Chapter XV: Part 15

DE LA GARDIE, MAGNUS GABRIEL, COUNT (1622-1686), Swedish statesman, the best-known member of an ancient family of French origin (the D'Escouperies of Languedoc) which had been settled in Sweden since the 14th century. After a careful education, completed by the usual grand tour, Magnus learned the art of war under Gustavus Horn, and during the reign of Christina (1644-1654), whose prime favourite he became, though the liaison was innocent enough, he was raised to the highest offices in the state and loaded with distinctions. In 1646 he was sent at the head of an extraordinary mission to France, and on his return married the queen's cousin Marie Euphrosyne of Zweibrucken, who, being but a poor princess, benefited greatly by her wedding with the richest of the Swedish magnates. Immediately afterwards, De la Gardie was made a senator, governor-general of Saxony during the last stages of the Thirty Years' War, and, in 1652, lord high treasurer. In 1653 he fell into disgrace and had to withdraw from court. During the reign of Charles X. (1654-1660) he was employed in the Baltic provinces both as a civilian and a soldier, although in the latter capacity he gave the martial king but little satisfaction. Charles X. nevertheless, in his last will, appointed De la Gardie grand-chancellor and a member of the council of regency which ruled Sweden during the minority of Charles XI. (1660-1672). During this period De la Gardie was the ruling spirit of the government and represented the party of warlike adventure as opposed to the party of peace and economy led by Counts Bonde and Brahe (qq.v.). After a severe struggle De la Gardie's party finally prevailed, and its triumph was marked by that general decline of personal and political morality which has given to this regency its unenviable reputation. It was De la Gardie who first made Sweden the obsequious hireling of the foreign power which had the longest purse. The beginning of this shameful "subsidy policy" was the treaty of Fontainebleau, 1661, by a secret paragraph of which Sweden, in exchange for a considerable sum of money, undertook to support the French candidate on the first vacancy of the Polish throne. It was not, however, till the 14th of April 1672 that Sweden, by the treaty of Stockholm, became a regular "mercenarius Galliae," pledging herself, in return for 400,000 _ecus_ per annum in peace and 600,000 in war time, to attack with 16,000 men those German princes who might be disposed to assist Holland. The early disasters of the unlucky war of 1675-1679 were rightly attributed to the carelessness, extravagance, procrastination and general incompetence of De la Gardie and his high aristocratic colleagues. In 1675 a special commission was appointed to inquire into their conduct, and on the 27th of May 1682 it decided that the regents and the senate were solely responsible for dilapidations of the realm, the compensation due by them to the crown being assessed at 4,000,000 _daler_ or L500,000. De la Gardie was treated with relative leniency, but he "received permission to retire to his estates for the rest of his life" and died there in comparative poverty, a mere shadow of his former magnificent self. The best sides of his character were his brilliant social gifts and his intense devotion to literature and art.

See Martin Veibull, _Sveriges Storhetstid_ (Stockholm, 1881); _Sv.
Hist._ iv.; Robert Nisbet Bain, _Scandinavia_ (Cambridge, 1905).
(R. N. B.)

DELAGOA BAY (Port. for the bay "of the lagoon"), an inlet of the Indian Ocean on the east coast of South Africa, between 25 deg. 40' and 26 deg. 20' S., with a length from north to south of over 70 m. and a breadth of about 20 m. The bay is the northern termination of the series of lagoons which line the coast from Saint Lucia Bay. The opening is toward the N.E. The southern part of the bay is formed by a peninsula, called the Inyak peninsula, which on its inner or western side affords safe anchorage. At its N.W. point is Port Melville. North of the peninsula is Inyak Island, and beyond it a smaller island known as Elephant's Island.

In spite of a bar at the entrance and a number of shallows within, Delagoa Bay forms a valuable harbour, accessible to large vessels at all seasons of the year. The surrounding country is low and very unhealthy, but the island of Inyak has a height of 240 ft., and is used as a sanatorium. A river 12 to 18 ft. deep, known as the Manhissa or Komati, enters the bay at its northern end; several smaller streams, the Matolla, the Umbelozi, and the Tembi, from the Lebombo Mountains, meet towards the middle of the bay in the estuary called by the Portuguese the Espirito Santo, but generally known as the English river; and the Maputa, which has its headwaters in the Drakensberg, enters in the south, as also does the Umfusi river. These rivers are the haunts of the hippopotamus and the crocodile.

The bay was discovered by the Portuguese navigator Antonio de Campo, one of Vasco da Gama's companions, in 1502, and the Portuguese post of Lourenco Marques was established not long after on the north side of the English river. In 1720 the Dutch East India Company built a fort and "factory" on the spot where Lourenco Marques now stands; but in 1730 the settlement was abandoned. Thereafter the Portuguese had--intermittently--trading stations in the Espirito Santo. These stations were protected by small forts, usually incapable, however, of withstanding attacks by the natives. In 1823 Captain (afterwards Vice-Admiral) W. F. W. Owen, of the British navy, finding that the Portuguese exercised no jurisdiction south of the settlement of Lourenco Marques, concluded treaties of cession with native chiefs, hoisted the British flag, and appropriated the country from the English river southwards; but when he visited the bay again in 1824 he found that the Portuguese, disregarding the British treaties, had concluded others with the natives, and had endeavoured (unsuccessfully) to take military possession of the country. Captain Owen rehoisted the British flag, but the sovereignty of either power was left undecided till the claims of the Transvaal Republic rendered a solution of the question urgent. In the meantime Great Britain had taken no steps to exercise authority on the spot, while the ravages of Zulu hordes confined Portuguese authority to the limits of their fort. In 1835 Boers, under a leader named Orich, had attempted to form a settlement on the bay, which is the natural outlet for the Transvaal; and in 1868 the Transvaal president, Marthinus Pretorius, claimed the country on each side of the Maputa down to the sea. In the following year, however, the Transvaal acknowledged Portugal's sovereignty over the bay. In 1861 Captain Bickford, R.N., had declared Inyak and Elephant islands British territory; an act protested against by the Lisbon authorities. In 1872 the dispute between Great Britain and Portugal was submitted to the arbitration of M. Thiers, the French president; and on the 19th of April 1875 his successor, Marshal MacMahon, declared in favour of the Portuguese. It had been previously agreed by Great Britain and Portugal that the right of pre-emption in case of sale or cession should be given to the unsuccessful claimant to the bay. Portuguese authority over the interior was not established until some time after the MacMahon award; nominally the country south of the Manhissa river was ceded to them by the Matshangana chief Umzila in 1861. In 1889 another dispute arose between Portugal and Great Britain in consequence of the seizure by the Portuguese of the railway running from the bay to the Transvaal. This dispute was referred to arbitration, and in 1900 Portugal was condemned to pay nearly L1,000,000 in compensation to the shareholders in the railway company. (See LOURENCO MARQUES and GAZALAND.)

For an account of the Delagoa Bay arbitration proceedings see Sir E.
Hertslet, _The Map of Africa by Treaty_, iii. 991-998 (London, 1909).
Consult also the British blue-book, _Delagoa Bay, Correspondence
respecting the Claims of Her Majesty's Government_ (London, 1875); L.
van Deventer, _La Hollande et la Baie Delagoa_ (The Hague, 1883); G.
McC. Theal, _The Portuguese in South Africa_ (London, 1896), and
_History of South Africa since September 1795_, vol. v. (London,
1908). _The Narrative of Voyages to explore the shores of Africa ...
performed ... under direction of Captain W. F. W. Owen, R.N._ (London,
1833) contains much interesting information concerning the district in
the early part of the 19th century.

DELAMBRE, JEAN BAPTISTE JOSEPH (1749-1822), French astronomer, was born at Amiens on the 19th of September 1749. His college course, begun at Amiens under the abbe Jacques Delille, was finished in Paris, where he took a scholarship at the college of Plessis. Despite extreme penury, he then continued to study indefatigably ancient and modern languages, history and literature, finally turning his attention to mathematics and astronomy. In 1771 he became tutor to the son of M. d'Assy, receiver-general of finances; and while acting in this capacity, attended the lectures of J. J. Lalande, who, struck with his remarkable acquirements, induced M. d'Assy in 1788 to install an observatory for his benefit at his own residence. Here Delambre observed and computed almost uninterruptedly, and in 1790 obtained for his Tables of Uranus the prize offered by the academy of sciences, of which body he was elected a member two years later. He was admitted to the Institute on its organization in 1795, and became, in 1803, perpetual secretary to its mathematical section. He, moreover, belonged from 1795 to the bureau of longitudes. From 1792 to 1799 he was occupied with the measurement of the arc of the meridian extending from Dunkirk to Barcelona, and published a detailed account of the operations in _Base du systeme metrique_ (3 vols., 1806, 1807, 1810), for which he was awarded in 1810 the decennial prize of the Institute. The first consul nominated him inspector-general of studies; he succeeded Lalande in 1807 as professor of astronomy at the College de France, and filled the office of treasurer to the imperial university from 1808 until its suppression in 1815. Delambre died at Paris on the 19th of August 1822. His last years were devoted to researches into the history of science, resulting in the successive publication of: _Histoire de l'astronomie ancienne_ (2 vols., 1817); _Histoire de l'astronomie au moyen age_ (1819); _Histoire de l'astronomie moderne_ (2 vols., 1821); and _Histoire de l'astronomie au XVIII^e siecle_, issued in 1827 under the care of C. L. Mathieu. These books show marvellous erudition; but some of the judgments expressed in them are warped by prejudice; they are diffuse in style and overloaded with computations. He wrote besides: _Tables ecliptiques des satellites de Jupiter_, inserted in the third edition of J. J. Lalande's _Astronomie_ (1792), and republished in an improved form by the bureau of longitudes in 1817; _Methodes analytiques pour la determination d'un arc du meridien_ (1799); _Tables du soleil (publiees par le bureau des longitudes)_ (1806); _Rapport historique sur les progres des sciences mathematiques depuis l'an 1789_ (1810); _Abrege d'astronomie_ (1813); _Astronomie theorique et pratique_ (1814); &c.

See J. B. J. Fourier's "Eloge" in _Memoires de l'acad. des sciences_,
t. iv.; Ch. Dupin, _Revue encyclopedique_, t. xvi. (1822); _Biog.
universelle_, t. lxii. (C. L. Mathieu); Max. Marie, _Hist. des
sciences_, x. 31; R. Grant, _Hist. of Physical Astr._ pp. 96, 142,
165; R. Wolf, _Geschichte der Astronomie_, p. 779, &c. (A. M. C.)

DELAMERE (or DE LA MER), GEORGE BOOTH, 1st BARON (1622-1684), son of William Booth, a member of an ancient family settled at Dunham Massey in Cheshire, and of Vere, daughter and co-heir of Sir Thomas Egerton, was born in August 1622. He took an active part in the Civil War with his grandfather, Sir George Booth, on the parliamentary side. He was returned for Cheshire to the Long Parliament in 1645 and to Cromwell's parliaments of 1654 and 1656. In 1655 he was appointed military commissioner for Cheshire and treasurer at war. He was one of the excluded members who tried and failed to regain their seats after the fall of Richard Cromwell in 1659. He had for some time been regarded by the royalists as a well-wisher to their cause, and was described to the king in May 1659 as "very considerable in his country, a presbyterian in opinion, yet so moral a man.... I think your Majesty may safely [rely] on him and his promises which are considerable and hearty."[1] He now became one of the chief leaders of the new "royalists" who at this time united with the cavaliers to effect the restoration. A rising was arranged for the 5th of August in several districts, and Booth took charge of operations in Cheshire, Lancashire and North Wales. He got possession of Chester on the 19th, issued a proclamation declaring that arms had been taken up "in vindication of the freedom of parliament, of the known laws, liberty and property," and marched towards York. The plot, however, was known to Thurloe. It had entirely failed in other parts of the country, and Lambert advancing with his forces defeated Booth's men at Nantwich Bridge. Booth himself escaped disguised as a woman, but was discovered at Newport Pagnell on the 23rd in the act of shaving, and was imprisoned in the Tower. He was, however, soon liberated, took his seat in the parliament of 1659-1660, and was one of the twelve members deputed to carry the message of the Commons to Charles II. at the Hague. In July 1660 he received a grant of L10,000, having refused the larger sum of L20,000 at first offered to him, and on the 20th of April 1661, on the occasion of the coronation, he was created Baron Delamere, with a licence to create six new knights. The same year he was appointed _custos rotulorum_ of Cheshire. In later years he showed himself strongly antagonistic to the reactionary policy of the government. He died on the 8th of August 1684, and was buried at Bowdon. He married (1) Lady Catherine Clinton, daughter and co-heir of Theophilus, 4th earl of Lincoln, by whom he had one daughter; and (2) Lady Elizabeth Grey, daughter of Henry, 1st earl of Stamford, by whom, besides five daughters, he had seven sons, the second of whom, Henry, succeeded him in the title and estates and was created earl of Warrington. The earldom became extinct on the death of the latter's son, the 2nd earl, without male issue, in 1758, and the barony of Delamere terminated in the person of the 4th baron in 1770; the title was revived in 1821 in the Cholmondeley family.

FOOTNOTE:

[1] Clarendon, _State Papers_, iii. 472.

DE LAND, a town and the county-seat of Volusia county, Florida, U.S.A., 111 m. by rail S. of Jacksonville, 20 m. from the Atlantic coast and 4 m. from the St John's river. Pop. (1900) 1449; (1910) 2812. De Land is served by the Atlantic Coast Line and by steamboats on the St John's river. It has a fine winter climate, with an average temperature of 60 deg. F., has sulphur springs, and is a health and winter resort. There is a starch factory here; and the surrounding country is devoted to fruit-growing. De Land is the seat of the John B. Stetson University (co-educational), an undenominational institution under Baptist control, founded in 1884, as an academy, by Henry A. De Land, a manufacturer of Fairport, New York, and in 1887 incorporated under the name of De Land University, which was changed in 1889 to the present name, in honour of John Batterson Stetson (1830-1906), a Philadelphia manufacturer of hats, who during his life gave nearly $500,000 to the institution. The university includes a college of liberal arts, a department of law, a school of technology, an academy, a normal school, a model school, a business college and a school of music. De Land was founded in 1876 by H. A. De Land, above mentioned, who built a public school here in 1877 and a high school in 1883.

DELANE, JOHN THADEUS (1817-1879), editor of _The Times_ (London), was born on the 11th of October 1817 in London. He was the second son of Mr W. F. A. Delane, a barrister, of an old Irish family, who about 1832 was appointed by Mr Walter financial manager of _The Times_. While still a boy he attracted Mr Walter's attention, and it was always intended that he should find work on the paper. He received a good general education at private schools and King's College, London, and also at Magdalen Hall, Oxford; after taking his degree in 1840 he at once began work on the paper, though later he read for the bar, being called in 1847. In 1841 he succeeded Thomas Barnes as editor, a post which he occupied for thirty-six years. He from the first obtained the best introductions into society and the chief political circles, and had a position there such as no journalist had previously enjoyed, using his opportunities with a sure intuition for the way in which events would move. His staff included some of the most brilliant men of the day, who worked together with a common ideal. The result to the paper, which in those days had hardly any real competitor in English journalism, was an excellence of information which gave it great power. (See NEWSPAPERS.) Delane was a man of many interests and great judgment; capable of long application and concentrated attention, with power to seize always on the main point at issue, and rapidly master the essential facts in the most complicated affair. His general policy was to keep the paper a national organ of opinion above party, but with a tendency to sympathize with the Liberal movements of the day. He admired Palmerston and respected Lord Aberdeen, and was of considerable use to both; and it was Lord Aberdeen himself who, in 1845, told him of the impending repeal of the Corn Laws, an incident round which many incorrect stories have gathered. The history, however, of the events during the thirteen administrations, between 1841 and 1877, in which _The Times_, and therefore Delane, played an important part cannot here be recapitulated. In 1877 his health gave way, and he retired from the editorship; and on the 22nd of November 1879 he died at Ascot.

A biography by his nephew, Arthur Irwin Dasent, was published in 1908.

DELANY, MARY GRANVILLE (1700-1788), an Englishwoman of literary tastes, was born at Coulston, Wilts, on the 14th of May 1700. She was a niece of the 1st Lord Lansdowne. In 1717 or 1718 she was unhappily married to Alexander Pendarves, a rich old Cornish landowner, who died in 1724. During a visit to Ireland she met Dean Swift and his intimate friend, the Irish divine, Patrick Delany, whose second wife she became in 1743. After his death in 1768 she passed all her summers with her bosom friend the dowager duchess of Portland--Prior's "Peggy"--and when the latter died George III. and Queen Charlotte, whose affection for their "dearest Mrs Delany" seems to have been most genuine, gave her a small house at Windsor and a pension of L300 a year. Fanny Burney (Madame D'Arblay) was introduced to her in 1783, and frequently visited her at her London home and at Windsor, and owed to her friendship her court appointment. At this time Mrs Delany was a charming and sweet old lady, with a reputation for cutting out and making the ingenious "paper mosaiks" now in the British Museum; she had known every one worth knowing in her day, had corresponded with Swift and Young, and left an interesting picture of the polite but commonplace English society of the 18th century in her six volumes of _Autobiography and Letters_. Burke calls her "a real fine lady"--"the model of an accomplished woman of former times." She died on the 15th of April 1788.

DE LA REY, JACOBUS HERCULES (1847- ), Boer soldier, was born in the Lichtenburg district, and in his youth and early manhood saw much service in savage warfare. In 1893 he entered the Volksraad of the South African Republic, and was an active supporter of the policy of General Joubert. At the outbreak of the war with Great Britain in 1899 De La Rey was made a general, and he was engaged in the western campaign against Lord Methuen and Lord Roberts. He won his first great success at Nitral's Nek on the 11th of July 1900, where he compelled the surrender of a strong English detachment. In the second or guerrilla stage of the war De La Rey became one of the most conspicuously successful of the Boer leaders. He was assistant to General Louis Botha and a member of the government, with charge of operations in the western Transvaal. The principal actions in which he was successful (see also TRANSVAAL: _History_) were Nooitgedacht, Vlakfontein and the defeat and capture of Lord Methuen at Klerksdorp (March 7, 1902). The British general was severely wounded in the action, and De La Rey released him at once, being unable to afford him proper medical assistance. This humanity and courtesy marked De La Rey's conduct throughout the war, and even more than his military skill and daring earned for him the esteem of his enemies. After the conclusion of peace De La Rey, who had borne a prominent part in the negotiations, visited Europe with the other generals, with the intention of raising funds to enable the Boers to resettle their country. In December 1903 he went on a mission to India, and induced the whole of the Boer prisoners of war detained at Ahmednagar to accept the new order of things and to take the oath of allegiance. In February 1907 General De La Rey was returned unopposed as member for Ventersdorp in the legislative assembly of the first Transvaal parliament under self-government.

DE LA RIVE, AUGUSTE ARTHUR (1801-1873), Swiss physicist, was born at Geneva on the 9th of October 1801. He was the son of Charles Gaspard de la Rive (1770-1834), who studied medicine at Edinburgh, and after practising for a few years in London, became professor of pharmaceutical chemistry at the academy of Geneva in 1802 and rector in 1823. After a brilliant career as a student, he was appointed at the age of twenty-two to the chair of natural philosophy in the academy of Geneva. For some years after his appointment he devoted himself specially, with Francois Marcet (1803-1883), to the investigation of the specific heat of gases, and to observations for determining the temperature of the earth's crust. Electrical studies, however, engaged most of his attention, especially in connexion with the theory of the voltaic cell and the electric discharge in rarefied gases. His researches on the last-mentioned subject led him to form a new theory of the aurora borealis. In 1840 he described a process for the electro-gilding of silver and brass, for which in the following year he received a prize of 3000 francs from the French Academy of Sciences. Between 1854 and 1858 he published a _Traite de l'electricite theorique et appliquee_, which was translated into several languages. De la Rive's birth and fortune gave him considerable social and political influence. He was distinguished for his hospitality to literary and scientific men, and for his interest in the welfare and independence of his native country. In 1860, when the annexation of Savoy and Nice had led the Genevese to fear French aggression, de la Rive was sent by his fellow-citizens on a special embassy to England, and succeeded in securing a declaration from the English government, which was communicated privately to that of France, that any attack upon Geneva would be regarded as a _casus belli_. On the occasion of this visit the university of Oxford conferred upon de la Rive the honorary degree of D.C.L. When on his way to pass the winter at Cannes he died suddenly at Marseilles on the 27th of November 1873.

His son, LUCIEN DE LA RIVE, born at Geneva on the 3rd of April 1834, published papers on various mathematical and physical subjects, and with Edouard Sarasin carried out investigations on the propagation of electric waves.

DELAROCHE, HIPPOLYTE, commonly known as PAUL (1797-1856), French painter, was born in Paris on the 17th of July 1797. His father was an expert who had made a fortune, to some extent, by negotiating and cataloguing, buying and selling. He was proud of his son's talent, and able to forward his artistic education. The master selected was Gros, then painting life-size histories, and surrounded by many pupils. In no haste to make an appearance in the Salon, his first exhibited picture was a large one, "Josabeth saving Joas" (1822). This picture led to his acquaintance with Gericault and Delacroix, with whom he remained on the most friendly terms, the three forming the central group of a numerous body of historical painters, such as perhaps never before lived in one locality and at one time.

From 1822 the record of his life is to be found in the successive works coming from his hand. He visited Italy in 1838 and 1843, when his father-in-law, Horace Vernet, was director of the French Academy. His studio in Paris was in the rue Mazarine, where he never spent a day without some good result, his hand being sure and his knowledge great. His subjects, definitely expressed and popular in their manner of treatment, illustrating certain views of history dear to partisans, yet romantic in their general interest, were painted with a firm, solid, smooth surface, which gave an appearance of the highest finish. This solidity, found also on the canvas of Vernet, Scheffer, Leopold Robert and Ingres, was the manner of the day. It repudiates the technical charm of texture and variety of handling which the English school inherited as a tradition from the time of Reynolds; but it is more easily understood by the world at large, since a picture so executed depends for its interest rather on the history, scene in nature or object depicted, than on the executive skill, which may or may not be critically appreciated. We may add that his point of view of the historical characters which he treated is not always just. "Cromwell lifting the Coffin-lid and looking at the Body of Charles" is an incident only to be excused by an improbable tradition; but "The King in the Guard-Room," with villainous roundhead soldiers blowing tobacco smoke in his patient face, is a libel on the Puritans; and "Queen Elizabeth dying on the Ground," like a she-dragon no one dares to touch, is sensational; while the "Execution of Lady Jane Grey" is represented as taking place in a dungeon. Nothing can be more incorrect than this last as a reading of English history, yet we forget the inaccuracy in admiration of the treatment which represents Lady Jane, with bandaged sight, feeling for the block, her maids covering their faces, and none with their eyes visible among the many figures. On the other hand, "Strafford led to Execution," when Laud stretches his lawn-covered arms out of the small high window of his cell to give him a blessing as he passes along the corridor, is perfect; and the splendid scene of Richelieu in his gorgeous barge, preceding the boat containing Cinq-Mars and De Thou carried to execution by their guards, is perhaps the most dramatic semi-historical work ever done. "The Princes in the Tower" must also be mentioned as a very complete creation; and the "Young female Martyr floating dead on the Tiber" is so pathetic that criticism feels hard-hearted and ashamed before it. As a realization of a page of authentic history, again, no picture can surpass the "Assassination of the duc de Guise at Blois." The expression of the murdered man stretched out by the side of the bed, the conspirators all massed together towards the door and far from the body, show exact study as well as insight into human nature. This work was exhibited in his meridian time, 1835; and in the same year he exhibited the "Head of an Angel," a study from Horace Vernet's young daughter Louise, his love for whom was the absorbing passion of his life, and from the shock of whose death, in 1845, it is said he never quite recovered. By far his finest productions after her death are of the most serious character, a sequence of small elaborate pictures of incidents in the Passion. Two of these, the Virgin and the other Maries, with the apostles Peter and John, within a nearly dark apartment, hearing the crowd as it passes haling Christ to Calvary, and St John conducting the Virgin home again after all is over, are beyond all praise as exhibiting the divine story from a simply human point of view. They are pure and elevated, and also dramatic and painful. Delaroche was not troubled by ideals, and had no affectation of them. His sound but hard execution allowed no mystery to intervene between him and his _motif_, which was always intelligible to the million, so that he escaped all the waste of energy that painters who try to be poets on canvas suffer. Thus it is that essentially the same treatment was applied by him to the characters of distant historical times, the founders of the Christian religion, and the real people of his own day, such as "Napoleon at Fontainebleau," or "Napoleon at St Helena," or "Marie Antoinette leaving the Convention" after her sentence.

In 1837 Delaroche received the commission for the great picture, 27 metres long, in the hemicycle of the lecture theatre of the Ecole des Beaux Arts. This represents the great artists of the modern ages assembled in groups on either hand of a central elevation of white marble steps, on the topmost of which are three thrones filled by the architects and sculptors of the Parthenon. To supply the female element in this vast composition he introduced the genii or muses, who symbolize or reign over the arts, leaning against the balustrade of the steps, beautiful and queenly figures with a certain antique perfection of form, but not informed by any wonderful or profound expression. The portrait figures are nearly all unexceptionable and admirable. This great and successful work is on the wall itself, an inner wall however, and is executed in oil. It was finished in 1841, and considerably injured by a fire which occurred in 1855, which injury he immediately set himself to remedy (finished by Robert-Fleury); but he died before he had well begun, on the 4th of November 1856.

Personally Delaroche exercised even a greater influence than by his works. Though short and not powerfully made, he impressed every one as rather tall than otherwise; his physiognomy was accentuated and firm, and his fine forehead gave him the air of a minister of state.

See Rees, _Delaroche_ (London, 1880). (W. B. Sc.)

DELARUE, GERVAIS (1751-1835), French historical investigator, formerly regarded as one of the chief authorities on Norman and Anglo-Norman literature, was a native of Caen. He received his education at the university of that town, and was ultimately raised to the rank of professor. His first historical enterprise was interrupted by the French Revolution, which forced him to take refuge in England, where he took the opportunity of examining a vast mass of original documents in the Tower and elsewhere, and received much encouragement, from Sir Walter Scott among others. From England he passed over to Holland, still in prosecution of his favourite task; and there he remained till in 1798 he returned to France. The rest of his life was spent in his native town, where he was chosen principal of his university. While in England he had been elected a member of the Royal Society of Antiquaries; and in his own country he was made a corresponding member of the Institute, and was enrolled in the Legion of Honour. Besides numerous articles in the _Memoirs of the Royal Society of London_, the _Memoires de l'Institut_, the _Memoires de la Societe d'Agriculture de Caen_, and in other periodical collections, he published separately _Essais historiques sur les Bardes, les Jongleurs, et les Trouveres normands et anglo-normands_ (3 vols., 1834), and _Recherches historiques sur la Prairie de Caen_ (1837); and after his death appeared _Memoires historiques sur le palinod de Caen_ (1841), _Recherches sur la tapisserie de Bayeux_ (1841), and _Nouveaux Essais historiques sur la ville de Caen_ (1842). In all his writings he displays a strong partiality for everything Norman, and rates the Norman influence on French and English literature as of the very highest moment.

DE LA RUE, WARREN (1815-1889), British astronomer and chemist, son of Thomas De la Rue, the founder of the large firm of stationers of that name in London, was born in Guernsey on the 18th of January 1815. Having completed his education in Paris, he entered his father's business, but devoted his leisure hours to chemical and electrical researches, and between 1836 and 1848 published several papers on these subjects. Attracted to astronomy by the influence of James Nasmyth, he constructed in 1850 a 13-in. reflecting telescope, mounted first at Canonbury, later at Cranford, Middlesex, and with its aid executed many drawings of the celestial bodies of singular beauty and fidelity. His chief title to fame, however, is his pioneering work in the application of the art of photography to astronomical research. In 1851 his attention was drawn to a daguerreotype of the moon by G. P. Bond, shown at the great exhibition of that year. Excited to emulation and employing the more rapid wet-collodion process, he succeeded before long in obtaining exquisitely defined lunar pictures, which remained unsurpassed until the appearance of the Rutherfurd photographs in 1865. In 1854 he turned his attention to solar physics, and for the purpose of obtaining a daily photographic representation of the state of the solar surface he devised the photo-heliograph, described in his report to the British Association, "On Celestial Photography in England" (1859), and in his Bakerian Lecture (_Phil. Trans._ vol. clii. pp. 333-416). Regular work with this instrument, inaugurated at Kew by De la Rue in 1858, was carried on there for fourteen years; and was continued at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, from 1873 to 1882. The results obtained in the years 1862-1866 were discussed in two memoirs, entitled "Researches on Solar Physics," published by De la Rue, in conjunction with Professor Balfour Stewart and Mr B. Loewy, in the _Phil. Trans._ (vol. clix. pp. 1-110, and vol. clx. pp. 389-496). In 1860 De la Rue took the photo-heliograph to Spain for the purpose of photographing the total solar eclipse which occurred on the 18th of July of that year. This expedition formed the subject of the Bakerian Lecture already referred to. The photographs obtained on that occasion proved beyond doubt the solar character of the prominences or red flames, seen around the limb of the moon during a solar eclipse. In 1873 De la Rue gave up active work in astronomy, and presented most of his astronomical instruments to the university observatory, Oxford. Subsequently, in the year 1887, he provided the same observatory with a 13-in. refractor to enable it to take part in the International Photographic Survey of the Heavens. With Dr Hugo Muller as his collaborator he published several papers of a chemical character between the years 1856 and 1862, and investigated, 1868-1883, the discharge of electricity through gases by means of a battery of 14,600 chloride of silver cells. He was twice president of the Chemical Society, and also of the Royal Astronomical Society (1864-1866). In 1862 he received the gold medal of the latter society, and in 1864 a Royal medal from the Royal Society, for his observations on the total eclipse of the sun in 1860, and for his improvements in astronomical photography. He died in London on the 19th of April 1889.

See _Monthly Notices Roy. Astr. Soc._ l. 155; _Journ. Chem. Soc._
lvii. 441; _Nature_, xl. 26; _The Times_ (April 22, 1889); Royal
Society, _Catalogue of Scientific Papers_.

DELATOR, in Roman history, properly one who gave notice (_deferre_) to the treasury officials of moneys that had become due to the imperial fisc. This special meaning was extended to those who lodged information as to punishable offences, and further, to those who brought a public accusation (whether true or not) against any person (especially with the object of getting money). Although the word _delator_ itself, for "common informer," is confined to imperial times, the right of public accusation had long been in existence. When exercised from patriotic and disinterested motives, its effects were beneficial; but the moment the principle of reward was introduced, this was no longer the case. Sometimes the accuser was rewarded with the rights of citizenship, a place in the senate, or a share of the property of the accused. At the end of the republican period, Cicero (_De Officiis_, ii. 14) expresses his opinion that such accusations should be undertaken only in the interests of the state or for other urgent reasons. Under the empire the system degenerated into an abuse, which reached its height during the reign of Tiberius, although the delators continued to exercise their activity till the reign of Theodosius. They were drawn from all classes of society,--patricians, knights, freedmen, slaves, philosophers, literary men, and, above all, lawyers. The objects of their attacks were the wealthy, all possible rivals of the emperor, and those whose conduct implied a reproach against the imperial mode of life. Special opportunities were afforded by the law of majestas, which (originally directed against attacks on the ruler by word or deed) came to include all kinds of accusations with which it really had nothing to do; indeed, according to Tacitus, a charge of treason was regularly added to all criminal charges. The chief motive for these accusations was no doubt the desire of amassing wealth,[1] since by the law of majestas one-fourth of the goods of the accused, even if he committed suicide in order to avoid confiscation (which was always carried out in the case of those condemned to capital punishment), was assured to the accuser (who was hence called _quadruplator_). Pliny and Martial mention instances of enormous fortunes amassed by those who carried on this hateful calling. But it was not without its dangers. If the delator lost his case or refused to carry it through, he was liable to the same penalties as the accused; he was exposed to the risk of vengeance at the hands of the proscribed in the event of their return, or of their relatives; while emperors like Tiberius would have no scruples about banishing or putting out of the way those of his creatures for whom he had no further use, and who might have proved dangerous to himself. Under the better emperors a reaction set in, and the severest penalties were inflicted upon the delators. Titus drove into exile or reduced to slavery those who had served Nero, after they had first been flogged in the amphitheatre. The abuse naturally reappeared under a man like Domitian; the delators, with whom Vespasian had not interfered, although he had abolished trials for majestas, were again banished by Trajan, and threatened with capital punishment in an edict of Constantine; but, as has been said, the evil, which was an almost necessary accompaniment of autocracy, lasted till the end of the 4th century.

See Mayor's note on Juvenal iv. 48 for ancient authorities; C.
Merivale, _Hist. of the Romans under the Empire_, chap. 44; W. Rein,
_Criminalrecht der Romer_ (1842); T. Mommsen, _Romisches Strafrecht_
(1899); Kleinfeller in Pauly-Wissowa's _Realencyclopadie_.

FOOTNOTE:

[1] "Delatores, genus hominum publico exitio repertum ... per praemia
eliciebantur" (Tacitus, _Annals_, iv. 30).

DELAUNAY, ELIE (1828-1891), French painter, was born at Nantes and studied under Flandrin and at the Ecole des Beaux Arts. He worked in the classicist manner of Ingres until, after winning the Prix de Rome, he went to Italy in 1856, and abandoned the ideal of Raphaelesque perfection for the sincerity and severity of the quattrocentists. As a pure and firm draughtsman he stands second only to Ingres. After his return from Rome he was entrusted with many important commissions for decorative paintings, such as the frescoes in the church of St Nicholas at Nantes; the three panels of "Apollo," "Orpheus" and "Amphion" at the Paris opera-house; and twelve paintings for the great hall of the council of state in the Palais Royal. His "Scenes from the Life of St Genevieve," which he designed for the Pantheon, remained unfinished at his death. The Luxembourg Museum has his famous "Plague in Rome" and a nude figure of "Diana"; and the Nantes Museum, the "Lesson on the Flute." In the last decade of his life he achieved great popularity as a portrait painter.

DELAUNAY, LOUIS ARSENE (1826-1903), French actor, was born in Paris, the son of a wine-seller. He studied at the Conservatoire, and made his first formal appearance on the stage in 1845, in _Tartuffe_ at the Odeon. After three years at this house he made his debut at the Comedie Francaise as Dorante in Corneille's _Le Menteur_, and began a long and brilliant career in young lover parts. He continued to act as _jeune premier_ until he was sixty, his grace, marvellous diction and passion enchanting his audiences. It was especially in the plays of Alfred de Musset that his gifts found their happiest expression. In the thirty-seven years during which he was a member of the Comedie Francaise, Delaunay took or created nearly two hundred parts. He retired in 1887, having been made a chevalier of the Legion of Honour in 1883.

DELAVIGNE, JEAN FRANCOIS CASIMIR (1793-1843), French poet and dramatist, was born on the 4th of April 1793 at Havre. His father sent him at an early age to Paris, there to be educated at the Lycee Napoleon. Constitutionally of an ardent and sympathetic temperament, he enlarged his outlook by extensive miscellaneous reading. On the 20th of March 1811 the empress Marie Louise gave birth to a son, named in his very cradle king of Rome. This event was celebrated by Delavigne in a _Dithyrambe sur la naissance du roi de Rome_, which secured for him a sinecure in the revenue office.

About this time he competed twice for an academy prize, but without success. Delavigne, inspired by the catastrophe of 1815, wrote two impassioned poems, the first entitled Waterloo, the second, _Devastation du musee_, both written in the heat of patriotic enthusiasm, and teeming with popular political allusions. A third, but of inferior merit, _Sur le besoin de s'unir apres le depart des etrangers_, was afterwards added. These stirring pieces, termed by him _Messeniennes_, sounded a keynote which found an echo in the hearts of all. Twenty-five thousand copies were sold; Delavigne was famous. He was appointed to an honorary librarianship, with no duties to discharge. In 1819 his play _Les vepres Siciliennes_ was performed at the Odeon, then just rebuilt; it had previously been refused for the Theatre Francais. On the night of the first representation, which was warmly received, Picard, the manager, threw himself into the arms of his elated friend, exclaiming, "You have saved us! You are the founder of the second French Theatre." This success was followed up by the production of the _Comediens_ (1820), a poor play, with little plot, and the _Paria_ (1821), with still less, but containing some well-written choruses. The latter piece obtained a longer lease of life than its intrinsic literary merits warranted, on account of the popularity of the political opinions freely expressed in it--so freely expressed, indeed, that the displeasure of the king was incurred, and Delavigne lost his post. But Louis Philippe, duke of Orleans, willing to gain the people's good wishes by complimenting their favourite, wrote to him as follows: "The thunder has descended on your house; I offer you an apartment in mine." Accordingly Delavigne became librarian at the Palais Royal, a position retained during the remainder of his life. It was here that he wrote the _Ecole des vieillards_ (1823), his best comedy, which gained his election to the Academy in 1825. To this period also belong _La Princesse Aurelie_ (1828), and _Marino Faliero_ (1829), a drama in the romantic style.

For his success as a writer Delavigne was in no small measure indebted to the stirring nature of the times in which he lived. The _Messeniennes_, which first introduced him to universal notice, had their origin in the excitement consequent on the occupation of France by the allies in 1815. Another crisis in his life and in the history of his country, the revolution of 1830, stimulated him to the production of a second masterpiece, _La Parisienne_. This song, set to music by Auber, was on the lips of every Frenchman, and rivalled in popularity the _Marseillaise_. A companion piece, _La Varsovienne_, was written for the Poles, by whom it was sung on the march to battle. Other works of Delavigne followed each other in rapid succession--_Louis XI_ (1832), _Les Enfants d'Edouard_ (1833), _Don Juan d'Autriche_ (1835), _Une Famille au temps du Luther_ (1836), _La Popularite_ (1838), _La Fille du Cid_ (1839), _Le Conseiller rapporteur_ (1840), and _Charles VI_ (1843), an opera partly written by his brother. In 1843 he quitted Paris to seek in Italy the health his labours had cost him. At Lyons his strength altogether gave way, and he died on the 11th of December.

By many of his own time Delavigne was looked upon as unsurpassed and unsurpassable. Every one bought and read his works. But the applause of the moment was gained at the sacrifice of lasting fame. As a writer he had many excellences. He expressed himself in a terse and vigorous style. The poet of reason rather than of imagination, he recognized his own province, and was rarely tempted to flights of fancy beyond his powers. He wrote always as he would have spoken, from sincere conviction. In private life he was in every way estimable,--upright, amiable, devoid of all jealousy, and generous to a fault.

His _Poesies_ and his _Theatre_ were published in 1863. His _Oeuvres
completes_ (new edition, 1855) contains a biographical notice by his
brother, Germain Delavigne, who is best known as a librettist in
opera. See also Sainte-Beuve, _Portraits litteraires_, vol. v.; A.
Favrot, _Etude sur Casimir Delavigne_ (1894); and F. Vuacheux,
_Casimir Delavigne_ (1893).

DELAWARE, a South Atlantic state of the United States of America, one of the thirteen original states, situated between 38 deg. 27' and 39 deg. 50' N. lat. and between 75 deg. 2' and 75 deg. 47' W. long. (For map see MARYLAND.) It is bounded N. and N.W. by Pennsylvania, E. by the Delaware river and Delaware Bay, which separate it from New Jersey, and by the Atlantic Ocean; S. and W. by Maryland. With the exception of Rhode Island it is the smallest state in the Union, its area being 2370 sq. m., of which 405 sq. m. are water surface.

_Physical Features._--Delaware lies on the Atlantic coastal plain, and is for the most part level and relatively low, its average elevation above the sea being about 50 ft. It is situated in the eastern part of the peninsula formed by Chesapeake Bay and the estuary of the Delaware river. In the extreme N. the country is rolling, with moderately high hills, moderately deep valleys and rapid streams. West of Wilmington there rises a ridge which crosses the state in a north-westerly direction and forms a watershed between Christiana and Brandywine creeks, its highest elevation above sea-level being 280 ft. South of the Christiana there begins another elevation, sandy and marshy, which extends almost the entire length of the state from N.W. to S.E., and forms a second water-parting. The streams that drain the state are small and insignificant. Those of the N. flow into Brandywine and Christiana creeks, whose estuary into Delaware river forms Wilmington harbour; those of the S.W. have a common outlet in the Nanticoke river of Maryland; those of the E. empty into Delaware Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. The principal harbours are those of Wilmington, New Castle and Lewes. The shore of the bay is marshy, that of the Atlantic is sandy. In Kent county there are more than 60,000 acres of tidal marshland, some of which has been reclaimed by means of dykes; Cypress Swamp in the extreme S. has an area of 50,000 acres. The soils of the N. are clays, sometimes mixed with loam; those of the central part are mainly loams; while those of the S. are sands.

Minerals are found only in the N. part of the state. Those of economic value are kaolin, mined chiefly in the vicinity of Hockessin, New Castle county, the static kaolin product being exceeded in 1903 only by that of Pennsylvania among the states of the United States; granite, used for road-making and rough construction work, found near Wilmington; and brick and tile clays; but the value of their total product in 1902 was less than $500,000. In 1906 the total mineral product was valued at $814,126, of which $237,768 represented clay products and $146,346 stone. In 1902 only 2.2% of the wage-earners were engaged in mining.

The forests, which once afforded excellent timber, including white oak for shipbuilding, have been greatly reduced by constant cutting; in 1900 it was estimated that 700 sq. m. were wooded, but practically none of this stand was of commercial importance. The fisheries, chiefly oyster, sturgeon and shad, yield an annual product valued at about $250,000.

The proximity of the Delaware and Chesapeake bays help to give Delaware a mild and temperate climate. The mean annual temperature is approximately 55 deg. F., ranging from 52 deg. in the S. to 56 deg. in the N., and the extremes of heat and cold are 103 deg. in the summer and -17 deg. in the winter. The annual rainfall, greater on the coast than inland, ranges from 40 to 45 in.

_Industry and Trade._--Delaware is pre-eminently an agricultural state. In 1900 85% of its total land surface was enclosed in farms--a slight decline since 1880. Seven-tenths of this was improved land, and the expenditure per farm for fertilizers, greater in 1890 than the average of the Atlantic states, approximated $55 per farm in 1900. In 1899 Delaware spent more per acre for fertilizers than any of the other states except New Jersey, Rhode Island and Maryland. The average size of farms, as in the other states, has declined, falling from 124.6 acres in 1880 to 110.1 acres in 1900. A large proportion of farms (49.7%) were operated by the owners, and the prevailing form of tenantry was the share system by which 42.5% of the farms were cultivated, while 8.24% of the farms were operated by negroes; these represented less than 4% of the total value of farm property, the average value of farms operated by negroes being $17 per acre, that of farms operated by whites, $23 per acre. The total value of farm products in 1900 was $9,190,777, an increase of 30% over that of 1890, while the cultivation of cereals suffered on account of the competition of the western states. Indian corn and wheat form the two largest crops, their product in 1900 being respectively 24% and 52% greater than in 1890; but these crops when compared with those of other states are relatively unimportant. In 1906 the acreage of Indian corn was 196,472 acres with a yield of 5,894,160 bushels valued at $2,475,547, and the acreage of wheat was 121,745 acres with a yield of 1,947,920 bushels valued at $1,383,023. The value of the fruit crop, for which Delaware has long been noted, also increased during the same decade, but disease and frost caused a marked decline in the production of peaches, a loss balanced by an increased production of apples, pears and other orchard fruits. Large quantities of small fruits, particularly of strawberries, raspberries and blackberries, are produced, the southern portion of Sussex county being particularly favourable for strawberry culture. The vicissitudes of fruit raising have also caused increasing attention to be paid to market gardening, dairying and stock raising, particularly to market gardening, an industry which is favoured by the proximity of large cities. The same influence also explains, partly at least, the decrease (of 13%) in the value of farm property between 1890 and 1900.