673 



DUNTON, JOHN. 



DUPERREY, LOUIS-ISIDORE. 



674 



state ; but upon the murder of that prince in 979, and the accession 

 of Ethelred, his credit and influence declined ; and the contempt with 

 which his threatenings of divine vengeance were regarded by the king 

 is said to have mortified him to such a degree that, on his return to 

 his archbishopric, he died of grief and vexation, May 19th, 988. A 

 volume of St. Dunstan's works was published at Douay in 1626. His 

 successful ambition has given him a considerable place in ecclesiastical 

 and civil history. He appears to have been a man of extraordinary 

 talents, of gre.it energy, stern self-will, and unscrupulous purpose ; 

 and he exerted all his talents, energy, and unserupulousness to advance 

 the ecclesiastical power, and to subject all to papal supremacy. Dun- 

 stau'a ' Concord of Monastic Rules ' is printed at largo in Reyuer's 

 'Apostolatus Benedictinorum in Anglia,' fol., Duac., 1626, at the 

 beginning of the third part of the Appendix, p. 77. A notice of the 

 other writings attributed to him will be found iu Wright, pp. 459-62. 



(William of Malmesbury, History ; Life of St. Dunstan in the Acta 

 Sanctorum of the Bollandists, month of May, torn, iv., pp. 344-84; 

 Wright, Bioij. Brit. Lit., Any. Sax. Period ; Kemble, Saxons in Eng- 

 land, book ii. ; Lingard, Hist, of Eng. ; Knight, Pop. Hist, of Eng.) 



DUNTON, JOHN, an eccentric bookseller and voluminous writer 

 of the 17th and 18th centuries, waa born at Graffhain in Hunting- 

 donshire, on the 4th of May, 1659. The events of his life are soon 

 told, the main interest attached to his name being comprised in his 

 writings. His father was rector of Oraffham, and, later in life, of 

 Aston Clinton in Buckinghamshire, and was the third John Dunton 

 in regular descent who had been minister in the church. The fourth 

 John Dunton was designed by his father to follow the same course, 

 but after trying a private school, and then a private education under 

 his father, it was found that he had " such a disgust to the languages, 

 that though he had acquired enough Latin to speak it pretty well 

 extempore, the difficulties of Greek were unconquerable." His father 

 at length resolved to apprentice him to a London bookseller when he 

 was nearly fifteen. He served his time with satisfaction to his master, 

 but became a zealous Whig in politics, and a dissenter in religion. 

 Before he was out of his time he was active in getting up, from the 

 apprentices of London, a remonstrance to the king, in reply to a long 

 address praying for the prevention of petitions to parliament. This 

 remonstrance was presented by the Lord Mayor. Dunton himself 

 states that " the Tory apprentices had gathered five thousand names 

 to their address ; but ours, I speak modestly, had at least thirty 

 thousand." This must be an exaggeration, if it means apprentices ; 

 but probably though got up by the apprentices it was signed by 

 anybody. 



In 1 685 he commenced business for himself, and was for a time 

 successful. He married a daughter of the non-conforming minister, 

 Dr. Annesley, of whom another daughter married Samuel Wesley, 

 afterwards rector of Epworth, and father of the distinguished founder 

 of the sect of Methodists. Dunton's business however fell off greatly, 

 indeed business of all kind suffered^ after the defeat of the Duke of 

 Monmouth at Sedgemoor ; he therefore took a cargo of books to 

 Boston in America. He was four months on his voyage, and suffered 

 from the want of food and water. The venture was successful, and 

 he remained there some time. While in America he visited an Indian 

 station, of which he gives a curious but not a very correct account, 

 and saw the Rev. John Eliot, the apostle of the Indians, of whose 

 character and successful efforts for the conversion of the natives he 

 peaks very highly. Towards the end of 1686 he returned, but found 

 himself involved by having become surety for a sister of his wife. To 

 escape the consequences he made an excursion to Holland, Flanders, 

 and Germany. 



On his return Dunton found his affairs settled, and again embarked 

 in business as a publisher, in which he continued for ten years. He 

 lost his wife, married again, had disputes with his wife and her mother 

 about property, failed in business, and continued publishing pamph- 

 lets and other works till 1723, after which nothing is known of him 

 except that he died in 1733. 



Dunton was a most prolific writer, and a not less prolific projector. 

 Hia writings were chiefly on religious, moral, or political subjects, but 

 in nearly all of them he contrived to introduce much of his own per- 

 sonal affairs. With an inordinate degree of vanity he mixed consider- 

 able shrewdness of observation, and in the moat entertaining of his 

 works, ' The Life and Errors of John Dunton,' printed in 1705, he has 

 given the " Lives and Characters of a Thousand Persons." It is 

 amusing to see the principle on which they are introduced entirely 

 with reference to himself the authors who wrote for him, the book- 

 sellers he associated with, the printers he employed, and the person 

 even who made the printer's ink. When he goes abroad it is the 

 same; no eminence attracts him, but all with whom he has any 

 acquaintance are charactered. The characters on the whole are done 

 without ill-nature or prejudice, but are not very discriminative, and 

 as he occasionally had intercourse with men whose memory yet lives, 

 the sketches he gives are not uninteresting. In his characters of the 

 booksellers he incidentally relates some curious facts with reference 

 to t'..eir business. It thence appears that some siugle sermons and 

 occasional pamphlets had a very large sale. Of Lukin's ' Practice of 

 Godliness,' 10,000 were sold ; of Reach's ' War with the Devil, 1 and 

 'Travels of True Godliness,' 10,000 were printed, and "they will sell 

 to the end of time." With Goodwin, the printer to the House of 



Commons, and two other printers, Dunton was in partnership for the 

 printing of ' Dying Speeches ; ' a singular undertaking, as it seems to 

 us now, to require the union of four respectable firms. 



Of his other works, the most important were ' The Athenian 

 Mercury,' which was published in weekly numbers from 1690 to 

 1696, forming twenty volumes. From this a selection iu three 

 volumes was made, under the title of the ' Athenian Oracle.' Tho 

 papers consist of answers to queries, most of them imaginary, upon 

 all sorts of questions. The plan, of which he was extremely proud, 

 was Dunton's own, and his assistants were, at first, his brother-in-law, 

 Wesley, Mr. R. Sault, a Cambridge theologian, and Dr. John Norris. 

 The 'Dublin Scuffle' contains some curious particulars relating to 

 social manners in Ireland ; and ' Dunton's Creed, or the Religion of a 

 Bookseller, in imitation of Brown's Religio Medici,' is a singular 

 production. 



DUPERRfl, VICTOR GUY, a baron of the empire and a French 

 admiral, was born at La Rochelle on the 20th of February 1775. He 

 commenced his maritime career in the merchant navy, and went to 

 India, but returned to France after a voyage of eighteen mouths ; and 

 war having broken out, he entered the republican service in 1795. 

 During the next ten years he took part in many siugle ship-fights with 

 the English, until he was promoted to the staff on board the Veteran, 

 commanded by Prince Jerome Bonaparte, in 1804. In September 

 1806 he became captain, and took the command of the Sirene frigate. 

 In March 1808 whilst off the coast of Bretagne, in company with the 

 Italienne, Duperre' was chased by two ships and three frigates, and 

 whilst making for the port of L'Orient, his passage was intercepted and 

 he had to sustain for an hour and twenty minutes an unequal combat 

 with two of the enemy's ships, keeping up a constant fire at ouce from 

 both broadsides. Though repeatedly summoned to surrender, he 

 contrived to bring off his frigate ; an act of skilful intrepidity which 

 did not escape the notice of Napoleon, who promoted him to the rank 

 of ship captain. He performed several brilliant exploits iu the 

 Indian Ocean in 1808 and 1809, after which he became a baron of the 

 empire and contre-amiral, August 20, 1810. In September 1823, he 

 was appointed to command the French squadron lying before Cadiz, 

 and contributed to the capture of that city. In 1826 he became 

 commander in chief of the combined fleet iu the Autilles. 



In 1830 he was summoned to Paris in February by the government 

 of Charles X. to be consulted respecting the meditated expedition 

 against Algiers. In his reply, Duperre' represented the undertaking 

 as extremely perilous and uncertain, but in spite of his representations 

 it was resolved upon, and the absolute command of the naval forces 

 was confided to him. This fleet set sail on the 25th of May 1830. It 

 consisted of 103 ships of war, aud 572 vessels belonging to the 

 merchant service, and other craft, the whole having on board 37,331 

 men aud 4000 horses. After encountering many difficulties from the 

 nature of the coast and contrary winds, Duperre" appeared before the 

 batteries of Algiers on the morning of the 13th of June. The signal 

 share taken by Duperr<S in the siege and capture of this formidable 

 fort, induced Charles X. to raise him to the peerage, July 14th, 1830, 

 a few days before his own fall. This appointment was revoked by 

 the government of July; but on the 13th of August 1830 the same 

 government made him an admiral, and restored his peerage. He 

 became minister of the naval department November 22, 1834; and 

 waa afterwards recalled twice to the same office uuder different 

 admiuistrationa He resigned this office on account of declining 

 health, February 7, 1843, and died November 2, 1846. 



* DUPERREY, LOUIS-ISIDORE, was born at Paris on the 21st 

 of October, 1786. He entered into the military marine in 1S03, and 

 served on board various ships during the war. In 1817, when the 

 corvette L'Uranie, under the command of Captain Louis de Frey- 

 cinet, was sent out on a voyage of observation, Duperrey was specially 

 charged with the operations of hydrography. The observations were 

 chieJy carried on in the North Pacific Ocean, and Duperrey made a 

 general map of the Marianne (Ladrone) Islands, aud maps and plans 

 of portions of the Caroline Islands, of the island of Guam, of anchor- 

 ages among the Sandwich Islands, &e. In the night of February 15, 

 1820, the Uranie struck on a rock, and Duperrey having in one of 

 the boats discovered a small bay, the Uranie was conducted there, and 

 became a wreck, but everything on board was saved. Here the ship- 

 wrecked voyagers had remained about ten weeks, when the Mercury, 

 an American three-masted vessel, came in sight, and was engaged to 

 conduct the crew and their property to Monte Video. Having per- 

 formed this service, the Mercury was purchased by Capt. de Freycinet, 

 and named La Physicienne. The expedition returned to Frauce in 

 November 1820. The place of the shipwreck is shown in Duperrey's 

 ' Plans de la Partie Occidentale de la Baie Frauaise,_de la Rividre de 

 Bougainville, et des Ports St. Louis et Duperrey aux lies Malouines.' 



Within a year after his return M. Duperrey submitted to the minis- 

 ter of marine the plan of a new expedition, which was accepted : he 

 was then raised to the rank of lieutenant, and appointed to the com- 

 mand of La Coquille, which, having been armed and equipped at 

 Toulon, sailed thence August llth, 1822. The Coquille crossed the 

 meridian of Cape Horn January 1st, 1823, and soon afterwards entered 

 the great South Pacific Ocean. After remaining some months among 

 thu islands, the expedition passed by the eastern end of New Guinea, 

 and ou the 17th of January 1824 cast anchor in Port Jackson, 



