Part 160 (1/2)
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 ”d.a.m.nation 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 ent.i.tled ”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 flouris.h.i.+ng 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 inst.i.tuted in 1790, under which the old division into provinces was broken up; each department, of which there are now 87, is broken up into arrondiss.e.m.e.nts.
DEPPING, a learned French historian, born at Munster; 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 a.r.s.enal, 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 La.s.swade, 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 Derbys.h.i.+re, 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, Lancas.h.i.+re; 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 pa.s.sing 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 t.i.tle 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 Premiers.h.i.+p in 1868, and the last speech he made was against the Irish Disestablishment Bill; was distinguished for his scholars.h.i.+p 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 pa.s.sed 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).