Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 6.djvu/795

Rh Prsevalitana, ana a part of Macedonia Salutaris; in its narrower use it comprehended only the first two. Numer ous traces of Roman occupation are found throughout the region, and in Roumania the people pride themselves on their supposed descent from the Roman colonists, and use a dialect which bears a strong similarity to Latin. In features they are said to have a resemblance to the Dacians figured on Trajan s pillar. See Dierauer, Geschichte Trajan s ; W. Froehner, La Colonne trajane, Paris, 1865 ; Roesler, Romdnische Studien, 1871.  DACIER, (1651-1722), a French classical scholar, was the son of a Protestant advocate at Castres, and was born in that town in 1651. His father resolved to give him a learned education, and accordingly sent him first to the academy of Puy Laurens, and afterwards to Saumur, to study under Tanneguy Lefevre, who at that time enjoyed a considerable reputation as a teacher of classics. Such rapid progress did the young scholar make that, when Lefevre sent away all his other pupils, he kept Dacier for another entire year. On the death of Lefevre, Dacier removed to Paris ; and he had the good fortune to be appointed one of the editors of the Delphin series of the classics. His marriage with the far more famous Anne Lefevre, the daughter of his old teacher, took place in 1683. In 1685 he announced, in a letter to the king, the conversion of himself and his wife to Roman Catholicism. As a reward Louis bestowed on him a pension of 1500 livres, and on ! his wife one of 500 livres. In 1695 Dacier was elected member of the Academy of Inscriptions, and also of the French Academy (of which in 1713 he became secretary) ; and not long after, as payment for his share in the Histoire Je Louis le Grand par medailles, &amp;lt;bc., he was appointed keeper of the library of the Louvre. He died, two years after his wife, on September 18, 1722.

1em  DACIER, (1654-1720), a famous French scholar and translator from the classics, was born at Saurnur, probably in 1654. She was the daughter of Tanneguy Lefevre, a self-educated scholar belonging to the Huguenots, who taught classics and edited classical authors with a liveliness and enthusiasm which brought him some degree of fame. At the age of eighteen Anne Lefevre lost her father. She then removed to Paris, carry ing with her part of an edition of Callimachus, which she afterwards published, and which obtained for her an engagement as one of the editors of the series of classical authors then being prepared ad usum Delphini. In this series she edited Florus, Dictys Cretensis, Aurelius Victor, and Eutropius. In 1681 appeared her prose version of Anacreon and Sappho, which, though it was successful at the time, is wanting in the delicate taste, the gaiety, and fire essential to a true translation. Within the next few years she also published prose versions of Terence and some of the plays of Plautus and Aristophanes, for the last of whom especially she cherished the most intense admiration. In 1683 Anne Lefevre married Andre&quot; Dacier, once her father s favourite pupil. In the following year she accom panied her husband to his native town of Castres, whither they retired with the professed object of devoting themselves to theological studies. In 1685 the result was announced in the conversion to R.oman Catholicism of both M. and Mme. Dacier, and of many of the townsfolk of Castres besides. The sincerity of this conversion, though it brought with it court favour, it would be uncharitable to doubt ; indeed the tastes of Mme. Dacier and her husband were such as would render such a step most natural. In 1711 appeared the prose translation of the Iliad (followed five years later by a similar translation of the Odyssey) which, through the spirit and enthusiasm which she brought to the work, and the direct and simple strength of her some times homely language, gained her the position she occupies in French literature. The appearance of this version, which made Homer known for the first time to many French men of letters, and among others to La Motte, gave rise to a famous literary controversy. La Motte published a poetical version of the Iliad, which he look the liberty of greatly abridging and altering to suit his own taste, together with a Discours sur Homcre, stating tho reasons why Homer failed to satisfy his critical taste (1714). Mme. Dacier replied, in her work Des Causes de la Corruption de la Gout (1714), maintaining her opinions with a thorough enthusiasm for the ancients which allowed no merit to the moderns, and with occasional flashes of not unhappy banter. La Motte carried on the discussion with light gaiety and badinage, and had the happiness of seeing his views supported by the indisputable erudition of the Abbe Terrasson, who in 1715 produced two volumes, entitled Dissertation critique sur I lliade, in which he maintained that science and philosophy, and especially tho science and philosophy of Descartes, had so cultured the human mind that, without doubt, the poets of the 18th century were immeasurably superior to those of ancient Greece. The reply to this treatise was undertaken by M. Dacier. In 1715 the dispute was settled. In that year, Pere Buffier published Homere en arbitrage (two letters to Mme. Lambert, with a reply from her) in which he con cludes that both parties are really agreed as to the essential point that Homer was one of the greatest geniuses the world has seen, and that, as a whole, no other poem can be preferred to his ; and, soon after, in the house of M. de Valincourt, Mme. Dacier and La Motte met at supper, and drank together to the health of Homer. Nothing of importance marks the rest of Mme. Dacier s life. She assisted her husband, for whom she seems to have cherished a high admiration, in his editions and translations, and spent part of her latter years in writing notes on the Scriptures, which were never published. She died at tho Louvre, where her husband was keeper of the library, on the 17th August 1720.

1em  DA COSTA, (1798-1860), a Dutch poet and theologian, was born at Amsterdam on the 14th January 1798. His father was a Jew of Portuguese descent, through whom he claimed kindred with the celebrated Uriel IPAeosta. He studied at Amsterdam, and afterwards at Leyden. where he took his doctor s degree in law in 1818. Before this he had given evidence of poetical talent, and had become acquainted with Bilderdijk, who exercised the strongest influence over him both in poetry and in theology. He was in fact the imitator as well as the scholar of Bilderdijk. In 1822 he became a convert to Christianity, and immediately afterwards asserted him self as a champion of orthodoxy in his Bezwaren tegen den Geest der Emw (1823), which was an attack upon the prevalent latitudinarianism in doctrine. He took a lively interest in missions to the Jews, and towards the close of his life was a director of the seminary established at Amsterdam in connection with the mission of the Free 