766 



DEPOSIT 



DE QUINCEY 



solution in water. Thus, sandstone and shale are 

 rocks composed of materials which have settled 

 from suspension in water ; while stalactites and 

 stalagmites have been precipitated from solution 

 in water. Deposits are characterised according 

 to the conditions under which they were formed, 

 as marine, lacustrine, fluviatile, chemical, and so 

 forth. See SEA, OOZE, ABYSMAL ACCUMULATIONS. 



Deposit, in English law, is a branch of bail- 

 ments, defined by Story to be ' a bailment of 

 goods, to be kept by the bailee without reward, and 

 delivered according to the object and purpose of 

 the trust.' See BAILMENT. 



Deposition, the testimony of a witness set 

 down in writing. Depositions are taken either by 

 a judge or by a commissioner specially appointed 

 by him for that purpose. The questions to which 

 the depositions are answers are usually put by the 

 legal representatives of the parties to the suit, 

 under the control of the court or commissioner, 

 and the answers are taken down by the clerk of 

 court, or by a clerk specially appointed for the 

 purpose. It is a rale in the laws of evidence of all 

 countries that the deposition cannot be read where 

 the witness might be himself produced, because his 

 oral testimony is the best evidence, and secondary 

 evidence is never admissible. 



Depot, in its military sense, is a place where 

 stores, horses, or men are collected before being 

 forwarded to the regiment or corps requiring them. 

 By the Military Forces Localisation Act of 1872, 

 the United Kingdom was divided into seventy 

 brigade depots. These were afterwards called 

 regimental districts and re-numbered. See ARMY, 

 Vol. I. p. 435. 



Depression, or DIP. See HORIZON. 



De Proflindis ( ' out of the depths ' ), the first 

 words of the Vulgate version of the 129th psalm 

 (A.V. 130th), which is one of the seven 'peni- 

 tential psalms,' and forms a portion of the liturgy 

 of the Catholic Church, and is sung when the 

 bodies of the dead are committed to the grave. 

 A tender melancholy pervades the psalm, which, 

 however, brightens at the close under the conviction 

 that with God there is ' plenteous redemption.' 



Deptford, a town on the south bank of the 

 Thames, 4J miles below London Bridge, but prac- 

 tically a part of London, and represented in its 

 council by two members. In 1885 it was consti- 

 tuted a parliamentary borough, returning one 

 member. Of the two parishes, St Nicholas, 

 wholly in Kent, and close on the river-bank, 

 has a rateable value of upwards of 50,000, while 

 St Paul's parish, which is to a great extent modern 

 and residential, stretches partly into Surrey, and 

 has a total rateable value of close upon half 

 a million. A royal dockyard, dating from the 

 time of Henry VlII., was honoured by repeated 

 visits from Queen Elizabeth, who here knighted 

 Captain Francis Drake when he returned from his 

 voyage round the world. It was closed in 1869. 

 Twenty-one acres of its site were bought by the 

 corporation of London for 94,640, and were at a 

 further outlay of 230,000 fitted up as a foreign 

 cattle-market. Taking the year at 365 days, sheep 

 and cattle are killed here at the rate of 93 every 

 hour. The Royal Victualling Yard is also here, 

 and as a specimen of its capacity, it may be 

 stated that within a few hours of the official 

 notification, 1500 tons of provisions were de- 

 spatched for the relief of the starving inhabitants 

 of Paris on the capitulation in February 1871. The 

 Trinity House Corporation have property here ; and 

 for sixteen years before his death, the Duke of 

 Wellington as Master went in procession to St 

 Nicholas Church with the Elder Brethren. Since 



then the ceremony has been disused, and the annual 

 celebration takes place at Trinity Hall, London. 

 Deptford was long famous for horticulture, but 

 the gardens have mostly been built over or 

 used for railway purposes. There is little ship- 

 building now, but the General Steam Naviga- 

 tion Company employ a great many men here, 

 and there are large and famous marine engineering 

 establishments. In 1888-89 the Electric Light- 

 ing Company spent hundreds of thousands of 

 pounds in erecting buildings and laying down plant 

 for supplying London with light. Peter the Great 

 worked here as a shipwright. Lord Howard of 

 Effingham, John Evelyn, author of the Diary, 

 Admiral Benbow, Grinling Gibbons, Captain Fen- 

 ton the associate of Frobisher, and other famous 

 persons, lived here ; and Christopher Marlowe the 

 dramatist, was killed here, and is buried in St 

 Nicholas churchyard. Deptford is divided from 

 Greenwich by the Ravensbourne, and over the 

 creek there is a bridge where formerly the depe ford 

 crossed the river. The lower portions of Deptford 

 were improved in 1888-89, at a cost of about 

 100,000 ; the upper portions, New Cross, Brockley, 

 and Hatcham, abound in pleasant residences. The 

 population has grown rapidly, from 27,896 in 1851 

 to 76,732 in 1881, and 101,326' in 1891. 



Deputy, one who exercises power which pro- 

 perly Lelongs to another who has placed him in his 

 stead. The appointment of a deputy does not free 

 the principal from responsibility. See SHERIFF. 



De Qnincey, THOMAS, author of Confessions 

 of an English Opium-eater, and of many volumes 

 of essays, criticism, and narrative, was born in 

 Manchester on 15th August 1785. His father, 

 Thomas Quincey, was a linen-merchant with a 

 turn for literature ; his mother, whose maiden name 

 was Penson, was a woman of superior position and 

 culture. Of eight children, Thomas was the fifth. 

 An elder brother of imaginative temperament 

 exercised much influence over him ; and he records 

 that he was profoundly impressed in childhood by 

 the death of an infant sister. His early years were 

 spent at a mansion built by his father near Man- 

 chester, named Greenhay ; there his father died of 

 consumption in 1792, leaving his widow and family 

 well provided for. Thomas attended school first 

 at Salford, then at Bath grammar-school, later 

 at Winkfield, Wiltshire, and lastly at Manchester 

 grammar-school. He was an apt scholar ; he 

 could converse fluently in Greek at fifteen. In 

 1802, when he Avas seventeen years of age, his 

 health failed ; and as his guardians refused to 

 remove him from school, he ran away, to wander 

 and study in Wales. He was allowed a guinea a 

 week ; but restlessness and want of books and 

 of social intercourse impelled him towards London. 

 There, failing to raise money on his expectations, 

 he underwent singular experiences and privations, 

 related with picturesque power in the Confessions. 

 Ultimately he was sent to Worcester College, 

 Oxford, on the inadequate allowance of 100 a 

 year. He disliked and perhaps despised the uni- 

 versity system, and left in 1807. 



It was in Oxford that De Quincey first re- 

 sorted to opium to allay pain ; the use of the 

 drug for that purpose, and also as a mental stimu- 

 lant, subsequently became an overmastering and 

 lifelong habit. His mother had now settled 

 near Bath, and at Bristol De Quincey became 

 acquainted with Coleridge's family; and through 

 that connection visited Wordsworth and Southey 

 at the Lakes. In 1808 he revisited Oxford; then 

 \vent back to London, where he associated with 

 Knight, Lamb, Hazlitt, and other men of letters. 

 In 1809, having provided himself with an ample 

 library, he settled to a literary career at Grasmere. 



