Davitt, Michael, a noted Irish patriot, born in co. Mayo, son of a peasant, who, being evicted, settled in Lancashire; joined the Fenian movement, and was sentenced to 15 years' penal servitude; released on ticket-of-leave after seven years; founded the Land League; was for over a year imprisoned again for breaking his ticket-of-leave; published in 1885 "Leaves from a Prison Diary"; entered Parliament in 1895 for co. Mayo; b. 1846.
Davos-Platz, a village 5105 ft. above the sea-level, in a valley of the East Grisons; a place frequented in winter by invalids suffering from chest disease, the dry air and sunshine that prevail being favourable for patients of that class.
Davout, Duke of Auerstädt, Prince of Eckmühl, marshal of France, born at Annoux, in Burgundy; was fellow-student with Napoleon at the military school in Brienne; entered the army in 1788, served in the Revolutionary wars under Dumouriez and Desaix, and became general; served under Bonaparte in Egypt; distinguished himself at Austerlitz, Auerstädt, Eckmühl, and Wagram; was made governor of Hamburg; accompanied Napoleon to Moscow; returned to Hamburg, and defended it during a siege; was made Minister of War in 1815, and assisted Napoleon in his preparations for the final struggle at Waterloo; commanded the remains of the French army which capitulated under the walls of Paris; adhered to the Bourbon dynasty on its return, and was made a peer; was famous before all the generals of Napoleon for his rigour in discipline (1770-1823).
Davy, Sir Humphry, a great English chemist, born at Penzance; conceived early in life a passion for the science in which he made so many discoveries; made experiments on gases and the respiration of them, particularly nitrous oxide and carbonic acid; discovered the function of plants in decomposing the latter in the atmosphere, and the metallic bases of alkalies and earths; proved chlorine to be a simple substance and its affinity with iodine, which he discovered; invented the safety-lamp, his best-known achievement; he held appointments and lectured in connection with all these discoveries and their applications, and received knighthood and numerous other honours for his services; died at Geneva (1778-1829).
Davy Jones's Locker, the sailors' familiar name for the sea as a place of safe-keeping, though why called of Davy Jones is uncertain.
Davy-Lamp, a lamp encased in gauze wire which, while it admits oxygen to feed the flame, prevents communication between the flame and any combustible or explosive gas outside.
Dawkins, William Boyd, geologist and palæontologist, born in Montgomeryshire; has written "Cave Hunting," "Early Man in Britain," &c.; b. 1838.
Dawson, George, a popular lecturer, born in London; educated in Aberdeen and Glasgow; bred for the ministry by the Baptist body, and pastor of a Baptist church in Birmingham, but resigned the post for ministry in a freer atmosphere; took to lecturing on a purely secular platform, and was for thirty years the most popular lecturer of the day; no course of lectures in any institute was deemed complete if his name was not in the programme; did much to popularise the views of Carlyle and Emerson (1821-1876).
Dawson, Sir John William, geologist and naturalist, born in Pictou, Nova Scotia; studied in Edinburgh; distinguished himself as a palæontologist; published in 1872, "Story of the Earth and Man"; in 1877, "Origin of the World"; and recently, "Geology and History"; called in question the Darwinian theory as to the origin of species; b. 1820.
Day, John, an English dramatist, contemporary of Ben Jonson; author of the "Parliament of Bees," a comedy in which all the characters are bees.
Day, Thomas, an eccentric philanthropist, born in London; author of "Sandford and Merton"; he was a disciple of Rousseau; had many a ludicrous adventure in quest of a model wife, and happily fell in with one to his mind at last; was a slave-abolitionist and a parliamentary reformer (1748-1789).
Dayton (85), a prosperous town in Ohio, U.S.; a great railway centre, with a court-house of marble, after the Parthenon in Athens.
D'Azara, a Spanish naturalist, born in Aragon; spent 20 years in South America; wrote a "Natural History of the Quadrupeds in Paraguay" (1781-1811).
Dead Sea, called also the Salt Sea and 'the Asphalt Lake, a sea in Palestine, formed by the waters of the Jordan, 46 m. long, 10 m. broad, and in some parts 1300 ft. deep, while its surface is 1312 ft. below the level of the Mediterranean, just as much as Jerusalem is above it; has no outlet; its waters, owing to the great heat, evaporate rapidly, and are intensely salt; it is enclosed E. and W. by steep mountains, which often rise to a height of 6000 ft.
Deák, Francis, an eminent Hungarian statesman, born at Kehida, of an ancient noble Magyar family; his aim for Hungary was the same as that of Cavour (q. v.) for Italy, the establishment of constitutional government, and he succeeded; standing all along as he did from Hungarian republicanism on the one hand, and Austrian tyranny on the other, he urged on the Emperor of Austria the demand of the Diet, of which he had become leader, at first without effect, but after the humiliation of Austria in 1866, all that he asked for was conceded, and the Austrian Emperor received the Hungarian crown (1803-1876).
Deal (9), a town, one of the old Cinque ports, oil the E. of Kent, opposite the Goodwin Sands, 89 m. from London, with a fine sea-beach; much resorted to for sea-bathing quarters.
Dean, Forest of, a forest of 22,000 acres in the W. of Gloucestershire, between the Severn and the Wye; the property of the Crown for the most part; the inhabitants are chiefly miners, who at one time enjoyed special privileges.
Dean of Guild, a burgh magistrate in Scotland who has the care of buildings, originally the head of the Guild brethren of the town.
Dean of St. Patrick's, Jonathan Swift, who held that post from 1713 till his death.
Deans, Davie, Effie, and Jeanie, characters in the "Heart of Midlothian."
Débats, Journal des, a daily paper, established in 1789; it defends at present the Conservative Republican policy, and publishes often remarkable literary articles.
Debenture, a deed acknowledging a debt on a specified security.
Debo`rah, a Hebrew prophetess; reckoned one of the judges of Israel by her enthusiasm to free her people from the yoke of the Canaanites; celebrated for her song of exultation over their defeat, instinct at once with pious devotion and with revengeful feeling; Coleridge calls her "this Hebrew Boadicea."
Debreczen (56), a Hungarian town, 130 m. E. of Buda-Pesth; is the head-quarters of Protestantism in the country, and has an amply equipped and a largely attended Protestant College; is a seat of manufactures and a large trade.
Decameron, a collection of a hundred tales, conceived of as rehearsed in ten days at a country-house during the plague at Florence; are of a licentious character, but exquisitely told; were written by Boccaccio; published in 1352; the name comes from deka, ten, and hemera, a day.
Decamps, Alexandra Gabriel, a distinguished French painter, born in Paris; brought up as a boy among the peasants of Picardy; represented nature as he in his own way saw it himself, and visited Switzerland and the East, where he found materials for original and powerful pictures; his pictures since his death have brought great prices (1803-1860).
De Candolle, Augustin Pyrame, an eminent botanist, born at Geneva, of Huguenot descent; studied in Paris; attracted the attention of Cuvier and Lamarck, whom he assisted in their researches; published his "Flore Française," in six vols.; became professor at Montpellier, and then at Geneva; is the historical successor of Jussieu; his great contribution to botanical science is connected with the classification of plants (1778-1841).
Deca`tur, Stephen, an American naval commodore; distinguished for his feats of valour displayed in the war with Tripoli and with England (1779-1820).
Deccan, a triangular plateau of from 2000 to 3000 ft. of elevation in the Indian peninsula, extending S. of the Vindhya Mountains; is densely peopled, and contains some of the richest soil in the globe.
December, the twelfth month of the year, so called, i. e. tenth, by the Romans, as their year began with March.
Dec`emvirs, the patricians of Rome, with Consular powers, appointed in 450 B.C. to prepare a code of laws for the Republic, which, after being agreed upon, were committed first to ten, then to twelve tables, and set up in the Forum that all might read and know the law they lived under.
Decius, Roman emperor from 249 to 251; was a cruel persecutor of the Christians; perished in a morass fighting with the Goths, who were a constant thorn in his side all through his reign.
Decius Mus, the name of three Romans, father, son, and grandson, who on separate critical emergencies (340, 295, 279 B.C.) devoted themselves in sacrifice to the infernal gods in order to secure victory to the Roman arms; the name is mostly employed ironically.
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, the immortal work of Gibbon, of which the first volume was published in 1776.
Decretals, The, a collection of laws added to the canon law of the Church of Rome, being judicial replies of the Popes to cases submitted to them from time to time for adjudication.
Dee, John, an alchemist, born in London; a man of curious learning; earned the reputation of being a sorcerer; was imprisoned at one time, and mobbed at another, under this imputation; died in poverty; left 79 works, the majority of which were never printed, though still extant in MS. in the British Museum and other places of safe-keeping (1527-1608).
Defauconpret, French littérateur; translator of the novels of Sir Walter Scott and Fenimore Cooper (1767-1843).
Defender of the Faith, a title conferred by Pope Leo X. in 1521 upon Henry VIII. for his defence of the Catholic faith in a treatise against Luther, and retained ever since by the sovereigns of England, though revoked by Pope Paul III. in 1535 in consequence of Henry's apostasy.
Deffand, Marie, Marquise du, a woman of society, famed for her wit and gallantry; corresponded with the eminent philosophes of the time, in particular Voltaire, as well as with Horace Walpole; her letters are specially brilliant, and display great shrewdness; she is characterised by Prof. Saintsbury as "the typical French lady of the eighteenth century"; she became blind in 1753, but retained her relish for society, though at length she entered a monastery, where she died (1697-1780).
Defoe, Daniel, author of "Robinson Crusoe," born in London; bred for the Dissenting ministry; turned to business, but took chiefly to politics; was a zealous supporter of William III.; his ironical treatise, "The Shortest Way with Dissenters" (1703), which, treated seriously, was burned by order of the House of Commons, led to his imprisonment and exposed him for three days to the pillory, amidst the cheers, however, not the jeers, of the mob; in prison wrote a "Hymn to the Pillory," and started his Review; on his release he was employed on political missions, and wrote a "History of the Union," which he contributed to promote. The closing years of his life were occupied mainly with literary work, and it was then, in 1719, he produced his world-famous "Robinson Crusoe"; has been described as "master of the art of forging a story and imposing it on the world for truth." "His circumstantial invention," as Stopford Brooke remarks, "combined with a style which exactly fits it by its simplicity, is the root of the charm of his great story" (1661-1731).
Dege`rando, Baron, a French philanthropist and philosopher, born at Lyons, of Italian descent; wrote "History of Philosophy," long in repute as the best French work on the subject (1772-1842).
Deianeira, the wife of Hercules, whose death she had been the unwitting cause of by giving him the poisoned robe which Nessus (q. v.) had sent her as potent to preserve her husband's love; on hearing the fatal result she killed herself in remorse and despair.
Deiphobus, a son of Priam and Hecuba, second in bravery to Hector; married Helen after the death of Paris, and was betrayed by her to the Greeks.
Deir-al-Kamar, a town in Syria, once the capital of the Druses, on a terrace in the heart of the Lebanon Mountains.
Deism, belief on purely rational grounds in the existence of God, and distinguished from theism as denying His providence.
Deists, a set of free-thinkers of various shades, who in England, in the 17th and 18th centuries, discarded revelation and the supernatural generally, and sought to found religion on a purely rational basis.
Déjazet, Virginie, a celebrated French actress, born in Paris; made her début at five years of age (1797-1875).
Dekker, Thomas, a dramatist, born in London; was contemporary of Ben Jonson, between whom and him, though they formerly worked together, a bitter animosity arose; wrote lyrics as well as dramas, which are light comedies, and prose as well as poetry; the most famous among his prose works, "The Gull's Hornbook," a pamphlet, in which he depicts the life of a young gallant; his pamphlets are valuable (1570-1641).
De la Beche, Sir Henry Thomas, geologist, born in London; wrote the "Depth and Temperature of the Lake of Geneva," and published a "Manual of Geology" and the "Geological Observer"; was appointed head of the Geological Survey in England (1796-1855).
Delacroix, Eugène, a French painter, born at Charenton, dep. of Seine; one of the greatest French painters of the 19th century; was the head of the French Romantic school, a brilliant colourist and a daring innovator; his very first success, "Dante crossing Acheron in Charon's Boat," forms an epoch in the history of contemporary art; besides his pictures, which were numerous, he executed decorations and produced lithographic illustrations of "Hamlet," "Macbeth," and Goethe's "Faust" (1799-1863).
Delagoa Bay, an inlet in the SE. of Africa, E. of the Transvaal, subject to Portugal; stretches from 25° 30' to 26° 20' S.; extends 52 m. inland, where the Transvaal frontier begins, and between which and it a railway of 52 m., constructed by an English company, extends.
Delaistre, a French statuary, born in Paris (1836-1891).
Delambre, Jean Joseph, an eminent French astronomer, born at Amiens, a pupil of Lalande; measured with Méchain the arc of the meridian between Dunkirk and Barcelona towards the establishment of the metric system; produced numerous works of great value, among others "Theoretical and Practical Astronomy" and the "History of Astronomy" (1749-1822).
Delane, John Thadeus, editor of the Times, born in London; studied at Oxford; after some experience as a reporter was put on the staff of the Times, and in 1841 became editor, a post he continued to hold for 36 years; was the inspiring and guiding spirit of the paper, but wrote none of the articles (1817-1879).
Delaroche, Paul, a French historical painter and one of the greatest, born in Paris; was the head of the modern Eclectic school, so called as holding a middle place between the Classical and Romantic schools of art; among his early works were "St. Vincent de Paul preaching before Louis XIII." and "Joan of Arc before Cardinal Beaufort"; the subjects of his latest pictures are from history, English and French, such as "The Princes in the Tower" and "Cromwell contemplating the corpse of Charles I.," a great work; but the grandest monument of his art is the group of paintings with which he adorned the wall of the semicircle of the Palais des Beaux Arts in Paris, which he completed in 1841 (1797-1856).
Delaunay, Le Vicomte, the nom de plume of Mme. Delphine, under which she published her "Parisian Letters."
Delaunay, Louis Arsène, a great French actor, born in Paris; made his début in 1846, retired 1887.
Delavigne, Casimir, a popular French lyric poet and dramatist, born at Havre; his verse was conventional and without originality (1793-1843).
Delaware (168), one of the Atlantic and original States of the American Union, as well as the smallest of them; the soil is rather poor, but porcelain clay abounds.
Delcassé, Théophile, French Minister of Foreign Affairs, born at Pamiers; began life as a journalist; was elected to the Chamber in 1889; became Colonial Minister; advocated colonial expansion; dealt skilfully with the Fashoda affair as Foreign Minister; b. 1852.
Delectable Mountains, mountains covered with sheep in the "Pilgrim's Progress," from which the pilgrim obtains a view of the Celestial City.
Delescluze, a French Communist, born at Dreux; was imprisoned and transported for his extreme opinions; started a journal, the Rèveil, in 1868, to advocate the doctrines of the International; was mainly answerable for the atrocities of the Paris Commune; was killed in the barricades (1809-1871).
Delft (27), a Dutch town, S m. NW. of Rotterdam, once famous for its pottery; is intersected by canals; has an important polytechnic school.
Delgado, a cape of E. Africa, on the border between Zanzibar and Mozambique.
Delhi (192), on the right bank of the Jumna, once the capital of the Mogul empire and the centre of the Mohammedan power in India; it is a great centre of trade, and is situated in the heart of India; it contains the famous palace of Shah Jahan, and the Jama Masjid, which occupies the heart of the city, and is the largest and finest mosque in India, which owes its origin to Shah Jahan; it is walled, is 51 m. in circumference, and divided into Hindu, Mohammedan, and European quarters; it was captured by Lord Lake in 1803, and during the Mutiny by the Sepoys, but after a siege of seven days retaken in 1857.
Delight of Mankind, the Roman Emperor Trajan.
Delilah, the Philistine woman who beguiled and betrayed Samson.
Delille, Jacques, a French poet, born at Aigues Perse, in Auvergne; translator of the "Georgics" of Virgil into verse, afterwards the "Æneid" and "Paradise Lost," besides producing also certain didactic and descriptive works; was a good versifier, but properly no poet, and much overrated; died blind (1738-1813).
Delitzsch, Franz, a learned biblical scholar and exegete, born at Leipzig; his commentaries, which are numerous, were of a conservative tendency; he wrote on Jewish antiquities, biblical psychology, and Christian apologetics; was professor at Erlangen and Leipzig successively, where his influence on the students was distinctly marked (1813-1899).
Delius, Nicolaus, a German philologist, born at Bremen; distinguished especially as a student of Shakespeare and for his edition of Shakespeare's works, which is of transcendent merit (1813-1888).
Delia Cruscans, a set of English sentimental poetasters, the leaders of them hailing from Florence, that appeared in England towards the close of the 18th century, and that for a time imposed on many by their extravagant panegyrics of one another, the founder of the set being one Robert Merry, who signed himself Della Crusca; he first announced himself by a sonnet to Love, in praise of which Anne Matilda wrote an incomparable piece of nonsense; "this epidemic spread for a term from fool to fool," but was soon exposed and laughed out of existence.
Dellys (3), a seaport in Algeria, 49 m. E. of Algiers.
Delolme, John Louis, a writer on State polity, born at Geneva, bred to the legal profession; spent some six years in England as a refugee; wrote a book on the "Constitution of England," and in praise of it, which was received for a time with high favour in the country, but is now no longer regarded as an authority; wrote a "History of the Flagellants," and on "The Union of Scotland with England" (1740-1806).
Delorme, a French architect, born at Lyons; studied in Rome; was patronised by Catherine de Medici; built the palace of the Tuileries, and contributed to the art of building (1518-1577).
Delorme, Marion, a Frenchwoman celebrated for her wit and fascination, born at Châlons-sur-Marne; came to Paris in the reign of Louis XIII., where her drawing-room became the rendezvous of all the celebrities of the time, many of whom were bewitched by her charms; she gave harbour to the chiefs of the Fronde, and was about to be arrested when she died; the story that her death was a feint, and that she had subsequent adventures, is distrusted; she is the subject of a drama by Victor Hugo (1612-1650).
Delos, the smallest and central island of the Cyclades, the birthplace of Apollo and Artemis, and where the former had a famous oracle; it was, according to the Greek mythology, a floating island, and was first fixed to the spot by Zeus to provide Leda with a place, denied her elsewhere by Hera, in which to bring forth her twin offspring; it was at one time a centre of Apollo worship, but is now uninhabited, and only frequented at times by shepherds with their flocks.
Delphi, a town of ancient Greece in Phocis, at the foot of Parnassus, where Apollo had a temple, and whence he was wont to issue his oracles by the mouth of his priestess the Pythia, who when receiving the oracle used to sit on a tripod over an opening in the ground through which an intoxicating vapour exhaled, deemed the breath of the god, and that proved the vehicle of her inspiration; the Pythian games were celebrated here.
Delphin Classics, an edition of the Greek and Roman classics, edited by Bossuet and Huet, assisted by thirty-nine scholars, for the use of the dauphin of Louis XIV.; of little use now.
Delphine, a novel by Mme. de Staël; presumed to be an idealised picture of herself.
Delta, the signature of D. Macbeth Moir in Blackwood's Magazine.
Deluc, Jean André, geologist, born in Geneva; lived in England; was reader to Queen Charlotte, and author of several works (1727-1817).
Deluge, name given to the tradition, common to several races, of a flood of such universality as to sweep the land, if not the earth, of all its inhabitants, except the pair by whom the land of the earth was repeopled.
Dem`ades, an Athenian orator, a bitter enemy of Demosthenes, in the interest of Philip of Macedon; put to death for treason by Antipater, 318 B.C.; was a man of no principle, but a great orator.
Demara`tus, king of Sparta from 510 to 491 B.C.; dispossessed of his crown, fled to Persia and accompanied Xerxes into Greece.
Demavend, Mount, an extinct volcano, the highest peak (18,600 ft.) of the Elburz chain, in Persia.
Dembea, a lake, the largest in Abyssinia, being 60 m. long and 6000 ft. above the sea-level, from which the Blue Nile issues.
Dembinski, Henry, a Polish general, born near Cracow; served under Napoleon against Russia, under Kossuth against Austria; fled to Turkey on the resignation of Kossuth; died in Paris (1791-1864).
Demerara, a division of British Guiana; takes its name from the river, which is 200 m. long, and falls into the Atlantic at Georgetown.
Demeter (lit. Earth-mother), the great Greek goddess of the earth, daughter of Kronos and Rhea and sister of Zeus, and ranks with him as one of the twelve great gods of Olympus; is specially the goddess of agriculture, and the giver of all the earth's fruits; the Latins call her Ceres.
Demetrius, the name of two kings of Macedonia who ruled over the country, the first from 290 to 289 B.C., and the second from 240 to 229 B.C.
Demetrius, or Dimitri, the name of several sovereigns of Russia, and of four adventurers called the four false Dimitri.
Demetrius I., Soter (i. e. saviour), king of Syria from 162 to 150 B.C.; was grandson of Antiochus the Great. D. II., Nicator (i. e. conqueror), king of Syria from 143 to 125 B.C. D. III., Eucæros (i. e. the happy), king of Syria in 95, died in 84 B.C.
Demetrius Phalereus, an eminent Athenian orator, statesman, and historian, born at Phalerus, a seaport of Athens; was held in high honour in Athens for a time as its political head, but fell into dishonour, after which he lived retired and gave himself up to literary pursuits; died from the bite of an asp; left a number of works (345-283 B.C.).
Demidoff, a Russian family distinguished for their wealth, descended from a serf of Peter the Great, and who amassed a large fortune by manufacturing firearms for him, and were raised by him to the rank of nobility; they were distinguished in the arts, in arms, and even literature; Anatol in particular, who travelled over the SE. of Europe, and wrote an account of his travels, a work magnificently illustrated.
Demigod, a hero elevated in the imagination to the rank of a divinity in consequence of the display of virtues and the achievement of feats superior to those of ordinary men.
Demi-monde, a class in Parisian society dressing in a fashionable style, but of questionable morals.
Demiurgus, a name employed by Plato to denote the world-soul, the medium by which the idea is made real, the spiritual made material, the many made one, and it was adopted by the Gnostics to denote the world-maker as a being derived from God, but estranged from God, being environed in matter, which they regarded as evil, and so incapable as such of redeeming the soul from matter, from evil, such as the God of the Jews, and the Son of that God, conceived of as manifest in flesh.
Democracy has been defined to be government of the people by the people and for the people, or as a State in which the government rests directly with the majority of the citizens, but this under the protest of some that it is not an end but a means "to the attainment of a truer and truer aristocracy, or government again by the Best."
Democrats, a political party in the United States that contends for the rights of the several States to self-government as against undue centralisation.
Democritus, a Greek philosopher, born in Abdera, Thrace, of wealthy parents; spent his patrimony in travel, gathered knowledge from far and near, and gave the fruits of it in a series of writings to his contemporary compatriots, only fragments of which remain, though they must have come down comparatively entire to Cicero's time, who compares them for splendour and music of eloquence to Plato's; his philosophy was called the Atomic, as he traced the universe to its ultimate roots in combinations of atoms, in quality the same but in quantity different, and referred all life and sensation to movements in them, while he regarded quiescence as the summum bonum; he has been called the Laughing Philosopher from, it is alleged, his habit of laughing at the follies of mankind; b. 460 B.C.
Democritus Junior, a pseudonym under which Burton published his "Anatomy of Melancholy."
Demogeot, French littérateur, born at Paris; wrote a history of literature, chiefly French (1808-1894).
Demogorgon, a terrible deity, the tyrant of the elves and fairies, who must all appear before him once every five years to give an account of their doings.
Demoivre, Abraham, a mathematician, born in Champagne; lived most of his life in England to escape, as a Protestant, from persecution in France; became a friend of Newton, and a Fellow of the Royal Society, and was of such eminence as a mathematician that he was asked to arbitrate between the claims of Newton and Leibnitz to the invention of fluxions (1667-1754).
Demon, or Daimon, a name which Socrates gave to an inner divine instinct which corresponds to one's destiny, and guides him in the way he should go to fulfil it, and is more or less potent in a man according to his purity of soul.
De Morgan, Augustus, an eminent mathematician, born in Madura, S. India; was professor of Mathematics in London University from 1828 till his death, though he resigned the appointment for a time in consequence of the rejection of a candidate, James Martineau, for the chair of logic, on account of his religious opinions; wrote treatises on almost every department of mathematics, on arithmetic, algebra, trigonometry, differential and integral calculus, the last pronounced to be "the most complete treatise on the subject ever produced in England"; wrote also "Formal Logic" (1806-1871).
Demosthenes, the great Athenian orator, born in Athens; had many impediments to overcome to succeed in the profession, but by ingenious methods and indomitable perseverance he subdued them all, and became the first orator not of Greece only, but of all antiquity; a stammer in his speech he overcame by practising with pebbles in his mouth, and a natural diffidence by declaiming on the sea-beach amid the noise of the waves; while he acquired a perfect mastery of the Greek language by binding himself down to copy five times over in succession Thucydides' "History of the Peloponnesian War"; he employed 15 years of his life in denunciation of Philip of Macedon, who was bent on subjugating his country; pronounced against him his immortal "Philippics" and "Olynthiacs"; took part in the battle of Cheronea, and continued the struggle even after Philip's death; on the death of Alexander he gave his services as an orator to the confederated Greeks, and in the end made away with himself by poison so as not to fall into the hands of Autipater (385-322 B.C.). See Ctesiphon.
Dempster, Thomas, a learned Scotchman, born in Aberdeenshire; held several professorships on the Continent; was the author of "Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Scotorum," a work of great learning, but of questionable veracity; has been reprinted by the Bannatyne Club; his last days were embittered by the infidelity of his wife (1579-1625).
Denarius, a silver coin among the Romans, first coined in 269 B.C., and worth 8½ d.
Denbigh (6), the county town of Denbighshire, in the Vale of the Clwyd, 30 m. W. of Chester; manufactures shoes and leather.
Denbighshire (117), a county in North Wales, of rugged hills and fertile vales, 40 m. long and 17 m. on an average broad, with a coal-field in the NE., and with mines of iron, lead, and slate.
Dendera, a village in Upper Egypt, on the left bank of the Nile, 28 m. N. of Thebes, on the site of ancient Tentyra, with the ruins of a temple in almost perfect preservation; on the ceiling of a portico of which there was found a zodiac, now in the museum of the Louvre in Paris, and dates from the period of Cleopatra and the early Roman emperors, and has sculptured portraits of that queen and her son Cæsarion.
Dengue, a disease peculiar to the tropics, occurs in hot weather, and attacks one suddenly with high fever and violent pains, and after a relapse returns in a milder form and leaves the patient very weak.
Denham, Dixon, an English traveller, companion of Clapperton; visited Bornu and Lake Tchad (1785-1828).
Denham, Sir John, an English poet, born at Dublin, the son of an Irish judge; took to gambling and squandered his patrimony; was unhappy in his marriage, and his mind gave way; is best known as the author of "Cooper's Hill," a descriptive poem, interspersed with reflections, and written in smooth flowing verse (1615-1669).
Denina, Carlo, an Italian historian, born in Piedmont; banished from Italy for a cynical remark injurious to the monks; paid court to Frederick the Great in Berlin, where he lived a good while, and became eventually imperial librarian in Paris under Napoleon (1731-1813).
Denis, a king of Portugal from 1279 to 1325; the founder of the University of Coimbra and the Order of Christ.
Denis, St., the apostle of the Gauls, the first bishop of Paris, and the patron saint of France; suffered martyrdom in 270.
Denis, St., a town 6 m. N. of Paris, within the line of the fortifications, with an abbey which contains the remains of St. Denis, and became the mausoleum of the kings of France.
Denison, Edward, philanthropist; distinguished by his self-denying benevolent labours in the East End of London (1840-1870).