The Nuttall Encyclopaedia Part 167

DOCTRINAIRES, mere theorisers, particularly on social and political questions; applied originally to a political party that arose in France in 1815, headed by Roger-Collard and represented by Guizot, which stood up for a const.i.tutional government that should steer clear of acknowledging the divine right of kinghood on the one hand and the divine right of democracy on the other.

DODABETTA, the highest peak, 8700 ft., in the Nilgherries.

DODD, DR. WILLIAM, an English divine, born at Bourne, Lincolns.h.i.+re; was one of the royal chaplains; attracted fas.h.i.+onable audiences as a preacher in London, but lived extravagantly, and fell hopelessly into debt, and into disgrace for the nefarious devices he adopted to get out of it; forged a bond for 4500 on the Earl of Chesterfield, who had been a pupil of his; was arrested, tried, convicted, and sentenced to death, a sentence which was carried out notwithstanding the great exertions made to procure a pardon; wrote a "Commentary on the Bible," and compiled "The Beauties of Shakespeare" (1729-1777).

DODDRIDGE, PHILIP, a Nonconformist divine, born in London; was minister at Kebworth, Market Harborough, and Northampton successively, and much esteemed both as a man and a teacher; suffered from pulmonary complaint; went to Lisbon for a change, and died there; was the author of "The Family Expositor," but is best known by his "Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul," and perhaps also by his "Life of Colonel Gardiner"

(1702-1751).

DoDERLEIN, LUDWIG, a German philologist, born at Jena; became professor of Philology at Erlangen; edited Tacitus, Horace, and other cla.s.sic authors, but his princ.i.p.al works were on the etymology of the Latin language (1791-1863).

DODGER, THE ARTFUL, a young expert in theft and other villanies in d.i.c.kens's "Oliver Twist."

DODGSON, CHARLES LUTWIDGE, English writer and man of genius, with the _nom de plume_ of Lewis Carroll; distinguished himself at Oxford in mathematics; author of "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland," with its sequel, "Through the Looking-Gla.s.s," besides other works, mathematical, poetic, and humorous; mingled humour and science together (1833-1898).

DODINGTON, GEORGE BUBB, an English politician, notorious for his fickleness, siding now with this party, now with that; worked for and won a peerage before he died; with all his pretensions, and they were many, a mere flunkey at bottom (1691-1762).

DODO, an ungainly bird larger than a turkey, with short scaly legs, a big head and bill, short wings and tail, and a greyish down plumage, now extinct, though it is known to have existed in the Mauritius some 200 years ago.

DODO'NA, an ancient oracle of Zeus, in Epirus, close by a grove of oak trees, from the agitation of the branches of which the mind of the G.o.d was construed, the interpreters being at length three old women; it was more or less a local oracle, and was ere long superseded by the more widely known oracle of DELPHI (q. v.).

DODS, MEG, an old landlady of consistently inconsistent qualities in "St. Ronan's Well"; also the pseudonym of the auth.o.r.ess of a book on cookery.

DODSLEY, ROBERT, an English poet, dramatist, and publisher; wrote a drama called "The Toyshop," which, through Pope's influence, was acted in Drury Lane with such success as to enable the author to commence business as a bookseller in Pall Mall; projected and published the _Miscellany_, and continued to write plays, the most popular "Cleone"; is best known in connection with his "Collection of Old Plays"; he was a patron of Johnson, and much esteemed by him (1703-1764).

DOEG, a herdsman of Saul (1 Sam. xxi. 7); a name applied by Dryden to Elkanah Settle in "Absalom and Achitophel."

DOGBERRY, a self-satisfied night constable in "Much Ado about Nothing."

DOG-DAYS, 20 days before and 20 after the rising of the dog-star Sirius, at present from 3rd July to 11th August.

DOGE, the name of the chief magistrate of Venice and Genoa, elected at first annually and then for life in Venice, with, in course of time, powers more and more limited, and at length little more than a figure-head; the office ceased with the fall of the republic in 1797, as it did in Genoa in 1804.

DOGGER BANK, a sandbank in the North Sea; a great fis.h.i.+ng-field, extending between Jutland in Denmark and Yorks.h.i.+re in England, though distant from both sh.o.r.es, 170 m. long, over 60 m. broad, and from 8 to 10 fathoms deep.

DOGS, ISLE OF, a low-lying projection of a square mile in extent from the left bank of the Thames, opposite Greenwich, and 3 m. E. of St.

Paul's.

DOG-STAR, SIRIUS (q. v.).

DOLABELLA, son-in-law of Cicero, a profligate man, joined Caesar, and was raised by him to the consuls.h.i.+p; joined Caesar's murderers after his death; was declared from his profligacy a public enemy; driven to bay by a force sent against him, ordered one of his soldiers to kill him.

DOLCI, CARLO, a Florentine painter, came of a race of artists; produced many fine works, the subjects of them chiefly madonnas, saints.

&c. (1616-1686).

DOLCINO, a heresiarch and martyr of the 14th century, of the Apostolic Brethren, a sect which rose in Piedmont who made themselves obnoxious to the Church; was driven to bay by his persecutors, and at last caught and tortured and burnt to death; a similar fate overtook others of the sect, to its extermination.

DOLDRUMS, a zone of the tropics where calms, squalls, and baffling winds prevail.

DoLE (12), a town in the dep. of Jura, on the Doubs, and the Rhone and Rhine Ca.n.a.l, 28 m. SE. of Dijon, with iron-works, and a trade in wine, grain, &c.

DOLET, eTIENNE, a learned French humanist, born at Orleans, became, by the study of the cla.s.sics, one of the lights of the Renaissance, and one of its most zealous propagandists; suffered persecution after persecution at the hands of the Church, and was burned in the Place Maubert, Paris, a martyr to his philosophic zeal and opinions (1509-1546).

DOLGELLY, capital of Merioneth, Wales, with manufactures of flannel.

DOLGOROUKI, the name of a n.o.ble and ill.u.s.trious Russian family.

DOLLART ZEE, a gulf in Holland into which the Ems flows, 8 m. long by 7 broad, and formed by inundation of the North Sea.

DoLLINGER, a Catholic theologian, born in Bamberg, Bavaria, professor of Church History in the University of Munich; head of the old Catholic party in Germany; was at first a zealous Ultramontanist, but changed his opinions and became quite as zealous in opposing, first, the temporal sovereignty, and then the infallibility of the Pope, to his excommunication from the Church; he was a polemic, and as such wrote extensively on theological and ecclesiastical topics; lived to a great age, and was much honoured to the last (1799-1890).

DOLLOND, JOHN, a mathematical instrument-maker, born in Spitalfields, London, of Dutch descent; began life as a silk-weaver; made good use of his leisure hours in studies bearing mainly on physics; went into partners.h.i.+p with his son, who was an optician; made a study of the telescope, suggested improvements which commended themselves to the Royal Society, and in especial how, by means of a combination of lenses, to get rid of the coloured fringe in the image (1706-1761).

DOLMEN, a rude structure of prehistoric date, consisting of upright unhewn stones supporting one or more heavy slabs; long regarded as altars of sacrifice, but now believed to be sepulchral monuments; found in great numbers in Bretagne especially.

DOLOMITE ALPS, a limestone mountain range forming the S. of the Eastern Alps, in the Tyrol and N. Italy, famous for the remarkable and fantastic shapes they a.s.sume; named after Dolomieu, a French mineralogist, who studied the geology of them.