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DENON, BARON. 



DEPARCIEUX, ANTOINE. 



college for attempting to stab a person in the dark. On leaving the 

 university he spent some time in travelling through France and 

 Italy. Returning home from the continent, full of dislike to the 

 manners of the people, and especially to the modes of government he 

 bad seen there, and finding himself in possession of a small fortune, 

 the bequest of an uncle, he set up for a politician of the Whig school, 

 and formed connexions with several of the leading political and lite- 

 rary characters of that party. As a man of letters however he did 

 not confine his acquaintance within the limits of his political par- 

 tialities ; Dryden and Wycherley, for instance, as well as Halifax and 

 Congreve, are enumerated among his friends. In the idle and 

 expensive life which he now led he soon dissipated what property he 

 had, and for the rest of his life he was obliged to depend for subsist- 

 ence upon his pen, and the still more precarious resource of private 

 patronage. No experience however seems to have cured his impro- 

 vidence. In his difficulties the duke of Marlborough procured for 

 him the place of a waiter at the Custom house, a sinecure worth 12(M. 

 a year ; but he was not long in selling this appointment, and it was 

 only the kind interference of Lord Halifax that induced him to reserve 

 out of it a small annuity for a certain term of years. This term he 

 outlived, and, to add to his miseries, he became blind in his last days, 

 so that he was in the end reduced to solicit the charity of the public 

 by having a play acted for his benefit, which some of his old friends, 

 and some also whom he bad made his enemies, interested themselves 

 in getting up. Dennis died in 1734. Throughout his life the violence 

 and auspiciousneab of his temper were such that he rarely made a 

 friend or an acquaintance in whom his distempered vision did not 

 soon discover an enemy in disguise. Yet Dennis wanted neither 

 talents nor acquirements. Many of his literary productions show 

 much acuteness and good sense, as well as considerable learning. He 

 began to publish occasional pieces in verse, mostly of a satirical cast, 

 about 1690, and from that time till near his death his name was 

 constantly before the public as a smull poet, a political and critical 

 pamphleteer, and a writer for the theatres. His poems and plays 

 were sufficiently worthless; but one or two of the latter obtained 

 some notoriety chiefly from the fuel they administered to certain 

 popular prejudices that happened to rage at the time. His ' Liberty 

 Asserted,' in particular, was acted with great applause in the Lincoln's 

 Inn Fields theatre in 1704, in consequence of the violent strain of its 

 Anti-Oallicism, a sentiment with which the audience, in the excite- 

 ment of the war with France, was then peculiarly disposed to sympathise. 

 Connected with this play are the two well-known stories about Dennis, 

 during the negotiations that preceded the peace of Utrecht, going to 

 the Duke of Marlborough and asking his grace to get an article 

 insetted in the treaty to protect his person from the French king ; 

 and about his afterwards running away from the house of a friend 

 with whom he was staying on the Sussex coast, because he thought 

 that a vessel he saw approaching was coming to seize him. Another 

 of his dramatic attempts, his ' Appius and Virginia,' acted and 

 damned at Drury Lane in 1709, is famous for the new kind of 

 thunder introduced in it, and which the author, when a few nights 

 after he found the players making use of the contrivance in Macbeth, 

 roee in the pit and claimed with an oath as his thunder. Dennis's 

 thunder is said to be that still used at the theatres. 



Among the ablest of his critical disquisitions were his attacks upon 

 Addison's 'Cato,' and Pope's 'Essay on Man.' Addison had been 

 among the number of his friends, but Dennis supposing that some- 

 thing in the second and third numbers of the ' Spectator ' was intended 

 as an offensive allusion to him, took the opportunity of avenging himself 

 when ' Cato ' appeared. Much of his criticism nevertheless has gene- 

 rally been deemed by no means the product of mere spite. It was 

 upon this occasion that Fope, in conjunction with Swift, wrote ' The 

 Narrative of Dr. Robert N orris, concerning the strange and deplorable 

 Frenzy of Mr. John Dennis, an Officer in the Custom house.' Pope 

 also stuck Dennis in his ' Essay on Criticism,' and afterwards gibbeted 

 him much more conspicuously in the ' Dunciad.' 



I.KNON, DOMINIQUE VIVANT, BARON, was born of a noble 

 family at ChAlons-sur-Sa&ne, on the 4th of January 1747. From his 

 early youth his bias was for the arts of design, but he for some years 

 devoted himself to them as an amateur only, and as such was curly 

 distinguished for his taste and judgment in matters of virtu ; Louis XV. 

 employed him to make a collection of antique gems for Madame Pom- 

 padour. He commenced however his active career in life as a diplo- 

 matist, and was first attached to the Russian embassy. Upon the 

 accession of Louis XVI., he found a valuable patron in the minister for 

 foreign affairs, the Comte de Vergennes, who sent Denou on a mission 

 to Switzerland, when he took the opportunity of visiting Voltaire at 

 Feruey, and drew a portrait of him, which watt engraved by St. Aubin. 

 He was next sent by his patron to Naples, as secretary to the embassy 

 under the Comte Clermoot d'Amboise. He lived seven years at 

 Naples, and devoted much of his time to the study of the arta, 

 especially etching and mezzotint engraving. The death of the Comte 

 il- Yergennes (1787) caused bis recal to Paris, and put an end to his 

 diplomatical career. He thenceforth adopted the arts of design as his 

 profession; and through the influence of his friend Quatremcre de 

 Quincy, he was elected a member of the Royal Academy of the Arts. 

 Returning to Italy, he spent five years at Venice, and some time at 

 Florence ; and then visited Switzerland, where he learned that his 



property had been sequestered, and his name enrolled in the list of 

 emigrants. Notwithstanding this threatening state of his affairs, he 

 ventured to make his appearance at Paris, where, but for the assistance 

 of the painter David, he would have been destitute. David contrived 

 to have his name erased from the list of emigrants, and procured him 

 an order from the government to design and engrave a set of repub- 

 lican costumes. He was engaged iu this occupation during the horrors 

 of the Revolution. 



After the more violent features of the Revolution had subsided, the 

 house of Madame Beauharnais was a centre of attraction where the 

 most dktinguished men in politics, art, literature, and science fre- 

 quently met; and here Denon became acquainted with Bonaparte. 

 Denon was a most devoted admirer of the great general, and when 

 Napoleon asked him, in 1798, to accompany him on hia expedition to 

 Egypt, Denon, though in his fifty-first year, embraced the opportunity 

 with the utmost enthusiasm. He accompanied General Desaix in his 

 expedition into Upper Egypt; and during the whole stay of Napoleon 

 in the East he was indefatigable iu drawiug all the most interesting 

 and striking Egyptian monuments. He returned with Napoleon to 

 France, and in the short space of about two years published hia great 

 work on Egypt ' Voyage dans la Basse et la Haute Egypt, pendant 

 les Campagnes du General Bonaparte,' 2 vols. folio, 1802 ; a second 

 edition in 4to was published in the same year, and a smaller edition 

 in 1804. A very elegant 4to edition was published in London, in 1802, 

 by M. Peltier, with several appendices by various members of the 

 Egyptian Commission, or Institut du Cairo, in addition to Denon's 

 journal, the original text This work, which, as the production of an 

 individual, is a noble monument of zeal, industry, and ability, professes 

 to be simply descriptive of what Denon saw and what happened to 

 him; he designedly abstained from all hypothesis, whether with 

 reference to origin, object, or principle. About the time of the publi- 

 cation of this work, Denon was appointed by Napoleon direeteur- 

 gcuural des Muse'es, a post of great influence, and one for which he 

 was well fitted. Denou accompanied Bonaparte in the campaigns 

 of Austria, Spain and Poland, and is said to have made his sketches 

 from the most exposed place on the field of battle. To Denon was 

 assigned the duty of pointing out to the emperor the principal objects 

 of art which it was desirable to select from the various couquered 

 cities for the imperial collections in the Louvre. At the Restoration 

 Denou was dismissed from his post as directeur-ge'ne'ral des musces. 

 In his retirement, he occupied himself in preparing a general history 

 of art, for which he prepared, by the assistance of able artists, many 

 lithographic drawings, but he did not live to complete the text. The 

 incomplete work was published by his nephews, in 1829, in 4 vols. folio, 

 under the title ' Monumens des Arta du Dessin, chez les peuples, taut 

 auciens que modcrues, recueillis par le Baron de Denou, pour servir Ji 

 1'Histoire des Arts,' &c. Denon died at Paris iu 1825. 



Denon's etchings are numerous, amounting to upwards of 300 ; 

 they are chiefly in imitation of the style of Rembrandt, aud consist of 

 portraits, historical and genre pieces, from Italian and Flemish 

 masters. Besides his Voyage in Egypt, he is author of the following 

 literary productions : ' Julie ou Le Bou Pere,' a comedy iu three 

 acts, 1769; 'Voyage en Sicilo et a, Malte," 1788; 'Discours sur les 

 Monumens d'Antiquites arrives d'ltalie,' 1804; several biographical 

 notices of painters in the ' Galerie des Homines ce'lebrea ; ' aud ' Poiut 

 de Lendemain,' a tule, 1812. 



He was Membra de 1'Institut, of the class of fine arts, officer of the 

 Legion d'Honueur, and knight of the Russian order of St. Anuc, and 

 of the Bavarian crown. He was created baron by Napoleon. 



(Kum'lilatt, 1825; Biographic Univeradle, SuppL) 



DENTA'TUS, the surname of the Romau consul Curius, who 

 defeated king Pyrrhus near Tarentum. He is said by Pliuy to have 

 been boru with teeth, and to have received the name Deutatus from 

 this circumstance. He gained several victories over the Samnites, 

 Sabines, and others, and was remarkable for his great frugality. When 

 the ambassadors of the Samnites went with a quantity of gold to 

 attempt to bribe him, they found him cooking some vegetables on his 

 fire, and were dismissed with the reply, that ho preferred ruling the 

 rich to being rich, uud that he who could uot be conquered in battle 

 was uot to be corrupted by gold. (Horat. ' Od.' i. 12, 41 ; Florus, i. 15.) 



DENTA'TUS, LU'UIUS SICI'NIUS, a Roman tribune, who dis- 

 tinguished himself in battle chiefly against the .,-Kqui aud the Sabines. 

 Livy calls him Lucius Siccius (iii. 43). According to Valerius Maxi- 

 mus (iii. 2), he had been in 120 engagements, had forty-five wounds in 

 the breast, aud h^ad received an accumulation of honours almost 

 incredible. Through the jealousy and treachery of Appius Claudius 

 he was murdered by the soldiers whom he was appointed to command. 

 Ho no sooner perceived their design than he stood with his back to a 

 rock, and drawing his sword, killed fifteen of his assailants, and 

 wounded thirty more : at length they ascended the rock, and over- 

 whelmed him with stones from above. On their return to their camp 

 they gave out that they had engaged with tie enemy, and that 

 Siciuius had fallen in the battle. (Dionys. Halicornasseusis, x. ; 

 Livius iiL 43.) 



DEI'ARCIEUX, ANTOINE (often written, but erroneously, De 

 Parcieux), an able mathematician, was born on the IStli of October 

 1703, at the village of Cessoux, near Nismes. His father was an 

 humble peasant, and unable to afford him the least education ; but 



