Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 6.djvu/798

762 subsequent career. The chosen companions of his leisure hours were Racine and Boileau, the latter of whom frequently mentions him with high praise. In 1700 he was appointed procurator-general ; and in this office, which he filled for seventeen years, he gained the greatest popularity by his lenity in criminal cases, and by his care of the public hospitals. In 1717 he was made chancellor by the Regent Orleans ; but it was only a year after that he was deprived of the seals, and exiled to his estate, on account of his steady opposition to the projects of the famous John Law, which had been adopted by the regent and his ministers. In 1720, however, on the failure of these schemes, he was recalled ; and he contributed not a little, by the firmness and sagacity of his counsels, to calm the public disturbance and repair the mischief which had been committed. Law himself had acted as the messenger of his recall ; and it is said that D Aguesseau s consent to accept the seals from his hand greatly diminished his popularity. But his reputation was much more severely shaken by his conduct in connection with the bull &quot; Unigenitus,&quot; a measure which, with distinguished bravery, he had himself opposed during the life of the late king. He allowed the Great Council to assume the power of registration, which legally belonged to ths Parliament alone ; and he assisted Dubois, the favourite of the regent, in his endeavour to force the Parliament to register the bull, though he refused to sanction the extreme measure of exiling the Parliament, which Dubois had contemplated. Dislike of the Jansenists, and desire to put an end to the religious controversies which were raging so bitterly, were probably the motives which, in part at least, influenced D Aguesseau ; but the people unjustly attributed his con duct to a base compliance with the favourite. He certainly opposed Dubois in other matters ; and when Dubois became chief minister, D Aguesseau was deprived of his office. He retired to his estate at Fresnes, where he passed five years, of which he always spoke with delight. The Scrip tures, which he read and compared in various languages, and the jurisprudence of his own and other countries, formed the subjects of his more serious studies ; the rest of his time was devoted to philosophy, literature, and gardening. From these occupations he was recalled to court, by the advice of Cardinal Fleury, in 1727; but the seals were not restored to him till ten years later. During these years he endeavoured to mediate in the disputes between the court and the Parliament. When he was at last reinstated in office, he completely withdrew from all political affairs, and devoted himself entirely to his duties as chancellor, and to the achievement of those reforms which had long occupied his thoughts. Besides some important enactments regarding donations, testaments, and successions, he intro duced various regulations for improving the forms of pro cedure, for ascertaining the limits of jurisdictions, and for effecting a greater uniformity in the execution of the laws throughout the several provinces. These reforms constitute an epoch in the history of French jurisprudence, and have placed the name of D Aguesseau in the same rank with those of L Hopital and Lamoignon. As a magistrate also he was so conscientious that Saint-Simon has complained that he spent too much time over the cases that came before him. In 1750, when upwards of eighty-two years of age, D Aguesseau retired from the duties without giving up the rank of chancellor. He died on the 9th February of the following year.

1em 1em  DAHL, (1778-1857), a landscape painter, born in Bergen, Norway, on the 24th February 1778. He began painting in his native town, and formed his style without much tuition, remaining there till he was twenty-four, when he left for the better field of Copen hagen, and ultimately settled in Dresden in 1818. He is usually included in the German school, although he was thus close on forty years of age when he finally took up his abode in Dresden, where he was quickly received into the Academy and became professor. German landscape^ painting was not greatly advanced at that time, and Dahl contributed to improve it. He continued to reside in Dresden, though he travelled into Tyrol and in Italy, painting many pictures, one of his best works being that of the Outbreak of Vesuvius, 1820. What his works want is the careful expression of nature in its normal conditions. He was fond of extraordinary effects, as seen in his Winter at Munich, and his Dresden by Moonlight; also the Haven of Copenhagen, and the Schloss of Friedrichsburg, under the same condition. At Dresden may be seen many of his works ; a large picture called Norway may be mentioned, and a Storm at Sea. He was received into several academic bodies, and had the orders of Wasa and St Olaf sent him by the king of Norway and Sweden. His death took place in 1857.  DAHL, (1656-1743), the only celebrated Scandinavian portrait painter of his time, was born at Stockholm in 1656. He received his first professional education from Ernst Klocke, who had a respectable posi tion in that northern town, which, however, Dahl left in his twenty-second year. His first destination was England, where he did not long remain, but crossed over to Paris and made his way at last to Rome, there taking up his abode for a considerable time, painting the portraits of Queen Christina and other celebrities. In 1688 he returned to England, with an established character, and became for some years a dangerous rival to Kneller. His portraits still exist in many houses, but his name is not always preserved with them. Nagler (Kunsller-Lexicon) says those at Hampton Court and at Petworth contest the palm with those of the better known and vastly more employed painter. Some of his pictures have been engraved. He died in 1743, in his eighty-seventh year.  DAHL, or, (1802-1872), a Russian author and philologist of high reputation, was born of Scandinavian parentage in 1802, and received his education at the Naval Cadets Institution at St Petersburg. He joined the Black Sea fleet in 1819 ; but at a later date he entered the military service, and was thus engaged in the Polish campaign of 1831, and in the expedition against Khiva. He was afterwards appointed to a medical post in one of the Government hospitals at St Petersburg, and was ultimately transferred to a situation in the civil service. The latter years of his life were spent at Moscow, and he died there on November 3 (October 22), 1872. Under the name of Kossack Lugansky he obtained con siderable fame by his stories of Russian life, The Dream and the Waking, A Story of Misery, Happiness, and Truth, The Door-Keeper (Dvernik), The Officer s Valet (Denshchik). His greatest work, however, was a Dictionary of the Living 