531 



DEilOUSTIER, CHARLES ALBERT. 



DENHAH, SIR JOHN. 



602 



German with notes, by J. J. Reiske, Lemgo, 1764; a correct, but 

 tasteless version. The political speeches were translated with notes, 

 by Fr. Jacobs, Leipzig, 1805-8 ; and the eleven Philippics, by Alb. 

 Gerh. Becker, Halle, 1824-26. There are also other German transla- 

 tions of some of the speeches. There is a French translation of 

 Demosthenes and -lEschines by Auger. Leland has translated into 

 English all the orations which refer to Philip, including the Philip- 

 pics and Olynthiacs, with the oration of ^Eschines against Ctesiphon, 

 and one by Diuarehus, but with no great success. To express the 

 simplicity, perspicuity, and force of the original, would require the 

 translator to possess powers the same in kind as those which Deuios- 

 thenes himself possessed, and near them in degree. 



(Thirlwall, Grote, and Mitford, Histories of Greece; Schaumaun, 

 Prolegomena to Demosthenes ; Plutarch, Demosthenes ; Life by Zosimus 

 , of Ascalon ; Lives of the Ten Orators ; Taylor, Life of Demosthenes ; 

 Keeker, Demoathenei alt Staatsmann und Redder; Westermann, 

 Qmestiones Demosthenicce ; Cliaton, Fasti ffellenici, and the Orations 

 of Demoithencs.) 



Bunt of Demosthenes, Townley Gallery, British Museum. 

 Height, 1 foot Si inches. 



DEMOUSTIER, CHARLES ALBERT, a French writer, born at 

 Villers-CotUreta, March 11, 1760. He was connected on his father's 

 side with the family of Racine. Ho was educated at the college of 

 . ; and for some time followed the profession of advocate, but 

 quitted it for literature. The work which chiefly brought him into 

 notice was his ' Lettres a Emilia sur la Mythologie.' These letters 

 are written in a pleasing style, and attained that popularity which is 

 usually awarded to works on learned subjects, when written in an 

 amusing manner. Indeed it appears to have gained more than its 

 just meed of applause, and the consequence was, that when this had 

 subsided, a reaction took place, and tho work was censured with too 

 much severity. His other works are chiefly theatrical ; of these ' Le 

 Conciliateur,' a comedy in verse, was one of the best and most suc- 

 oewful ; there is uot much humour in it, and scarcely any delineation 

 of character, but the plot is excellently constructed, the incidents are 

 striking and uncommon, aud the author has acquitted himself well 

 of the dillicult task of expressing moral sentiments, without being 

 mawkish. An anecdote is told of Demousticr which proves his 

 excessive good humour. A young man being present at the repre- 

 sentation of one of tho author's comedies, felt by no means satisfied, 

 and requested the gentleman beside him to lend him a hollow key 

 (whistling with a key being the French mode of expressing disappro- 

 bation) ; the gentleman complied with his request, and was no other 

 than I Jemoustier himself. His collected works have been published 

 in 5 vols. 8vo and 12mo. lie died at the place of his birth on the 

 2nd of .March 1801. 



UKMPriTER, THOMAS, was the son of Thomas Dempster, of 

 Muiresk, in Aberdeenshire, where he was born, on the 23rd of August 

 1.">7'J. His life is a scries of strange adventures, where the literary 

 triumphs of the wandering scholar are mingled with fierce controversy 

 uud occasional deeds of armed violence. His wild career seems to 

 h;ive commenced hi the centre of his domestic circle, of the morality 

 of which he gives a startling picture, telling how one of hia brothers 

 hid taken to wife his father's concubine, collected a band of ruffians, 

 .-.horn he surrounded and attacked that father and his attendants ; 

 tied to Orkney, where he headed a band of freebooters, 

 who, among other violences, burned the bishop's palace, and ended his 

 career as a soldier in the Netherlands, where h was put to death ns 

 .in:il by being torn limb from limb by wild horses. Thomas 

 >>T commenced his cla-icul studies at Pembroke Hall, Cam- 

 bridge, at the age of ten, aud completed his education at Paris, Lou- 

 vain, and Rome. He took the degree of D.C.L., and was made regent 

 in t.h.i college of Navarre, in the University of Paris, at a time wnen, 

 according to hU own account, he must have been but seventeen years 



old. Tho history of his various wanderings from university to univer- 

 sity, his literary contests, and his personal quarrels, is too long to be 

 followed out on this occasion. Being at one time left by the principal 

 of the college of Beauvais, in the University of Paris, as his locum 

 tenens, he caused a student of high and powerful connections to be 

 ignominiously flogged. Several relatives took up the student's cause, 

 and made an armed attack upon the college ; but Dempster showed 

 that he had resources equal to the occasion : he fortified his college, 

 stood a sort of siege, and concluded the affair by taking some of the 

 belligerents prisoners and confining them in the college belfry. After 

 this affair he fled from France. At the beginning of the year 1C16 he 

 was in England, where he married Susanna Waller, a woman whose 

 disposition appears to have been of a no less hardy and reckless 

 character than his own. Some time afterwards, when he was passing 

 through the streets of Paris with this woman, her remarkable beauty 

 and the degree to which she exposed her person, brought on them the 

 dangerous attentions of a mob of followers, and compelled them to 

 seek refuge in an adjoining house. Afterwards, while Dempster was 

 teaching the belles-lettres in the University of Bologna, where ho 

 seems to have involved himself in a more than usual number of 

 disputes, he found that his wife had eloped with either one or more 

 of his students. After an ineft'ectual attempt to overtake the fugitives, 

 he died at Butri, near Bologna, on the 6th of September 1625, the 

 victim apparently of overwrought energies aud a broken spirit. Demp- 

 ster's works are more celebrated for their profuse miscellaneous learn- 

 ing than their critical accuracy. They are very numerous. Dr. Irving, 

 in his ' Lives of Scottish Writers," gives a list of fifty, stating that 

 the list is as complete as he has been able to make it. His ' Antiqui- 

 tatum Ronmnarum Corpus Absolutissimum,' an edition, or rather an 

 enlargement, of the work by Rosinus, bearing that title, published in 

 1613, is well known. There are many editions of it, and it forms, 

 both in the substance and illustrations, the foundation of Kennel's 

 aud other popular books on Roman antiquities. His 'De Etruria 

 Regali," left in manuscript, was magnificently edited in 1723-4, in two 

 volumes, folio, by Sir Thomas Coke. His ' Historia Ecclesiastica 

 Gentis Scotorum' was published at Bologna in 1627, and was reprinted 

 for the Bannatyne Club in 1829. It is simply a biographical dictionary 

 of Scottish authors, and as such has been often referred to iu this 

 work. In many instances its information may be depended on, but 

 whoever consults the work must bring with him some previous critical 

 knowledge of the subject, as tho author is very proue to exaggerate 

 tho literary achievements of his countrymen. He not only makes 

 out to be Scotsmen persons whose birth-place is the subject of doubt 

 for example, Joannes de Sacrobosco, Erigeua, &c., but also includes 

 such names as Eglesham, Fust, St. Fiacre, St. Novatus, Pelagius, and 

 Rabauus Maurus, who are well known not to have been natives of 

 Scotland. 



DENHAM, SIR JOHN, born at Dublin in the year 1615, was son 

 of Sir John Pennant, who was some time chief baron of the Court of 

 Exchequer in Ireland. His father being afterwards made a baron of 

 the Exchequer in England, he was brought to London in 1617, where 

 he received his grammatical education. In the year 1631 he became a 

 gentleman commoner of Trinity College, Oxford, where, after studying 

 for three years, he took the degree of Bachelor of Arts. He subse- 

 quently entered himself at Lincoln's Inn, studied the law pretty closely, 

 aud might have done well, had not an immoderate passion for gaming 

 exhausted his money, and drawn on him the displeasure of his father. 

 He however abandoned the mischievous pursuit, and wrote au essay 

 against gaming, by which he regained his father's favour, though his 

 reformation appears to have been feigned, as immediately after his 

 father's death his fondness for play returned. In 1641 he gained great 

 celebrity by his tragedy of ' The Sophy," which was acted at Black- 

 friars with much applause ; and his fame was increased by his ' Cooper's 

 Hill,' written in 1043, almost the only one of his poems that is now 

 read. In the year 1647 he performed many secret and important 

 services for Charles I., when prisoner in the hands of the army, which 

 being discovered, he was forced to escape to France. In 1652 he 

 returned to England, aud resided at tho Earl of Pembroke's ; and at 

 the restoration of Charles II. he was appointed surveyor-general of his 

 majesty's buildings, and created knight of the Bath. He died in tho 

 year 1688, his understanding having been for some time impaired by 

 domestic grievances. 



The admirers of Deuhatn usually limit their praises to 'Cooper's 

 Hill,' and some lines on the Earl of Strafford ; while others confine 

 their commendations to two lines iu the former poem, wherein, lie 

 describes the Thafiies : 



" Though deep, yet clear ; though gentle, yet not dull ; 

 Strong without rage, without o'erflowing full." 



This is a most happy combination of words; tho briuging into 

 contrast expressions which only vary in shades of meaning is highly 

 ingenious. The whole passage relating to the Thames is written with 

 much spirit, and striking lines might be selected from other parts ; 

 yet, taken as a whole, the poem ii heavy and purposeless, aud, though 

 short, tedious. 



Readers of the present day, on perusing tho poems of Douham, 

 will perhaps wonder what could bo the cause of tho high commenda- 

 tions bestowed on him by his contemporaries ; but to look at him from 



