[1] Originally Decimus.
[2] The district extending from Westervoort to Doesborgh.
DRUSUS CAESAR (c. 15 B.C.-A.D. 23), commonly called Drusus junior, to
distinguish him from his uncle Nero Claudius Drusus, was the only son of
the emperor Tiberius by his first wife Vipsania Agrippina. After having
held several curule offices, he was consul elect in A.D. 14, the year of
Augustus's death. His father, on his accession to the throne,
immediately sent him to put down a mutiny of the troops in Pannonia, a
task which he successfully accomplished (Tacitus, _Annals_, i. 24-30).
As governor of Illyricum (17), he set the Germanic tribes against one
another, and encouraged Catualda, chief of the Gothones, to drive out
Marbod (Maroboduus), king of the Marcomanni. On his return Drusus was
consul a second time (21) and in the following year received the
tribunician authority from Tiberius, which practically indicated him as
heir to the throne. Sejanus, who also aspired to the supreme power,
determined to remove Drusus. He endeavoured to poison Tiberius's mind
against him, seduced Drusus's wife and persuaded her to assist him in
murdering her husband. Her physician Eudemus prepared and the eunuch
Lygdus administered a slow poison, from the effects of which Drusus died
after a lingering illness. Although Tiberius is said to have received
the news of his death with indifference, there is no reason to suppose
that he had any hand in it; indeed, he seems to have entertained a
genuine affection for his son. Drusus was a man of violent passions, a
drunkard and a debauchee, but not entirely devoid of better feelings, as
is shown by his undoubtedly sincere grief at the death of Germanicus.
The cunning and reserve which he exhibited on occasion were probably due
to the instructions or influence of Tiberius (_Annals_, iii. 8), since
he was himself naturally frank and open, and for this reason,
notwithstanding his vices, more popular than his father. He revelled in
bloody gladiatorial displays, and the sharpest swords used on such
occasions were called "Drusine."
See Tacitus, _Annals_, i. 76, iv. 8-11; Dio Cassius lvii. 13, 14;
Suetonius, _Tiberius_, 62; J. C. Tarver, _Tiberius the Tyrant_ (1902).
DRYADES, or HAMADRYADES, in Greek mythology, nymphs of trees and woods.
Each particular tree ([Greek: drus]) was the home of its own special
Dryad, who was supposed to be born and to die with it ([Greek: hama]).
DRYANDER, JONAS (1748-1810), Swedish botanist, was born in 1748. By his
uncle, Dr Lars Montin, to whom his education was entrusted, he was sent
to the university of Gothenburg, whence he removed to Lund. After taking
his degree there in 1776, he studied at Upsala under Linnaeus, and then
became for a time tutor to a young Swedish nobleman. He next visited
England, and, on the death of his friend Dr Daniel Charles Solander
(1736-1782), succeeded him as librarian to Sir Joseph Banks. He was
librarian to the Royal Society and also to the Linnean Society. Of the
latter, in 1788, he was one of the founders, and, when it was
incorporated by royal charter in 1802, he took a leading part in drawing
up its laws and regulations. He was vice-president of the society till
his death, which took place in London on the 19th of October 1810.
Besides papers in the Transactions of the Linnean and other societies,
Dryander published _Dissertatio gradualis fungos regno vegetabili
vindicans_ (Lund, 1776), and _Catalogus bibliothecae historico-naturalis
Josephi Banks, Bart._ (London, 1796-1800, 5 vols.). He also edited the
first and part of the second edition of W. Aiton's _Hortus Kewensis_ and
W. Roxburgh's _Plants of the Coast of Coromandel_.
DRYBURGH ABBEY, a monastic ruin in the extreme south-west of
Berwickshire, Scotland, about 5 m. S.E. of Melrose, and 1-1/4 m. E. of
St Boswells station on the North British railway's Waverley route from
Edinburgh to Carlisle. The name has been derived from the Gaelic _darach
bruach_, "oak bank," in allusion to the fact that the Druids once
practised their rites here. The abbey occupies the spot where, about
522, St Modan, an Irish Culdee, established a sanctuary--a secluded
position on a tongue of land washed on three sides by the Tweed. Founded
in 1150 by David I.--though it has also been ascribed to Hugh de
Morville (d. 1162), lord of Lauderdale and constable of Scotland--it
enjoyed great prosperity until 1322, when it was partially destroyed by
the English under Edward II. It suffered again at the hands of Richard
II. in 1385, and was reduced to ruin during the expedition of the earl
of Hertford in 1545. After the Reformation the estate was erected into a
temporal lordship and given (1604) by James VI. to John Erskine, 2nd
earl of Mar. At a later date it was sold, but reverted to a branch of
the Erskines in 1786, when it was acquired by the 11th earl of Buchan.
In 1700 the abbey lands belonged to Thomas Haliburton, Scott's
great-grandfather, and, but for an extravagant grand-uncle who became
bankrupt and had to part with the property, they would have descended to
Sir Walter by inheritance. "We have nothing left of Dryburgh," he said,
"but the right of stretching our bones there." The style in general is
Early English, but the west door and the restored entrance from the nave
to the cloisters are fine examples of transitional Norman. Though in
various stages of decay, nearly every one of the monastic buildings is
represented by a fragment. Of the cruciform church--190 ft. long by 75
broad at the transepts--there remain some of the outer walls, a segment
of the choir, the east aisle of the north transept, the stumps of some
of the pillars of the nave, the west gable, the south transept and its
adjacent chapel of St Modan. The most beautiful of these relics is St
Mary's aisle of the north transept, in which were buried Sir Walter
Scott (1832), his wife, son, his son-in-law John Gibson Lockhart, and
his ancestors, the Haliburtons of New Mains. Sir Walter's tomb is a
plain block of polished Peterhead granite, inscribed only with his name
and the dates of his birth and death. The next aisle is the burial-place
of the Erskines of Shielhill and the Haigs of Bemersyde. On the south
side of the church, at a lower level, stand the cloisters, about 100 ft.
square, bounded on the west by the dungeons, on the south-west by the
cellars and refectory, in the west wall of which is an exquisite
ivy-clad rose window, and on the east by the chapter-house, on a still
lower level. The chapter-house, a lofty building with vaulted roof, is
the most complete structure of the group, and adjoining it on the south
are, first the abbot's parlour and then the library, the three
apartments communicating with each other, and constituting the oldest
portion of the abbey. In the grounds are many venerable trees, a yew
near the chapter-house being at least coeval with the abbey.
DRYDEN, JOHN (1631-1700), English poet, born on or about the 9th of
August 1631, at Aldwinkle, in Northamptonshire, was of Cumberland stock,
though his family had been settled for three generations in
Northamptonshire, had acquired estates and a baronetcy, and intermarried
with landed families in that county. His great-grandfather, who first
carried the name south, and acquired by marriage the estate of Canons
Ashby, is said to have known Erasmus, and to have been so proud of the
great scholar's friendship that he gave the name of Erasmus to his
eldest son. The name Erasmus was borne by the poet's father, the third
son of Sir Erasmus Dryden. The leanings and connexions of the family
were Puritan and anti-monarchical. Sir Erasmus Dryden went to prison
rather than pay loan money to Charles I.; the poet's uncle, Sir John
Dryden, and his father Erasmus, served on government commissions during
the Commonwealth. His mother's family, the Pickerings, were still more
prominent on the Puritan side. Sir Gilbert Pickering, his cousin, was
chamberlain to the Protector, and was summoned to Cromwell's House of
Lords in 1657. A trustworthy tradition asserts that John Dryden was born
at the rectory of Aldwinkle All Saints, of which his maternal
grandfather, Henry Pickering, was rector.
Dryden's education was such as became a scion of these respectable
families of squires and rectors, among whom the chance contact with
Erasmus had left a certain tradition of scholarship. His father, whose
own fortune, added to his wife's, was not large, procured for the poet,
who was the eldest of fourteen children, admission to Westminster school
as a king's scholar, under the famous Dr Busby. Some elegiac verses
which Dryden wrote there on the death of a schoolfellow, Henry, Lord
Hastings, son of the earl of Huntingdon, in 1649, were published in
_Lacrymae Musarum_, among other elegies by "divers persons of nobility
and worth" in commemoration of the same event. He appeared soon after
again in print, among writers of commendatory verses to a friend of his,
John Hoddesdon, who published a volume of _Epigrams_ in 1650. Dryden's
contribution is signed "John Dryden of Trinity C.," as he had gone up
from Westminster to Cambridge in May 1650. He was elected a scholar of
Trinity on the Westminster foundation in October of the same year, and
took his degree of B.A. in 1654. The only recorded incident of his
college residence is some unexplained act of disobedience to the
vice-master, for which he was "put out of commons" and "gated" for a
fortnight. His father died in 1654, leaving him master of two-thirds of
a small estate near Blakesley, worth about L60 a year. The next three
years he is said to have spent at Cambridge. In any case they were spent
somewhere in study; for his first considerable poem bears indisputable
marks of scholarly habits, as well as of a command of verse that could
not have been acquired without practice.
The middle of 1657 is given as the date of his leaving the university to
take up his residence in London. In one of his many subsequent literary
quarrels, it was said by Shadwell that he had been clerk to Sir Gilbert
Pickering, his cousin, who was chamberlain to Cromwell; and nothing is
more likely than that he obtained some employment under his powerful
cousin when he came to London. He is said to have lived at first in the
house of his first publisher, Herringman, with whom he was connected
till 1679, when Jacob Tonson began to publish his books. He first
emerged from obscurity with his _Heroic Stanzas_ (1659) to the memory of
the Protector. That these stanzas should have made him a name as a poet
does not appear surprising when we compare them with Waller's verses on
the same occasion. Dryden took some time to consider them, and it was
impossible that they should not give an impression of his intellectual
strength. Donne was his model; it is obvious that both his ear and his
imagination were saturated with Donne's elegiac strains when he wrote;
yet when we look beneath the surface we find unmistakable traces that
the pupil was not without decided theories that ran counter to the
practice of the master. It is plainly not by accident that each stanza
contains one clear-cut brilliant point. The poem is an academic
exercise, and it seems to be animated by an under-current of strong
contumacious protest against the irregularities tolerated by the
authorities. Dryden had studied the ancient classics for himself, and
their method of uniformity and elaborate finish commended itself to his
robust and orderly mind. In itself the poem is a magnificent tribute to
the memory of Cromwell.
To those who regard the poet as a seer with a sacred mission, and refuse
the name altogether to a literary manufacturer to order, it comes with a
certain shock to find Dryden, the hereditary Puritan, the panegyrist of
Cromwell, hailing the return of King Charles in _Astraea Redux_ (1660),
deploring his long absence, and proclaiming the despair with which he
had seen "the rebel thrive, the loyal crost." _A Panegyric on the
Coronation_ followed in 1661. From a literary point of view also,
_Astraea Redux_ is inferior to the _Heroic Stanzas_.
Dryden was compelled to supplement his slender income by his writings.
He naturally first thought of tragedy,--his own genius, as he has
informed us, inclining him rather to that species of composition; and in
the first year of the Restoration he wrote a tragedy on the fate of
Henry, duke of Guise. But some friends advised him that its construction
was not suited to the requirements of the stage, so he put it aside, and
used only one scene of the original play later on, when he again
attempted the subject with a more practised hand. Having failed to write
a suitable tragedy, he next turned his attention to comedy, although, as
he admitted, he had little natural turn for it. "I confess," he said, in
a short essay in his own defence, printed before _The Indian Emperor_,
"my chief endeavours are to delight the age in which I live. If the
humour of this be for low comedy, small accidents and raillery, I will
force my genius to obey it, though with more reputation I could write in
verse. I know I am not so fitted by nature to write comedy; I want that
gaiety of humour which is required to it. My conversation is slow and
dull; my humour saturnine and reserved; in short, I am none of those who
endeavour to break jests in company or make repartees. So that those who
decry my comedies do me no injury, except it be in point of profit;
reputation in them is the last thing to which I shall pretend." He was
really as well as ostentatiously a playwright; the age demanded
comedies, and he endeavoured to supply the kind of comedy that the age
demanded. His first attempt was unsuccessful. Bustle, intrigue and
coarsely humorous dialogue seemed to him to be part of the popular
demand; and, looking about for a plot, he found something to suit him in
a Spanish source, and wrote _The Wild Gallant_. The play was acted in
February 1663, by Thomas Killigrew's company in Vere Street. It was not
a success, and Pepys showed good judgment in pronouncing the play "so
poor a thing as ever I saw in my life." Dryden never learned moderation
in his humour; there is a student's clumsiness and extravagance in his
indecency; the plays of Etheredge, a man of the world, have not the
uncouth riotousness of Dryden's. Of this he seems to have been
conscious, for when the play was revived, in 1667, he complained in the
epilogue of the difficulty of comic wit, and admitted the right of a
common audience to judge of the wit's success. Dryden, indeed, took a
lesson from the failure of _The Wild Gallant_; his next comedy, _The
Rival Ladies_, also founded on a Spanish plot, produced before the end
of 1663, and printed in the next year, was correctly described by Pepys
as "a very innocent and most pretty witty play," though there was much
in it which the taste of our time would consider indelicate. But he
never quite conquered his tendency to extravagance. _The Wild Gallant_
was not the only victim. _The Assignation, or Love in a Nunnery_,
produced in 1673, shared the same fate; and even as late as 1680, when
he had had twenty years' experience to guide him, _The Kind Keeper, or
Mr Limberham_ was prohibited, after three representations, as being too
indecent for the stage. Dislike to indecency we are apt to think a
somewhat ludicrous pretext to be made by Restoration playgoers, and
probably there was some other reason for the sacrifice of _Limberham_;
still there is a certain savageness in the spirit of Dryden's indecency
which we do not find in his most licentious contemporaries. The
undisciplined force of the man carried him to an excess from which more
dexterous writers held back.
After the production of _The Rival Ladies_ in 1663, Dryden assisted Sir
Robert Howard in the composition of a tragedy in heroic verse, _The
Indian Queen_, produced with great splendour in January 1664. He married
Lady Elizabeth Howard, Sir Robert's sister and daughter of the 1st earl
of Berkshire, on the 1st of December 1663. Lady Elizabeth's reputation
was somewhat compromised before this union, which was not a happy one,
and there is some evidence for the scandal in a letter written by her
before her marriage to Philip, 2nd earl of Chesterfield. _The Indian
Queen_ was a great success, one of the greatest since the reopening of
the theatres. This was in all likelihood due much less to the heroic
verse and the exclusion of comic scenes from the tragedy than to the
magnificent scenic accessories--the battles and sacrifices on the stage,
the spirits singing in the air, and the god of dreams ascending through
a trap. The novelty of these Indian spectacles, as well as of the Indian
characters, with the splendid Queen Zempoalla, acted by Mrs Marshall in
a real Indian dress of feathers presented to her by Mrs Aphra Behn, as
the centre of the play, was the chief secret of the success of _The
Indian Queen_. These melodramatic properties were so marked a novelty
that they could not fail to draw the town. Dryden was tempted to return
to tragedy; he followed up _The Indian Queen_ with _The Indian Emperor,
or the Conquest of Mexico by the Spaniards_, which was acted in 1665,
and also proved a success.
But Dryden was not content with writing tragedies in rhymed verse. He
took up the question of the propriety of rhyme in serious plays
immediately after the success of _The Indian Queen_, in the preface to
an edition (1664) of _The Rival Ladies_. In that first statement of his
case, he considered the chief objection to the use of rhyme, and urged
his chief argument in its favour. Rhyme was not natural, some people had
said; to which he answers that it is as natural as blank verse, and that
much of its unnaturalness is not the fault of the rhyme but of the
writer, who has not sufficient command of language to rhyme easily. In
favour of rhyme he has to say that it at once stimulates the
imagination, and prevents it from being too discursive in its flights.
During the Great Plague, when the theatres were closed, and Dryden was
living at Charlton, Wiltshire, at the seat of his father-in-law, the
earl of Berkshire, he occupied a considerable part of his time in
thinking over the principles of dramatic composition, and threw his
conclusions into the form of a dialogue, which he called an _Essay of
Dramatick Poesie_ and published in 1668. The essay takes the form of a
dialogue between Neander (Dryden), Eugenius (Charles, Lord Buckhurst,
afterwards earl of Dorset), Crites (Sir R. Howard), and Lisideius (Sir
C. Sedley), who is made responsible for the famous definition of a play
as a "just and lively image of human nature, representing its passions
and humours, and the changes of fortune to which it is subject, for the
delight and instruction of mankind." Dryden's form is of course borrowed
from the ancients, and his main source is the critical work of Corneille
in the prefaces and discourses contained in the edition of 1660, but he
was well acquainted with the whole body of contemporary French and
Spanish criticism. Crites maintains the superiority of the classical
drama; Lisideius supports the exacting rules of French dramatic writing;
Neander defends the English drama of the preceding generations,
including, in a long speech, an examination of Ben Jonson's _Silent
Woman_. Neander argues, however, that English drama has much to gain by
the observance of exact methods of construction without abandoning
entirely the liberty which English writers had always claimed. He then
goes on to defend the use of rhyme in serious drama. Howard had argued
against the use of rhyme in a "preface" to _Four New Plays_ (1665),
which had furnished the excuse for Dryden's essay. Howard replied to
Dryden's essay in a preface to _The Duke of Lerma_ (1668). Dryden at
once replied in a masterpiece of sarcastic retort and vigorous
reasoning, _A Defence of an Essay of Dramatique Poesie_, prefixed to the
second edition (1668) of _The Indian Emperor_. It is the ablest and most
complete statement of his views about the employment of rhymed couplets
in tragedy.
Before his return to town at the end of 1666, when the theatres (which
had been closed during the disasters of 1665 and 1666) were reopened,
Dryden wrote a poem on the Dutch war and the Great Fire entitled _Annus
Mirabilis_. The poem is in quatrains, the metre of his _Heroic Stanzas_
in praise of Cromwell, which Dryden chose, he tells us, "because he had
ever judged it more noble and of greater dignity both for the sound and
number than any other verse in use amongst us." The preface to the poem
contains an interesting discussion of what he calls "wit-writing,"
introduced by the remark that "the composition of all poems is or ought
to be of wit." His description of the Great Fire is a famous specimen of
this wit-writing, much more careless and daring, and much more difficult
to sympathize with, than the graver conceits in his panegyric of the
Protector. In _Annus Mirabilis_ the poet apostrophizes the newly founded
Royal Society, of which he had been elected a member in 1662.
From the reopening of the theatres in 1666 till November 1681, the date
of his _Absalom and Achitophel_, Dryden produced nothing but plays. The
stage was his chief source of income. _Secret Love, or the Maiden
Queen_, a tragi-comedy, produced in March 1667, was based on an episode
in the _Artamene, ou le Grand Cyrus_ of Mlle de Scudery, the historical
original of the "Maiden Queen" being Christina, queen of Sweden. The
prologue claims that the piece is written with pains and thought, by the
exactest rules, with strict observance of the unities, and "a mingled
chime of Jonson's humour and of Corneille's rhyme"; but it owed its
success chiefly to the charm of Nell Gwyn's acting in the part of
Florimel. It is noticeable that only the more passionate parts of the
dialogue are rhymed, Dryden's theory apparently being that rhyme is then
demanded for the elevation of the style. His next play, _Sir Martin
Mar-all, or the Feigned Innocence_, an adaptation in prose of the duke
of Newcastle's translation of Moliere's _L'Etourdi_, was produced at the
Duke's theatre, without the author's name, in 1667. It was about this
time that Dryden became a retained writer under contract for the King's
theatre, receiving from it L300 or L400 a year, till it was burnt down
in 1672, and about L200 for six years more till the beginning of 1678.
His co-operation with Davenant in a new version (1667) of Shakespeare's
_Tempest_--for his share in which Dryden can hardly be pardoned on the
ground that the chief alterations were happy thoughts of Davenant's,
seeing that he affirms he never worked at anything with more
delight--must also be supposed to be anterior to the completion of his
contract with the Theatre Royal. He was engaged to write three plays a
year, and he contributed only ten plays during the ten years of his
engagement, finally exhausting the patience of his partners by joining
in the composition of a play for the rival house. In adapting
_L'Etourdi_, Dryden did not catch Moliere's lightness of touch; his
alterations go towards making the comedy into a farce. Perhaps all the
more on this account _Sir Martin Mar-all_ had a great run at the theatre
in Lincoln's Inn Fields. There is always a certain coarseness in
Dryden's humour, apart from the coarseness of his age,--a certain
forcible roughness of touch which belongs to the character of the man.
His _An Evening's Love, or the Mock Astrologer_, an adaptation from _Le
Feint Astrologue_ of the younger Corneille, produced at the King's
theatre in 1668, seemed to Pepys "very smutty, and nothing so good as
_The Maiden Queen_ or _The Indian Emperor_ of Dryden's making." Evelyn
thought it foolish and profane, and was grieved "to see how the stage
was degenerated and polluted by the licentious times." _Ladies a la
Mode_, another of Dryden's contract comedies, produced in 1668, was "so
mean a thing," Pepys says, that it was only once acted, and Dryden never
published it. Of his other comedies, _Marriage a la Mode_ (produced
1672), _The Assignation, or Love in a Nunnery_ (1673), _The Kind Keeper,
or Mr Limberham_ (1678), only the first was moderately successful.
While Dryden met with such indifferent success in his willing efforts to
supply the demand of the age for low comedy, he struck upon a really
popular and profitable vein in heroic tragedy. _Tyrannic Love, or the
Royal Martyr_, a Roman play dealing with the persecution of the
Christians by Maximin, in which St Catherine is introduced, and with her
some supernatural machinery, was produced in 1669. It is in rhymed
couplets, but the author again did not trust solely for success to them;
for, besides the magic incantations, the singing angels, and the view of
Paradise, he made Nell Gwyn, who had stabbed herself as Valeria, start
to life again as she was being carried off the stage, and speak a
riotous epilogue, in violent contrast to the serious character of the
play. _Almanzor and Almahide, or the Conquest of Granada_, a tragedy in
two parts, was written in 1669 to 1670. The historical background is
taken chiefly from Mlle de Scudery's romance of _Almahide_, but Dryden
borrows freely from other books of hers and her contemporaries. This
piece seems to have given the crowning touch of provocation to the wits,
who had never ceased to ridicule the popular taste for these extravagant
heroic plays. Dryden almost invited burlesque in his epilogue to the
second part of _The Conquest of Granada_, in which he charged the comedy
of the Elizabethan age with coarseness and mechanical humour, and its
conceptions of love and honour with meanness, and claimed for his own
time and his own plays an advance in these respects. _The Rehearsal_,
written by the duke of Buckingham, with the assistance, it was said, of
Samuel Butler, Martin Clifford, Thomas Sprat and others, and produced in
1671, was a severe and just punishment for this boast. Davenant was
originally the hero, but on his death in 1668 the satire was turned upon
Dryden, who is here unmercifully ridiculed under the name of Bayes, the
name being justified by his appointment in 1670 as poet laureate and
historiographer to the king (with a pension of L300 a year and a butt of
canary wine). It is said that _The Rehearsal_ was begun in 1663 and
ready for representation before the plague. But this probably only means
that Buckingham and his friends had resolved to burlesque the
absurdities of Davenant's operatic heroes in _The Siege of Rhodes_, and
the extravagant heroics of _The Indian Queen_. Materials accumulated
upon them as the fashion continued, and by the time Dryden had produced
his _Tyrannic Love_, and his _Conquest of Granada_, he had so
established himself as the chief offender as to become naturally the
central figure of the burlesque. Later Dryden fully avenged himself on
Buckingham by his portrait of Zimri in _Absalom and Achitophel_. His
immediate reply is contained in the preface "Of Heroic Plays" and the
"Defence of the Epilogue," printed in the first edition (1672) of his
_Conquest of Granada_. In these, so far from laughing with his censors,
he addresses them from the eminence of success. "But I have already
swept the stakes; and, with the common good fortune of prosperous
gamesters, can be content to sit quietly; to hear my fortune cursed by
some, and my faults arraigned by others, and to suffer both without
reply." Heroic verse, he assures them, is so established that few
tragedies are likely henceforward to be written in any other metre. In
the course of a year or two _The Conquest of Granada_ was attacked also
by Elkanah Settle, on whom Dryden revenged himself later, making him the
"Doeg" of the second part of _Absalom and Achitophel_.
His next tragedy, _Amboyna_ (1673), an exhibition of certain atrocities
committed by the Dutch on English merchants in the East Indies, put on
the stage to inflame the public mind in view of the Dutch war, was
written, with the exception of a few passages, in prose, and those
passages in blank verse. An opera which he wrote in rhymed couplets,
called _The State of Innocence, and Fall of Man_, an attempt to turn
part of _Paradise Lost_ into rhyme, as a proof of its superiority to
blank verse, was prefaced by an "Apology for Heroique Poetry and
Poetique Licence," and entered at Stationers' Hall in 1674, but it was
never acted. The redeeming circumstance about the performance is the
admiration professed by the adapter for his original, which he
pronounces "undoubtedly one of the greatest, most noble and most sublime
poems which either this age or nation has produced." Dryden is said to
have had the elder poet's leave "to tag his verses." In _Aurengzebe_,
which was Dryden's last, and also his best, rhymed tragedy, he borrowed
from contemporary history, for the Great Mogul was still living. In the
prologue he confessed that he had grown weary of his long-loved
mistress rhyme and retracted, with characteristic frankness, his
disparaging contrast of the Elizabethan with his own age. But the stings
of _The Rehearsal_ had stimulated him to do his utmost to justify his
devotion to his mistress, and he claims that _Aurengzebe_ is "the most
correct" of his plays. It was entered at Stationers' Hall and probably
acted in 1675, and published in the following year.
After the production of _Aurengzebe_ he seems to have rested for an
interval from writing, enabled to do so, probably by an additional
pension of L100 granted to him by the king. During this interval he
would seem to have reconsidered the principles of dramatic composition,
and to have made a particular study of the works of Shakespeare. The
fruits of this appeared in _All for Love, or the World Well Lost_, a
version of the story of Antony and Cleopatra, produced in 1678, which
must be regarded as a very remarkable departure for a man of his age,
and a wonderful proof of undiminished openness and plasticity of mind.
In his previous writings on dramatic theory, Dryden, while admiring the
rhyme of the French dramatists as an advance in art, did not give
unqualified praise to the regularity of their plots; he was disposed to
allow the irregular structure of the Elizabethan dramatists, as being
more favourable to variety both of action and of character. But now, in
frank imitation of Shakespeare, he abandoned rhyme, and, if we might
judge from _All for Love_, and the precepts laid down in his "Grounds of
Criticism in Tragedy," prefixed to _Troilus and Cressida_ (1679), the
chief point in which he aimed at excelling the Elizabethans was in
giving greater unity to his plot. He upheld still the superiority of
Shakespeare to the French dramatists in the delineation of character,
but he thought that the scope of the action might be restricted, and the
parts bound more closely together with advantage. _All for Love_ and
_Antony and Cleopatra_ are two excellent plays for the comparison of the
two methods. Dryden gave all his strength to _All for Love_, writing the
play for himself, as he said, and not for the public. Carrying out the
idea expressed in the title, he represents the two lovers as being more
entirely under the dominion of love than Shakespeare's Antony and
Cleopatra. Shakespeare's Antony is moved by other impulses than the
passion for Cleopatra; it is his master motive, but it has to maintain a
struggle for supremacy; "Roman thoughts" strike in upon him even in the
very height of the enjoyment of his mistress's love, he chafes under the
yoke, and breaks away from her of his own impulse at the call of
spontaneously reawakened ambition. Dryden's Antony is so deeply sunk in
love that no other impulse has power to stir him; it takes much
persuasion and skilful artifice to detach him from Cleopatra even in
thought, and his soul returns to her violently before the rupture has
been completed. On the other hand, Dryden's Cleopatra is so completely
enslaved by love for Antony that she is incapable of using the
calculated caprices and meretricious coquetries which Shakespeare's
Cleopatra deliberately practises as the highest art of love, the surest
way of maintaining her empire over her great captain's heart. It is with
difficulty that Dryden's Cleopatra will agree, on the earnest
solicitation of a wily counsellor, to feign a liking for Dolabella to
excite Antony's jealousy, and she cannot keep up the pretence through a
few sentences. The characters of the two lovers are thus very much
contracted, indeed almost overwhelmed, beneath the pressure of the one
ruling motive. And as Dryden thus introduces a greater regularity of
character into the drama, so he also very much contracts the action, in
order to give probability to this temporary subjugation of individual
character. The action of Dryden's play takes place wholly in Alexandria,
within the compass of a few days; it does not, like Shakespeare's,
extend over several years, and present incessant changes of scene.
Dryden chooses, as it were, a fragment of a historical action, a single
moment during which motives play within a narrow circle, the culminating
point in the relations between his two personages. He devotes his whole
play, also, to those relations; only what bears upon them is admitted.
In Shakespeare's play we get a certain historical perspective, in which
the love of Antony and Cleopatra appears in its true proportions
beneath the firmament that overhangs human affairs. In Dryden's play
this love is our universe; all the other concerns of the world retire
into a shadowy, indistinct background. If we rise from a comparison of
the plays with an impression that the Elizabethan drama is a higher type
of drama, taking Dryden's own definition of the word as "a just and
lively image of human nature," we rise also with an impression of
Dryden's power such as we get from nothing else that he had written
since his _Heroic Stanzas_, twenty years before.
It was twelve years before Dryden produced another tragedy worthy of the
power shown in _All for Love_. _Don Sebastian_ was acted and published
in 1690. In the interval, to sum up briefly Dryden's work as a
dramatist, he wrote _Oedipus_ (pr. 1679) and _The Duke of Guise_ (pr.
1683) in conjunction with Nathaniel Lee; _Troilus and Cressida_ (1679);
_The Spanish Friar_ (1681); _Albion and Albanius_, an opera (1685);
_Amphitryon_ (1690). In _Troilus and Cressida_ he follows Shakespeare
closely in the plot, but the dialogue is rewritten throughout, and not
for the better. The versification and the language of the first and the
third acts of _Oedipus_, which with the general plan of the play were
Dryden's contribution to the joint work, bear marked evidence of his
recent study of Shakespeare. The _Duke of Guise_ provided an obvious
parallel with contemporary English politics. Henry III. was identified
with Charles II., and Monmouth with the duke. The lord chamberlain
refused to license it until the political situation was less disturbed.
The plot of _Don Sebastian_ is more intricate than that of _All for
Love_. It has also more of the characteristics of his heroic dramas; the
extravagance of sentiment and the suddenness of impulse remind us
occasionally of _The Indian Emperor_; but the characters are much more
elaborately studied than in Dryden's earlier plays, and the verse is
sinewy and powerful. It would be difficult to say whether _Don
Sebastian_ or _All for Love_ is his best play; they share the palm
between them. Dryden's subsequent plays are not remarkable. Their titles
and dates are--_King Arthur_, an opera (1691), for which Purcell wrote
the music; _Cleomenes_ (1692); _Love Triumphant_ (1694).
Soon after Dryden's abandonment of heroic couplets in tragedy, he found
new and more congenial work for his favourite instrument in satire. As
usual the idea was not original to Dryden, though he struck in with his
majestic step and energy divine, and immediately took the lead. The
pioneer was Mulgrave in his _Essay on Satire_, an attack on Rochester
and the court, which was circulated in MS. in 1679. Dryden himself was
suspected of the authorship, and it is not impossible that he gave some
help in revising it; but it is not likely that he attacked the king on
whom he was dependent for the greater part of his income, and Mulgrave
in a note to his _Art of Poetry_ in 1717 expressly asserts Dryden's
ignorance. Dryden, however, was attacked in Rose Street, Covent Garden,
and severely cudgelled by a company of ruffians who were generally
supposed to have been hired by Rochester. In the same year Oldham's
satire on the Jesuits had immense popularity, chiefly owing to the
excitement about the Popish plot. Dryden took the field as a satirist
towards the close of 1681, on the side of the court, at the moment when
Shaftesbury, baffled in his efforts to exclude the duke of York from the
throne as a papist, and secure the succession of the duke of Monmouth,
was waiting his trial for high treason. _Absalom and Achitophel_
produced a great stir. Nine editions were sold in rapid succession in
the course of a year. There was no compunction in Dryden's ridicule and
invective. Delicate wit was not one of Dryden's gifts; the motions of
his weapon were sweeping, and the blows hard and trenchant. The
advantage he had gained by his recent studies of character was fully
used in his portraits of Shaftesbury and Buckingham, Achitophel and
Zimri. In these portraits he shows considerable art in the introduction
of redeeming traits to the general outline of malignity and depravity.
It is not impossible that the fact that his pension had not been paid
since the beginning of 1680 weighed with him in writing this satire to
gain the favour of the court. In a play produced in 1681, _The Spanish
Friar_, he had written on the other side, gratifying the popular
feeling by attacking the Roman Catholic priesthood.
Three other satires followed _Absalom and Achitophel_, one of them
hardly inferior in point of literary power. _The Medall_; a _Satyre
against Sedition_ (March 1682) was written in ridicule of the medal
struck to commemorate Shaftesbury's acquittal. Then Dryden had to take
vengeance on the literary champions of the Whig party who had opened
upon him with all their artillery. Their leader, Shadwell, had attacked
him in _The Medal of John Bayes_, which Dryden answered in October 1682
by _Mac Flecknoe, or a Satyr upon the True-Blew Protestant Poet, T.S._
This satire, in which Shadwell filled the title-role, served as the
model of the _Dunciad_. To the second part of _Absalom and Achitophel_
(November 1682), written chiefly by Nahum Tate, he contributed a long
passage of invective against Robert Ferguson, one of Monmouth's chief
advisers, Elkanah Settle, Shadwell and others. _Religio Laici_, which
appeared in the same month, though nominally an exposition of a layman's
creed, and deservedly admired as such, was not without a political
purpose. It attacked the Papists, but declared the "fanatics" to be
still more dangerous.
Dryden's next poem in heroic couplets was in a different strain. On the
accession of James, in 1685, he became a Roman Catholic. There has been
much discussion as to whether this conversion was or was not sincere. It
can only be said that the coincidence between his change of faith and
his change of patron was suspicious, and that Dryden's character for
consistency is certainly not of a kind to quench suspicion. The force of
the coincidence cannot be removed by such pleas as that his wife had
been a Roman Catholic for several years, or that he was converted by his
son, who was converted at Cambridge, even if there were any evidence for
these statements. Scott defended Dryden's conversion,--as Macaulay
denounced it, from party motives. It is worth while, however, to notice
that in his earlier defence of the English Church he exhibits a desire
for the definite guidance of a presumably infallible creed, and the case
for the Roman Church brought forward at the time may have appeared
convincing to a mind singularly open to new impressions. At the same
time nothing can be clearer than that Dryden always regarded his
literary powers as a means of subsistence, and had little scruple about
accepting a brief on any side. _The Hind and the Panther_, published in
1687, is an ingenious argument for Roman Catholicism, put into the mouth
of "a milk-white hind, immortal and unchanged." There is considerable
beauty in the picture of this tender creature, and its enemies in the
forest are not spared. One can understand the admiration that the poem
received when such allegories were in fashion. It was the chief cause of
the veneration with which Dryden was regarded by Pope, who, himself
educated in the Roman Catholic faith, was taken as a boy of twelve to
see the veteran poet in his chair of honour and authority at Wills's
coffee-house. It was also very open to ridicule, and was treated in this
spirit by Prior and Montagu, the future earl of Halifax, in _The Hind
and the Panther transversed to the story of the Country Mouse and the
City Mouse_. Dryden's other literary services to James were a savage
reply to Stillingfleet--who had attacked two papers published by the
king immediately after his accession, one said to have been written by
his late brother in advocacy of the Church of Rome, the other by his
late wife explaining the reasons for her conversion--and a translation
of a life of Xavier in prose. He had written also a panegyric of
Charles, _Threnodia Augustalis_, and a poem in honour of the birth of
James II.'s heir, under the title of _Britannia rediviva_ (1688).
Dryden did not abjure his new faith on the Revolution, and so lost his
office and pension as laureate and historiographer royal. For this act
of constancy he deserves credit, if the new powers would have considered
his services worth having after his frequent apostasies. His rival
Shadwell reigned in his stead. Dryden was once more thrown mainly upon
his pen for support. He turned again to the stage and wrote the plays
already enumerated. A great feature in the last decade of his life was
his translations from the classics. _Ovid's Epistles translated_
appeared in 1680; and numerous translations from Virgil, Horace, Ovid,
Lucretius and Theocritus appeared in the four volumes of _Miscellany
Poems_--_Miscellany Poems_ (1684), _Sylvae_ (1685), _Examen poeticum_
(1693), _The Annual Miscellany_ (1694 by the "most eminent hands"); in
1693 was published the verse translation of the _Satires_ of Juvenal and
of Persius by "Mr Dryden and several other eminent hands," which
contained his "Discourse concerning the Original and Progress of
Satire"; and in 1697 Jacob Tonson published his most important
translation, _The Works of Virgil_. The book, which was the result of
three years' labour, was a vigorous, rather than a close, rendering of
Virgil into the style of Dryden. Among other notable poems of this
period are the two "Songs for St Cecilia's Day," written for a London
musical society for 1687 and 1697, and published separately. The second
of these is the famous ode on "Alexander's Feast." The well-known
paraphrase of _Veni, Creator Spiritus_ was posthumously printed, and his
"Ode to the memory of Anne Killigrew," called by Dr Johnson the noblest
ode in the language, was written in 1686.
His next work was to render some of Chaucer's and Boccaccio's tales and
Ovid's _Metamorphoses_ into his own verse. These translations appeared
in November 1699, a few months before his death, and are known by the
title of _Fables, Ancient and Modern_. The preface, which is an
admirable example of Dryden's prose, contains an excellent appreciation
of Chaucer, and, incidentally, an answer to Jeremy Collier's attack on
the stage. Thus a large portion of the closing years of Dryden's life
was spent in translating for bread. He had a windfall of 500 guineas
from Lord Abingdon for a poem on the death of his wife in 1691, and he
received liberal presents from his cousin John Driden and from the duke
of Ormonde, but generally he was in considerable pecuniary straits.
Besides, his three sons held various posts in the service of the pope at
Rome, and he could not well be on good terms with both courts. However,
he was not molested in London by the government, and in private he was
treated with the respect due to his old age and his admitted position as
the greatest of living English poets. He held a small court at Wills's
coffee-house, where he spent his evenings; here he had a chair by the
fire in winter and by the window in summer; Congreve, Vanbrugh and
Addison were among his admirers, and here Pope saw the old poet of whom
he was to be the most brilliant disciple. He died at his house in
Gerrard Street, London, on the 1st of May 1700 and was buried on the
13th of the month in Westminster Abbey. Dryden's portrait, by Sir G.
Kneller, is in the National Portrait Gallery.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--_The Comedies, Tragedies and Operas written by John
Dryden, Esq._ (2 vols., 1701) was published by Tonson, who also issued
the poet's _Dramatick Works_ (6 vols., 1717), edited by Congreve.
_Poems on Various Occasions and Translations from Several Authors_
(1701), also published by Tonson, was very incomplete, and although
other editions followed there was no satisfactory collection until the
edition of the _Works_ (18 vols., 1808, 2nd ed. 1821) by Sir Walter
Scott, who supplied historical and critical notes with a life of the
author. This, as revised and corrected by G. Saintsbury (18 vols.,
Edinburgh, 1882-1893), remains the standard edition. _His Critical and
Miscellaneous Prose Works_ (4 vols., 1800) were edited by Edmund
Malone, who collected industriously the materials for a life of
Dryden. Convenient partial modern editions are the _Poetical Works_
(Globe edition, 1870) edited by W. D. Christie with an excellent
"life"; _The Best Plays of John Dryden_ (Mermaid series, 2 vols.),
edited by G. Saintsbury; and _Essays of John Dryden_ (2 vols., 1900,
Oxford), edited by W. P. Ker. Besides the critical and biographical
matter in these editions see Dr Johnson's _Lives of the Poets; Dryden_
(English Men of Letters series, 1881), by G. Saintsbury; A. Beljame,
_Le Public et les hommes de lettres en Angleterre 1660-1744_ (2nd ed.
Paris, 1897); A. W. Ward, _History of English Dramatic Literature_
(new ed. 1899), vol. iii. pp. 346-392; J. Churton Collins, _Essays and
Studies_; W. J. Courthope, _History of English Poetry_, vol. iv.
(1903), chap, xiv., and L. N. Chase, _The English Heroic Play_ (New
York, 1903). See also ENGLISH LITERATURE. (W. M.; M. BR.)
DRYOPITHECUS (Gr. [Greek: drys], oak, [Greek: pithekos], ape, "the ape
of the oak-woods"), the name of an extinct ape or monkey from Miocene
deposits of France, believed to be allied to the baboons, but perhaps
with some affinity to the higher apes.
DRY ROT, a fungoid disease in timber which occasions the destruction of
its fibres, and reduces it eventually to a mass of dry dust. It is
produced most readily in a warm, moist, stagnant atmosphere, while
common or wet rot is the result of the exposure of wood to repeated
changes of climatic conditions. The most formidable of the dry rot fungi
is the species _Merulius lacrymans_, which is particularly destructive
of coniferous wood; other species are _Polyporus hybridus_, which
thrives in oak-built ships, and _P. destructor_ and _Thelephora
puteana_, found in a variety of wooden structures.
The felling of trees when void of fresh sap, as a means of obviating the
rotting of timber, is a practice of very ancient origin. Vitruvius
directs (ii. cap. 9) that, to secure good timber, trees should be cut to
the pith, so as to allow of the escape of their sap, which by dying in
the wood would injure its quality; also that felling should take place
only from early autumn until the end of winter. The supposed superior
quality of wood cut in winter, and the early practice in England of
felling oak timber at that season, may be inferred from a statute of
James I., which enacted "that no person or persons shall fell, or cause
to be felled, any oaken trees meet to be barked, when bark is worth 2s.
a cart-load (timber for the needful building and reparation of houses,
ships or mills only excepted), but between the first day of April and
last day of June, not even for the king's use, out of barking time,
except for building or repairing his Majesty's houses or ships." In
giving testimony before a committee of the House of Commons in March
1771, Mr Barnard of Deptford expressed it as his opinion that to secure
durable timber for shipbuilding, trees should be barked in spring and
not felled till the succeeding winter. In France, so long ago as 1669, a
royal decree limited the felling of timber from the 1st of October to
the 15th of April; and, in an order issued to the commissioners of
forests, Napoleon I. directed that the felling of naval timber should
take place only from November 1 to March 15, and during the decrease of
the moon, on account of the rapid decay of timber, through the
fermentation of its sap, if cut at other seasons. The burying of wood in
water, which dissolves out or alters its putrescible constituents, has
long been practised as a means of seasoning. The old "Resistance"
frigate, which went down in Malta harbour, remained under water for some
months, and on being raised was found to be entirely freed from the dry
rot fungus that had previously covered her; similarly, in the ship
"Eden," the progress of rot was completely arrested by 18 months'
submergence in Plymouth Sound, so that after remaining a year at home in
excellent condition she was sent out to the East Indies. It was an
ancient practice in England to place timber for thrashing-floors and oak
planks for wainscotting in running water to season them. Whale and other
oils have been recommended for the preservation of wood; and in 1737 a
patent for the employment of hot oil was taken out by a Mr Emerson.
For the modern processes of preserving timber see TIMBER.
DUALISM (from rare Lat. _dualis_, containing two, from _duo_), a
philosophical term applied to all theories which attempt to explain
facts by reference to two coexistent principles. The term plays an
important part in metaphysical, ethical and theological speculation.
_In Metaphysics._--Metaphysical dualism postulates the eternal
coexistence of mind and matter, as opposed to monism both idealistic and
materialistic. Two forms of this dualism are held. On the one hand it is
said that mind and matter are absolutely heterogeneous, and, therefore,
that any causal relation between them is _ex hypothesi_ impossible. On
the other hand is a hypothetical dualism, according to which it is held
that mind cannot bridge over the chasm so far as to _know_ matter _in
itself_, though it is compelled by its own laws of cause and effect to
postulate matter as the origin, if not the motive cause, of its
sensations. It follows that, for the thinking mind, matter is a
necessary hypothesis. Hence the theory is a kind of monism, inasmuch as
it confessedly does not assert the existence of matter save as an
intellectual postulate for the thinking mind. Matter, in other words,
must be assumed to exist, though mind cannot know it _in itself_. From
this question there emerges a second and more difficult problem.
Consciousness, it is held, is of two main kinds, sensation and reason.
Sensation alone is insufficient to explain all our intellectual
phenomena; all sensation is momentary and individual (cf. Empiricism).
How then are we to account for memory and the principles of necessity,
similarity, universality? It is argued that there must be in the mind an
enduring, primary faculty whereby we retain, compare and group the
presentations of sense. This faculty is _a priori_, transcendental, and
entirely separate from all the data of experience and sense-perception.
Here then we have a dualism within experience. The mind is not to be
regarded as a sensitized film which automatically records the
impressions of the senses. It contains within itself this modifying
critical faculty which reacts upon and arranges the sense-given
presentations.
_In Ethics and Theology._--In the domain of morals, dualism postulates
the separate existence of Good and Evil, as principles of existence. In
theology the appearance of dualism is sporadic and has not the
fundamental, determining importance which it has in metaphysics. It is a
result rather than a starting-point. The old Zoroastrianism, and those
Christian sects (e.g. Manichaeism) which were influenced by it,
postulate two contending deities Ormuzd and Ahriman (Good and Evil),
which war against one another in influencing the conduct of men. So, in
Christianity, the existence of Satan as an evil influence, antagonistic
to God, involves a kind of dualism. But generally speaking this dualism
is permissive, inasmuch as it is always held that God will triumph over
Satan in His own time. So in Zoroastrianism the dualism is not ultimate,
for Ahriman and Ormuzd are represented as the twin sons of Zervana
Akarana, i.e. limitless time, wherein both will be finally absorbed. The
postulate of an Evil Being arises from the difficulty, at all times
acutely felt by a certain type of mind, of reconciling the existence of
evil with the divine attributes of perfect goodness, full knowledge and
infinite power. John Stuart Mill (_Essay on Religion_) preferred to
disbelieve in the omnipotence of God rather than forgo the belief in His
goodness. It follows from such a view that Satan is not the creation of
God, but rather a power coeval in origin, over whose activity God has no
absolute control.
_In Theology._--Dualism is also used in a special theological sense to
describe a doctrine of the Nestorian heresy. According to this doctrine
the personality of Christ is twofold; the divine Logos dwells as a
distinct personality in the man Jesus Christ, the union of the two
natures being analogous to the relation between the believer and the
indwelling Holy Spirit.
_History of the Doctrine._--The earliest European thinkers (see IONIAN
SCHOOL OF PHILOSOPHY) endeavoured to reduce all the facts of the
universe to a single material origin, such as Fire, Water, Air. It is
only gradually that there appears any recognition of a spiritual
principle exercising a modifying or causal influence over inert matter.
Anaxagoras was the first to postulate the existence of Reason ([Greek:
nous]) as the source of change and progress. Yet even he did not
conceive this Reason as incorporeal; it was in reality only the most
highly rarefied form of matter in existence. In Plato for the first time
we find a truly dualistic conception of the universe. Asserting that
Ideas alone really exist, he yet found it necessary to postulate a
second principle of not-being, the groundwork of sensuous existence and
of imperfection and evil. Herein he identified metaphysics and ethics,
combining the good with the truly existent and evil with the
non-existent. Aristotle rebels against this conception and substitutes
the idea of [Greek: prote hyle] and development. Nevertheless he does
not escape from the dualism of Form and Matter, [Greek: nous] and
[Greek: hyle]. The scholastic philosophers naturally held dualistic
views resulting from their extreme devotion to formalism. This blind
dualism found its natural consequence in the revolt of the Renaissance
thinkers, Bruno and Paracelsus, who asserted the unity of mind and
matter in all existence and were the precursors of the more intelligent
monism of Leibnitz and the scientific metaphysics of his successors. The
birth of modern physical science on the other hand in the investigations
of Bacon and Descartes obscured the metaphysical issue by the
predominance of the mechanical principles of natural philosophy. They
attempted to explain the fundamental problems of existence by the
unaided evidence of the new natural science. Thus Descartes maintained
the absolute dualism of the _res cogitans_ and the _res extensa_.
Spinoza realized the flaw in the division and preferred to postulate
behind mind and matter a single substance (_unica substantia_) while
Leibnitz explained the universe as a harmony of spiritual or
semispiritual principles. Kant practically abandons the problem. He
never really establishes a relation between pure reason and
things-in-themselves (_Dinge an sich_), but rather seeks refuge in a
dualism within consciousness, the transcendental and the empirical.
Since Kant there are, therefore, two streams of dualism, dealing, one
with the radical problem of the relation between mind and matter, the
other with the relation between the pure rational and the empirical
elements within consciousness. To the first problem there is one obvious
and conclusive answer, namely that matter in itself is inherently
unthinkable and comes within the vision of the mind only as an
intellectual presentation. It follows that philosophy is in a sense both
dualist and monist; it is a cosmic dualism inasmuch as it admits the
possible existence of matter as a hypothesis, though it denies the
possibility of any true knowledge of it, and is hence in regard of the
only possible knowledge an idealistic monism. It is a self-destructive
dualism, a confessedly one-sided monism, agnostic as to the fundamental
problem. To the second problem there are two main answers, that of
Associationism which denies to the mind any _a priori_ existence and
asserts that sensation is the only source of knowledge, and that which
admits the existence of both transcendental and empirical knowledge.
DUALLA, one of the principal negro peoples of Cameroon estuary, West
Africa. When the Germans established themselves in that region, the
Dualla were under many petty chiefs, whose domains were usually
restricted to one village. Over these were two greater chiefs, Bell
(Mbeli) and Akwa, representing the principal families of the tribe. The
Dualla are physically a fine race. They are proud of their racial
purity, and it was formerly usual for all half-caste children to be
strangled at birth. The Dualla tattoo themselves, the women the whole
body, the men the face only. They also pull out their eyelashes, which
they believe prevent sharp sight. The monarchical system is more
developed among the Dualla than any other of the peoples of Cameroon.
The kings, many of whom have grown rich through trade, retain part of
their former power, subject to the German government. The Dualla, who
are laborious, industrious and capable of great physical endurance, are
great traders and are proportionately prosperous. The average price for
a wife among the Dualla is from L90 to L120; but sometimes a great deal
more is paid. Girls are usually betrothed young and may be divorced if
sterile. The penalty for adultery is a fine imposed on the seducer; if
he cannot pay he becomes the husband's slave. Cannibalism as a religious
rite was formerly common among the Dualla. All accessions to power were
preceded by a sacrifice, a king having no authority till his hands were
stained with blood. The religion is fetish blended with
ancestor-worship, and certain secret societies exist among them which
seem to have a religious connexion. The dead are buried within the hut,
which is abandoned shortly afterwards; slaves were formerly buried with
men of importance. Missionary efforts have yielded many converts, and
some churches have been built. Many of the natives can read. The Dualla
are in possession of an interesting code, in accordance with which
messages can be sent and even conversations maintained by means of
drums, or rather gongs, giving two notes. (See CAMEROON.)
DU BARRY, MARIE JEANNE BECU, Comtesse (1746-1793), French adventuress,
mistress of Louis XV., was the natural daughter of a poor woman of
Vaucouleurs, and was born there on the 19th of August 1746. Placed in a
convent in Paris at an early age, she received a very slight education,
learning little but the catechism and drawing; and at the age of sixteen
entered a milliner's shop in the rue St Honore. Subsequently she lived
as a courtesan under the name of Mdlle Lange. Her great personal charms
led the adventurer Jean, comte du Barry, to take her into his house in
order to make it more attractive to the dupes whose money he won by
gambling. Her success surpassing his expectations, his hopes took a
higher flight, and through Lebel, valet de chambre of Louis XV., and the
duc de Richelieu, he succeeded in installing her as mistress of the
king. In order to present her at court it was necessary to find a title
for her, and as Count Jean du Barry was married himself his brother
Guillaume offered himself as nominal husband. The comtesse du Barry was
presented at court on the 22nd of April 1769, and became official
mistress of the king. Her influence over the monarch was absolute until
his death, and courtiers and ministers were in favour or disgrace with
him in exact accordance with her wishes. The duc de Choiseul, who
refused to acknowledge her, was disgraced in 1771; and the duc
d'Aiguillon, who had the reputation of being her lover, took his place,
and in concert with her governed the monarch. Louis XV. built for her
the magnificent mansion of Luciennes. At his death in 1774 an order of
his successor banished her to the abbey of Pont-aux-Dames, near Meaux,
but, the queen interceding for her, the king in the following year gave
her permission to reside at Luciennes with a pension. Here she led a
retired life with the comte de Cosse-Brissac, and was visited there by
Benjamin Franklin and the emperor Joseph II., among many other
distinguished men. Having gone to England in 1792 to endeavour to raise
money on her jewels, she was on her return accused before the
Revolutionary Tribunal of having dissipated the treasures of the state,
conspired against the republic, and worn, in London, "mourning for the
tyrant." She was condemned to death on the 7th of December 1793, and
beheaded the same evening. Her contemporaries, scorning her low birth
rather than her vices, attributed to her a malicious political role of
which she was at heart incapable, and have done scant justice to her
quick wit, her frank but gracious manners, and her seductive beauty. The
volume of _Lettres et Anecdotes_ (1779) which bears her name was not
written by her.
See E. and J. de Goncourt, _La du Barry_ (Paris, 1880); C. Vatel,
_Histoire de Madame du Barry_ (1882-1883), based on sources; R.
Douglas, _The Life and Times of Madame du Barry_ (London, 1896).
DU BARTAS, GUILLAUME DE SALUSTE, SEIGNEUR (1544-1590), French poet, was
born near Auch in 1544. He was employed by Henry IV. of France in
England, Denmark and Scotland; and he commanded a troop of horse in
Gascony, under the marshal de Martingan. He was a convinced Huguenot,
and cherished the idea of writing a great religious epic in which
biblical characters and Christian sentiment were to supplant the pagan
_mise en scene_ then in fashion. His first epic, _Judith_, appeared in a
volume entitled _La Muse chretienne_ (Bordeaux, 1573). This was followed
five years later by his principal work, _La Sepmaine_, a poem on the
creation of the world. This work was held by admirers of du Bartas to
put him on a level with Ronsard, and thirty editions of it were printed
within six years after its appearance. Its religious tone and fanciful
style made it a great favourite in England, where the author was called
the "divine" du Bartas, and placed on an equality with Ariosto. Spenser,
Hall and Ben Jonson, all speak in the highest terms of what seems to us
a most uninteresting poem. King James VI. of Scotland tried his
"prentice hand" at the translation of du Bartas's poem _L'Uranie_, and
the compliment was returned by the French writer, who translated, as _La
Lepanthe_, James's poem on the battle of Lepanto. Du Bartas began the
publication of the _Seconde Semaine_ in 1584. He aimed at a great epic
which should stretch from the story of the creation to the coming of the
Messiah. Of this great scheme he only executed a part, marked by a
certain elevation of style, but he did not succeed in acclimatizing the
religious epic in France. The work is spoiled by a constant tendency to
moralize, and is filled with the indiscriminate information that passed
under the name of science in the 16th century. Du Bartas, perhaps more
than any other writer, brought the Ronsardist tradition into dispute. He
introduced many unwieldy compounds foreign to the genius of the French
language, and in his borrowings from old French, from provincial
dialects and from Latin, he failed to show the sure instinct and
prudence of Ronsard and du Bellay. He was also guilty of reduplicating
the first syllables of words, producing such expressions as
_pepetiller_, _sousouflantes_. Du Bartas died in July 1590 in Paris from
wounds received at the battle of Ivry.
Joshua Sylvester translated the _Sepmaine_ in 1598; other English
translations from du Bartas are _The Historie of Judith ..._ (1584),
by Thomas Hudson; of portions of the "Weeks" (1625) by William Lisle
(1569-1637), the Anglo-Saxon scholar; _Urania_ (1589), by Robert
Ashley (1565-1641); and Sir Philip Sidney (see Florio's dedication of
the second book of his translation of Montaigne to Lady Rich) wrote a
translation of the first "Week," which is lost. The _OEuvres
completes_ of du Bartas were printed at Paris (1579), Paris and
Bordeaux (1611). See also G. Pellissier, _La Vie et les oeuvres de du
Bartas_ (1883).
DUBAWNT, or DOOBAUNT (Indian _Toobaung_, i.e. turbid), a river of
Mackenzie and Keewatin districts, Canada. It rises in Wholdaia (or Daly)
Lake, in 104 deg. 20' W. and 60 deg. 15' N., and flows northward to its
confluence with the Thelon river, and thence eastward to Chesterfield
Inlet, an arm of Hudson Bay. It passes through numerous lake-expansions,
including Dubawnt Lake, with an area of 1700 sq. m. and an altitude of
500 ft. above the sea; Aberdeen, altitude 130 ft.; and Baker, 30 ft.
From the head of Wholdaia Lake to the head of Chesterfield Inlet is 750
m. and thence to the west coast of Hudson Bay 125 m. The river is
shallow, and banks and bed are chiefly composed of boulders; grassy
slopes, however, occur at intervals along its banks, especially on the
shores of Dubawnt Lake, and are the feeding grounds of large bands of
cariboo. Discovered in 1770 by Samuel Hearne, the Dubawnt was explored
by J. B. Tyrrell in 1893, and the Thelon by David Hanbury in 1899.
See Annual Report of the Geological Survey of Canada for 1896 (printed
1898).
DUBBO, a municipal town of Lincoln county, New South Wales, Australia,
on the Macquarie river, 278 m. by rail N.W. of Sydney. Pop. (1901) 3409.
It is a flourishing manufacturing town in a pastoral district, in part
also cultivated. Coal and copper are found in the neighbourhood.
DU BELLAY, GUILLAUME, SIEUR DE LANGEY (1491-1543), French soldier and
diplomat, was born at the chateau of Glatigny, near Montmirail, in 1491.
His father, Louis du Bellay-Langey was a younger son of the Angevin
family of du Bellay, which from the 14th century was distinguished in
the service of the dukes of Anjou and afterwards of the kings of France;
and Louis had six sons, who were among the best servants of Francis I.
Guillaume, the eldest, is one of the most remarkable figures of the
time; a brave soldier, a humanist and a historian, he was above all the
most able diplomat at the command of Francis I., prodigiously active,
and excelling in secret negotiations. He entered the military service at
an early age, was taken prisoner at Pavia (1525) and shared the
captivity of Francis I. His skill and devotion attached him to the king.
His missions to Spain, Italy, England and Germany were innumerable; sent
three times to England in 1529-1530, he was occupied with the execution
of the treaty of Cambrai and also with the question of Henry VIII.'s
divorce, and with the help of his brother Jean, then bishop of Paris, he
obtained a decision favourable to Henry VIII. from the Sorbonne (July 2,
1530). From 1532 to 1536, though he went three times to England, he was
principally employed in uniting the German princes against Charles V.;
in May 1532 he signed the treaty of Scheyern with the dukes of Bavaria,
the landgrave of Hesse, and the elector of Saxony, and in January 1534
the treaty of Augsburg. During the war of 1537 Francis I. sent him on
missions to Piedmont; he was governor of Turin from December 1537 till
the end of 1539, and subsequently replacing Marshal d'Annebaut as
governor of the whole of Piedmont, he displayed great capacity in
organization. But at the end of 1542, overwhelmed by work, he was
compelled to return to France, and died near Lyons on the 9th of January
1543. Rabelais, an eye-witness, has left a moving story of his death
(_Pantagruel_, iii. ch. 21, and iv. ch. 27). He was buried in the
cathedral of Le Mans, where a monument was erected to his memory, with
the inscription, "Ci git Langey, dont la plume et l'epee Ont surmonte
Ciceron et Pompee"; Charles V. is said to have remarked that Langey, by
his own unaided efforts, did more mischief and thwarted more schemes
than all the French together.
Guillaume du Bellay was the devoted protector of freedom of thought;
without actually joining the reformers, he defended the innovators
against their fanatical opponents. In 1534-1535 he even tried,
unsuccessfully, to bring about a meeting between Francis I. and
Melanchthon; and in 1541 he intervened in favour of the Vaudois.
Rabelais was the most famous of his clients, and followed him to
Piedmont from 1540 to 1542. Guillaume was himself a valuable historian,
and a clear and precise writer. He imitated Livy in his _Ogdoades_, a
history of the rivalry between Francis I. and the emperor from 1521, of
which, though he had no time to finish it, important fragments remain,
inserted by his brother Martin du Bellay (d. 1559) in his _Memoires_
(1569). The celebrated _Instructions_, reprinted as _Traite de la
discipline militaire_ in 1554 and 1592, was formerly attributed to him,
but it has been proved that he could not have written it (see Bayle,
_Dict. Hist._ i. 502, and Jahns, _Geschichte der Kriegswissenschaften_,
i. 498 seq.); this work, however, is of the highest value for the study
of the military art of the 16th century; in 1550 an Italian, in 1567 a
Spanish, and in 1594 and 1619 German translations were published.
See also the edition of Martin du Bellay's _Memoires_ by Michaud and
Poujoulat (1838), and Bourrilly's _Fragments de la premiere Ogdoade_
(Paris, 1905). There is an excellent study of Guillaume du Bellay by
V. L. Bourrilly (Paris, 1905). (J. I.)
DU BELLAY, JEAN (c. 1493-1560), French cardinal and diplomat, younger
brother of Guillaume du Bellay, appears as bishop of Bayonne in 1526,
member of the privy council in 1530, and bishop of Paris in 1532. Supple
and clever, he was well fitted for a diplomatic career, and carried out
several missions in England (1527-1534) and Rome (1534-1536). In 1535 he
received his cardinal's hat; in 1536-1537 he was nominated
"lieutenant-general" to the king at Paris and in the Ile de France, and
was entrusted with the organization of the defence against the
imperialists. When Guillaume du Bellay went to Piedmont, Jean was put in
charge of the negotiations with the German Protestants, principally
through the humanist Johann Sturm and the historian Johann Sleidan. In
the last years of the reign of Francis I., cardinal du Bellay was in
favour with the duchesse d'Etampes, and received a number of
benefices--the bishopric of Limoges (1541), archbishopric of Bordeaux
(1544), bishopric of Le Mans (1546); but his influence in the council
was supplanted by that of Cardinal de Tournon. Under Henry II., being
involved in the disgrace of all the servants of Francis I., he was sent
to Rome (1547), and he obtained eight votes in the conclave which
followed the death of Pope Paul III. After three quiet years passed in
retirement in France (1550-1553), he was charged with a new mission to
Pope Julius III. and took with him to Rome his young cousin the poet
Joachim du Bellay (q.v.). He lived in Rome thenceforth in great state.
In 1555 he was nominated bishop of Ostia and dean of the Sacred College,
an appointment which was disapproved of by Henry II. and brought him
into fresh disgrace, lasting till his death in Rome on the 16th of
February 1560. Less resolute and reliable than his brother Guillaume,
the cardinal had brilliant qualities, and an open and free mind. He was
on the side of toleration and protected the reformers. Budaeus was his
friend, Rabelais his faithful secretary and doctor; men of letters, like
Etienne Dolet, and the poet Salmon Macrin, were indebted to him for
assistance. An orator and writer of Latin verse, he left three books of
graceful Latin poems (printed with Salmon Macrin's _Odes_, 1546, by R.
Estienne), and some other compositions, including _Francisci Francorum
regis epistola apologetica_ (1542). His voluminous correspondence,
mostly in MS., is remarkable for its _verve_ and picturesque quality.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--The Bibliotheque Nationale at Paris has numerous
unpublished letters of Jean du Bellay. See also Ribier, _Lettres et
memoires d'estat_ (Paris, 1666); V. L. Bourrilly and P. de Vaissiere,
_Ambassade de Jean du Bellay en Angleterre_, vol. i. (Paris, 1905);
marquis de la Jonquiere, _Le Cardinal du Bellay_ (Alencon, 1887);
Heulhard, _Rabelais, ses voyages en Italie_ (Paris, 1891); Chamard,
_Joachim du Bellay_ (Lille, 1900); V. L. Bourrilly, _Guillaume du
Bellay_ (Paris, 1905); "Jean du Bellay, les protestants et la
Sorbonne" in the _Bulletin du Protestantisme francais_ (1903, 1904);
and "Jean Sleidan et le Cardinal du Bellay," in the _Bulletin, &c._
(1901, 1906). (J. I.)
DU BELLAY, JOACHIM (c. 1522-1560), French poet and critic, member of the
Pleiade, was born[1] at the chateau of La Turmeliere, not far from Lire,
near Angers, being the son of Jean du Bellay, seigneur de Gonnor,
cousin-german of the cardinal Jean du Bellay and of Guillaume du Bellay.
Both his parents died while he was still a child, and he was left to the
guardianship of his elder brother, Rene du Bellay, who neglected his
education, leaving him to run wild at La Turmeliere. When he was
twenty-three, however, he received permission to go to Poitiers to study
law, no doubt with a view to his obtaining perferment through his
kinsman the Cardinal Jean du Bellay. At Poitiers he came in contact with
the humanist Marc Antoine Muret, and with Jean Salmon Macrin
(1490-1557), a Latin poet famous in his day. There too he probably met
Jacques Peletier du Mans, who had published a translation of the _Ars
poetica_ of Horace, with a preface in which much of the programme
advocated later by the Pleiade is to be found in outline.
It was probably in 1547 that du Bellay met Ronsard in an inn on the way
to Poitiers, an event which may justly be regarded as the starting-point
of the French school of Renaissance poetry. The two had much in common,
and immediately became fast friends. Du Bellay returned with Ronsard to
Paris to join the circle of students of the humanities attached to Jean
Daurat (q.v.) at the College de Coqueret. While Ronsard and Antoine de
Baif were most influenced by Greek models, du Bellay was more especially
a Latinist, and perhaps his preference for a language so nearly
connected with his own had some part in determining the more national
and familiar note of his poetry. In 1548 appeared the _Art poetique_ of
Thomas Sibilet, who enunciated many of the ideas that Ronsard and his
followers had at heart, though with essential differences in the point
of view, since he held up as models Clement Marot and his disciples.
Ronsard and his friends dissented violently from Sibilet on this and
other points, and they doubtless felt a natural resentment at finding
their ideas forestalled and, moreover, inadequately presented. The
famous manifesto of the Pleiade, the _Deffence et illustration de la
langue francoyse_ (1549), was at once a complement and a refutation of
Sibilet's treatise. This book was the expression of the literary
principles of the Pleiade as a whole, but although Ronsard was the
chosen leader, its redaction was entrusted to du Bellay. To obtain a
clear view of the reforms aimed at by the Pleiade, the _Deffence_ should
be further considered in connexion with Ronsard's _Abrege d'art
poetique_ and his preface to the _Franciade_. Du Bellay maintained that
the French language as it was then constituted was too poor to serve as
a medium for the higher forms of poetry, but he contended that by proper
cultivation it might be brought on a level with the classical tongues.
He condemned those who despaired of their mother tongue, and used Latin
for their more serious and ambitious work. For translations from the
ancients he would substitute imitations. Not only were the forms of
classical poetry to be imitated, but a separate poetic language and
style, distinct from those employed in prose, were to be used. The
French language was to be enriched by a development of its internal
resources and by discreet borrowing from the Latin and Greek. Both du
Bellay and Ronsard laid stress on the necessity of prudence in these
borrowings, and both repudiated the charge of wishing to latinize their
mother tongue. The book was a spirited defence of poetry and of the
possibilities of the French language; it was also a declaration of war
on those writers who held less heroic views.
The violent attacks made by du Bellay on Marot and his followers, and on
Sibilet, did not go unanswered. Sibilet replied in the preface to his
translation (1549) of the _Iphigenia_ of Euripides; Guillaume des
Autels, a Lyonnese poet, reproached du Bellay with ingratitude to his
predecessors, and showed the weakness of his argument for imitation as
opposed to translation in a digression in his _Replique aux furieuses
defenses de Louis Meigret_ (Lyons, 1550); Barthelemy Aneau, regent of
the College de la Trinite at Lyons, attacked him in his _Quintil
Horatian_ (Lyons, 1551), the authorship of which was commonly attributed
to Charles Fontaine. Aneau pointed out the obvious inconsistency of
inculcating imitation of the ancients and depreciating native poets in a
work professing to be a defence of the French language. Du Bellay
replied to his various assailants in a preface to the second edition
(1550) of his sonnet sequence _Olive_, with which he also published two
polemical poems, the _Musagnaeomachie_, and an ode addressed to Ronsard,
_Contre les envieux poetes_. _Olive_, a collection of love-sonnets
written in close imitation of Petrarch, first appeared in 1549. With it
were printed thirteen odes entitled _Vers lyriques_. Olive has been
supposed to be an anagram for the name of a Mlle Viole, but there is
little evidence of real passion in the poems, and they may perhaps be
regarded as a Petrarcan exercise, especially as, in the second edition,
the dedication to his lady is exchanged for one to Marguerite de Valois,
sister of Henry II. Du Bellay did not actually introduce the sonnet into
French poetry, but he acclimatized it; and when the fashion of
sonneteering became a mania he was one of the first to ridicule its
excesses.
About this time du Bellay had a serious illness of two years' duration,
from which dates the beginning of his deafness. He had further anxieties
in the guardianship of his nephew. The boy died in 1553, and Joachim,
who had up to this time borne the title of sieur de Lire, became
seigneur of Gonnor. In 1549 he had published a _Recueil de poesies_
dedicated to the Princess Marguerite. This was followed in 1552 by a
version of the fourth book of the _Aeneid_, with other translations and
some occasional poems. In the next year he went to Rome as one of the
secretaries of Cardinal du Bellay. To the beginning of his four and a
half years' residence in Italy belong the forty-seven sonnets of his
_Antiquites de Rome_, which were rendered into English by Edmund Spenser
(_The Ruins of Rome_, 1591). These sonnets were more personal and less
imitative than the _Olive_ sequence, and struck a note which was revived
in later French literature by Volney and Chateaubriand. His stay in Rome
was, however, a real exile. His duties were those of an intendant. He
had to meet the cardinal's creditors and to find money for the expenses
of the household. Nevertheless he found many friends among Italian
scholars, and formed a close friendship with another exiled poet whose
circumstances were similar to his own, Olivier de Magny. Towards the end
of his sojourn in Rome he fell violently in love with a Roman lady
called Faustine, who appears in his poetry as Columba and Columbelle.
This passion finds its clearest expression in the Latin poems. Faustine
was guarded by an old and jealous husband, and du Bellay's eventual
conquest may have had something to do with his departure for Paris at
the end of August 1557. In the next year he published the poems he had
brought back with him from Rome, the Latin _Poemata_, the _Antiquites de
Rome_, the _Jeux rustiques_, and the 191 sonnets of the _Regrets_, the
greater number of which were written in Italy. The _Regrets_ show that
he had advanced far beyond the theories of the _Deffence_. The
simplicity and tenderness specially characteristic of du Bellay appear
in the sonnets telling of his unlucky passion for Faustine, and of his
nostalgia for the banks of the Loire. Among them are some satirical
sonnets describing Roman manners, and the later ones written after his
return to Paris are often appeals for patronage. His intimate relations
with Ronsard were not renewed; but he formed a close friendship with the
scholar Jean de Morel, whose house was the centre of a learned society.
In 1559 du Bellay published at Poitiers _La Nouvelle Maniere de faire
son profit des lettres_, a satirical epistle translated from the Latin
of Adrien Turnebe, and with it _Le Poete courtisan_, which introduced
the formal satire into French poetry. These were published under the
pseudonym of J. Quintil du Troussay, and the courtier-poet was generally
supposed to be Melin de Saint-Gelais, with whom du Bellay had always,
however, been on friendly terms.
A long and eloquent _Discours au roi_ (detailing the duties of a prince,
and translated from a Latin original written by Michel de l'Hopital, now
lost) was dedicated to Francis II. in 1559, and is said to have secured
for the poet a tardy pension. In Paris he was still in the employ of
the cardinal, who delegated to him the lay patronage which he still
retained in the diocese. In the exercise of these functions Joachim
quarrelled with Eustache du Bellay, bishop of Paris, who prejudiced his
relations with the cardinal, less cordial since the publication of the
outspoken _Regrets_. His chief patron, Marguerite de Valois, to whom he
was sincerely attached, had gone to Savoy. Du Bellay's health was weak;
his deafness seriously hindered his official duties; and on the 1st of
January 1560 he died. There is no evidence that he was in priest's
orders, but he was a clerk, and as such held various preferments. He had
at one time been a canon of Notre Dame of Paris, and was accordingly
buried in the cathedral. The statement that he was nominated archbishop
of Bordeaux during the last year of life is unauthenticated by
documentary evidence and is in itself extremely improbable.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--The best edition of the works of J. du Bellay is
_OEuvres francaises_ (2 vols., 1866-1867), edited with introduction
and notes by C. Marty-Laveaux in his _Pleiade francaise_. His _OEuvres
choisies_ were published by L. Becq de Fouquieres in 1876. The chief
source of his biography is his own poetry, especially the Latin elegy
addressed to Jean de Morel, "_Elegia ad Janum Morellum Ebredunensem,
Pyladem suum_," printed with a volume of _Xenia_ (Paris, 1569). A
study of his life and writings by H. Chamard, forming vol. viii. of
the _Travaux et memoires de l'universite de Lille_ (Lille, 1900),
contains all the available information and corrects many common
errors. See also Sainte-Beuve, _Tableau de la poesie francaise au
XVI^e siecle_ (1828); _La Defense et illust. de la langue francaise_
(1905), with biographical and critical introduction by Leon Seche, who
also wrote _Joachim du Bellay, documents nouveaux et inedits_ (1880),
and published in 1903 the first volume of a new edition of the
_OEuvres; Lettres de Joachim du Bellay_ (1884), edited by P. de
Nolhac; G. Wyndham, _Ronsard and La Pleiade_ (1906); H. Belloc,
_Avril_ (1905); A. Tilley, _The Literature of the French Renaissance_
(2 vols., 1904).