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Grace E. King - "Balcony Stories"

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James Augustus Henry Murray - "The evolution of English lexicography"

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The Nuttall Encyclopaedia by Edited by Rev. James Wood

E >> Edited by Rev. James Wood >> The Nuttall Encyclopaedia





DEMOCRACY has been defined to be government of the people by the
people and for the people, or as a State in which the government rests
directly with the majority of the citizens, but this under the protest of
some that it is not an end but a means "to the attainment of a truer and
truer aristocracy, or government again by the Best."


DEMOCRATS, a political party in the United States that contends for
the rights of the several States to self-government as against undue
centralisation.


DEMOCRITUS, a Greek philosopher, born in Abdera, Thrace, of wealthy
parents; spent his patrimony in travel, gathered knowledge from far and
near, and gave the fruits of it in a series of writings to his
contemporary compatriots, only fragments of which remain, though they
must have come down comparatively entire to Cicero's time, who compares
them for splendour and music of eloquence to Plato's; his philosophy was
called the _Atomic_, as he traced the universe to its ultimate roots in
combinations of atoms, in quality the same but in quantity different, and
referred all life and sensation to movements in them, while he regarded
quiescence as the _summum bonum_; he has been called the Laughing
Philosopher from, it is alleged, his habit of laughing at the follies of
mankind; _b_. 460 B.C.


DEMOCRITUS JUNIOR, a pseudonym under which Burton published his
"Anatomy of Melancholy."


DEMOGEOT, French litterateur, born at Paris; wrote a history of
literature, chiefly French (1808-1894).


DEMOGORGON, a terrible deity, the tyrant of the elves and fairies,
who must all appear before him once every five years to give an account
of their doings.


DEMOIVRE, ABRAHAM, a mathematician, born in Champagne; lived most of
his life in England to escape, as a Protestant, from persecution in
France; became a friend of Newton, and a Fellow of the Royal Society, and
was of such eminence as a mathematician that he was asked to arbitrate
between the claims of Newton and Leibnitz to the invention of fluxions
(1667-1754).


DEMON, or DAIMON, a name which Socrates gave to an inner divine
instinct which corresponds to one's destiny, and guides him in the way he
should go to fulfil it, and is more or less potent in a man according to
his purity of soul.


DE MORGAN, AUGUSTUS, an eminent mathematician, born in Madura, S.
India; was professor of Mathematics in London University from 1828 till
his death, though he resigned the appointment for a time in consequence
of the rejection of a candidate, James Martineau, for the chair of logic,
on account of his religious opinions; wrote treatises on almost every
department of mathematics, on arithmetic, algebra, trigonometry,
differential and integral calculus, the last pronounced to be "the most
complete treatise on the subject ever produced in England"; wrote also
"Formal Logic" (1806-1871).


DEMOSTHENES, the great Athenian orator, born in Athens; had many
impediments to overcome to succeed in the profession, but by ingenious
methods and indomitable perseverance he subdued them all, and became the
first orator not of Greece only, but of all antiquity; a stammer in his
speech he overcame by practising with pebbles in his mouth, and a natural
diffidence by declaiming on the sea-beach amid the noise of the waves;
while he acquired a perfect mastery of the Greek language by binding
himself down to copy five times over in succession Thucydides' "History
of the Peloponnesian War"; he employed 15 years of his life in
denunciation of Philip of Macedon, who was bent on subjugating his
country; pronounced against him his immortal "Philippics" and
"Olynthiacs"; took part in the battle of Cheronea, and continued the
struggle even after Philip's death; on the death of Alexander he gave his
services as an orator to the confederated Greeks, and in the end made
away with himself by poison so as not to fall into the hands of Autipater
(385-322 B.C.). See CTESIPHON.


DEMPSTER, THOMAS, a learned Scotchman, born in Aberdeenshire; held
several professorships on the Continent; was the author of "Historia
Ecclesiastica Gentis Scotorum," a work of great learning, but of
questionable veracity; has been reprinted by the Bannatyne Club; his last
days were embittered by the infidelity of his wife (1579-1625).


DENARIUS, a silver coin among the Romans, first coined in 269 B.C.,
and worth 81/2 d.


DENBIGH (6), the county town of Denbighshire, in the Vale of the
Clwyd, 30 m. W. of Chester; manufactures shoes and leather.


DENBIGHSHIRE (117), a county in North Wales, of rugged hills and
fertile vales, 40 m. long and 17 m. on an average broad, with a
coal-field in the NE., and with mines of iron, lead, and slate.


DENDERA, a village in Upper Egypt, on the left bank of the Nile, 28
m. N. of Thebes, on the site of ancient Tentyra, with the ruins of a
temple in almost perfect preservation; on the ceiling of a portico of
which there was found a zodiac, now in the museum of the Louvre in Paris,
and dates from the period of Cleopatra and the early Roman emperors, and
has sculptured portraits of that queen and her son Caesarion.


DENGUE, a disease peculiar to the tropics, occurs in hot weather,
and attacks one suddenly with high fever and violent pains, and after a
relapse returns in a milder form and leaves the patient very weak.


DENHAM, DIXON, an English traveller, companion of Clapperton;
visited Bornu and Lake Tchad (1785-1828).


DENHAM, SIR JOHN, an English poet, born at Dublin, the son of an
Irish judge; took to gambling and squandered his patrimony; was unhappy
in his marriage, and his mind gave way; is best known as the author of
"Cooper's Hill," a descriptive poem, interspersed with reflections, and
written in smooth flowing verse (1615-1669).


DENINA, CARLO, an Italian historian, born in Piedmont; banished from
Italy for a cynical remark injurious to the monks; paid court to
Frederick the Great in Berlin, where he lived a good while, and became
eventually imperial librarian in Paris under Napoleon (1731-1813).


DENIS, a king of Portugal from 1279 to 1325; the founder of the
University of Coimbra and the Order of Christ.


DENIS, ST., the apostle of the Gauls, the first bishop of Paris, and
the patron saint of France; suffered martyrdom in 270.


DENIS, ST., a town 6 m. N. of Paris, within the line of the
fortifications, with an abbey which contains the remains of St. Denis,
and became the mausoleum of the kings of France.


DENISON, EDWARD, philanthropist; distinguished by his self-denying
benevolent labours in the East End of London (1840-1870).


DENISON, GEORGE ANTHONY, archdeacon of Taunton, born in Notts; was
charged with holding views on the eucharist inconsistent with the
teaching of the Church of England, first condemned and then acquitted on
appeal; a stanch High Churchman, and equally opposed to Broad Church and
Low; _b_. 1805.


DENISON, JOHN EVELYN, Speaker of the House of Commons from 1858 to
1872, brother of the above (1800-1873).


DENMAN, LORD, Lord Chief-Justice of England from 1832 to 1850, born
in London; was along with Brougham counsel for Queen Caroline
(1779-1854).


DENMARK (2,182), the smallest of the three Scandinavian kingdoms,
consisting of Jutland and an archipelago of islands in the Baltic Sea,
divided into 18 counties, and is less than half the size of Scotland; is
a low-lying country, no place in it more above the sea-level than 500
ft., and as a consequence has no river to speak of, only meres or lakes;
the land is laid out in cornfields and grazing pastures; there are as
good as no minerals, but abundance of clay for porcelain; while the
exports consist chiefly of horses, cattle, swine, hams, and butter; it
has 1407 m. of railway, and 8686 of telegraph wires; the government is
constitutional, and the established religion Lutheran.


DENNEWITZ, a village in Brandenburg, 40 m. SW. of Berlin, where
Marshal Ney with 70,000 was defeated by Marshal Buelow with 50,000.


DENNIS, JOHN, a would-be dramatist and critic, born in London, in
constant broils with the wits of his time; his productions were worth
little, and he is chiefly remembered for his attacks on Addison and Pope,
and for the ridicule these attacks brought down at their hands on his own
head, from Pope in "Narrative of the Frenzy of John Dennis," and
"damnation to everlasting fame" in "Dunciad"; he became blind, and was
sunk in poverty, when Pope wrote a prologue to a play produced for his
benefit (1657-1734).


DENS, PETER, a Catholic theologian, born at Boom near Antwerp;
author of a work entitled "Theologia Moralis et Dogmatica," a minute and
casuistic vindication in catechetical form of the tenets of the Catholic
Church, and in use as a text-book in Catholic colleges (1690-1775).


DENTATUS, M. CURIUS, a Roman of the old stamp; as consul gained two
victories over rival States and two triumphs in one year; drove Pyrrhus
out of Italy (275 B.C.), and brought to Rome immense booty, of which he
would take nothing to himself; in his retirement took to tilling a small
farm with his own hand.


DENVER (134), the capital of Colorado, U.S., on a plain 5196 ft.
above the sea-level; originally founded as a mining station in 1858, now
a large and flourishing and well-appointed town; is the centre of a great
trade, and a great mining district.


DEODAR (25), a small protected independent State in the NW. of
Gujarat, India.


DEODORAKI, a glacier in the Caucasus Mountains.


DEPARCIEUX, French mathematician, born at Cessoux, dep. of Gard;
known for the "Tables" which bear his name, containing a reckoning of the
chances of longevity for different ages (1703-1768).


DEPARTMENT, a territorial division in France instituted in 1790,
under which the old division into provinces was broken up; each
department, of which there are now 87, is broken up into arrondissements.


DEPPING, a learned French historian, born at Muenster; wrote a
"History of Normandy," and on "Trade of Europe with the Levant"
(1784-1853).


DEPTFORD (101), a town on the S. bank of the Thames, partly in Kent
and partly in Surrey, now forming part of London; once with an extensive
Government dockyard and arsenal, the site of it purchased by the
Corporation of London as a market for foreign cattle; is now the central
station for the Electric Light Company.


DE QUINCEY, THOMAS, a great English prose writer, born in
Manchester; son of a merchant called Quincey; his father dying, he was
under a guardian, who put him to school, from which in the end he ran
away, wandered about in Wales for a time, and by-and-by found his way to
London; in 1803 was sent to Oxford, which in 1807 he left in disgust; it
was here as an anodyne he took to opium, and acquired that habit which
was the bane of his life; on leaving Oxford he went to Bath beside his
mother, where he formed a connection by which he was introduced to
Wordsworth and Southey, and led to settle to literary work at Grasmere,
in the Lake District; here he wrote for the reviews and magazines,
particularly _Blackwood's_, till in 1821 he went up to London and
published his "Confessions" under the _nom de plume_ of "The English
Opium-Eater"; leaving Grasmere in 1828 he settled in Edinburgh, and at
Polton, near Lasswade, where he died; is characterised by Stopford Brooke
as "owing to the overlapping and involved melody of his style one of our
best, as he is one of our most various miscellaneous writers"; he was a
writer of very miscellaneous ability and acquirement (1785-1859).


DERBEND (14), capital of Russian Daghestan, on the W. of the Caspian
Sea, 140 m. NW. of Baku.


DERBY (94), county town of Derbyshire, on the Derwent, with
manufactures of silk, cotton hosiery, lace, porcelain, &c.; it is the
centre of a great railway system.


DERBY, CHARLOTTE COUNTESS OF, wife of the 7th Earl who was taken
prisoner at Worcester in 1651, and was beheaded at Bolton; famous for her
gallant defence of Lathom House against the Parliamentary forces, which
she was obliged to surrender; lived to see the Restoration; _d_. 1663.


DERBY, 14TH EARL OF, British statesman, born at Knowsley Hall,
Lancashire; entered Parliament in 1820 in the Whig interest, and was
hailed as an accession to their ranks by the Whigs; supported the cause
of reform; in 1830 became Chief Secretary for Ireland under Earl Grey's
administration; introduced a coercive measure against the Repeal
agitation of O'Connell; contributed to the passing of the Reform Bill in
1832; seceded from the Whigs in 1834, and became Colonial Secretary in
1845 under a Conservative administration, but when Sir Robert Peel
brought in a bill to repeal the Corn Laws, he retired from the Cabinet,
and in 1848 became the head of the Protectionist party as Earl of Derby,
to which title he succeeded in 1851; was after that Prime Minister three
times over, and it was with his sanction Disraeli carried his Reform Act
of 1867, though he spoke of it as "a leap in the dark"; he resigned his
Premiership in 1868, and the last speech he made was against the Irish
Disestablishment Bill; was distinguished for his scholarship as well as
his oratory, and gave proof of this by his scholarly translation of the
"Iliad" of Homer (1797-1869).


DERBY, 15TH EARL OF, eldest son of the preceding; entered Parliament
as Lord Stanley in 1848; was a member of the three Derby administrations,
in the first and third in connection with foreign affairs, and in the
second as Secretary for India, at the time when the government of India
passed from the Company to the Crown; became Earl in 1869; was Foreign
Secretary under Mr. Disraeli in 1874, but retired in 1878; in 1885 joined
the Liberal party, and held office under Mr. Gladstone, but declined to
follow him in the matter of Home Rule, and joined the Unionist ranks; was
a man of sound and cool judgment, and took a deep interest in economical
questions (1826-1893).


DERBY DAY, the last Wednesday in May, or, as may happen, the 1st of
June, being the second day of the Summer Meeting at Epsom, on which the
Derby Stakes for colts and fillies three years old are run for, so called
as having been started by the 12th Earl of Derby in 1780; the day is held
as a great London holiday, and the scene is one to which all London turns
out. The stakes run for are L6000, of which the winner gets L5000.


DERBYSHIRE (520), a northern midland county of England, hilly in the
N., undulating and pastoral in the S., and with coal-fields in the E.;
abounds in minerals, and is more a manufacturing and mining county than
an agricultural.


DERG, LOUGH, an expansion of the waters of the Shannon, Ireland, 24
m. long, from 2 to 6 broad; also a small lake in the S. of Donegal, with
small islands, one of which, Station Island, was, as the reputed entrance
to St. Patrick's Purgatory, a place of pilgrimage to thousands at one
time.


DERVISHES, a name given to members of certain mendicant orders
connected with the Mohammedan faith in the East. Of these there are
various classes, under different regulations, and wearing distinctive
costumes, with their special observances of devotion, and all presumed to
lead an austere life, some of whom live in monasteries, and others go
wandering about, some of them showing their religious fervour in excited
whirling dances, and others in howlings; all are religious fanatics in
their way, and held sacred by the Moslems.


DERWENTWATER, one of the most beautiful of the Cumberland lakes, in
the S. of the county; extends S. from Keswick; is over 3 m. long, and
over 1 m. broad; is dotted with wooded islands, and is overlooked by
Skiddaw; it abounds with perch.


DERWENTWATER, EARL OF, a Jacobite leader; was 3rd Earl and the last;
several warrants were issued for his apprehension in 1714; he joined the
Jacobite rising in 1715; was taken prisoner at Preston, and beheaded on
Tower Hill, London, next year, after trial in Westminster Hall,
confession of guilt, and pleadings on his behalf with the king.


DERZHAVEN, GABRIEL, a Russian lyric poet, born at Kasan; rose from
the ranks as a common soldier to the highest offices in the State under
the Empress Catharine II. and her successors; retired into private life,
and gave himself up to poetry; the ode by which he is best known is his
"Address to the Deity" (1743-1816).


DESAIX, LOUIS CHARLES ANTOINE, a distinguished French general, born
at the Chateau d'Ayat, Auvergne, of a noble family; entered the army at
15; commanded a division of the Army of the Rhine in 1796, and after the
retreat of Moreau defended Kehl against the Austrians for two months;
accompanied Bonaparte to the East, and in 1799 conquered Upper Egypt;
contributed effectively to the success at Marengo, and fell dead at the
moment of victory, shot by a musket-ball; he was an upright and a
chivalrous man, known in Egypt as "the just Sultan," and in Germany as
"the good general" (1768-1800).


DESAUGIERS, MARC, a celebrated French composer of songs and
vaudevilles; "stands second to Beranger as a light song-writer," and is
by some preferred to him (1772-1827).


DESAULT, a French surgeon, born in dep. of Haute-Saone; his works
contributed largely to the progress of surgery (1714-1795).


DESBARRES, JOSEPH FREDERICK, military engineer and hydrographer,
aide-de-camp of General Wolfe at Quebec; fortified Quebec; surveyed the
St. Lawrence; revised the maps of the American coast at the outbreak of
the American war; died at Halifax, Nova Scotia, aged 102 (1722-1824).


DESCAMPS, a French painter, born at Dunkirk; painted village scenes
(1714-1791).


DESCARTES, RENE, the father of modern philosophy, born at La Haye,
in Touraine; was educated at the Jesuit College of La Fleche, where he
made rapid progress in all that his masters could teach him, but soon
grew sceptical as to their methods of inquiry; "resolved, on the
completion of his studies, to bid adieu to all school and book learning,
and henceforth to gain knowledge only from himself, and from the great
book of the world, from nature and the observation of man"; in 1616 he
entered the army of the Prince of Orange, and after a service of five
years quitted it to visit various centres of interest on the Continent;
made a considerable stay in Paris; finally abandoned his native land in
1629, and betook himself to seclusion in Holland in order to live there,
unknown and undisturbed, wholly for philosophy and the prosecution of his
scientific projects; here, though not without vexatious opposition from
the theologians, he lived twenty years, till in 1649, at the invitation
of Christina of Sweden, he left for Stockholm, where, the severe climate
proving too much for him, he was carried off by pneumonia next year;
Descartes' philosophy starts with Doubt, and by one single step it
arrives at Certainty; "if I doubt, it is plain I exist," and from this
certainty, that is, the existence of the thinking subject, he deduces his
whole system; it all comes from the formula _Cogito, ergo sum_, "I think,
therefore I exist," that is, the thinking _ego_ exists; in which thinking
philosophy ere long sums the universe up, regarding it as a void, without
thought; Descartes' philosophy is all comprehended in two works, his
"Discourse on Method," and his "Meditations" (1596-1650).


DESCHAMPS, EMILE, a French poet, born at Bourges, one of the chiefs
of the Romantic school (1795-1871).


DESCHAMPS, EUSTACHE, a French poet, born at Vertus, in Champagne;
studied in Orleans University; travelled over Europe; had his estate
pillaged by the English, whom, in consequence, he is never weary of
abusing; his poems are numerous, and, except one, all short, consisting
of ballads, as many as 1175 of them, a form of composition which he is
said to have invented; he deals extensively in satire, and if he wields
the shafts of it against the plunderers of his country, he does no less
against the oppressors of the poor (1328-1415).


DESDEMONA, the wife of Othello the Moor, who, in Shakespeare's play
of that name, kills her on a groundless insinuation of infidelity, to his
bitter remorse.


DESEZE, a French advocate, had the courage, along with advocate
Tronchet, to defend Louis XVI. when dragged to judgment by the
Convention, and who, honourably fulfilling his perilous office, pled for
the space of three hours, an honourable pleading "composed almost
overnight; courageous, yet discreet; not without ingenuity, and soft
pathetic eloquence"; he was imprisoned for a time, but escaped the
scaffold; on the return of the Bourbons he was made a peer (1750-1828).


DESMOND, EARLDOM OF, an Irish title long extinct by the death of the
last earl in 1583; he had rebelled against Elizabeth's government, been
proclaimed, and had taken refuge in a peasant's cabin, and been betrayed.


DES MOINES (62), the largest city in Iowa, U.S., and the capital,
founded in 1846.


DESMOULINS, CAMILLE, one of the most striking figures in the French
Revolution, born at Guise, in Picardy; studied for the bar in the same
college with Robespierre, but never practised, owing to a stutter in his
speech; was early seized with the revolutionary fever, and was the first
to excite the same fever in the Parisian mob, by his famous call "To
arms, and, for some rallying sign, cockades--green ones--the colour of
Hope, when," as we read in Carlyle, "as with the flight of locusts, the
green tree-leaves, green ribbons from the neighbouring shops, all green
things, were snatched to make cockades of"; was one of the ablest
advocates of the levelling principles of the Revolution; associated
himself first with Mirabeau and then with Danton in carrying them out,
and even supported Robespierre in the extreme course he took; but his
heart was moved to relent when he thought of the misery the guillotine
was working among the innocent families, the wives and the children, of
its victims, would, along with Danton, fain have brought the Reign of
Terror to a close; for this he was treated as a renegade, put under
arrest at the instance of Robespierre, subjected to trial, sentenced to
death, and led off to the place of execution; while his young wife, for
interfering in his behalf, was arraigned and condemned, and sent to the
guillotine a fortnight after him (1762-1794).


DE SOTO, a Spanish voyager, was sent to conquer Florida, penetrated
as far as the Mississippi; worn out with fatigue in quest of gold, died
of fever, and was buried in the river (1496-1542).


DES PERIERS, BONAVENTURE, a French humanist and story-teller, born
at Autun, in Burgundy; valet-de-chamber of Margaret of Valois; wrote
"Cymbalum Mundi," a satirical production, in which, as a disciple of
Lucian, he holds up to ridicule the religious beliefs of his day; also
"Novelles Recreations et Joyeux Devis," a collection of some 129 short
stories admirably told; was one of the first prose-writers of the
century, and is presumed to be the author of the "Heptameron," ascribed
to Margaret of Valois; _d_. 1544.


DESPRE`AUX. See BOILEAU.


DESSALINES, JEAN JACQUES, emperor of Hayti, born in Guinea, W.
Africa, a negro imported into Hayti as a slave; on the emancipation of
the slaves there he acquired great influence among the insurgents, and by
his cruelties compelled the French to quit the island, upon which he was
raised to the governorship, and by-and-by was able to declare himself
emperor, but his tyranny provoked a revolt, in which he perished
(1760-1806).


DESSAU (34), a North German town, the capital of the Duchy of
Anhalt, on the Mulde, affluent of the Elbe, some 70 m. SW. of Berlin; it
is at once manufacturing and trading.


DESSAUER, THE OLD. See LEOPOLD OF DESSAU.


DESTOUCHES, a French dramatist, born at Tours; his plays were
comedies, and he wrote 17, all excellent (1680-1754); also a French
painter (1790-1884).


DETMOLD (9), capital of Lippe, 47 m. SW. of Hanover, with a bronze
colossal statue of ARMINIUS (q. v.) near by.


DETROIT (285), the largest city in Michigan, U.S., a great
manufacturing and commercial centre, situated on a river of the same
name, which connects Lake St. Clair with Lake Erie; is one of the oldest
places in the States, and dates from 1670, at which time it came into the
possession of the French; is a well-built city, with varied manufactures
and a large trade, particularly in grain and other natural products.


DETTINGEN, a village in Bavaria, where an army of English,
Hanoverians, and Austrians under George II., in 1743 defeated the French
under Duc de Noailles.


DEUCALION, son of Prometheus, who, with his wife Pyrrha, by means of
an ark which he built, was saved from a flood which for nine days
overwhelmed the land of Hellas. On the subsidence of the flood they
consulted the oracle at Delphi as to re-peopling the land with
inhabitants, when they were told by Themis, the Pythia at the time, to
throw the bones of their mother over their heads behind them. For a time
the meaning of the oracle was a puzzle, but the readier wit of the wife
found it out; upon which they took stones and threw them over their
heads, when the stones he threw were changed into men and those she threw
were changed into women.