Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 15.djvu/242

 cost of many thousands of pounds, and under the title of the London Museum and Institute of Natural History admitted the public freely in 1807 and for many years afterwards. In 1833 he published a piteous memorial respecting his losses at the hands of the booksellers. He states that he began to publish in 1783, and during those fifty years a complete set of his publications would cost nearly 100l. From affluence he was nearly reduced to ruin, as the publishers retained nearly the whole of his literary property in their hands. The booksellers, he adds, by withholding accounts for six years could by the statute of limitations utterly ruin him. The property in question was between 60,000l. and 70,000l., and he begs for contributions to enable him to take his case into the courts of chancery. He died in Kennington Road, London, on 1 Feb. 1837.

Donovan was a laborious worker and writer. Swainson says his entomological figures are most valuable, ‘the text is verbose and not above mediocrity.’ The same critic is severe on his plates, ‘the colouring of which is gaudy and the drawings generally unnatural.’ This is correct with regard to Donovan's representations of birds and quadrupeds; his fishes are, many of them, excellently drawn, and their colouring will compare favourably with similar plates in any modern books. His works consist of:
 * 1) The articles on ‘Natural History’ in Rees's ‘Cyclopædia.’
 * 2) ‘Essay on the Minute Parts of Plants,’ appended to Smith's ‘Botany of New Holland,’ 1793.
 * 3) ‘Instructions for Collecting and Preserving Objects of Natural History,’ 8vo, 1805—a very practical treatise.
 * 4) ‘General Illustrations of Entomology,’ 3 vols., dedicated to Sir J. Banks, and his best work. The illustrations are excellent. Vol. i. contains the insects of Asia, 1805; vol. ii. the insects of India and of the islands in the Indian seas; vol. iii. the insects of New Holland and the islands of the Indian, Southern, and Pacific oceans. Westwood edited the ‘Insects of China and India,’ and brought them up to date in 1842.
 * 5) ‘Descriptive Excursions through South Wales,’ 2 vols. 1805.
 * 6) ‘Natural History of British Birds,’ 10 vols. and plates, 8vo, 1799; of ‘British Fishes,’ 5 vols. and plates, 8vo, 1802; of ‘British Insects,’ 10 vols. and plates, 8vo, 1802; of ‘British Shells,’ 5 vols. with plates, 8vo, 1804; and of ‘British Quadrupeds,’ 3 vols. and plates, 8vo, 1820.
 * 7) ‘The Nests and Eggs of British Birds,’ 8vo.
 * 8) Several papers in the three vols. of the ‘Naturalists' Repository’ (which he also edited), 1821 seq.
 * 9) ‘The Memorial of Mr. E. Donovan respecting his Publications,’ 4to, 7 pp. 1833.



DOODY, SAMUEL (1656–1706), botanist, the eldest of the second family of his father, John Doody, an apothecary in Staffordshire, who afterwards removed to London, where he had a shop in the Strand, was born in Staffordshire 28 May 1656. He was brought up to his father's business, to which he succeeded about 1696. He had given some attention to botany before 1687, the date of a commonplace book (Sloane MS. 3361), but his help is first acknowledged by Ray in 1688 in the second volume of the ‘Historia Plantarum.’ He was intimate with the botanists of his time, Ray, already mentioned, Plukenett, Petiver, and Sloane, and had specially devoted himself to cryptogams, at that time very little studied, and became an authority upon them. He undertook the care of the Apothecaries' Garden at Chelsea in 1693, at the salary of 100l., which he seems to have continued until his death. Two years later he was elected fellow of the Royal Society. The results of his herborisations round London are recorded in his copy of Ray's ‘Synopsis,’ 2nd edit., now in the British Museum, which were used by Dillenius in preparing the third edition. He suffered much from gout, and appears to have been rather notorious for a failing which, although not specified, seems to have been intemperance. He died, after some weeks' illness, the last week in November 1706, and was buried at Hampstead 3 Dec., his funeral sermon being preached by his old friend, [q. v.] His sole contribution as an author seems to be a paper in the ‘Phil. Trans.’ (1697), xix. 390, on a case of dropsy in the breast.



DOOLITTLE, THOMAS (1632?–1707), nonconformist tutor, third son of Anthony Doolittle, a glover, was born at Kidderminster in 1632 or the latter half of 1631. While at the grammar school of his native town he heard [q. v.] preach as lecturer (appointed 5 April 1641) the sermons afterwards published as ‘The Saint's Everlasting Rest’ (1653). These discourses produced his conversion. Placed with a country attorney he scrupled at copying writings on