Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 14.djvu/331

De Lolme chester, 1773, and in 2 vols. 8vo, London, 1817. His receipt for 7l. 10s., in part payment of his allowance of 70l. per annum, was sold at Puttick's on 2 March 1867, art. 100. Extracts from his writings are given in Wesley's ‘Christian Library’ (ed. 1827), vol. vii.

[Baker MS. A 127 (Camb.), iv. 116 (Brit. Mus.); Cole MSS. (Add. MS. 5834, p. 271); Neal's History of the Puritans (ed. 1822), v. 191; Monthly Magazine, xv. 426; Notes and Queries, 3rd ser. v. 75–6, 6th ser. vii. 229, 574; Rutherfurd's Survey of the Spiritual Antichrist, London, 1647; Voss's Epist. 260, 283; Baxter's Life, vol. i. pt. i. p. 64, § 99.]  DELMARIUS, CÆSAR. [See under .]

DE LOLME, JOHN LOUIS (1740?–1807), writer on the English constitution, was born about 1740 at Geneva, where he practised for a short time as an advocate. Coming to England about 1769, he set himself to the study of its government, being led to the subject, as he tells us, by the peculiarity of the system, and by his experience of political troubles in his own country, which, as he considered, had given him ‘insight into the first real principles of governments.’ He began to write his book after being a year in England, and published it about nine months afterwards (advt. to 1781 ed.). It was first written in French, and brought out in Holland. The circumstances in which the work appeared in English are somewhat obscure. In 1772 was published anonymously ‘A Parallel between the English Constitution and the former Government of Sweden,’ which was in great part extracted from the essay on the English constitution, and has generally been treated as the work of De Lolme, though done into English by another hand. In seeking subscriptions for the publication of a translation of the essay, he found that one had already been begun by two booksellers. He paid them 10l., he says, in order to engage them to drop their undertaking, and published the first English edition in 1775. It has been suggested that he was assisted in the translation by Baron Maseres, whom De Lolme ‘for several months visited each morning at his chambers at the Temple’ (pref. to Macgregor's ed.); and the general excellence of the English makes it unlikely that it should have proceeded from a foreigner who had been only a few years resident in this country. We may presume, at any rate, that he availed himself of the translation which he bought from the booksellers. It is curious that the preface to the Junius letters, written as early as November 1771 (see letters to Woodfall, 5 Nov. and 5 Dec. 1771), and published in 1772, concludes with a quotation from De Lolme's work (described as ‘a performance deep, solid, and ingenious’), in which the language is verbally the same as that of the 1775 edition (see the passage, book ii. ch. xii.). This coincidence led to the conjecture that De Lolme and Junius were the same person. The theory was elaborately worked out by Dr. Busby in ‘Arguments and Facts demonstrating that the Letters of Junius were written by John Louis de Lolme, LL.D., Advocate’ (1816). It has never been regarded as a theory deserving serious consideration. As to the quotation, there is nothing to decide whether Junius saw the translation before publication, or De Lolme adopted Junius's translation of the passage. The essay, which reached a fourth edition in 1784, must have yielded considerable profits; but through improvidence, and, it is said, dissipation, gambling, and speculation, De Lolme remained in constant poverty. D'Israeli, who mentions that De Lolme received relief from the Literary Fund, and that ‘the walls of the Fleet too often enclosed the English Montesquieu,’ considers his misfortunes a national reproach (Calamities of Authors, ii. 262–3), but in fact he made it difficult for any one to befriend him. Having great conversational powers—he ‘has been compared to Burke,’ says one of his editors, ‘for the variety of his allusions, and the felicity of his illustrations’ (pref. to 1807 ed.)—he gained the acquaintance of most of the leading men of his time. But he was always in debt; he concealed his lodgings and changed them frequently; and he was slovenly in his person. It is not surprising, therefore, that his friends fell off, and that he did not advance himself. Little, however, is known of the details of his life, beyond the publication of the books and pamphlets of which a list is given below. Though none of them, save the essay on the constitution, is of any permanent value, they show him to have been a man of active and ingenious mind. In 1775, according to Dr. Busby, he projected the ‘News Examiner,’ the object of which was to expose the party animosity and the inconsistency of the London journals, by republishing their leading articles, but he could not pay the stamp duty, and the project was given up. He appears to have remained in England till about the beginning of this century, making a precarious living by his pen. Having inherited property from a relative, he paid his debts and returned to Geneva. He was elected a member of the Council of Two Hundred, and shortly before his death is said to have been made a sous-prefet under 