[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 Hofeler to a height of
1250 ft. The chain is well-wooded and abounds in game. There are some
coal mines and sandstone quarries.
DEJAZET, 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
"_Dejazets_." From 1828 she played at the Nouveautes for three years,
then at the Varietes, and finally became manager, with her son, of the
Folies, which was renamed the Theatre Dejazet. 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 Dejazet_ (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
poetiques_ (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 _Phaeton_. 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 FRANCOIS, 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 Cote-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 Compiegne. 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 EUGENE (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 celebre, mais
sa vie sera des plus laborieuses, des plus tourmentees, et toujours livree
a la contradiction."
Delacroix the elder (also known as Delacroix de Contaut) died at
Bordeaux when Eugene was seven years of age, and his mother returned to
Paris and placed him in the Lycee Napoleon. Afterwards, on his
determining to be a painter, he entered the _atelier_ of Baron Guerin,
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
Guerin 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 Gericault 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 naivete, "J'etais enchante de moi-meme!" 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 hotel 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-meme_ (1885); G. Moreau, _Delacroix et son oeuvre_ (1893); Dorothy
Bussy, _Eugene 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 Zweibrucken, 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 _ecus_ 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 L500,000. 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 deg. 40' and 26 deg.
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
Lourenco 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 Lourenco 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 Lourenco
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 L1,000,000 in
compensation to the shareholders in the railway company. (See LOURENCO
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 abbe 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 systeme
metrique_ (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 College 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 age_ (1819); _Histoire de
l'astronomie moderne_ (2 vols., 1821); and _Histoire de l'astronomie au
XVIII^e siecle_, 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 ecliptiques 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; _Methodes analytiques pour la determination d'un
arc du meridien_ (1799); _Tables du soleil (publiees par le bureau des
longitudes)_ (1806); _Rapport historique sur les progres des sciences
mathematiques depuis l'an 1789_ (1810); _Abrege d'astronomie_ (1813);
_Astronomie theorique et pratique_ (1814); &c.
See J. B. J. Fourier's "Eloge" in _Memoires de l'acad. des sciences_,
t. iv.; Ch. Dupin, _Revue encyclopedique_, 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 L10,000,
having refused the larger sum of L20,000 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.