Chapter VIII: Front Matter (8)

The Dongolese (Dongolawi, Danaglas, Danagalehs) are Nubas in type and language, but have a large admixture of Arab, Turk and other blood. They are great agriculturists and keen traders, and were notorious slave-dealers. South of Old Dongola the inhabitants are not Nubians but Shagia (q.v.), and the Nubian tongue is replaced by Arabic. Of the nomad desert tribes the chief are the Hawawir and Kabbabish.

The country now forming the mudiria was once part of the ancient empire of Ethiopia (q.v.), Napata being one of its capital cities. From about the beginning of the Christian era the chief tribes in the region immediately south of Egypt were the Blemmyes and the Nobatae. The last named became converted to Christianity about the middle of the 6th century, through the instrumentality, it is stated, of the empress Theodora. A chieftain of the Nobatae, named Silko, between the middle and the close of that century, conquered the Blemmyes, founded a new state, apparently on the ruins of that of the southern Meroe (Bakarawiya), made Christianity the official religion of the country, and fixed his capital at (Old) Dongola. This state, now generally referred to as the Christian kingdom of Dongola, lasted for eight or nine hundred years. Though late in reaching Nubia, Christianity, after the wars of Silko, spread rapidly, and when the Arab conquerors of Egypt sought to subdue Nubia also they met with stout resistance. Dongola, however, was captured by the Moslems in 652, and the country laid under tribute (_bakt_)--400 men having to be sent yearly to Egypt. This tribute was paid when it could be enforced; at periods the Nubians gained the upper hand, as in 737 when Cyriacus, their then king, marched into Egypt with a large army to redress the grievances of the Copts. There is a record of an embassy sent by a king Zacharias in the 9th century to Bagdad concerning the tribute, while by the close of the 10th century the Nubians seem to have regained almost complete independence. They did not, however, possess any part of the Red Sea coast, which was held by the Egyptians, who, during the 9th and 10th centuries, worked the emerald and gold mines between the Nile and the Red Sea. The kingdom, according to the Armenian historian Abu Salih, was in a very flourishing condition in the 12th century. It then extended from Assuan southward to the 4th cataract, and contained several large cities. Gold and copper mines were worked. The liturgy used was in Greek. In 1173 Shams addaula, a brother of Saladin, attacked the Nubians, captured the city of Ibrim (Primis), and among other deeds destroyed 700 pigs found therein. The Egyptians then retired, and for about 100 years the country was at peace. In 1275 the Mameluke sultan Bibars aided a rebel prince to oust his uncle from the throne of Nubia; the sultans Kalaun and Nasir also sent expeditions to Dongola, which was several times captured. Though willing to pay tribute to the Moslems, the Nubians clung tenaciously to Christianity, and, despite the raids to which the country was subjected, it appears during the 12th and 13th centuries to have been fairly prosperous. No serious attempt was made by the Egyptians to penetrate south of Napata, nor is it certain how far south of that place the authority of the Dongola kingdom (sometimes known as Mukarra) extended. It was neighboured on the south by another Christian state, Aloa (Alwa), with its capital Soba on the Blue Nile.

Cut off more and more from free intercourse with the Copts in Egypt, the Nubian Christians at length began to embrace Jewish and Mahommedan doctrines; the decay of the state was hastened by dissensions between Mukarra and Aloa. Nevertheless, the Nubians were strong enough to invade upper Egypt during the reign of Nawaya Krestos (1342-1372), because the governor of Cairo had thrown the patriarch of Alexandria into prison. The date usually assigned for the overthrow of the Christian kingdom is 1351. Only the northern part of the country (as far as the 3rd cataract) came under the rule of Egypt. Nevertheless, according to Leo Africanus, at the close of the 15th century Christianity and native states still survived in Nubia, and in the 16th century the Nubians sent messengers to Abyssinia to Father Alvarez, begging him to appoint priests to administer the sacraments to them--a request with which he was not able to comply. Thereafter the Nubian Church is without records. The Moslems may have extinguished it in blood, for the region between Dongola and Shendi appears to have been depopulated. Between Assuan and Hannek the Turks introduced in the 16th century numbers of Bosnians, whose descendants ruled the district, paying but a nominal allegiance to the Porte. At Ibrim, Mahass, and elsewhere along the banks and in the islands of the Nile, they built castles, now in ruins. South of Hannek the kings of Sennar became overlords of the country. As the power of the Sennari declined, the nomad Shagia (or Shaikiyeh) attained pre-eminence in the Dongola district.

About 1812 Mamelukes fleeing from Mehemet Ali, the pasha of Egypt, made themselves masters of part of the country, destroying the old capital and building a new one lower down the Nile. In 1820 both Mamelukes and Shagia were conquered by the Egyptians, and the Dongola province annexed to Egypt. In consequence of the rising of the Dervishes Egypt evacuated Dongola in 1886. The attempt to set up an independent government failed, and the Dervishes held the town until September 1896, when it was reoccupied by an Egyptian force.

See J. L. Burckhardt, _Travels in Nubia_ (London, 1819); Naum Bey
Shucair, The _History and Geography of the Sudan_ (in Arabic, 3 vols.,
Cairo, 1903); E. A. Wallis Budge, _The Egyptian Sudan_ (2 vols.,
London, 1907).

DONGOLA, a town of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, which gives its name to a mudiria. It is situated on the W. bank of the Nile, about 45 m. above the 3rd cataract, in 19 deg. 10' N., 30 deg. 29' E. Pop. about 10,000. It is 1082 m. S. of Cairo by river and 638 m. N. of Khartum by the same route. Its commerical outlet, however, is Port Sudan, on the Red Sea, 600 m. E.S.E. by steamer and railway. It is a thriving, well-built town; an important agricultural and trading centre. Lignite is found on the east bank of the Nile opposite the town. Founded c. 1812 by Mamelukes who fled to Nubia from the persecutions of Mehemet Ali, the town is called Dongola Makara (New Dongola) to distinguish it from Dongola Agusa (Old Dongola), which it supplanted. It is also called El Ordi (the barracks), a reminiscence of the buildings erected by the Egyptians after their occupation of the town in 1820. The Mahdi Mahommed Ahmed was a native of Dongola. In 1884-1885 the town was the base of the British troops in their advance on Khartum.

Dongola Agusa, 75 m. upstream from New Dongola, now a heap of ruins, was the capital of the Nubian state usually called the Christian kingdom of Dongola. An Arab historian of the 11th century describes it as a large city with many churches, fine houses and wide streets. It is said to have been finally destroyed by the Mamelukes. On a hill near the ruins is a mosque in which is an Arabic inscription stating that the building was opened "on the 20th Rabi el Aneh in the year 717 (June 1, 1317 A.D.) after the victory of Sefeddin Abdallah en Nasir over the Infidels."

DONIZETTI, GAETANO (1798-1848), Italian musical composer, was born at Bergamo in 1798, the son of a government official of limited means. Originally destined for the bar, he showed at an early age a strong taste for art. At first, strangely enough, he mistook architecture for his vocation, and only after an unsuccessful trial in that direction did he discover his real talent. He entered the conservatoire of his native city, where he studied under Simon Mayr, the fertile operatic composer. His second master was Mattei, the head master of the celebrated music school of Bologna, where Donizetti resided for three years. After his return to Bergamo the young composer determined to devote himself to dramatic music, but his father insisted upon his giving lessons with a view to immediate gain. The disputes arising from this cause ultimately led to Donizetti's enlisting in the army. But this desperate step proved beneficial against all expectation. The regiment was quartered at Venice, and here the young composer's first dramatic attempt, an opera called _Enrico comte di Borgogna_, saw the light in 1818.

The success of this work, and of a second opera brought out in the following year, established Donizetti's reputation. He obtained his discharge from the army, and henceforth his operas followed each other in rapid and uninterrupted succession at the rate of three or four a year. Although he had to contend successively with two such dangerous rivals as Rossini and Bellini, he succeeded in taking firm hold of the public, and the brilliant reception accorded to his _Anna Bolena_ at Milan carried his name beyond the limits of his own country. In 1835 Donizetti went for the first time to Paris, where, however, his _Marino Faliero_ failed to hold its own against Bellini's _Puritani_, then recently produced at the Theatre Italien. The disappointed composer went to Naples, where the enormous success of his _Lucia di Lammermoor_ consoled him for his failure in Paris. For Naples he wrote a number of works, none of which is worth notice. In 1840 the censorship refused to pass his _Poliuto_, an Italian version of Corneille's _Polyeucte_, in consequence of which the disgusted composer once more left his country for Paris. Here he produced at the Opera Comique his most popular opera, _La Fille du regiment_, but again with little success. It was not till after the work had made the round of the theatres of Germany and Italy that the Parisians reconsidered their unfavourable verdict. A serious opera, _Les Martyrs_, produced about the same time with the _Daughter of the Regiment_, was equally unsuccessful, and it was reserved to _La Favorita_, generally considered as Donizetti's masterpiece, to break the evil spell. His next important work, _Linda di Chamounix_, was written for Vienna, where it was received most favourably in 1842, and the same success accompanied the production of _Don Pasquale_ after Donizetti's return to Paris in 1843. Soon after this event the first signs of a fatal disease, caused to a great extent by overwork, began to show themselves. The utter failure of _Don Sebastian_, a large opera produced soon after _Don Pasquale_, is said to have hastened the catastrophe. A paralytic stroke in 1844 deprived Donizetti of his reason; for four years he lingered on in a state of mental and physical prostration. A visit to his country was proposed as a last resource, but he reached his native place only to die there on the 1st of April 1848.

The sum total of his operas amounts to sixty-four. The large number of his works accounts for many of their chief defects. His rapidity of working made all revision impossible. It is said that he once wrote the instrumentation of a whole opera within thirty hours, a time hardly sufficient, one would think, to put the notes on paper. And yet it may be doubted whether more elaboration would have essentially improved his work; for the last act of the _Favorita_, infinitely superior to the preceding ones, is also said to have been the product of a single night.

There is a strange parallelism observable in the lives of Rossini, Bellini and Donizetti. They had no sooner established their reputations on the Italian stage than they left their own country for Paris, at that time the centre of the musical world. All three settled in France, and all three were anxious to adapt the style of their music to the taste and artistic traditions of their adopted country. The difference which exists between Rossini's _Tell_ and his _Semiramide_ may, although in a less striking degree, be noticed between Donizetti's _Fille du regiment_ and one of his earlier Italian operas. But here the parallel ends. As regards artistic genius Donizetti can by no means be compared with his illustrious countrymen. He has little of Bellini's melancholy sweetness, less of Rossini's sparkle, and is all but devoid of spontaneous dramatic impulse. For these shortcomings he atones by a considerable though by no means extraordinary store of fluent melody, and by his rare skill in writing for the voice. The duet in the last act of the _Favorita_ and the ensemble in _Lucia_ following upon the signing of the contract, are masterpieces of concerted music in the Italian style. These advantages, together with considerable power of humorous delineation, as evinced in _Don Pasquale_ and _L'Elisir d'amore_, must account for the unimpaired vitality of many of his works on the stage.

DONJON (from a Late Lat. accusative form _domnionem_, connected with _domnus_ or _dominus_, a lord), the French term for the keep of a medieval castle, used now in distinction to "dungeon" (q.v.), the prison, which is only an anglicized spelling (see also KEEP).

DON JUAN, a legendary character, whose story has found currency in various European countries. He was introduced into formal literature in the Spanish _El Burlador de Sevilla y convidado de piedra_, a play which was first printed at Barcelona in 1630, and is usually attributed to Tirso de Molina; but the story of a profligate inviting a dead man to supper, and finding his invitation accepted, was current before 1630, and is not peculiar to Spain. A Don Juan Tenorio is said to have frequented the court of Peter the Cruel, and at a later period another Don Juan Tenorio, a dissolute gallant, is reported as living at Seville; but there is no satisfactory evidence of their existence, and it is unlikely that the Don Juan legend is based on historical facts. It exists in Picardy as _Le Souper de fantome_, and variants of it have been found at points so far apart as Iceland and the Azores; the available evidence goes to show that Don Juan is a universal type, that he is the subject of local myths in many countries, that he received his name in Spain, and that the Spanish version of his legend has absorbed certain elements from the French story of Robert the Devil. Some points of resemblance are observable between _El Burlador de Sevilla_ and _Dineros son calidad_, a play of earlier date by Lope de Vega; but these resemblances are superficial, and the character of Don Juan, the incarnation of perverse sensuality and arrogant blasphemy, may be considered as the creation of Tirso de Molina, though the ascription to him of _El Burlador de Sevilla_ has been disputed. The Spanish drama was apparently more popular in Italy than in Spain, and was frequently given in pantomime by the Italian actors, who accounted for its permanent vogue by saying that Tirso de Molina had sold his soul to the devil for fame. A company of these Italian mimes took the story into France in 1657, and it was dramatized by Dorimond in 1659 and by De Villiers in 1661; their attempts suggested _Le Festin de pierre_ (1665) to Moliere, who, apparently with the Spanish original before his eyes, substituted prose for verse, reduced the supernatural element, and interpolated comic effects completely out of keeping with the earlier conception. Later adaptations by Rosimond and Thomas Corneille were even less successful. The story was introduced into England by Sir Aston Cokain in his unreadable _Tragedy of Ovid_ (1669), and was the theme of _The Libertine_ (1676), a dull and obscene play by Shadwell. Goldoni's _D. Giovanni Tenorio osia Il Dissoluto_, based upon the adaptations of Moliere and Thomas Corneille, is one of his least interesting productions. Tirso de Molina's play was recast, but not improved, by Antonio de Zamora early in the 18th century. A hundred years later the character of Don Juan was endowed with a new name in Espronceda's _Estudiante de Salamanca_; Don Felix de Montemar is plainly modelled on Don Juan Tenorio, and rivals the original in licentiousness, impiety and grim humour. But the most curious resuscitation of the type in Spain is the protagonist in Zorrilla's _Don Juan Tenorio_, which is usually played in all large cities during the first week in November, and has come to be regarded as an essentially national work. It is in fact little more than an adaptation of the elder Dumas' _Don Juan de Marana_, which, in its turn, derives chiefly from Merimee's novel, _Les Ames du purgatoire_. Less exotic are Zorrilla's two poems on the same subject--_El Desafio del diablo_ and _El Testigo de bronce_. Byron's _Don Juan_ presents a Regency lady-killer who resembles Ulloa's murderer in nothing but his name.

The sustained popularity of the Don Juan legend is undoubtedly due in great measure to Mozart's incomparable setting of Da Ponte's mediocre libretto. In this pale version of _El Burlador de Sevilla_ the French romantic school made acquaintance with Don Juan, and hence, no doubt, the works of Merimee and Dumas already mentioned, Balzac's _Elexir d'une longue vie_, and Alfred de Musset's _Une Matinee de Don Juan_ and _Namouna_. The legend has been treated subsequently by Flaubert and Barbey d'Aurevilly in France, by Landau and Heyse in Germany, and by Sacher-Masoch in Austria. It has always fascinated composers. Mozart's _Don Giovanni_ has annihilated the earlier operas of Le Tellier, Righini, Tritto, Gardi and Gazzaniga; but Gluck's ballet-music still survives, and Henry Purcell's setting--the oldest of all--has saved some of Shadwell's insipid lyrics from oblivion.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--F. de Simone Brouwer, _Don Giovanni nella poesia e
nell' arte musicale_ (Napoli, 1894); A. Farinelli, _Don Giovanni: Note
critiche_ (Torino, 1896); A. Farinelli, _Cuatro palabras sobre Don
Juan y la literatura donjuanesca del porvenir_ in the _Homenaje a
Menendez y Pelayo_ (Madrid, 1899), vol. i. pp. 205-222. (J. F.-K.)

DONKIN, SIR RUFANE SHAW (1773-1841), British soldier, came of a military family. His father, who died, a full general, in 1821, served with almost all British commanders from Wolfe to Gage. Rufane Donkin was the eldest child, and received his first commission at the age of five in his father's regiment; he joined, at fourteen, with eight years' seniority as a lieutenant. Becoming a captain in 1793, he was on active service in the West Indies in 1794, and (as major) in 1796. At the age of twenty-five he became lieutenant-colonel, and in 1798 led a light battalion with distinction in the Ostend expedition. He served with Cathcart in Denmark in 1807, and two years later was given a brigade in the army in Portugal, which he led at Oporto and Talavera. He was soon transferred, as quartermaster-general, to the Mediterranean command, in which he served from 1810 to 1813, taking part in the Catalonian expeditions. Sir John Murray's failure at Tarragona did not involve Donkin, whose advice was proved to be uniformly ignored by the British commander. In July 1815 Major-General Donkin went out to India, and distinguished himself as a divisional commander in Hastings' operations against the Mahrattas (1817-1818), receiving the K.C.B. as his reward. The death of his young wife seriously affected him, and he went to the Cape of Good Hope on sick leave. From 1820 to 1821 he administered the colony with success, and named the rising seaport of Algoa Bay Port Elizabeth in memory of his wife. In 1821 he became lieutenant-general and G.C.H. The rest of his life was spent in literary and political work. He was one of the original fellows of the Royal Geographical Society, and was a member of the Royal Society and of many other learned bodies. His theories as to the course of the river Niger, published under the title _Dissertation on the Course and Probable Termination of the Niger_ (London, 1829), involved him in a good deal of controversy. From 1832 onwards he sat in the House of Commons, and in 1835 was made surveyor-general of the ordnance. He committed suicide at Southampton in 1841. He was then a general, and colonel of the 11th Foot.

See Jerdan, _National Portraits_, vol. iii.; _Gentleman's Magazine_,
xcii. i. 273.

DONNAY, CHARLES MAURICE (1859- ), French dramatist, was born of middle-class parents in Paris in 1859. He made his serious debut as a dramatist on the little stage of the Chat Noir with _Phryne_ (1891), a series of Greek scenes. _Lysistrata_, a four-act comedy, was produced at the Grand Theatre in 1892 with Mme Rejane in the title part. Later plays were _Folle Entreprise_ (1894); _Pension de famille_ (1894); _Complices_ (1895), in collaboration with M. Groselande; _Amants_ (1895), produced at the Renaissance theatre with Mme Jeanne Granier as Claudine Rozeray; _La Douloureuse_ (1897); _L'Affranchie_ (1898); _Georgette Lemeunier_ (1898); _Le Torrent_ (1899), at the Comedie Francaise; _Education de prince_ (1900); _La Clairiere_ (1900), and _Oiseaux de passage_ (1904), in collaboration with L. Descaves; _La Bascule_ (1901); _L'Autre danger_, at the Comedie Francaise (1902); _Le Retour de Jerusalem_ (1903); _L'Escalade_ (1904); and _Paraitre_ (1906). With _Amants_ he won a great success, and the play was hailed by Jules Lemaitre as the _Berenice_ of contemporary French drama. Very advanced ideas on the relations between the sexes dominate the whole series of plays, and the witty dialogue is written with an apparent carelessness that approximates very closely to the language of every day.

DONNE, JOHN (1573-1631), English poet and divine of the reign of James I., was born in 1573 in the parish of St Nicholas Olave, in the city of London. His father was a wealthy merchant, who next year became warden of the Company of Ironmongers, but died early in 1576. Donne's parents were Catholics, and his mother, Elizabeth Heywood, was directly descended from the sister of the great Sir Thomas More; she was the daughter of John Heywood the epigrammatist. As a child, Donne's precocity was such that it was said of him that "this age hath brought forth another Pico della Mirandola." He entered Hart Hall, Oxford, in October 1584, and left it in 1587, proceeding for a time to Cambridge, where he took his degree. At Oxford he began his friendship with Henry Wotton, and at Cambridge, probably, with Christopher Brooke. Donne was "removed to London" about 1590, and in 1592 he entered Lincoln's Inn with the intention of studying the law.

When he came of age, he found himself in possession of a considerable fortune, and about the same time rejected the Catholic doctrine in favour of the Anglican communion. He began to produce _Satires_, which were not printed, but eagerly passed from hand to hand; the first three are known to belong to 1593, the fourth to 1594, while the other three are probably some years later. In 1596 Donne engaged himself for foreign service under the earl of Essex, and "waited upon his lordship" on board the "Repulse," in the magnificent victory of the 11th of June. We possess several poems written by Donne during this expedition, and during the Islands Voyage of 1597, in which he accompanied Essex to the Azores. According to Walton, Donne spent some time in Italy and Spain, and intended to proceed to Palestine, "but at his being in the farthest parts of Italy, the disappointment of company, or of a safe convoy, or the uncertainty of returns of money into those remote parts, denied him that happiness." There is some reason to suppose that he was on the continent at intervals between 1595 and the winter of 1597. His lyrical poetry was mainly the product of his exile, if we are to believe Ben Jonson, who told Drummond of Hawthornden that Donne "wrote all his best pieces ere he was 25 years old." At his return to England he became private secretary in London to Sir Thomas Egerton, the lord keeper (afterwards Lord Brackley), in whose family he remained four years. In 1600 he found himself in love with his master's niece, Anne More, whom he married secretly in December 1601. As soon as this act was discovered, Donne was dismissed, and then thrown into the Fleet prison (February 1602), from which he was soon released. His circumstances, however, were now very much straitened. His own fortune had all been spent and "troubles did still multiply upon him." Mrs Donne's cousin, Sir Francis Wooley, offered the young couple an asylum at his country house of Pyrford, where they resided until the end of 1604.

During the latter part of his residence in Sir Thomas Egerton's house, Donne had composed the longest of his existing poems, _The Progress of the Soul_, not published until 1633. In the spring of 1605 we find the Donnes living at Camberwell, and a little later in a small house at Mitcham. He had by this time "acquired such a perfection" in civil and common law that he was able to take up professional work, and he now acted as a helper to Thomas Morton in his controversies with the Catholics. Donne is believed to have had a considerable share in writing the pamphlets against the papists which Morton issued between 1604 and 1607. In the latter year, Morton offered the poet certain preferment in the Church, if he would only consent to take holy orders. Donne, however, although he was at this time become deeply serious on religious matters, did not think himself fitted for the clerical life. In 1607 he started a correspondence with Mrs Magdalen Herbert of Montgomery Castle, the mother of George Herbert. Some of these pious epistles were printed by Izaak Walton. These exercises were not of a nature to add to his income, which was extremely small. His uncomfortable little house he speaks of as his "hospital" and his "prison;" his wife's health was broken and he was bowed down by the number of his children, who often lacked even clothes and food. In the autumn of 1608, however, his father-in-law, Sir George More, became reconciled with them, and agreed to make them a generous allowance. Donne soon after formed part of the brilliant assemblage which Lucy, countess of Bradford, gathered around her at Twickenham; we possess several of the verse epistles he addressed to this lady. In 1609 Donne was engaged in composing his great controversial prose treatise, the _Pseudo-Martyr_, printed in 1610; this was an attempt to convince Roman Catholics in England that they might, without any inconsistency, take the oath of allegiance to James I. In 1611 Donne wrote a curious and bitter prose squib against the Jesuits, entitled _Ignatius his Conclave_. To the same period, but possibly somewhat earlier, belongs the apology for the principle of suicide, which was not published until 1644, long after Donne's death. This work, the _Biathanatos_, is an attempt to show that "the scandalous disease of headlong dying," to which Donne himself in his unhappy moods had "often such a sickly inclination," was not necessarily and essentially sinful.

In 1610 Donne formed the acquaintance of a wealthy gentleman, Sir Robert Drury of Hawsted, who offered him and his wife an apartment in his large house in Drury Lane. Drury lost his only daughter, and in 1611 Donne published an extravagant elegy on her, entitled _An Anatomy of the World_, to which he added in 1612 a _Progress of the Soul_ on the same subject; he threatened to celebrate the "blessed Maid," Elizabeth Drury, in a fresh elegy on each anniversary of her death, but he happily refrained from the third occasion onwards. At the close of 1611 Sir Robert Drury determined to visit Paris (but not, as Walton supposed, on an embassy of any kind), and he took Donne with him. When he left London, his wife was expecting an eighth child. It seems almost certain that her fear to have him absent led him to compose one of his loveliest poems:

"Sweetest Love, I do not go
For weariness of thee."

He is said to have had a vision, while he was at Amiens, of his wife, with her hair over her shoulders, bearing a dead child in her arms, on the very night that Mrs Donne, in London (or more probably in the Isle of Wight), was delivered of a still-born infant. He suffered, accordingly, a great anxiety, which was not removed until he reached Paris, where he received reassuring accounts of his wife's health. The Drurys and Donne left Paris for Spa in May 1612, and travelled in the Low Countries and Germany until September, when they returned to London. In 1613 Donne contributed to the _Lachrymae lachrymarum_ an obscure and frigid elegy on the death of the prince of Wales, and wrote his famous Marriage Song for St Valentine's Day to celebrate the nuptials of the elector palatine with the princess Elizabeth. About this time Donne became intimate with Robert Ker, then Viscount Rochester and afterwards the infamous earl of Somerset, from whom he had hopes of preferment at court. Donne was now in weak health, and in a highly neurotic condition. He suggested to Rochester that if he should enter the church, a place there might be found for him. But he was more useful to the courtier in his legal capacity, and Rochester dissuaded him from the ministry. At the close of 1614, however, the king sent for Donne to Theobald's, and "descended to a persuasion, almost to a solicitation of him, to enter into sacred orders," but Donne asked for a few days to consider. Finally, early in 1614, King, bishop of London, "proceeded with all convenient speed to ordain him, first deacon, then priest." He was, perhaps, a curate first at Paddington, and presently was appointed royal chaplain.

His earliest sermon before the king at Whitehall carried his audience "to heaven, in holy raptures." In April, not without much bad grace, the university of Cambridge consented to make the new divine a D.D. In the spring of 1616, Donne was presented to the living of Keyston, in Hunts., and a little later he became rector of Sevenoaks; the latter preferment he held until his death. In October he was appointed reader in divinity to the benchers of Lincoln's Inn. His anxieties about money now ceased, but in August 1617 his wife died, leaving seven young children in his charge. Perhaps in consequence of his bereavement, Donne seems to have passed through a spiritual crisis, which inspired him with a peculiar fervour of devotion. In 1618 he wrote two cycles of religious sonnets, _La Corona_ and the _Holy Sonnets_, the latter not printed in complete form until by Mr Gosse in 1899. Of the very numerous sermons preached by Donne at Lincoln's Inn, fourteen have come down to us. His health suffered from the austerity of his life, and it was probably in connexion with this fact that he allowed himself to be persuaded in May 1619 to accompany Lord Doncaster as his chaplain on an embassy to Germany. Having visited Heidelberg, Frankfort and other German cities, the embassy returned to England at the opening of 1620.

In November 1621, James I., knowing that London was "a dish" which Donne "loved well," "carved" for him the deanery of St Paul's. He resigned Keyston, and his preachership in Lincoln's Inn (Feb., 1622). In October 1623 he suffered from a dangerous attack of illness, and during a long convalescence wrote his _Devotions_, a volume published in 1624. He was now appointed to the vicarage of St Dunstan's in the West. In April 1625 Donne preached before the new king, Charles I., a sermon which was immediately printed, and he now published his _Four Sermons upon Special Occasions_, the earliest collection of his discourses. When the plague broke out he retired with his children to the house of Sir John Danvers in Chiswick, and for a time he disappeared so completely that a rumour arose that he was dead. Sir John had married Donne's old friend, Mrs Magdalen Herbert, for whom Donne wrote two of the most ingenious of his lyrics, "The Primrose" and "The Autumnal." The popularity of Donne as a preacher rose to its zenith when he returned to his pulpit, and it continued there until his death. Walton, who seems to have known him first in 1624, now became an intimate and adoring friend. In 1630 Donne's health, always feeble, broke down completely, so that, although in August of that year he was to have been made a bishop, the entire breakdown of his health made it worse than useless to promote him. The greater part of that winter he spent at Abury Hatch, in Epping Forest, with his widowed daughter, Constance Alleyn, and was too ill to preach before the king at Christmas. It is believed that his disease was a malarial form of recurrent quinsy acting upon an extremely neurotic system. He came back to London, and was able to preach at Whitehall on the 12th of February 1631. This, his latest sermon, was published, soon after his demise, as _Death's Duel_. He now stood for his statue to the sculptor, Nicholas Stone, standing before a fire in his study at the Deanery, with his winding-sheet wrapped and tied round him, his eyes shut, and his feet resting on a funeral urn. This lugubrious work of art was set up in white marble after his death in St Paul's cathedral, where it may still be seen. Donne died on the 31st of March 1631, after he had lain "fifteen days earnestly expecting his hourly change." His aged mother, who had lived in the Deanery, survived him, dying in 1632.

Donne's poems were first collected in 1633, and afterwards in 1635, 1639, 1649, 1650, 1654 and 1669. Of his prose works, the _Juvenilia_ appeared in 1633; the _LXXX Sermons_ in 1640; _Biathanatos_ in 1644; _Fifty Sermons_ in 1649; _Essays in Divinity_, 1651; his _Letters to Several Persons of Honour_, 1651; _Paradoxes, Problems and Essays_, 1652; and _Six and Twenty Sermons_, 1661. Izaak Walton's _Life of Donne_, an admirably written but not entirely correct biography, preceded the _Sermons_ of 1640. The principal editor of his posthumous writings was his son, John Donne the younger (1604-1662), a man of eccentric and scandalous character, but of considerable talent.

The influence of Donne upon the literature of England was singularly wide and deep, although almost wholly malign. His originality and the fervour of his imaginative passion made him extremely attractive to the younger generation of poets, who saw that he had broken through the old tradition, and were ready to follow him implicitly into new fields. In the 18th century his reputation almost disappeared, to return, with many vicissitudes in the course of the 19th. It is, indeed, singularly difficult to pronounce a judicious opinion on the writings of Donne. They were excessively admired by his own and the next generation, praised by Dryden, paraphrased by Pope, and then entirely neglected for a whole century. The first impression of an unbiassed reader who dips into the poems of Donne is unfavourable. He is repulsed by the intolerably harsh and crabbed versification, by the recondite choice of theme and expression, and by the oddity of the thought. In time, however, he perceives that behind the fantastic garb of language there is an earnest and vigorous mind, an imagination that harbours fire within its cloudy folds, and an insight into the mysteries of spiritual life which is often startling. Donne excels in brief flashes of wit and beauty, and in sudden daring phrases that have the full perfume of poetry in them. Some of his lyrics and one or two of his elegies excepted, the _Satires_ are his most important contribution to literature. They are probably the earliest poems of their kind in the language, and they are full of force and picturesqueness. Their obscure and knotty language only serves to give peculiar brilliancy to the not uncommon passages of noble perspicacity. To the odd terminology of Donne's poetic philosophy Dryden gave the name of "metaphysics," and Johnson, borrowing the suggestion, invented the title of the "metaphysical school" to describe, not Donne only, but all the amorous and philosophical poets who succeeded him, and who employed a similarly fantastic language, and who affected odd figurative inversions.

Izaak Walton's _Life_, first published in 1640, and entirely recast in
1659, has been constantly reprinted. The best edition of Donne's
_Poems_ was edited by E. K. Chambers in 1896. His prose works have not
been collected. In 1899 Edmund Gosse published in two volumes _The
Life and Letters of John Donne_, for the first time revised and
collected. (E. G.)

DONNYBROOK, a part of Dublin, Ireland, in the south-east of the city. The former village of the name was famous for a fair held under licence from King John in 1204. It gained, however, such a scandalous notoriety for disorder that it was discontinued in 1855, the rights being purchased for L3000.

DONOSO CORTES, JUAN, Marquis de Valdegamas (1809-1853), Spanish author and diplomatist, was born at Valle de la Serena (Extremadura) on the 6th of May 1809, studied law at Seville, and entered politics as an advanced liberal under the influence of Quintana (q.v.). His views began to modify after the rising at La Granja, and this tendency towards conservatism, which became more marked on his appointment as private secretary to the Queen Regent, finds expression in his _Lecciones de derecho politico_ (1837). Alarmed by the proceedings of the French revolutionary party in 1848-1849, Donoso Cortes issued his _Ensayo sobre el catolicismo, el liberalismo, y el socialismo considerados en sus principios fundamentales_ (1851), denouncing reason as the enemy of truth and liberalism as leading to social ruin. He became ambassador at Paris, and died there on the 3rd of May 1853. The _Ensayo_ has failed to arrest the movement against which it was directed, and is weakened by its extravagant paradoxes; but, with all its rhetorical excesses, it remains the finest specimen of impassioned prose published in Spain during the 19th century.

Donoso Cortes' works were collected in five volumes at Madrid
(1854-1855) under the editorship of Gavino Tejado.

DONOVAN, EDWARD (1768-1837), English naturalist, was the author of many popular works on natural history and botany. In 1792 appeared the first volume of his _Natural History of British Insects_, which extended to sixteen volumes, and was completed in 1813. He also published _Natural Histories of British Birds_, in 10 vols. 8vo (1799-1819), _of British Fishes_, in 5 vols. (1802-1808), _of British Shells_, in 5 vols. (1800-1804), a series of illustrated works on _The Insects of India, China, New Holland, &c._, in 3 vols. 4to (1798-1805), and _Excursions in South Wales and Monmouthshire_ (1805). To these works must be added his periodical entitled _The Naturalist's Repository_, a monthly publication, of which three volumes were completed (1823-1825), and an _Essay on the Minute Parts of Plants in general_. Donovan was author of the articles on natural history in Rees's _Cyclopaedia_. In 1833 he published a _Memorial respecting my Publications in Natural History_, in which he complains that he had been nearly ruined by his publishers. He was a fellow of the Linnean Society, and died in London on the 1st of February 1837.

DOOM (Old Eng. _dom_, a word common to Teut. languages for that which is set up or ordered, from "do," in its original meaning of "place"; cf. Gr. [Greek: themis], from stem of [Greek: tithemi]), originally a law or enactment, the legal decision of a judge, and particularly an adverse sentence on a criminal. The word is thus applicable to the adverse decrees of fate, and particularly to the day of judgment. The verb "deem," to deliver a judgment, and hence to give or hold an opinion, is a derivative, and appears also in various old Teutonic forms. It is seen in "deemster," the name of the two judges of the Isle of Man.

DOON DE MAYENCE, a hero of romance, who gives his name to the third cycle of the Charlemagne romances, those dealing with the feudal revolts. There is no real unity in the _geste_ of Doon de Mayence. The rebellious barons are connected by the _trouveres_ with Doon by imaginary genealogical ties, and all are represented as in opposition to Charlemagne, though their adventures, in so far as they possess a historical basis, must generally be referred to earlier or later periods than the reign of the great emperor. The general insolence of their attitude to the sovereign suggests that Charlemagne is here only a name for his weaker successors. The tradition of a traitorous family of Mayence, which was developed in Italy into a series of stories of criminals, was however anterior to the Carolingian cycle, for an interpolator in the chronicle of Fredegarius states (iv. 87) that the army of Sigebert was betrayed from within its own ranks by men of Mayence in a battle fought with Radulf on the banks of the Unstrut in Thuringia. The chief heroes of the poems which make up the _geste_ of Doon de Mayence are Ogier the Dane (q.v.), the four sons of Aymon (see RENAUD), and HUON OF BORDEAUX (q.v.). It is probable that Doon himself was one of the last personages to be clearly defined, and that the _chanson de geste_ relating his exploits was drawn up partly with the view of supplying a suitable ancestor for the other heroes. The latter half of the poem, the story of Doon's wars in Saxony, is perhaps based on historical events, but the earlier half, which is really a separate romance dealing with his romantic childhood, is obviously pure fiction and dates from the 13th century. Doon had twelve sons: Gaufrey de Dane Marche (Ardennes?), the father of Ogier; Doon de Nanteuil, whose son Garnier married the beautiful Aye d'Avignon; Griffon d'Hauteville, father of the arch-traitor Ganelon; Aymon de Dordone or Dourdan, whose four sons were so relentlessly pursued by Charles; Beuves d'Aigremont, whose son was the enchanter Maugis; Sevin or Seguin, the father of Huon of Bordeaux; Girard de Roussillon, and others less known. The history of these personages is given in _Doon de Mayence_, _Gaufrey_, the romances relating to Ogier, _Aye d'Avignon_, the fragmentary _Doon de Nanteuil_, _Gui de Nanteuil_, _Tristan de Nanteuil_, _Parise la Duchesse_, _Maugis d'Aigremont_, _Vivien l'amachour de Monbranc_, _Renaus de Montauban or Les Quatre Fils Aymon_, and _Huon de Bordeaux_. Some of this material, which dates in its existing form from the 12th and 13th centuries, remains unpublished, but the chief poems are available in the series of _Anciens Poetes de la France_ (1859, &c).

See _Hist. litt. de la France_, vols. xxii. and xxvi. (1852 and 1873),
for analyses of these poems by Paulin Paris; also J. Barrois,
_Elements carolingiens_ (Paris, 1846); W. Niederstadt, _Alter und
Heimat der altfr. Doon_ (Greifswald, 1889). The prose romance, _La
Fleur des batailles Doolin de Mayence_, was printed by Antoine Verard
(Paris, 1501), by Alain Lotrian and Denis Janot (Paris, c. 1530), by
N. Bonfons (Paris; no date), by J. Waesbergue (Rotterdam, 1604), &c.

DOOR (corresponding to the Gr. [Greek: thura], Lat. _fores_ or _valvae_; the English word, with other forms common in allied languages, comes from the same Indo-European stem as the Gr. [Greek: thura] and Lat. _fores_), in architecture, the slab, flap or leaf forming the enclosure of a doorway (q.v.), either in wood, metal or stone. The earliest records are those represented in the paintings of the Egyptian tombs, in which they are shown as single or double doors, each in a single piece of wood. In Egypt, where the climate is intensely dry, there would be no fear of their warping, but in other countries it would be necessary to frame them, which according to Vitruvius (iv. 6.) was done with stiles (_scapi_) and rails (_impages_): the spaces enclosed being filled with panels (_tympana_) let into grooves made in the stiles and rails. The stiles were the vertical boards, one of which, tenoned or hinged, is known as the hanging stile, the other as the middle or meeting stile. The horizontal cross pieces are the top rail, bottom rail, and middle or intermediate rails. The most ancient doors were in timber, those made for King Solomon's temple being in olive wood (1 Kings vi. 31-35), which were carved and overlaid with gold. The doors dwelt upon in Homer would appear to have been cased in silver or brass. Besides olive wood, elm, cedar, oak and cyprus were used. All ancient doors were hung by pivots at the top and bottom of the hanging stile which worked in sockets in the lintel and cill, the latter being always in some hard stone such as basalt or granite. Those found at Nippur by Dr Hilprecht, dating from 2000 B.C.. were in dolorite. The tenons of the gates at Balawat (see fig.) (895-825 B.C.) were sheathed with bronze (now in the British Museum). These doors or gates were hung in two leaves, each about 8 ft. 4 in. wide and 27 ft. high; they were encased with bronze bands or strips, 10 in. high, covered with repousse decoration of figures, &c. The wood doors would seem to have been about 3 in. thick, but the hanging stile was over 14 in. in diameter. Other sheathings of various sizes in bronze have been found, which proves this to have been the universal method adopted to protect the wood pivots. In the Hauran in Syria, where timber is scarce, the doors were made in stone, and one measuring 5 ft. 4 in. by 2 ft. 7 in. is in the British Museum; the band on the meeting stile shows that it was one of the leaves of a double door. At Kuffeir near Bostra in Syria, Burckhardt found stone doors, 9 to 10 ft. high, being the entrance doors of the town. In Etruria many stone doors are referred to by Dennis.

From _History of Art in Chaldaea and Assyria_, by permission of Chapman & Hall Ltd.]

The ancient Greek and Roman doors were either single doors ([Greek: monothyrai], _unifores_), double doors ([Greek: dithyrai], _bifores_ or _geminae_) or folding doors ([Greek: ptyches], _valvae_); in the last case the leaves were hinged and folded back one over the other. At Pompeii, in the portico of Eumachia, is a painting of a door with three leaves, the two outer ones of which were presumably hung, the inner leaf folding on one or the other; hinges connecting the folding leaves of a door have been found in Pompeii. In the tomb of Theron at Agrigentum there is a single four-panel door carved in stone. In the Blundell collection is a bas-relief of a temple with double doors, each leaf with five panels. Among existing examples, the bronze doors in the church of SS. Cosmas and Damiano, in Rome, are important examples of Roman metal work of the best period; they are in two leaves, each with two panels, and are framed in bronze. Those of the Pantheon are similar in design, with narrow horizontal panels in addition, at the top, bottom and middle. Two other bronze doors of the Roman period are in the Lateran Basilica.

The doors of the church of the Nativity at Bethlehem (6th century) are covered with plates of bronze, cut out in patterns: those of Sta Sophia at Constantinople, of the 8th and 9th century, are wrought in bronze, and the west doors of the cathedral of Aix-la-Chapelle (9th century), of similar manufacture, were probably brought from Constantinople, as also some of those in St Mark's, Venice.

Of the 11th and 12th centuries there are numerous examples of bronze doors, the earliest being one at Hildesheim, Germany (1015). Of others in South Italy and Sicily, the following are the finest: in Sant' Andrea, Amalfi (1060); Salerno (1099); Canosa (1111); Troja, two doors (1119 and 1124); Ravello (1179), by Barisano of Trani, who also made doors for Trani cathedral; and in Monreale and Pisa cathedrals, by Bonano of Pisa. In all these cases the hanging stile had pivots at the top and bottom. The exact period when the hinge was substituted is not quite known, but the change apparently brought about another method of strengthening and decorating doors, viz. with wrought-iron bands of infinite varieties of design. As a rule three bands from which the ornamental work springs constitute the hinges, which have rings outside the hanging stiles fitting on to vertical tenons run into the masonry or wooden frame. There is an early example of the 12th century in Lincoln; in France the metal work of the doors of Notre Dame at Paris is perhaps the most beautiful in execution, but examples are endless throughout France and England.

Returning to Italy, the most celebrated doors are those of the Baptistery of Florence, which together with the door frames are all in bronze, the borders of the latter being perhaps the most remarkable: the modelling of the figures, birds and foliage of the south doorway, by Andrea Pisano (1330), and of the east doorway by Ghiberti (1425-1452), are of great beauty; in the north door (1402-1424) Ghiberti adopted the same scheme of design for the panelling and figure subjects in them as Andrea Pisano, but in the east door the rectangular panels are all filled with bas-reliefs, in which Scripture subjects are illustrated with innumerable figures, these being probably the gates of Paradise of which Michelangelo speaks.

The doors of the mosques in Cairo were of two kinds; those which, externally, were cased with sheets of bronze or iron, cut out in decorative patterns, and incised or inlaid, with bosses in relief; and those in wood, which were framed with interlaced designs of the square and diamond, this latter description of work being Coptic in its origin. The doors of the palace at Palermo, which were made by Saracenic workmen for the Normans, are fine examples and in good preservation. A somewhat similar decorative class of door to these latter is found in Verona, where the edges of the stiles and rails are bevelled and notched.

In the Renaissance period the Italian doors are quite simple, their architects trusting more to the doorways for effect; but in France and Germany the contrary is the case, the doors being elaborately carved, especially in the Louis XIV. and Louis XV. periods, and sometimes with architectural features such as columns and entablatures with pediment and niches, the doorway being in plain masonry. While in Italy the tendency was to give scale by increasing the number of panels, in France the contrary seems to have been the rule; and one of the great doors at Fontainebleau, which is in two leaves, is entirely carried out as if consisting of one great panel only.

The earliest Renaissance doors in France are those of the cathedral of St Sauveur at Aix (1503); in the lower panels there are figures 3 ft. high in Gothic niches, and in the upper panels a double range of niches with figures about 2 ft. high with canopies over them, all carved in cedar. The south door of Beauvais cathedral is in some respects the finest in France; the upper panels are carved in high relief with figure subjects and canopies over them. The doors of the church at Gisors (1575) are carved with figures in niches subdivided by classic pilasters superimposed. In St Maclou at Rouen are three magnificently carved doors; those by Jean Goujon have figures in niches on each side, and others in a group of great beauty in the centre. The other doors, probably about forty to fifty years later, are enriched with bas-reliefs, landscapes, figures and elaborate interlaced borders.

In England in the 17th century the door panels were raised with "bolection" or projecting mouldings, sometimes richly carved, round them; in the 18th century the mouldings worked on the stiles and rails were carved with the egg and tongue ornament. (R. P. S.)