly after 1882, when Tricoupi again came into power at the head of a strong party, the duel between these two statesmen was the leading feature of Greek politics. (See GREECE: _History_.) Delyanni first formed a cabinet in 1885; but his warlike policy, the aim of which was, by threatening Turkey, to force the powers to make concessions in order to avoid the risk of a European war, ended in failure. For the powers, in order to stop his excessive armaments, eventually blockaded the Peiraeus and other ports, and this brought about his downfall. He returned to power in 1890, with a radical programme, but his failure to deal with the financial crisis produced a conflict between him and the king, and his disrespectful attitude resulted in his summary dismissal in 1892. Delyanni, by his demagogic behaviour, evidently expected the public to side with him; but at the elections he was badly beaten. In 1895, however, he again became prime minister, and was at the head of affairs during the Cretan crisis and the opening of the war with Turkey in 1897. The humiliating defeat which ensued--though Delyanni himself had been led into the disastrous war policy to some extent against his will--caused his fall in April 1897, the king again dismissing him from office when he declined to resign. Delyanni kept his own seat at the election of 1899, but his following dwindled to small dimensions. He quickly recovered his influence, however, and he was again president of the council and minister of the interior when, on the 13th of June 1905, he was murdered in revenge for the rigorous measures taken by him against gambling houses.
The main fault of Delyanni as a statesman was that he was unable to grasp the truth that the prosperity of a state depends on its adapting its ambitions to its means. Yet, in his vast projects, which the powers were never likely to endorse, and without their endorsement were vain, he represented the real wishes and aspirations of his countrymen, and his death was the occasion for an extraordinary demonstration of popular grief. He died in extreme poverty, and a pension was voted to the two nieces who lived with him.
DEMADES (c. 380-318 B.C.), Athenian orator and demagogue. He was originally of humble position, and was employed at one time as a common sailor, but he rose partly by his eloquence and partly by his unscrupulous character to a prominent position at Athens. He espoused the cause of Philip in the war against Olynthus, and was thus brought into bitter and life-long enmity with Demosthenes, whom he at first supported. He fought against the Macedonians in the battle of Chaeroneia, and was taken prisoner. Having made a favourable impression upon Philip, he was released together with his fellow-captives, and was instrumental in bringing about a treaty of peace between Macedonia and Athens. He continued to be a favourite of Alexander, and, prompted by a bribe, saved Demosthenes and the other obnoxious Athenian orators from his vengeance. It was also chiefly owing to him that Alexander, after the destruction of Thebes, treated Athens so leniently. His conduct in supporting the Macedonian cause, yet receiving any bribes that were offered by the opposite party, caused him to be heavily fined more than once; and he was finally deprived of his civil rights. He was reinstated (322) on the approach of Antipater, to whom he was sent as ambassador. Before setting out he persuaded the citizens to pass sentence of death upon Demosthenes and his followers, who had fled from Athens. The result of his embassy was the conclusion of a peace greatly to the disadvantage of the Athenians. In 318 (or earlier), having been detected in an intrigue with Perdiccas, Antipater's opponent, he was put to death by Antipater at Pella, when entrusted with another mission by the Athenians. Demades was avaricious and unscrupulous; but he was a highly gifted and practised orator.
A fragment of a speech ([Greek: Peri dôdekaetias]), bearing his name, in which he defends his conduct, is to be found in C. Müller's _Oratores Attici_, ii. 438, but its genuineness is exceedingly doubtful.
DEMAGOGUE (Gr. [Greek: dêmagôgos], from [Greek: agein], to lead, and [Greek: dêmos], the people), a leader of the popular as opposed to any other party. Being particularly used with an invidious sense of a mob leader or orator, one who for his own political ends panders to the passions and prejudices of the people, the word has come to mean an unprincipled agitator.
DEMANTOID, the name given by Nils Gustaf Nordenskiöld to a green garnet, found in the Urals and used as a gem stone. As it possesses high refractive and dispersive power, it presents when properly cut great brilliancy and "fire," and the name has reference to its diamond-like appearance. It is sometimes known as "Uralian emerald," a rather unfortunate name inasmuch as true emerald is found in the Urals, whilst it not infrequently passes in trade as olivine. Demantoid is regarded as a lime-iron garnet, coloured probably by a small proportion of chromium. The colour varies in different specimens from a vivid green to a dull yellowish-green, or even to a brown. The specific gravity of an emerald-green demantoid was found to be 3.849, and that of a greenish-yellow specimen 3.854 (A. H. Church). The hardness is only 6.5, or lower even than that of quartz--a character rather adverse to the use of demantoid as a gem. This mineral was originally discovered as pebbles in the gold-washings at Nizhne Tagilsk in the Ural Mountains, and was afterwards found in the stream called Bobrovka, in the Sysertsk district on the western slope of the Urals. It occurs not only as pebbles but in the form of granular nodules in a serpentine rock, and occasionally, though very rarely, shows traces of crystal faces. (F. W. R.*)
DEMARATUS (Doric [Greek: Damaratos], Ionic [Greek: Dêmarêtos]), king of Sparta of the Eurypontid line, successor of his father Ariston. He is known chiefly for his opposition to his colleague Cleomenes I. (q.v.) in his attempts to make Isagoras tyrant in Athens and afterwards to punish Aegina for medizing. He did his utmost to bring Cleomenes into disfavour at home. Thereupon Cleomenes urged Leotychides, a relative and personal enemy of Demaratus, to claim the throne on the ground that the latter was not really the son of Ariston but of Agetus, his mother's first husband. The Delphic oracle, under the influence of Cleomenes' bribes, pronounced in favour of Leotychides, who became king (491 B.C.). Soon afterwards Demaratus fled to Darius, who gave him the cities of Pergamum, Teuthrania and Halisarna, where his descendants were still ruling at the beginning of the 4th century (Xen. _Anabasis_, ii. 1. 3, vii. 8. 17; _Hellenica_, iii. 1. 6); to these Gambreum should perhaps be added (Athenaeus i. 29 f). He accompanied Xerxes on his expedition to Greece, but the stories told of the warning and advice which on several occasions he addressed to the king are scarcely historical.
See Herodotus v. 75, vi. 50-70, vii.; later writers either reproduce or embellish his narrative (Pausanias iii. 4, 3-5, 7, 7-8; Diodorus xi. 6; Polyaenus ii. 20; Seneca, _De beneficiis_, vi. 31, 4-12). The story that he took part in the attack on Argos which was repulsed by Telesilla, the poetess, and the Argive women, can hardly be true (Plutarch, _Mul. virt._ 4; Polyaenus, _Strat._ viii. 33; G. Busolt, _Griechische Geschichte_, ii.^2 563, note 4). (M. N. T.)
DEMERARA, one of the three settlements of British Guiana, taking its name from the river Demerara. See GUIANA.
DEMESNE (DEMEINE, DEMAIN, DOMAIN, &c.),[1] that portion of the lands of a manor not granted out in freehold tenancy, but (a) retained by the lord of the manor for his own use and occupation or (b) let out as tenemental land to his retainers or "villani." This demesne land, originally held at the will of the lord, in course of time came to acquire fixity of tenure, and developed into the modern copyhold (see MANOR). It is from demesne as used in sense (a) that the modern restricted use of the word comes, i.e. land immediately surrounding the mansion or dwelling-house, the park or chase. _Demesne of the crown_, or royal demesne, was that part of the crown lands not granted out to feudal tenants, but which remained under the management of stewards appointed by the crown. These crown lands, since the accession of George III., have been appropriated by parliament, the sovereign receiving in return a fixed annual sum (see CIVIL LIST). _Ancient demesne_ signified lands or manors vested in the king at the time of the Norman Conquest. There were special privileges surrounding tenancies of these lands, such as freedom from tolls and duties, exemption from danegeld and amercement, from sitting on juries, &c. Hence, the phrase "ancient demesne" came to be applied to the tenure by which the lands were held. Land held in ancient demesne is sometimes also called customary freehold. (See COPYHOLD.)
FOOTNOTE:
[1] The form "demesne" is an Anglo-French spelling of the Old Fr. _demeine_ or _demaine_, belonging to a lord, from Med. Lat. _dominicus_, _dominus_, lord; _dominicum_ in Med. Lat. meant _proprietas_ (see Du Cange). From the later Fr. _domaine_, which approaches more nearly the original Lat., comes the other Eng. form "domain," which is chiefly used in a non-legal sense of any tract of country or district under the rule of any specific sovereign state, &c. "Domain" is, however, the form kept in the legal phrase "Eminent Domain" (q.v.).
DEMETER, in Greek mythology, daughter of Cronus and Rhea and sister of Zeus, goddess of agriculture and civilized life. Her name has been explained as (1) "grain-mother," from [Greek: dêai], the Cretan form of [Greek: xeiai], "barley," or (2) "earth-mother," or rather "mother earth," [Greek: dâ] being regarded as the Doric form of [Greek: lê]. She is rarely mentioned in Homer, nor is she included amongst the Olympian gods.
The central fact of her cult was the story of her daughter Persephone (Proserpine), a favourite subject in classical poetry. According to the Homeric _Hymn to Demeter_, Persephone, while gathering flowers on the Nysian plain (probably here a purely mythical locality), was carried off by Hades (Pluto), the god of the lower world, with the connivance of Zeus (see also PROSERPINE). The incident has been assigned to various other localities--Crete, Eleusis, and Enna in Sicily, the last being most generally adopted. This rape is supposed to point to an original [Greek: ieros lamos], an annual holy marriage of a god and goddess of vegetation. Wandering over the earth in search of her daughter, Demeter learns from Helios the truth about her disappearance. In the form of an old woman named Deo (= the "seeker," or simply a diminutive form), she comes to the house of Celeus at Eleusis, where she is hospitably received. Having revealed herself to the Eleusinians, she departs, in her wrath having visited the earth with a great dearth. At last Zeus appeases her by allowing her daughter to spend two-thirds of the year with her in the upper world. Demeter then returns to Olympus, but before her final departure from earth, in token of her gratitude, she instructs the rulers of Eleusis in the art of agriculture and in the solemnities and rites whereby she desires in future to be honoured.
Those who were initiated into the mysteries of Eleusis found a deep meaning in the myth, which was held to teach the principle of a future life, founded on the return of Persephone to the upper world, or rather on the process of nature by which seed sown in the ground must first die and rot before it can yield new life (see MYSTERY). At Eleusis, Demeter was venerated as the introducer of all the blessings which agriculture brings in its train--fixed dwelling-places, civil order, marriage and a peaceful life; hence her name _Thesmophoros_, "the bringer of law and order," and the festival _Thesmophoria_ (q.v.). J. G. Frazer takes the epithet to mean "bearer of the sacred objects deposited on the altar"; L. R. Farnell (_Cults of the Greek States_, iii. 106) suggests "the bringer of treasure or riches," as appropriate to the goddess of corn and of the lower world; others refer the name to "the law of wedlock" ([Greek: thesmos lektroio], Odyssey, xxiii. 296, where, however, D. B. Monro translates "place, situation"). At Eleusis also, Triptolemus (q.v.), the son of Celeus, who was said to have invented the plough and to have been sent by Demeter round the world to diffuse the knowledge of agriculture, had a temple and threshing-floor.
In the agrarian legends of Iasion and Erysichthon, Demeter also plays an important part. Iasion (or Iasius), a beautiful youth, inspired her with love for him in a thrice-ploughed field in Crete, the fruit of their union being Plutus (wealth). According to Homer (_Odyssey_, v. 128) he was slain by Zeus with a thunderbolt. The story is compared by Frazer (_Golden Bough_, 2nd ed., ii. 217) with the west Prussian custom of the mock birth of a child on the harvest-field, the object being to ensure a plentiful crop for the coming year. It seems to point to the supersession of a primitive local Cretan divinity by Demeter, and the adoption of agriculture by the inhabitants, bringing wealth in its train in the form of the fruits of the earth, both vegetable and mineral. Some scholars, identifying Iasion with Jason (q.v.), regard Thessaly as the original home of the legend, and the union with Demeter as the [Greek: ieros gamos] of mother earth with a health god. Erysichthon ("tearer up of the earth"), son of Triopas or Myrmidon, having cut down the trees in a grove sacred to the goddess, was punished by her with terrible hunger (Callimachus, _Hymn to Demeter_; Ovid, _Metam._ viii. 738-878). Perhaps Erysichthon may be explained as the personification of the labourer, who by the systematic cultivation and tilling of the soil endeavours to force the crops, instead of allowing them to mature unmolested as in the good old times. Tearing up the soil with the plough is regarded as an invasion of the domain of the earth-mother, punished by the all-devouring hunger for wealth, that increases with increasing produce. According to another view, Erysichthon is the destroyer of trees, who wastes away as the plant itself loses its vigour. It is possible that the story may originally have been connected with tree-worship. Here again, as in the case of Iasion, a conflict between an older and a younger cult seems to be alluded to (for the numerous interpretations see O. Crusius _s.v._ in Roscher's _Lexikon_).
It is as a corn-goddess that Demeter appears in Homer and Hesiod, and numerous epithets from various sources (see Bruchmann, _Epitheta Deorum_, supplement to Roscher's _Lexikon_, i. 2) attest her character as such. The name [Greek: Ioulô] (? at Delos), from [Greek: ioulos], "corn-sheaf," has been regarded as identifying the goddess with the sheaf, and as proving that the cult of Demeter originated in the worship of the corn-mother or corn-spirit, the last sheaf having a more or less divine character for the primitive husbandman. According to this view, the prototypes of Demeter and Persephone are the corn-mother and harvest maiden of northern Europe, the corn-fetishes of the field (Frazer, _Golden Bough_, 2nd ed., ii. 217, 222; but see Farnell, _Cults_, iii. 35). The influence of Demeter, however, was not limited to corn, but extended to vegetation generally and all the fruits of the earth, with the curious exception of the bean, the use of which was forbidden at Eleusis, and for the protection of which a special patron was invented. In this wider sense Demeter is akin to Ge, with whom she has several epithets in common, and is sometimes identified with Rhea-Cybele; thus Pindar speaks of Demeter [Greek: chalkokrotos] ("brass-rattling"), an epithet obviously more suitable to the Asiatic than to the Greek earth-goddess. Although the goddess of agriculture is naturally inclined to peace and averse from war, the memory of the time when her land was won and kept by the sword still lingers in the epithets [Greek: chrysaoros] and [Greek: xiphêphoros] and in the name Triptolemus, which probably means "thrice fighter" rather than "thrice plougher."
Another important aspect of Demeter was that of a divinity of the under-world; as such she is [Greek: chthonia] at Sparta and especially at Hermione in Argolis, where she had a celebrated temple, said to have been founded by Clymenus (one of the names of Hades-Pluto) and his sister Chthonia, the children of Phoroneus, an Argive hero. Here there was said to be a descent into the lower world, and local tradition made it the scene of the rape of Persephone. At the festival Chthonia, a cow (representing, according to Mannhardt, the spirit of vegetation), which voluntarily presented itself, was sacrificed by three old women. Those joining in the procession wore garlands of hyacinth, which seems to attribute a chthonian character to the ceremony, although it may also have been connected with agriculture (see S. Wide, _De Sacris Troezeniorum, Hermionensium, Epidauriorum_, Upsala, 1888). The striking use of the term [Greek: dêmêtreioi] in the sense of "the dead" may be noted in this connexion.
The remarkable epithets, [Greek: Erinys] and [Greek: Melaina], as applied to Demeter, were both localized in Arcadia, the first at Thelpusa (or rather Onkeion close by), the second at Phigalia (see W. Immerwahr, _Die Kulte und Mythen Arkadiens_, i. 1891). According to the Thelpusan story, Demeter, during her wanderings in search of Persephone, changed herself into a mare to avoid the persecution of Poseidon. The god, however, assumed the form of a stallion, and the fruit of the union was a daughter of mystic name and the horse Areion (or Erion). Demeter, at first enraged, afterwards calmed down, and washed herself in the river Ladon by way of purification. Demeter "the angry" ([Greek: erinys]) became Demeter "the bather" ([Greek: lousia]). An almost identical story was current in the neighbourhood of Tilphossa, a Boeotian spring. In the Phigalian legend, no mention is made of the horse Areion, but only of the daughter, who is called Despoina (mistress), a title common to all divinities connected with the under-world. Demeter, clad in black (hence [Greek: melaina]) in token of mourning for her daughter and wrath with Poseidon, retired into a cave. During that time the earth bore no fruit, and the inhabitants of the world were threatened with starvation. At last Pan, the old god of Arcadia, discovered her hiding-place, and informed Zeus, who sent the Moirae (Fates) to fetch her out. The cave, still called Mavrospelya ("black cave"), was ever afterwards regarded as sacred to Demeter, and in it, according to information given to Pausanias, there had been set up an image of the goddess, a female form seated on a rock, but with a horse's head and mane, to which were attached snakes and other wild animals. It was clothed in a black garment reaching to the feet, and held in one hand a dolphin, in the other a dove. The image was destroyed by fire, replaced by the sculptor Onatas from inspiration in a dream, but disappeared again before the time of Pausanias.
Both [Greek: melaina] and [Greek: erinus], according to Farnell, are epithets of Demeter as an earth-goddess of the under-world. The first has been explained as referring to the gloom of her abode, or the blackness of the withered corn. The second, according to Max Müller and A. Kuhn, is the etymological equivalent of the Sanskrit Saranyu, who, having turned herself into a mare, is pursued by Vivasvat, and becomes the mother of the two Asvins, the Indian Dioscuri, the Indian and Greek myths being regarded as identical. According to Farnell, the meaning of the epithet is to be looked for in the original conception of Erinys, which was that of an earth-goddess akin to Ge, thus naturally associated with Demeter, rather than that of a wrathful avenging deity.
Various interpretations have been given of the horse-headed form of the Black Demeter: (1) that the horse was one of the forms of the corn-spirit in ancient Greece; (2) that it was an animal "devoted" to the chthonian goddess; (3) that it is totemistic; (4) that the form was adopted from Poseidon Hippios, who is frequently associated with the earth-goddess and is said to have received the name Hippios first at Thelpusa, in order that Demeter might figure as the mother of Areion (for a discussion of the whole subject see Farnell, _Cults_, iii. pp. 50-62). The union of Poseidon and Demeter is thus explained by Mannhardt. As the waves of the sea are fancifully compared to horses, so a field of corn, waving in the breeze, may be said to represent the wedding of the sea-god and the corn-goddess. In any case the association of Poseidon, representing the fertilizing element of moisture, with Demeter, who causes the plants and seeds to grow, is quite natural, and seems to have been widespread.
Demeter also appears as a goddess of health, of birth and of marriage; and a certain number of political and ethnic titles is assigned to her. Of the latter the most noteworthy are: [Greek: Panachaia] at Aegium in Achaea, pointing to some connexion with the Achaean league; [Greek: Achaia],[1] "the Achaean goddess," unless it refers to the "sorrow" of the goddess for the loss of her daughter (cf. [Greek: Achea] in Boeotia); and, most important of all, [Greek: Amphiktyonis], at Anthela near Thermopylae, as patron-goddess of the Amphictyonic league, subsequently so well known in connexion with the temple at Delphi.
The Eleusinia and Thesmophoria are discussed elsewhere, but brief mention may here be made of certain agrarian festivals held in honour of Demeter.
1. _Haloa_, obviously connected with [Greek: halôs] ("threshing-floor"), begun at Athens and finished at Eleusis, where there was a threshing-floor of Triptolemus, in the month Poseideon (December). This date, which is confirmed by historical and epigraphical evidence, seems inappropriate, and it is suggested (A. Mommsen, _Feste der Stadt Athen_, p. 365 foll.) that the festival, originally held in autumn, was subsequently placed later, so as to synchronize with the winter Dionysia. Dionysus, as the god of vines, and (in a special procession) Poseidon [Greek: phytalmios] ("god of vegetation") were associated with Demeter. In addition to being a harvest festival, marked by the ordinary popular rejoicings, the Haloa had a religious character. The [Greek: aparchai] ("first fruits") were conveyed to Eleusis, where sacrifice was offered by a priestess, men being prohibited from undertaking the duty. A [Greek: teletê] ("initiatory ceremony") of women by a woman also took place at Eleusis, characterized by obscene jests and the use of phallic emblems. The sacramental meal on this occasion consisted of the produce of land and sea, certain things (pomegranates, honey, eggs) being forbidden for mystical reasons. Although the offerings at the festival were bloodless, the ceremony of the presentation of the [Greek: aparchai] was probably accompanied by animal sacrifice (Farnell, Foucart); Mommsen, however, considers the offerings to have been pastry imitations. Certain games ([Greek: patrios agôn]), of which nothing is known, terminated the proceedings. In Roman imperial times the ephebi had to deliver a speech at the Haloa.
2. _Chloeia_ or _Chloia_, the festival of the corn beginning to sprout, held at Eleusis in the early spring (Anthesterion) in honour of Demeter Chloë, "the green," the goddess of growing vegetation. This is to be distinguished from the later sacrifice of a ram to the same goddess on the 6th of the month Thargelion, probably intended as an act of propitiation. It has been identified with the _Procharisteria_ (sometimes called _Proschaireteria_), another spring festival, but this is doubtful. The scholiast on Pindar (Ol. ix. 150) mentions an Athenian harvest festival _Eucharisteria_.
3. _Proërosia_, at which prayers were offered for an abundant harvest, before the land was ploughed for sowing. It was also called _Proarcturia_, an indication that it was held before the rising of Arcturus. According to the traditional account, when Greece was threatened with famine, the Delphic oracle ordered first-fruits to be brought to Athens from all parts of the country, which were to be offered by the Athenians to the goddess Deo on behalf of all the contributors. The most important part of the festival was the three sacred ploughings--the Athenian [Greek: hypo polin], the Eleusinian on the Rharian plain, the Scirian (a compromise between Athens and Eleusis). The festival itself took place, probably some time in September, at Eleusis. In later times the ephebi also took part in the Proërosia.
4. _Thalysia_, a thanksgiving festival, held in autumn after the harvest in the island of Cos (see Theocritus vii.).
5. The name of Demeter is also associated with the _Scirophoria_ (see ATHENA). It is considered probable that the festival was originally held in honour of Athena, but that the growing importance of the Eleusinia caused it to be attached to Demeter and Kore.
The attributes of Demeter are chiefly connected with her character as goddess of agriculture and vegetation--ears of corn, the poppy, the mystic basket (_calathus_) filled with flowers, corn and fruit of all kinds, the pomegranate being especially common. Of animals, the cow and the pig are her favourites, the latter owing to its productivity and the cathartic properties of its blood. The crane is associated with her as an indicator of the weather. As a chthonian divinity she is accompanied by a snake; the myrtle, asphodel and narcissus (which Persephone was gathering when carried off by Hades) also are sacred to her.
In Greek art, Demeter is made to resemble Hera, only more matronly and of milder expression; her form is broader and fuller. She is sometimes riding in a chariot drawn by horses or dragons, sometimes walking, sometimes seated upon a throne, alone or with her daughter. The Demeter of Cnidus in the British Museum, of the school of Praxiteles, apparently shows her mourning for the loss of her daughter. The article GREEK ART, fig. 67 (pl. iv.), gives a probable representation of Demeter (or her priestess) from the stone of a vault in a Crimean grave.
The Romans identified Demeter with their own Ceres (q.v.).
See L. Preller, _Demeter und Persephone_ (1837); P. R. Förster, _Der Raub und die Rückkehr der Persephone_ (1874), in which considerable space is devoted to the representations of the myth in art; W. Mannhardt, _Mythologische Forschungen_ (1884); J. E. Harrison, _Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion_ (1903); L. Dyer, _The Gods in Greece_ (1891); J. G. Frazer, _The Golden Bough_ (2nd ed.), ii. 168-222; L. Preller, _Griechische Mythologie_ (4th ed., by C. Robert); O. Kern in Pauly-Wissowa's _Realencyclopädie_, iv. pt. 2 (1901); L. Bloch in Roscher's _Lexikon der Mythologie_; O. Gruppe, _Griechische Mythologie und Religionsgeschichte_, ii. (1907); L. R. Farnell, _Cults of the Greek States_, iii. (1907); article "Ceres" by F. Lenormant in Daremberg and Saglio's _Dictionnaire des antiquités_. (J. H. F.)
FOOTNOTE:
[1] O. Gruppe (_Griechische Mythologie_, ii. 1177, note 1) considers it "certain" that [Greek: Achaia = Achelôia], although he is unable to explain the form.
DEMETRIA, a Greek festival in honour of Demeter, held at seed-time, and lasting ten days. Nothing is known of it beyond the fact that the men who took part in it lashed one another with whips of bark ([Greek: morotton]), while the women made obscene jests. It is even doubtful whether it was a particular festival at all or only another name for the Eleusinia or Thesmophoria. The Dionysia also were called Demetria in honour of Demetrius Poliorcetes, upon whom divine honours were conferred by the Athenians.
Hesychius, s.v. [Greek: morotton]; Pollux i. 37; Diod. Sic. v. 4; Plutarch, _Demetrius_, 12; Daremberg and Saglio, _Dictionnaire des antiquités_.
DEMETRIUS, king of Bactria, was the son of the Graeco-Bactrian king Euthydemus, for whom he negotiated a peace with Antiochus the Great in 206 (Polyb. xi. 34). Soon afterwards he crossed the Hindu Kush and began the invasion of India (Strabo xi. 516); he conquered the Punjab and the valley of the Indus down to the sea and to Gujerat. The town Sangala, a town of the Kathaeans in the Punjab (Arrian v. 22, 2 ff.), he named after his father Euthydemia (Ptol. vii. 1, 46). That his power extended into Arachosia (Afghanistan) is proved by the name of a town Demetrias near Kandahar (Isidor. Charac. 19, cf. Strabo xi. 516). On his coins he wears an elephant's skin with trunk and teeth on his head; on bronze coins, which have also an Indian legend in Kharoshti letters (see BACTRIA), he calls himself the unvanquished king ([Greek: Basileôs anikêtou Dêmêtriou]). One of his coins has already the square form used in India instead of the circular. Eventually he was defeated by the usurper Eucratides (q.v.), who meanwhile had risen to great power in Bactria. About his death we know nothing; his young son Euthydemus II. (known only from coins) can have ruled only a short time. (Ed. M.)
DEMETRIUS, the name of two kings of Macedonia.
1. DEMETRIUS I. (337-283 B.C.), surnamed _Poliorcetes_ ("Besieger"), son of Antigonus Cyclops and Stratonice. At the age of twenty-two he was left by his father to defend Syria against Ptolemy the son of Lagus; he was totally defeated near Gaza (312), but soon partially repaired his loss by a victory in the neighbourhood of Myus. After an unsuccessful expedition against Babylon, and several campaigns against Ptolemy on the coasts of Cilicia and Cyprus, Demetrius sailed with a fleet of 250 ships to Athens. He freed the city from the power of Cassander and Ptolemy, expelled the garrison which had been stationed there under Demetrius of Phalerum, and besieged and took Munychia (307). After these victories he was worshipped by the Athenians as a tutelary deity under the title of _Soter_ ("Preserver"). In the campaign of 306 against Ptolemy he defeated Menelaus (the brother of Ptolemy) in Cyprus, and completely destroyed the naval power of Egypt. In 305 he endeavoured to punish the Rhodians for having deserted his cause; and his ingenuity in devising new instruments of siege, in his unsuccessful attempt to reduce the capital, gained him the appellation of Poliorcetes. He returned a second time to Greece as liberator. But his licentiousness and extravagance made the Athenians regret the government of Cassander. He soon, however, roused the jealousy of the successors of Alexander; and Seleucus, Cassander and Lysimachus united to destroy Antigonus and his son. The hostile armies met at Ipsus in Phrygia (301). Antigonus was killed in the battle, and Demetrius, after sustaining a severe loss, retired to Ephesus. This reverse of fortune raised up many enemies against him; and the Athenians refused even to admit him into their city. But he soon afterwards ravaged the territory of Lysimachus, and effected a reconciliation with Seleucus, to whom he gave his daughter Stratonice in marriage. Athens was at this time oppressed by the tyranny of Lachares; but Demetrius, after a protracted blockade, gained possession of the city (294) and pardoned the inhabitants their former misconduct. In the same year he established himself on the throne of Macedonia by the murder of Alexander, the son of Cassander. But here he was continually threatened by Pyrrhus, who took advantage of his occasional absence to ravage the defenceless part of his kingdom (Plutarch, _Pyrrhus_, 7 ff.); and at length the combined forces of Pyrrhus, Ptolemy and Lysimachus, assisted by the disaffected among his own subjects, obliged him to leave Macedonia after he had sat on the throne for six years (294-288). He passed into Asia, and attacked some of the provinces of Lysimachus with varying success; but famine and pestilence destroyed the greater part of his army, and he solicited Seleucus for support and assistance. But before he reached Syria hostilities broke out; and after he had gained some advantages over his son-in-law, Demetrius was totally forsaken by his troops on the field of battle, and surrendered his person to Seleucus. His son Antigonus offered all his possessions, and even his person, in order to procure his father's liberty; but all proved unavailing, and Demetrius died in the fifty-fourth year of his age, after a confinement of three years (283). His remains were given to Antigonus, honoured with a splendid funeral at Corinth, and thence conveyed to Demetrias. His posterity remained in possession of the Macedonian throne till the time of Perseus, who was conquered by the Romans.
See _Life_ by Plutarch; Diod. Sic. xix. xx.; Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, _Antigonos von Karystos_; De Sanctis, _Contributi alla storia Ateniese_ in Beloch's _Studi di storia antica_ (1893); Fergusson in Lehmann's _Beiträge z. alt. Gesch._ (_Klio_) vol. v. (1905); also authorities under MACEDONIAN EMPIRE.
2. DEMETRIUS II., son of Antigonus Gonatas, reigned from 239 to 229 B.C. He had already during his father's lifetime distinguished himself by defeating Alexander of Epirus at Derdia and so saving Macedonia (about 260?). On his accession he had to face a coalition which the two great leagues, usually rivals, the Aetolian and Achaean, formed against the Macedonian power. He succeeded in dealing this coalition severe blows, wresting Boeotia from their alliance. The revolution in Epirus, which substituted a republican league for the monarchy, gravely weakened his position. Demetrius had also to defend Macedonia against the wild peoples of the north. A battle with the Dardanians turned out disastrously, and he died shortly afterwards, leaving Philip, his son by Chryseïs, still a child. Former wives of Demetrius were Stratonice, the daughter of the Seleucid king Antiochus I., Phthia the daughter of Alexander of Epirus, and Nicaea, the widow of his cousin Alexander. The chronology of these marriages is a matter of dispute.
See Thirlwall, _History of Greece_, vol. viii. (1847); Ad. Holm, _Griech. Gesch._ vol. iv. (1894); B. Niese, _Gesch. d. griech. u. maked. Staaten_, vol. ii. (1899); J. Beloch, _Griech. Gesch._ vol. iii. (1904). (E. R. B.)
DEMETRIUS, the name of three kings of Syria.
DEMETRIUS I. (d. 150 B.C.), surnamed _Soter_, was sent to Rome as a hostage during the reign of his father, Seleucus IV. Philopator, but after his father's death in 175 B.C. he escaped from confinement, and established himself on the Syrian throne (162 B.C.) after overthrowing and murdering King Antiochus V. Eupator. He acquired his surname of _Soter_, or _Saviour_, from the Babylonians, whom he delivered from the tyranny of the Median satrap, Timarchus, and is famous in Jewish history for his contests with the Maccabees. Hated for his vices, Demetrius fell in battle against the usurper, Alexander Balas, in 150 B.C.
DEMETRIUS II. (d. 125 B.C.), surnamed _Nicator_, son of Demetrius I., fled to Crete after the death of his father, but about 147 B.C. he returned to Syria, and with the help of Ptolemy VII. Philometor, king of Egypt, regained his father's throne. In 140 B.C. he marched against Mithradates, king of Parthia, but was taken prisoner by treachery, and remained in captivity for ten years, regaining his throne about 129 B.C. on the death of his brother, Antiochus VII., who had usurped it. His cruelties and vices, however, caused him to be greatly detested, and during another civil war he was defeated in a battle at Damascus, and killed near Tyre, possibly at the instigation of his wife, a daughter of Ptolemy VII., who was indignant at his subsequent marriage with a daughter of the Parthian king, Mithradates. His successor was his son, Antiochus VIII. Grypus.
DEMETRIUS III. (d. 88 B.C.), called _Euergetes_ and _Philometor_, was the son of Antiochus VIII. Grypus. By the assistance of Ptolemy X. Lathyrus, king of Egypt, he recovered part of his Syrian dominions from Antiochus X. Eusebes, and held his court at Damascus. In attempting to dethrone his brother, Philip Epiphanes, he was defeated by the Arabs and Parthians, was taken prisoner, and kept in confinement in Parthia by King Mithradates until his death in 88 B.C.
DEMETRIUS, a Greek sculptor of the early part of the 4th century B.C., who is said by ancient critics to have been notable for the life-like realism of his statues. His portrait of Pellichus, a Corinthian general, "with fat paunch and bald head, wearing a cloak which leaves him half exposed, with some of the hairs of his head flowing in the wind, and prominent veins," was admired by Lucian. He was contrasted with Cresilas (q.v.), an idealizing sculptor of the generation before. Since however the peculiarities mentioned by Lucian do not appear in Greek portraits before the 3rd century B.C., and since the Greek art of the 4th century consistently idealizes, there would seem to be a difficulty to explain. The date of Demetrius above given is confirmed by inscriptions found on the Athenian Acropolis. (P. G.)
DEMETRIUS, a Cynic philosopher, born at Sunium, who lived partly at Corinth and later in Rome during the reigns of Caligula, Nero and Vespasian. He was an intimate friend of Thrasea Paetus and Seneca, and was held in the highest estimation for his consistent disregard of creature comfort in the pursuit of virtue. His contempt for worldly prosperity is shown by his reply to Caligula who, wishing to gain his friendship, sent him a large present. He replied, "If Caligula had intended to bribe me, he should have offered me his crown." Vespasian banished him, but Demetrius laughed at the punishment and mocked the emperor's anger. He reached the logical conclusion of Cynicism in attaching no real importance to scientific data.
DEMETRIUS DONSKOI[1] (1350-1389), grand duke of Vladimir and Moscow, son of the grand duke Ivan Ivanovich by his second consort Aleksandra, was placed on the grand-ducal throne of Vladimir by the Tatar khan in 1362, and married the princess Eudoxia of Nizhniy Novgorod in 1364. It was now that Moscow was first fortified by a strong wall, or _kreml_ (citadel), and the grand duke began "to bring all the other princes under his will." Michael, prince of Tver, appealed however for help to Olgierd, grand duke of Lithuania, who appeared before Moscow with his army and compelled Demetrius to make restitution to the prince of Tver (1369). The war between Tver and Vladimir continued intermittently for some years, and both the Tatars and the Lithuanians took an active part in it. Demetrius was generally successful in what was really a contention for the supremacy. In 1371 he won over the khan by a personal visit to the Horde, and in 1372 he defeated the Lithuanians at Lyubutsk. Demetrius then formed a league of all the Russian princes against the Tatars and in 1380 encountered them on the plain of Kulikovo, between the rivers Nepryadvaya and Don, where he completely routed them, the grand khan Mamai perishing in his flight from the field. But now Toktamish, the deputy of Tamerlane, suddenly appeared in the Horde and organized a punitive expedition against Demetrius. Moscow was taken by treachery, and the Russian lands were again subdued by the Tatars (1381). Nevertheless, while compelled to submit to the Horde, Demetrius maintained his hegemony over Tver, Novgorod and the other recalcitrant Russian principalities, and even held his own against the Lithuanian grand dukes, so that by his last testament he was able to leave not only his ancestral possessions but his grand-dukedom also to his son Basil. Demetrius was one of the greatest of the north Russian grand dukes. He was not merely a cautious and tactful statesman, but also a valiant and capable captain, in striking contrast to most of the princes of his house.
See Sergyei Solovev, _History of Russia_ (Rus.), vols, i.-ii. (St Petersburg, 1857), &c.; Nikolai Savelev, _Demetrius Ivanovich Donskoi_ (Rus.), (Moscow, 1837). (R. N. B.)
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Of the Don.
DEMETRIUS PHALEREUS (c. 345-283 B.C.), Attic orator, statesman and philosopher, born at Phalerum, was a pupil of Theophrastus and an adherent of the Peripatetic school. He governed the city of Athens as representative of Cassander (q.v.) for ten years from 317. It is said that he so won the hearts of the people that 360 statues were erected in his honour; but opinions are divided as to the character of his rule. On the restoration of the old democracy by Demetrius Poliorcetes, he was condemned to death by the fickle Athenians and obliged to leave the city. He escaped to Egypt, where he was protected by Ptolemy Lagus, to whom he is said to have suggested the foundation of the Alexandrian library. Having incurred the displeasure of Lagus's successor Philadelphus, Demetrius was banished to Upper Egypt, where he died (according to some, voluntarily) from the bite of an asp. Demetrius composed a large number of works on poetry, history, politics, rhetoric and accounts of embassies, all of which are lost.
The treatise [Greek: Peri Hermêneias] (on rhetorical expression), which is often ascribed to him, is probably the work of a later Alexandrian (1st century A.D.) of the same name; it has been edited by L. Radermacher (1901) and W. Rhys Roberts (1902), the last-named providing English translation, introduction, notes, glossary and complete bibliography. Fragments in C. Müller, _Frag. Hist. Graec._ ii. p. 362. See A. Holm, _History of Greece_ (Eng. trans.), iv. 60.
DEMETRIUS, PSEUDO- (or FALSE), the name by which three Muscovite princes and pretenders, who claimed to be Demetrius, son of Ivan the Terrible, are known in history. The real Demetrius had been murdered, while still a child, in 1591, at Uglich, his widowed mother's appanage.
1. In the reign of Tsar Boris Godunov (1598-1605), the first of these pretenders, whose origin is still obscure, emigrated to Lithuania and persuaded many of the magnates there of his tsarish birth, and consequently of his right to the Muscovite throne. His real name seems to have been Yury or Gregory, and he was the grandson of Bogdan Otrepev, a Galician boyar, and a tool in the hands of Tsar Boris Godunov's enemies. He first appears in history _circa_ 1600, when his learning and assurance seem to have greatly impressed the Muscovite patriarch Job. Tsar Boris, however, ordered him to be seized and examined, whereupon he fled to Prince Constantine Ostrogsky at Ostrog, and subsequently entered the service of another Lithuanian, Prince Wisniwiecki, who accepted him for what he pretended to be and tried to enlist the sympathy of the Polish king, Sigismund III., in his favour. The king refused to support him officially, but his cause was taken up, as a speculation, by the Polish magnate Yury Mniszek, whose daughter Marina he afterwards wedded and crowned as his tsaritsa. The Jesuits also seem to have believed in the man, who was evidently an unconscious impostor brought up from his youth to believe that he was the real Demetrius; numerous fugitives from Moscow also acknowledged him, and finally he set out, at the head of an army of Polish and Lithuanian volunteers, Cossacks and Muscovite fugitives, to drive out the Godunovs, after being received into the Church of Rome. At the beginning of 1604 he was invited to Cracow, where Sigismund presented him to the papal nuncio Rangoni. His public conversion took place on the 17th of April. In October the false Demetrius crossed the Russian frontier, and shortly afterwards routed a large Muscovite army beneath the walls of Novgorod-Syeversk. The sudden death of Tsar Boris (April 13, 1605) removed the last barrier to the further progress of the pretender. The principal Russian army, under P. F. Basmanov, at once went over to him (May 7); on the 20th of June he made his triumphal entry into Moscow, and on the 21st of July he was crowned tsar by a new patriarch of his own choosing, the Greek Isidore. He at once proceeded to introduce a whole series of political and economical reforms. From all accounts, he must have been a man of original genius and extraordinary resource. He did his best to relieve the burdens of the peasantry; he formed the project of a grand alliance between the emperor, the pope, Venice, Poland and Muscovy against the Turk; he displayed an amazing toleration in religious matters which made people suspect that he was a crypto-Arian; and far from being, as was expected, the tool of Poland and the pope, he maintained from the first a dignified and independent attitude. But his extravagant opinion of his own authority (he lost no time in styling himself emperor), and his predilection for Western civilization, alarmed the ultra-conservative boyars (the people were always on his side), and a conspiracy was formed against him, headed by Basil Shuisky, whose life he had saved a few months previously. A favourable opportunity for the conspirators presented itself on the 8th of May 1606, when Demetrius was married to Marina Mniszek. Taking advantage of the hostility of the Muscovites towards the Polish regiments which had escorted Marina to Moscow and there committed some excesses, the boyars urged the citizens to rise against the Poles, while they themselves attacked and slew Demetrius in the Kreml on the night of the 17th of May.
See Sergyei Solovev, _History of Russia_ (Rus.), vol. viii. (St Petersburg, 1857, &c.); Nikolai Kostomarov, _Historical Monographs_ (Rus.) vols, iv.-vi. (St Petersburg, 1863, &c.); Orest Levitsky, _The First False Demetrius as the Propagandist of Catholicism in Russia_ (Rus.) (St Petersburg, 1886); Paul Pierling, _Rome et Demetrius_ (Paris, 1878); R. N. Bain, _Poland and Russia_, cap. 10 (Cambridge, 1907).
2. The second pretender, called "the thief of Tushino," first appeared on the scene _circa_ 1607 at Starodub. He is supposed to have been either a priest's son or a converted Jew, and was highly educated, relatively to the times he lived in, knowing as he did the Russian and Polish languages and being somewhat of an expert in liturgical matters. He pretended at first to be the Muscovite boyarin Nagi; but confessed, under torture, that he was Demetrius Ivanovich, whereupon he was taken at his word and joined by thousands of Cossacks, Poles and Muscovites. He speedily captured Karachev, Bryansk and other towns; was reinforced by the Poles; and in the spring of 1608 advanced upon Moscow, routing the army of Tsar Basil Shuisky, at Bolkhov, on his way. Liberal promises of the wholesale confiscation of the estates of the boyars drew the common people to him, and he entrenched himself at the village of Tushino, twelve versts from the capital, which he converted into an armed camp, collecting therein 7000 Polish soldiers, 10,000 Cossacks and 10,000 of the rabble. In the course of the year he captured Marina Mniszek, who acknowledged him to be her husband (subsequently quieting her conscience by privately marrying this impostor, who in no way resembled her first husband), and brought him the support of the Lithuanian magnates Mniszek and Sapieha so that his forces soon exceeded 100,000 men. He raised to the rank of patriarch another illustrious captive, Philaret Romanov, and won over the towns of Yaroslavl, Kostroma, Vologda, Kashin and other places to his allegiance. But a series of subsequent disasters, and the arrival of King Sigismund III. at Sinolensk, induced him to fly his camp disguised as a peasant and go to Kostroma, where Marina joined him and he lived once more in regal state. He also made another but unsuccessful attack on Moscow, and, supported by the Don Cossacks, recovered a hold over all south-eastern Russia. He was killed, while half drunk, on the 11th of December 1610, by a Tatar whom he had flogged.
See Sergyei Solovev, _History of Russia_ (Rus.) vol. viii. (St Petersburg, 1657, &c.).
3. The third, a still more enigmatical person than his predecessors, supposed to have been a deacon called Siderka, appeared suddenly, "from, behind the river Yanza," in the Ingrian town of Ivangorod (Narva), proclaiming himself the tsarevich Demetrius Ivanovich, on the 28th of March 1611. The Cossacks, ravaging the environs of Moscow, acknowledged him as tsar on the 2nd of March 1612, and under threat of vengeance in case of non-compliance, the gentry of Pskov also kissed the cross to "the thief of Pskov," as he was usually nicknamed. On the 18th of May 1612 he fled from Pskov, was seized and delivered up to the authorities at Moscow, and there executed.
See Sergyei Solovev, _History of Russia_ (Rus.), vol. viii. (St Petersburg, 1857, &c.). (R. N. B.)
DEMIDOV, the name of a famous Russian family, founded by Nikita Demidov (b. c. 1665), who was originally a blacksmith serf. He made his fortune by his skill in the manufacture of weapons, and established an iron foundry for the government. Peter the Great, with whom he was a favourite, ennobled him in 1720. His son, Akinfiy Demidov (d. c. 1740), increased his inherited wealth by the discovery and working of gold, silver and copper mines. The latter's nephew, Paul Grigoryevich Demidov (1738-1821), was a great traveller who was a benefactor of Russian scientific education; he founded an annual prize for Russian literature, awarded by the Academy of Sciences. Paul's nephew, Nikolay Nikitich Demidov (1774-1828), raised and commanded a regiment to oppose Napoleon's invasion, and carried on the accumulation of the family wealth from mining; he contributed liberally to the erection of four bridges in St Petersburg, and to the propagation of scientific culture in Moscow. Paul's son, Anatoli Demidov (1812-1870), was a well-known traveller and patron of art; he married Princess Mathilde, daughter of Jerome Bonaparte.