Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 1.djvu/512

 in the latest of the joint works, is very remarkable. In 1900 the Detmolds held an exhibition of their prints and water-colours at the Fine Art Society's galleries. In 1904 they contributed a joint etching to 'The Artist Engraver,' and on 12 Jan. 1905 they were elected associates of the Royal Society of Painter Etchers; they contributed some of their best work to the 1905 exhibition, but afterwards resigned their membership; two plates produced late in that year were Maurice's last etched works. Jointly with his brother he painted large illustrations in water-colour to Rudyard Kipling's 'Jungle Book,' which were published in 1903. For several years the two Detmolds, who continued to reside at Hampstead, spent part of the year at Ditchling, Sussex. On 9 April 1908, when about to leave Hampstead for the country, Maurice committed suicide by inhaling chloroform; his twin brother survives him.



DE VERE, AUBREY THOMAS (1814–1902), poet and author, born at Curragh Chase, Adare, co. Limerick, Ireland, on 10 Jan. 1814, was the third son of a family of five sons and three daughters of Aubrey Thomas Hunt, afterwards Sir, second baronet [q. v.], by his wife Mary (d. 1856), eldest daughter of Stephen Edward Rice of Mount Trenchard, co. Limerick, and sister of, first Lord Mont eagle [q. v.]. His elder brothers Vere and [q. v. Suppl. II] successively inherited their father's baronetcy. Save for a three years' visit to England between 1821 and 1824, Aubrey's boyhood was spent at his Irish home, where he was educated privately. While he was a boy a tutor encouraged an enthusiasm for English poetry, especially that of Wordsworth. In October 1832 he entered Trinity College, Dublin. 'Almost all the university course' was uncongenial and he devoted himself to metaphysics. In 1837 he won the 'first Downes premium' for theological essay-writing. He left college next year. To his father's wish that he should take orders in the established church he offered no objection and the idea was present to his mind for many years, but no active step was taken. His time was spent in travel or in literary and philosophical study. In 1838 he visited Oxford and there first met Newman, who after Wordsworth's death filled the supreme place in De Vere's regard, and Sir [q. v.], who became his lifelong friend. Next year he visited Cambridge and Rome. He was introduced at London or Cambridge to the circle which his eldest brother Vere and his cousin, Stephen Spring Rice, had formed at the university; of this company Tennyson was the chief, but it included Monckton Milnes, Spedding, Brookfield, and Whewell. In 1841 De Vere, whose admiration of Wordsworth's work steadily grew, made in London the poet's acquaintance. In 1843 he stayed at Rydal. He regarded the invitation as 'the greatest honour' of his life, and the visit was often repeated. He came to know Miss Fenwick, Wordsworth's neighbour and friend, and he began a warm friendship, also in 1841, with the poet Coleridge's daughter, [q. v.]. In 1843-4 De Vere travelled in Europe, chiefly in Italy, with Sir Henry Taylor and his wife. In 1845 he was in London, seeing much of Tennyson, and in the same year he made Carlyle's acquaintance at Lord Ashburton's house. Later friends included Robert Browning and R. H. Hutton. After visits to Scotland and the Lakes, De Vere returned to Ireland at the beginning of 1846 to find the country in the grip of the famine. He threw himself into the work of the relief committees with unexpected practical energy.

De Vere had already begun his career as a poet by publishing in 1842 'The Waldenses and other Poems,' a volume containing some sonnets and lyrics which now have a place in modern anthologies. 'The Search after Proserpine and other Poems ' came out in 1843, the title-poem winning Landor's praise. Now in a poem 'A Year of Sorrow' he voiced the horrors of the winter 1846-7. Turning to prose, in which he showed no smaller capacity than in verse, he published in 1848 'English Misrule and Irish Misdeeds.' There he supported the union and loyalty to the crown, but betrayed intense Irish sympathy, criticised methods of English rule, and deprecated all catholic disabilities. Through all the critical events in Irish history of his time he maintained the same point of view. He always opposed concession to violent agitation, but when, after the Phoenix Park murders in 1882, he wrote a pamphlet on 'Constitutional and Unconstitutional Political Action.' he