Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 14.djvu/13

  what he himself has told us in his New Voyage round the World (1697), dedicated to Charles Montague; Voyages and Descriptions (1699), the supplement to the former, with other interesting matter, dedicated to the Earl of Orford; and the Voyage to New Holland in the year 1699 (in two parts, 1703, 1709), dedicated to the Earl of Pembroke. These three, with Funnell's Narrative, are now often catalogued as Dampier's Voyages in 4 vols. Captain Dampier's Vindication of his Voyage (4to, 1707) is a contradiction of some of Funnell's statements, of which an Answer to Captain Dampier's Vindication, by J. Welbe, maintains the truth in a manner much more explicit and condemnatory. There have been many popular biographies, little more than imperfect abstracts of the Voyages: the only one which can be considered in any sense original is attributed to Captain (afterwards Admiral) W. H. Smyth, in United Service Journal, July-November 1837. The Letters referred to respecting his Voyage to New Holland are in the Public Record Office, Captains' Letters, D. 1; and the minutes of the courts-martial in Courts-Martial, vol. 10. Besides these, bearing less directly on the subject, are Hacke's Collection of Original Voyages (8vo, 1699); Voyage and Adventures of Captain Bartholomew Sharp (8vo, 1684); Dangerous Voyage and Bold Attempts of Captain Bartholomew Sharp, by Basil Ringrose (8vo, 1699); A Cruising Voyage round the World, by Woodes Rogers (8vo, 1712); and a Voyage to the South Sea, by Edward Cooke (8vo, 1712). Many of the original manuscripts are in the British Museum, being Sloane 46 a and b, 49, 54, 3236, 3820.] 

DANBY,. [See {{sc|Danvers, Henry}, 1573–1643;, d. 1712.]

DANBY, FRANCIS (1793–1861), painter, third son of James Danby, a farmer and small landed proprietor at Common, near Wexford, was born there 16 Nov. 1793. In a letter to the publishers of a biographical dictionary (Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 28509) he gives the date of his birth as 1792, but this document contains so many unquestionable chronological errors that it will be safer to follow the received account. The insurrection of 1798 drove Danby's family to Dublin, and his father died about the time that he became of an age to choose a calling in life. He had studied drawing in the classes of the Royal Dublin Society, and conceived a strong wish to be a painter. With his mother's consent, he continued his studies under O'Connor, a neglected landscape painter of considerable genius, but little older than Danby himself. Both were intimate friends of George Petrie [q. v.], then a painter. Danby's first picture, ‘An Evening Landscape,’ was exhibited at Dublin in 1812, and sold, Mr. S. C. Hall says, for fifteen guineas. In the following year the three friends proceeded on an expedition to London. Danby says that this occurred in 1811, but the evidence of date in Petrie's biography is decisive, and Danby himself speaks of having then seen Turner's ‘Frosty Morning,’ which was not exhibited till 1813. Danby and O'Connor remained in London after Petrie had left them, and notwithstanding the latter's generosity in presenting them with two valuable rings, their means ran so short that on arriving at Bristol they were unable to pay for a night's lodging. Danby raised the means by selling two sketches of the Wicklow mountains for eight shillings to Mintorn, a stationer on College Green, and, by the persuasion of Mintorn's son, remained at Bristol to sketch the neighbourhood, O'Connor returning to Ireland. Danby was largely patronised by a Bristol citizen of the name of Fry, through whose son he made an acquaintance which resulted in a hasty and imprudent marriage, unknown, as he declares, to his relatives. He visited Norway and Scotland, and a view in the latter country was his first contribution to the Royal Academy, in 1817. Becoming conscious of his powers, he successively exhibited three important pictures: ‘The Upas Tree’ (British Institution, 1820), ‘Disappointed Love’ (Royal Academy, 1821), and ‘Clearing up after a Shower’ (Royal Academy, 1822); all fully and sympathetically described by the brothers Redgrave (A Century of Painters, i. 438–443). ‘Disappointed Love,’ now in the Sheepshanks Collection at South Kensington, is adduced in R. H. Horne's ‘Exposition of the False Medium’ as a remarkable instance of the triumph of imaginative genius over technical defects. In 1824 Danby established his reputation by his grand marine painting ‘Sunset at Sea after a Storm,’ which was purchased by Sir Thomas Lawrence at a much higher price, it is said, than the painter's own. Danby removed to London, partly, it has been stated, at the instance of the academicians, who wished to oppose him to their antagonist Martin. His next picture, ‘The Delivery of Israel out of Egypt,’ now in the Duke of Sutherland's collection, is certainly in Martin's style, and a victory over him. Like its successor in the same style, ‘The Opening of the Sixth Seal,’ it is well known from engravings. The latter work was purchased by Beckford. Danby had already exhibited (1825) ‘The Enchanted Island,’ celebrated in the verse of L. E. L., and (7 Nov. 1825) had been elected an associate of the Academy. The road to the highest honours of his profession seemed open before him, when he struck on the rock of domestic difficul-