DELILLE DELOLME. 



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modern times ; was born in 1738, at Aigueperse, in 

 Auvergne. His name after the revolution was 

 Montanier-Delille. He resembled Pope (who was 

 his model) in personal deformity, as well as in ex- 

 quisite versification. In the college of Lisieux, at 

 Paris, he distinguished himself by his precocious 

 talents ; and in the college of Amiens, he began 

 his metrical translation of Virgil's Georgics. He had 

 translated this work by the end of his 23d year, but 

 spent many years in retouching it. It was published 

 in 1770, with a Discours preliminaire, and numerous 

 annotations, which gave him also an honourable place 

 among the French prose writers. Notwithstanding 

 the jealousy of his rivals, Delille was invited to 

 Paris, and was made professor at the college de la 

 Marche, and afterwards at the college de France ; 

 and his translations were ranked by the French 

 among their classics. Delille translated, also, the 

 .flviieid of Virgil (1803), and was received, in his 

 37th year, into the academy. Before this time, he 

 had produced his didactic poem, Les Jardins, ou 

 I Art d'embellir les Paysages (Paris, 1782), in four 

 cantos. This was considered the best didactic poem 

 in the French language, though inferior to his trans- 

 lation of Virgil. Delille received the lower or- 

 dinations, to ue enabled to hold a benefice, from 

 which, together with his salaries as professor and 

 member of the academy, and his own fortune, he de- 

 rived, before the revolution, an annual income of 

 30,000 livres, of which he preserved, at a later pe- 

 riod, only 600. He was also made a member of the 

 national institute. Though an adherent of the old 

 system, Robespierre spared him on every occasion. 

 At his request, Delille wrote, in twenty-four hours, 

 the Dithyram.be sur f Immortaiite de VAme, to be 

 sung on the occasion of the public acknowledgment 

 of the Deity. This performance made an impression 

 even on the members of the committee of safety, but 

 was not sung. In 1794, he withdrew from Paris, 

 and gave himself up to the sublime scenery of the 

 Vosges, to meditations on the destiny of man, and on 

 the Taws of ' poetry. In Switzerland, he finished his 

 Humme des Champs, a didactic poem on the charms 

 of rural life, called also Georgigues Francoises, 

 which may be considered as a moral sequel to Vir- 

 gil's Georgics. Delille laboured on it for twenty 

 years, principally during the reign of terror, in the 

 vales of the Vosges, in 1794 and 1795 ; hence the 

 deep melancholy of many passages. The sufferings 

 of his country produced Le Malheur et la Pitie, four 

 cantos (Lond. 1803), full of lovely and touching pic- 

 lures, in harmonious verse. At London, he married 

 (1802) mademoiselle Vaudchamps, for a long time 

 the companion of his travels. Here he translated, in 

 fifteen months, Milton's Paradise Lost, perhaps the 

 most poetical of all his works ; but the exertion 

 brought on a stroke of the apoplexy. After his re- 

 turn to France, he wrote lu's Trois Regncs de la Na- 

 ture, and the admired poem La Conversation, a sub- 

 ject of which he was master. Its poetical character 

 is the same as that of his other works. Lively feel- 

 ing, richness of conception, animated descriptions, 

 purity and great elegance of expression, harmoniou 

 and easy versification, are its chief excellences. 

 Bouterwek justly remarks, " A didactic work, like 

 Relille's elegant Homme des Champs, may have 

 many charms of diction, without being a poem.' 

 Delille composed in his head, without writing, even 

 the 30,000 verses of his translation of the ,<Eneid, and 

 like Tasso, trusted them with more confidence to his 

 memory than to his tablets. But his bodily vigour 

 diminished, as his mental powers increased. He 

 grew blind, and died on the first of May, 1813. In 

 a poem not committed to paper, he had sung of ol( 

 Bge, and his approaching death ; of the vanities o 



he present, and the happiness of the future life- 

 ie was universally lamented, on account of his ami- 

 able character, as well as of his talents. After lu's 

 leath appeared Le Depart d'Eden (Paris). 



DELISLE, or DE L'ISLE, WILLIAM ; a geogra- 

 jher, born at Paris, in 1675. He was instructed by 

 ^assini, and soon conceived the idea of reforming the 

 whole system of geography. He published, in his 

 twenty-fifth year, a map of the world, maps of Europe, 

 Asia, and Africa, a celestial and terrestrial globe of 

 a foot in diameter. By rejecting Ptolemy's statements 

 of longitude, or rather by comparing them with the 

 astronomical observations and the statements of mo- 

 dern travellers, he founded the modern system of 

 jeography. The number of his geographical maps 

 of the old and new world amounts to 100. His last 

 dition of his map of the world, was published in 

 1724. These maps are valuable even at the present 

 day. His brother Joseph Nicolas, born in 1688, at 

 Paris, devoted himself in his earliest youth to astro- 

 nomy, under the direction of Lieutaud and Cassini, 

 and was admitted into the academy of sciences. His 

 observations on the transit of Mercury over the sun, 

 in 1723, and of the eclipse of the sun, in 1724, in- 

 reased his reputation. The empress Catharine 1. 

 invited him to Petersburg, to establish a school for 

 astronomy, to which the tame of Delisle soon gave 

 celebrity. His leisure time was employed in travel- 

 ling, for the purpose of making interesting collec- 

 tions in natural science and geography. On his 

 return, his collections were purchased by the king, 

 and Delisle himself was appointed inspector of 

 them. He continued his observations till his death, 

 in 1768. Among his pupils were Lalandeand Mes- 

 sier. His most important geographical work, Me- 

 moires sur les nouvelles Decouvertes au Nord de la Mer 

 du Sud (1752), contains the results of the Russian 

 voyages to discover a passage from the Pacific ocean 

 into the waters north of America. His Memoires pour 

 servir a I'Histoire et aux Progres de V Astronomic, de 

 la Geographic, et de la Physique (1738), remain un- 

 finished. His Avertissement aux Astronomes sur 

 CEclipse annulaire du Soleil que fon attend le 5 

 Juin, 1748, gives a complete history of all annular 

 eclipses of the sun. 



DELLA MARIA, DOMINIQUE, a French com- 

 poser, was descended from an Italian family, and born 

 at Marseilles, in 1778. He composed, in his eigh- 

 teenth year, an opera which was performed, with 

 applause, in his native city, and went afterwards to 

 Italy, where he enjoyed the instruction of several 

 great masters, particularly of Paesiello, and com- 

 posed six comic operas, of which // Maestro di Cap- 

 pella is the most distinguished. After his return to 

 Paris, his opera Le Prisonnier increased his reputa- 

 tion, and the airs of his Opera Comique became na- 

 tional favourites. In his works, the song is easy 

 and agreeable, the style pure and elegant, the ex- 

 pression natural, the accompaniment easy, original, 

 and pleasing. He played with extraordinary skill 

 on the piano-forte, and the violoncello. He died in 

 his twenty-ninth year (1806). 



DELOLME, JOHN Louis, a writer on the English 

 constitution, was born at Geneva, in 1740, (accord- 

 ing to some, in 1745). He at first practised as a law- 

 yer in his native city, but the part which he took in 

 its internal commotions, by a work entitled Examen 

 des trois Points de Droit, obliged him to repair to 

 England, where he passed some years in great indi- 

 gence. He wrote for journals, frequented low ta- 

 verns, was devoted to gaming and pleasure, and 

 lived hi such obscurity, that, when he became known 

 by his work on the English Constitution, and some 

 people of distinction were desirous of relieving bins, 

 it was impossible to discover his place of residence. 



