Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 13.djvu/401

 recording. He also contributed to the ‘Daily News,’ ‘Saturday Review,’ ‘Pall Mall Gazette,’ and the ‘World,’ and for some time in 1868 edited ‘Once a Week.’ In 1866 he produced in two volumes a work named ‘The Gay Science,’ a title borrowed from the Provençal Troubadours. It was an attempt to discover the source in the constitution of the human mind of the pleasure afforded by poetry. The subject was, however, too abstruse for the general reader, and the book did not meet with the attention which it deserved. He acted as a special correspondent for the ‘Times’ at the Paris exhibition in 1867, and again sent interesting letters to the ‘Times’ from Paris during the siege of 1870. In 1868 he edited an abridgment of Richardson's ‘Clarissa Harlowe.’ Afterwards he wrote a treatise on gastronomy, based on the famous work of Brillat-Savarin; to it he attached the pseudonym of A. Kettner, and the title was ‘Kettner's Book of the Table, a Manual of Cookery,’ 1877. More recently he was engaged on a new edition of Rochefoucauld's ‘Maxims,’ and he wrote an elaborate article on that work, which was unpublished at the time of his death. He died at 88 Newman Street, Oxford Street, London, 17 Jan. 1879, and was buried at Kensal Green on 24 Jan. He had a singularly handsome presence and charming manners, and his conversation was bright and courteous.

In December 1853 he married, according to Scottish law, the well-known actress Miss Isabella Glyn (then the widow of Edward Wills), and on 12 July 1855 he was again married to her at St. George's, Hanover Square. A separation followed not long after, and the marriage was dissolved in the divorce court on the wife's petition, 10 May 1874.

[Times, 11 May 1874, p. 13, and 18 Jan. 1879, p. 9; Illustrated London News, 8 Feb. 1879, pp. 78, 129, 131, with portrait; Pall Mall Gazette, 21 Jan. 1879, p. 8; World, 22 Jan. 1879, p. 10; Athenæum, 25 Jan. 1879, p. 122, and 1 Feb. p. 152; Academy, 25 Jan. 1879, p. 74; Era, 2 July 1876, p. 4; Law Journal Reports, xlvi. pt. i. pp. 51–3 (1876).]  DALLAS, GEORGE (1630–1702?), lawyer, of St. Martin's, Ross-shire, a younger son of William Dallas of Budgate, Nairnshire, by his first wife, was born in 1635. He entered upon his apprenticeship to the law in 1652, studying with Mr. John Bayn of Pitcairlie, Fifeshire, ‘a great penman in his age, and so known,’ and in due course became a writer to the signet. Upon the return of Charles II in 1660, the privy seal of Scotland was conferred upon John, marquis of Atholl, who appointed Dallas deputy-keeper. He is said to have retained the seal during the reign of James VII, and though he refused to take the oaths to William and Mary, it remained in his hands, and is now an heirloom in the family. He died about 1702. He is known as the author of ‘A System of Stiles, as now practicable in the Kingdom of Scotland,’ which was written between 1666 and 1688, though not published until 1697. This work, which forms a compact folio volume of iv. 904 xii pages, continued for many years to be indispensable in the office of every Scottish lawyer, and is twice referred to in the novels of Sir Walter Scott. He was buried in Greyfriars church 13 April 1701. A portrait is in the Signet Library, Edinburgh. Dallas married Margaret Abercromby, and was great-grandfather of Lieutenant-general Sir Thomas Dallas, G.C.B., who distinguished himself as a cavalry officer in the Carnatic, as well as in Colonel Wellesley's brilliant campaign, and at the siege of Seringapatam. He died at Bath 12 Aug. 1839. George Dallas was also ancestor of R. C. Dallas [q. v.], of A. R. C. Dallas [q. v.], and of George Mifflin Dallas, vice-president of the United States, and for many years American minister at the court of St. James. He died 31 Dec. 1864.

[Pedigree of the family of Dallas of that Ilk and Cantray, and Dallas of St. Martin's Stiles.] 

DALLAS, GEORGE (1758–1833), political writer, was the younger son of Robert Dallas of Cooper's Court, St. Michael's, Cornhill, and his wife Elizabeth, daughter of the Rev. James Smith, minister of Kilbirnie, Ayrshire. He was born in London on 6 April 1758, and was educated with his brother Robert [q. v.] at Geneva. At the age of eighteen he went out to Bengal as a writer in the East India Company's service, and soon after his arrival published at Calcutta a clever poem, entitled ‘The India Guide,’ wherein he described the incidents of a voyage to India, and the first impressions on the mind of a European of Indian life. It was dedicated to Anstie, the author of the ‘Bath Guide,’ and is said to have been the first publication which was issued from the Indian press. The attention of Warren Hastings having been attracted to his abilities, Dallas was appointed superintendent of the collections at Rajeshahi. After filling this post for a few years, he was compelled by failing health to resign. Before leaving India he spoke at the meeting held at Calcutta on 25 July 1785 against Pitt's East India Bill (The whole Proceedings of the Meeting held at the Theatre in Calcutta, &c., 1786? pp. 15–46), and was deputed by the inhabitants of that