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The Nuttall Encyclopaedia by Edited by Rev. James Wood

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





DOUGLASS, FREDERICK, American orator, born a slave in Maryland;
wrought as a slave in a Baltimore shipbuilder's yard; escaped at the age
of 21 to New York; attended an anti-slavery meeting, where he spoke so
eloquently that he was appointed by the Anti-Slavery Society to lecture
in its behalf, which he did with success and much appreciation in England
as well as America; published an Autobiography, which gives a thrilling
account of his life (1817-1895).


DOULTON, SIR HENRY, the reviver of art pottery, born in Lambeth;
knighted in the Jubilee year for his eminence in that department; _b_.
1820.


DOURO, a river, and the largest, of the Spanish Peninsula, which
rises in the Cantabrian Mountains; forms for 40 m. the northern boundary
of Portugal, and after a course of 500 m. falls into the Atlantic at
Oporto; is navigable only where it traverses Portugal.


DOUSTER-SWIVEL, a German swindling schemer in the "Antiquary."


DOVE, in Christian art the symbol of the Holy Ghost, or of a pure,
or a purified soul, and with an olive branch, the symbol of peace and the
gospel of peace.


DOVE, HEINRICH WILHELM, a German physicist, born at Liegnitz,
Silesia; professor of Natural Philosophy in Berlin; was eminent chiefly
in the departments of meteorology and optics; he discovered how by the
stereoscope to detect forged bank-notes (1803-1879).


DOVER (33), a seaport on the E. coast of Kent, and the nearest in
England to the coast of France, 60 m. SE. of London, and with a mail
service to Calais and Ostend; is strongly fortified, and the chief
station in the SE. military district of England; was the chief of the
Cinque Ports.


DOVER, STRAIT OF, divides France from England and connects the
English Channel with the North Sea, and at the narrowest 20 m. across;
forms a busy sea highway; is called by the French _Pas de Calais_.


DOVREFELD, a range of mountains in Norway, stretching NE. and
extending between 62 deg. and 63 deg. N. lat., average height 3000 ft.


DOW or DOUW, GERARD, a distinguished Dutch genre-painter, born
at Leyden; a pupil of Rembrandt; his works, which are very numerous, are
the fruit of a devoted study of nature, and are remarkable for their
delicacy and perfection of finish; examples of his works are found in all
the great galleries of Europe (1613-1675).


DOWDEN, EDWARD, literary critic, professor of English Literature in
Dublin University, born in Cork; is distinguished specially as a
Shakesperian; is author of "Shakespeare: a Study of his Mind and Art,"
"Introduction to Shakespeare," and "Shakesperian Sonnets, with Notes";
has written "Studies in Literature," and a "Life of Shelley"; is well
read in German as well as English literature; has written with no less
ability on Goethe than on Shakespeare; _b_. 1843.


DOWN (266), a maritime county in the SE. of the province of Ulster,
Ireland, with a mostly level and fairly fertile soil, and manufactures of
linen.


DOWNS, THE, a safe place of anchorage, 8 m. long by 6 m. broad, for
ships between Goodwin Sands and the coast of Kent.


DOWNS, THE NORTH AND SOUTH, two parallel ranges of low broad hills
covered with a light soil and with a valley between, called the Weald,
that extend eastward from Hampshire to the sea-coast, the North
terminating in Dover cliffs, Kent, and the South in Beachy Head, Sussex;
the South famous for the breed of sheep that pastures on them.


DOYLE, DR. CONAN, novelist, nephew of Richard and grandson of John,
born in Edinburgh; studied and practised medicine, but gave it up after a
time for literature, in which he had already achieved no small success;
several of his productions have attracted universal attention, especially
his "Adventures" and his "Memoir of Sherlock Holmes"; wrote a short play
"A Story of Waterloo," produced with success by Sir Henry Irving; _b_.
1859.


DOYLE, SIR FRANCIS HASTINGS, an English poet, born near Tadcaster;
bred to the bar, but devoted to poetry and horse-racing; became professor
of Poetry at Oxford; author of "Miscellaneous Verses," "Two Destinies,"
"Retreat of the Guards," "The Thread of Honour," and "The Private of the
Buffs" (1810-1858).


DOYLE, JOHN, an eminent caricaturist, of Irish origin, under the
initials H. B. (1797-1868).


DOYLE, RICHARD, eminent caricaturist, born in London, son of the
preceding; contributed to _Punch_, of which he designed the cover, but
left the staff, in 1850 owing to the criticisms in the journal adverse to
the Catholic Church; devoted himself after that chiefly to book
illustration and water-colour painting (1824-1883).


DOZY, REINHART, an Orientalist and linguist, born at Leyden, where
he became professor of History; devoted himself to the study of the
history of the Arabs or Moors in North-Western Africa and Spain, his
chief work being "The History of the Mussulmans of Spain"; wrote also a
"Detailed Dictionary of the Names of the Dress of the Arabs" (1820-1883).


DRACHENFELS (Dragon's Rock), one of the Siebengebirge, 8 m. SE. of
Bonn, 1056 ft. above the Rhine, and crowned by a castle with a commanding
view; the legendary abode of the dragon killed by Siegfried in the "Lay
of the Nibelungen."


DRACO, a celebrated Athenian law-giver, who first gave stability to
the State by committing the laws to writing, and establishing the Ephetae,
or court of appeal, 621 B.C.; only he punished every transgressor of his
laws with death, so that his code became unbearable, and was superseded
ere long by a milder, instituted by Solon, who affixed the penalty of
death to murder alone; he is said to have justified the severity of his
code by maintaining that the smallest crime deserved death, and he knew
no severer punishment for greater; it is said he was smothered to death
in the theatre by the hats and cloaks showered on him as a popular mark
of honour; he was archon of Athens.


DRAGON, a fabulous monster, being a hideous impersonation of some
form of deadly evil, which only preternatural heroic strength and courage
can subdue, and on the subdual and slaying of which depends the
achievement of some conquest of vital moment to the human race or some
members of it; is represented in mediaeval art as a large, lizard-like
animal, with the claws of a lion, the wings of an eagle, and the tail of
a serpent, with open jaws ready and eager to devour, which some knight
high-mounted thrusts at to pierce to death with a spear; in the Greek
mythology it is represented with eyes ever on the watch, in symbol of the
evil that waylays us to kill us if we don't kill it, as in guarding the
"Apples of the Hesperides" and the "Golden Fleece," because these are
prizes that fall only to those who are as watchful of him as he is of
them; and it is consecrated to Minerva to signify that true wisdom, as
sensible of the ever-wakeful dragon, never goes to sleep, but is equally
ever on the watch.


DRAGONNADES, the name given to the persecution at the instance of
Louis XIV. to force the Huguenots of France back into the bosom of the
Catholic Church by employment of dragoons.


DRAGON'S TEETH, the teeth of the dragon that Cadmus slew, and which
when sown by him sprang up as a host of armed men, who killed each other
all to the five who became the ancestors of the Thebans, hence the phrase
to "sow dragon's teeth," to breed and foster strife.


DRAKE, SIR FRANCIS, a great English seaman of the reign of Queen
Elizabeth, born near Tavistock, in Devon; served in the Royal Navy under
his relative, Sir John Hawkins, and distinguished himself with signal
success by his valour and daring against the pride of Spain, towards
which, as the great Catholic persecuting power, he had been taught to
cherish an invincible hatred; came swoop down like a hawk on its ports
across seas, and bore himself out of them laden with spoil; in 1577
sailed for America with five ships, passed through the Strait of
Magellan, the first Englishman to do it; plundered the W. coast as far as
Peru; lost all his ships save one; crossed the Pacific, and came home by
way of the Cape--the first to sail round the world--with spoil to the
value of L300,000, his successes contributing much to embolden his
countrymen against the arrogance of the Catholic king; and he was
vice-admiral in the fleet that drove back the Armada from our shores
(1540-1596).


DRAKE, FRIEDRICH, a German sculptor, born at Pyrmont; studied under
Rauch; executed numerous statues and busts, among others busts of Oken
and Ranke, Bismarck and Moltke; his chief works are the "Eight Provinces
of Prussia," represented by large allegorical figures, and the "Warrior
crowned by Victory" (1805-1882).


DRAKE, NATHAN, a physician, born at York; author of "Shakespeare and
his Times" (1766-1836).


DRAKENBERG MOUNTAINS, a range of mountains in S. Africa, 6500 ft.
high, between Natal and the Orange Free State.


DRAMATIC UNITIES, three rules of dramatic construction prescribed by
Aristotle, observed by the French dramatists, but ignored by Shakespeare,
that (1) a play should represent what takes place within eight hours, (2)
there must be no change of locality, and (3) there must be no minor plot.


DRAMMEN (20), a Norwegian seaport on a river which falls into
Christiania Bay, 30 m. SW. of Christiania; trade chiefly in timber.


DRAPER, JOHN WILLIAM, a chemist, scientist, and man of letters, born
at Liverpool; settled in the United States; wrote on chemistry,
physiology, and physics generally, as well as works of a historical
character, such as the "History of the Intellectual Development of
Europe" and the "History of the Conflict between Science and Religion,"
an able book (1811-1882).


DRAPIER, a pseudonym adopted by Swift in his letters to the people
of Ireland anent Wood's pence, and which led to the cancelling of the
patent.


DRAVE, a river from the Eastern Alps which flows eastward, and after
a course of 380 miles falls into the Danube 10 m. below Essek.


DRAVIDIANS, races of people who occupied India before the arrival of
Aryans, and being driven S. by them came to settle chiefly in the S. of
the Dekkan; they are divided into numerous tribes, each with a language
of its own, but of a common type or group, some of them literary and
some of them not, the chief the Tamil; the tribes together number over
20 millions.


DRAWCANSIR, a blustering, bullying boaster in Buckingham's play the
"Rehearsal"; he kills every one of the combatants, "sparing neither
friend nor foe."


DRAYTON, MICHAEL, an English poet, born In Warwickshire, like
Shakespeare; was one of the three chief patriotic poets, Warner and
Daniel being the other two, which arose in England after her humiliation
of the pride of Spain, although he was no less distinguished as a love
poet; his great work is his "Polyolbion," in glorification of England,
consisting of 30 books and 100,000 lines; it gives in Alexandrines "the
tracts, mountains, forests, and other parts of this renowned isle of
Britain, with intermixture of the most remarkable stories, antiquities,
wonders, pleasures, and commodities of the same digested in a poem"; this
was preceded by other works, and succeeded by a poem entitled "The Ballad
of Agincourt," pronounced one of the most spirited martial lyrics in the
language (1563-1631).


DRELINCOURT, a French Protestant divine, born at Sedan; author of
"Consolations against the Fear of Death" (1595-1669).


DRENTHE (137), a province of Holland lying between Hanover and the
Zuyder Zee; the soil is poor, and the population sparse.


DRESDEN (250), the capital of Saxony, on the Elbe, 116 m. SE. of
Berlin; a fine city, with a museum rich in all kinds of works of art, and
called in consequence the "Florence of Germany"; here the Allies were
defeated by Napoleon in 1813, when he entered the city, leaving behind
him 30,000 men, who were besieged by the Russians and compelled to
surrender as prisoners of war the same year.


DREYFUS, L'AFFAIRE. On 23rd December 1894, Alfred Dreyfus, an
Alsatian Jew, captain of French Artillery; was by court-martial found
guilty of revealing to a foreign power secrets of national defence, and
sentenced to degradation and perpetual imprisonment; he constantly
maintained his innocence, and, in time, the belief that he had been
unjustly condemned became prevalent, and a revision of the trial being at
length ordered, principally through the exertions of Colonel Picquart and
Zola, the well-known author, Dreyfus was brought back from Cayenne, where
he had been kept a close prisoner and cruelly treated, and a fresh trial
at Rennes began on 6th August 1899, and lasted till 9th September; the
proceedings, marked by scandalous "scenes," and by an attempt to
assassinate one of prisoner's counsel--disclosed an alarmingly corrupt
condition of affairs in some lines of French public life under the
Republic of the time, and terminated in a majority verdict of "guilty";
M. Dreyfus was set at liberty on 20th September, the sentence of ten
years' imprisonment being remitted; _b_. 1860.


DREYSE, NICHOLAUS VON, inventor of the needle-gun, born at Soemmerda,
near Erfurt, the son of a locksmith, and bred to his father's craft;
established a large factory at Soemmerda for a manufactory of firearms;
was ennobled 1864 (1787-1867).


DROGHEDA (11), a seaport in co. Louth, near the mouth of the Boyne,
32 m. N. of Dublin, with manufactures and a considerable export trade;
was stormed by Cromwell in 1649 "after a stout resistance," and the
garrison put to the sword; surrendered to William III. after the battle
of the Boyne in 1690.


DROMORE, a cathedral town in co. Down, Ireland, 17 m. SW. of
Belfast, of which Jeremy Taylor was bishop.


DROOGS, steep rocks which dot the surface of Mysore, in India, and
resemble hay-ricks, some of these 1500 ft. high, some with springs on the
top, and scalable only by steps cut in them.


DROSTE-HUeLSHOFF, FRAULEIN VON, a German poetess, born near Muenster;
was of delicate constitution; wrote tales as well as lyrics in record of
deep and tender experiences (1797-1848).


DROUET, JEAN BAPTISTE, notable king-taker, a violent Jacobin and
member of the Council of the Five Hundred; had been a dragoon soldier;
was postmaster at St. Menehould when Louis XVI., attempting flight,
passed through the place, and by whisper of surmise had the progress of
Louis and his party arrested at Varennes, June 21, 1791, for which
service he received honourable mention and due reward in money; was taken
captive by the Austrians at last; perched on a rock 100 ft. high,
descended one night by means of a paper kite he had constructed, but was
found at the foot helpless with leg broken (1763-1824).


DROUET, JEAN BAPTISTE, COMTE D'ERLON, marshal of France, born at
Rheims; distinguished in the wars of the Republic and the Empire; on
Napoleon's return from Elba seized on the citadel of Lille, and held it
for the emperor; commanded the first _corps d'armee_ at Waterloo; left
France at the Restoration; returned after the July Revolution; became
governor of Algiers, and was created marshal (1765-1844).


DROUOT, a French general, son of a baker at Nancy; Napoleon, whom,
as commander of artillery, he accompanied over all his battlefields in
Europe and to Elba, used to call him the _Sage of the Grande Armee_
(1774-1847).


DROUYN DE LHUYS, French statesman and diplomatist, born in Paris;
was ambassador at the Hague and Madrid; distinguished himself by his
opposition to Guizot; served as Minister of Foreign Affairs under Louis
Napoleon; withdrew into private life after the collapse at Sedan
(1805-1881).


DROYSEN, a German historian, born in Pomerania; professor in Berlin;
author of the "History of Prussian Policy," "History of Alexander the
Great," and "History of Hellenism" (1808-1884).


DROZ, the name of a Swiss family of mechanicians, one of them, Jean
Pierre, an engraver of medals (1746-1833); also of a French moralist and
historian, author of "History of Louis XVI." (1773-1850).


DROZ, GUSTAV, a highly popular and brilliant novelist, born in
Paris; author of "Monsieur, Madam, et Bebe," "Entre Nous," and "Cahier
bleu de Mlle. Cibot" (1832-1895).


DRUIDS, a sacred order of learned men under a chief called the
Archdruid, among the ancient Celtic nations, particularly of Gaul and
Britain, who, from their knowledge of the arts and sciences of the day,
were the ministers of religion and justice, as well as the teachers of
youth to the whole community, and exercised an absolute control over the
unlearned people whom they governed; they worshipped in oak groves, and
the oak tree and the mistletoe were sacred to them; the heavenly bodies
appear to have been also objects of their worship, and they appear to
have believed in the immortality and transmigration of the soul; but they
committed nothing to writing, and for our knowledge of them we have to
depend on the reports of outsiders.


DRUMCLOG MOSS, a flat wilderness of broken bog and quagmire in
Lanarkshire, where the Covenanters defeated Claverhouse's dragoons in
1679.


DRUMMOND, HENRY, popular scientist and Christian teacher, born in
Stirling; was educated at Edinburgh and Tuebingen; studied for the Free
Church; lectured on natural science; became famous by the publication of
"Natural Law in the Spiritual World," a book which took with the
Christian public at once, and had an enormous sale, which was succeeded
by "Tropical Africa," a charmingly-written book of travel, and by a
series of booklets, commencing with "The Greatest Thing in the World,"
intended to expound and commend the first principles of the Christian
faith; his last work except one, published posthumously, entitled the
"Ideal Life," was the "Ascent of Man," in which he posits an altruistic
element in the process of evolution, and makes the goal of it a higher
and higher life (1851-1897).


DRUMMOND, CAPTAIN THOMAS, civil engineer, born in Edinburgh;
inventor of the Drummond Light; was employed in the trigonometrical
survey of Great Britain and Ireland; became Under-Secretary for Ireland,
and was held in high favour by the Irish (1797-1840).


DRUMMOND, WILLIAM, of Hawthornden, a Scottish poet, named the
"Petrarch of Scotland," born in Hawthornden; studied civil law at
Bourges, but poetry had more attractions for him than law, and on the
death of his father he returned to his paternal estate, and devoted
himself to the study of it and the indulgence of his poetic tastes. "His
work was done," as Stopford Brooke remarks, "in the reign of James I.,
but is the result of the Elizabethan influence extending to Scotland.
Drummond's sonnets and madrigals have some of the grace of Sidney, and he
rose at intervals into grave and noble verse, as in his sonnet on John
the Baptist." He was a devoted Royalist; his first poem was "Tears" on
the death of James I.'s eldest son Henry, and the fate of Charles I. is
said to have cut short his days; the visit of Ben Jonson to him at
Hawthornden is well known (1585-1649).


DRUMMOND LIGHT, an intensely-brilliant and pure white light produced
by the play of an oxyhydrogen flame upon a ball of lime, so called from
the inventor, Captain Thomas Drummond.


DRURY, DRU, a naturalist, born in London; bred a silversmith; took
to entomology; published "Illustrations of Natural History"; his
principal work "Illustrations of Exotic Entomology" (1725-1803).


DRURY LANE, a celebrated London theatre founded in 1663, in what was
a fashionable quarter of the city then; has since that time been thrice
burnt down; was the scene of Garrick's triumphs, and of those of many of
his illustrious successors, though it is now given up chiefly to
pantomimes and spectacular exhibitions.


DRUSES, a peculiar people, numbering some 80,000, inhabiting the S.
of Lebanon and Anti-lebanon, with the Maronites on the N., whose origin
is very uncertain, only it is evident, though they speak the Arab
language, they belong to the Aryan race; their religion, a mixture of
Christian, Jewish, and Mohammedan beliefs, is grounded on faith in the
unity and the incarnation of God; their form of government is half
hierarchical and half feudalistic; in early times they were under emirs
of their own, but in consequence of the sanguinary, deadly, and mutually
exterminating strife between them and the Christian Maronites in 1860,
they were put under a Christian governor appointed by the Porte.


DRUSUS, M. LIVIUS, a tribune of the people at Rome in 122 B.C., but
a stanch supporter of the aristocracy; after passing a veto on a popular
measure proposed by Gracchus his democratic colleague, proposed the same
measure himself in order to show and prove to the people that the
patricians were their best friends; the success of this policy gained him
the name of "patron of the senate."


DRUSUS, M. LIVIUS, tribune of the people, 91 B.C., son of the
preceding, and an aristocrat; pursued the same course as his father, but
was baffled in the execution of his purpose, which was to broaden the
constitution, in consequence of which he formed a conspiracy, and was
assassinated, an event which led to the SOCIAL WAR (q. v.).


DRUSUS, NERO CLAUDIUS, surnamed "Germanicus," younger brother of
Tiberius and son-in-law of Marc Antony; distinguished himself in four
successive campaigns against the tribes of Germany, but stopped short at
the Elbe, scared by the apparition of a woman of colossal stature who
defied him to cross, so that he had to "content himself with erecting
some triumphal pillars on his own safe side of the river and say that the
tribes across were conquered"; falling ill of a mortal malady, his
brother the emperor hastened across the Alps to close his eyes, and
brought home his body, which was burned and the ashes buried in the tomb
of Augustus.


DRYADS, nymphs of forest trees, which were conceived of as born with
the tree they were attached to and dying along with it; they had their
abode in wooded mountains away from men; held their revels among
themselves, but broke them off at the approach of a human footstep.


DRYAS, the father of Lycurgus, a Thracian king, and slain by him,
who, in a fit of frenzy against the Bacchus worshippers, mistook him for
a vine and cut him down. See LYCURGUS.


DRYASDUST, a name of Sir Walter Scott's invention, and employed by
him to denote an imaginary character who supplied him with dry
preliminary historical details, and since used to denote a writer who
treats a historical subject with all due diligence and research, but
without any appreciation of the human interest in it, still less the soul
of it.


DRYBURGH, an abbey, now a ruin, founded by David I., on the Tweed,
in Berwickshire, 3 m. SE. of Melrose; the burial-place of Sir Walter
Scott.


DRYDEN, JOHN, a celebrated English poet, "glorious John," born in
Northamptonshire, of a good family of Puritan principles; educated at
Westminster School and Cambridge; his first poetic production of any
merit was a set of "heroic stanzas" on the death of Cromwell; at the
Restoration he changed sides and wrote a poem which he called "Astraea
Redux" in praise of the event, which was ere long followed by his "Annus
Mirabilis," in commemoration of the year 1666, which revealed at once the
poet and the royalist, and gained him the appointment of poet-laureate,
prior to which and afterwards he produced a succession of plays for the
stage, which won him great popularity, after which he turned his mind to
political affairs and assumed the role of political satirist by
production of his "Absalom and Achitophel," intended to expose the
schemes of Shaftesbury, represented as Achitophel and Monmouth as
Absalom, to oust the Duke of York from the succession to the throne; on
the accession of James II. he became a Roman Catholic, and wrote "The
Hind and the Panther," characterised by Stopford Brooke as "a model of
melodious reasoning in behalf of the milk-white hind of the Church of
Rome," and really the most powerful thing of the kind in the language; at
the Revolution he was deprived of his posts, but it was after that event
he executed his translation of Virgil, and produced his celebrated odes
and "Fables" (1631-1700).


DUALISM, or MANICHAEISM, the doctrine that there are two
opposite and independently existing principles which go to constitute
every concrete thing throughout the universe, such as a principle of good
and a principle of evil, light and darkness, life and death, spirit and
matter, ideal and real, yea and nay, God and Devil, Christ and
Antichrist, Ormuzd and Ahriman.


DU BARRY, COUNTESS, mistress of Louis XV., born at Vaucouleurs,
daughter of a dressmaker; came to Paris, professing millinery; had
fascinating attractions, and was introduced to the king; governed France
to its ruin and the dismissal of all Louis' able and honourable advisers;
fled from Paris on the death of Louis, put on mourning for his death; was
arrested, brought before the Revolutionary tribunal, condemned for
wasting the finances of the State, and guillotined (1746-1793).


DU BELLAY, a French general, born at Montmirail; served under
Francis I. (1541-1590).


DUBLIN (360), the capital of Ireland, at the mouth of the Liffey,
which divides it in two, and is crossed by 12 bridges; the principal and
finest street is Sackville Street, which is about 700 yards long and 40
wide; it has a famous university and two cathedrals, besides a castle,
the residence of the Lord-Lieutenant; and a park, the Phoenix, one of the
finest in Europe; manufactures porter, whisky, and poplin.