The Nuttall Encyclopaedia Part 169

DONON, the highest peak of the Vosges Mountains.

DOO, GEORGE THOMAS, a celebrated English line-engraver, and one of the best in his day (1800-1886).

DOON, a river rendered cla.s.sic by the muse of Burns, which after a course of 30 m. joins the Clyde 2 m. S. of Ayr.

DORA, the child-wife of "David Copperfield," d.i.c.kens's novel.

DORA D'ISTRIA, the pseudonym of Helena Ghika, born in Wallachia, of n.o.ble birth; distinguished for her beauty and accomplishments; was eminent as a linguist; translated the "Iliad" into German; wrote works, the fruits of travels (1829-1888).

DORAN, JOHN, an English man of letters, born In London, of Irish descent; wrote on miscellaneous subjects; became editor of the _Athenaeum_ and _Notes and Queries_ (1807-1878).

DORAT, JEAN, a French poet, born at Limoges; a Greek scholar; contributed much to the revival of cla.s.sical literature in France, and was one of the FRENCH PLeIADE (q. v.); _d_. 1588.

DORCAS SOCIETY, a society for making clothing for the poor. See Acts ix. 39.

DORCHESTER (7), the county town of Dorset, on the Frome; was a Roman town, and contains the ruins of a Roman amphitheatre.

DORDOGNE, a river in the S. of France, which, after a course of 300 m., falls into the estuary of Garonne; also a dep. (478) through which it flows.

DORe, GUSTAVE, a French painter and designer, born in Strasburg; evinced great power and fertility of invention, having, it is alleged, produced more than 50,000 designs; had a wonderful faculty for seizing likenesses, and would draw from memory groups of faces he had seen only once; among the books he ill.u.s.trated are the "Contes Drolatiques" of Balzac, the works of Rabelais and Montaigne, Dante's "Inferno," also his "Purgatorio" and "Paradiso," "Don Quixote," Tennyson's "Idylls," Milton's works, and Coleridge's "Ancient Mariner"; among his paintings were "Christ Leaving the Praetorium," and "Christ's Entry into Jerusalem"; he has left behind him works of sculpture as well as drawings and pictures; his art has been severely handled by the critics, and most of all by Ruskin, who treats it with unmitigated scorn (1832-1883).

DORIA, ANDREA, a naval commander, born in Genoa, of n.o.ble descent, though his parents were poor; a man of patriotic instincts; adopted the profession of arms at the age of 19; became commander of the fleet in 1513; attacked with signal success the Turkish corsairs that infested the Mediterranean; served under Francis I. to free his country from a faction that threatened its independence, and, by his help, succeeded in expelling it; next, in fear of the French supremacy, served, under Charles V., and entering Genoa, was hailed as its liberator, and received the t.i.tle of "Father and Defender of his country"; the rest of his life, and it was a long one, was one incessant wrestle with his great rival Barbarossa, the chief of the corsairs, and which ended in his defeat (1466-1560).

DORIANS, one of the four divisions of the h.e.l.lenic race, the other three being the Achaeans, the aeolians, and the Ionians; at an early period overran the whole Peloponnesus; they were a hardy people, of staid habits and earnest character.

DORIC, the oldest, strongest, and simplest of the four Grecian orders of architecture.

DORINE, a petulant domestic in Moliere's "Tartuffe."

DORIS, a small mountainous country of ancient Greece, S. of Thessaly, and embracing the valley of the Pindus.

DORIS, the wife of Nereus, and mother of the Nereids.

DORISLAUS, ISAAC, a lawyer, born at Alkmaar, in Holland; came to England, and was appointed Judge-Advocate; acted as such at King Charles's trial, and was for that latter offence a.s.sa.s.sinated at the Hague one evening by certain high-flying Royalist cut-throats, Scotch several of them; "his portrait represents him as a man of heavy, deep-wrinkled, elephantine countenance, pressed down by the labours of life and law" (1595-1649).

DORKING (7), a market-town picturesquely situated in the heart of Surrey, 24 m. SW. of London; gives name to a breed of fowls; contains a number of fas.h.i.+onable villas.

DORN, a distinguished German orientalist; wrote a History of the Afghans, and on their language (1805-1881).

DORNER, ISAAK AUGUST, a German theologian, born at Wurtemberg; studied at Tubingen; became professor of Theology in Berlin, after having held a similar post in several other German universities; his princ.i.p.al works were the "History of the Development of the Doctrine of the Person of Christ," and the "History of Protestant Theology" (1809-1884).

DORNOCH, the county town of Sutherland, a small place, but a royal burgh; has a good golf course.

DOROS, a son of Helen and grandson of Deucalion, the father of the Dorians, as his brother aeolis was of the aeolians.

DOROTHEA, ST., a virgin of Alexandria, suffered martyrdom by being beheaded in 311. Festival, Feb. 6.

DORPAT (38), a town on the Embach, in Livonia, Russia, 150 m. NE. of Riga, with a celebrated university founded by Gustavus Adolphus in 1632; it has a well-equipped staff, and is well attended; the majority of the population is German.

D'ORSAY, COUNT, a man of fas.h.i.+on, born in Paris; entered the French army; forsook it for the society of Lord and Lady Blessington; married Lady B.'s daughter by a former marriage; came to England with her ladys.h.i.+p on her husband's death; started a joint establishment in London, which became a rendezvous for all the literary people and artists about town; was "Phoebus Apollo of Dandyism"; paid homage to Carlyle at Chelsea one day in 1839; "came whirling hither in a chariot that struck all Chelsea into mute amazement with splendour," says Carlyle, who thus describes him, "a tall fellow of six feet three, built like a tower, with floods of dark auburn hair, with a beauty, with an adornment unsurpa.s.sable on this planet: withal a rather substantial fellow at bottom, by no means without insight, without fun, and a sort of rough sarcasm, rather striking out of such a porcelain figure"; having shown kindness to Louis Napoleon when in London, the Prince did not forget him, and after the _coup d'etat_ appointed him to a well-salaried post, but he did not live to enjoy it (1798-1852).

DORSET (194), maritime county in the S. of England, with a deeply indented coast; it consists of a plain between two eastward and westward reaching belts of downs; is mainly a pastoral county; rears sheep and cattle, and produces b.u.t.ter and cheese.

DORT, or DORDRECHT (34), a town on an island in the Maas, in the province of South Holland, 12 m. SE. of Rotterdam; admirably situated for trade, connected as it is with the Rhine as well, on which rafts of wood are sent floating down to it; is famous for a Synod held here in 1618-19, at which the tenets of Arminius were condemned, and the doctrines of Calvin approved of and endorsed as the doctrines of the Reformed Church.

DORTMUND (89), a town in Westphalia; a great mineral and railway centre, with large iron and steel forges, and a number of breweries.

DORY, JOHN, the hero of an old ballad.

DO-THE-BOYS'-HALL, a scholastic establishment in "Nicholas Nickleby."

DOUAY (31), a town on the Scarpe, in the dep. of Nord, France, 20 m.

S. of Lille, and one of the chief military towns of the country; has a college founded in 1568 for the education of Catholic priests intended for England, and is where a version of the Bible in English for the use of Catholics was issued.

DOUBS, a tributary of the Saone, which it falls into below Dole; gives name to the dep. (303), which it traverses.