Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 6.djvu/812

776 spirits, though he continued to occupy himself with his favourite pursuits, and to frequent the society of his brother philosophers. After the death of Voltaire (1778), whose friend and correspondent he had been for more than thirty years, he was regarded as the leader of the philosophical party in the Academy. He died on the 29th October 1783.

The chief features of D'Alembert's character were benevolence, simplicity, and independence. Though his income was never large, and during the greater part of his life was very meagre, he contrived to find means to support his foster-mother in her old age, to educate the children of his first teacher, and to help various deserving students during their college career. By his practice as well as by the work above referred to (Essai sur la société des gens de lettres &c.) he did much to destroy the unworthy subserviency of literary and scientific men to the socially great and the politically powerful. If his manner was sometimes plain almost to the extent of rudeness it probably set all the better an example of a much needed reform to the class to which he belonged. The controversy as to the nature of his religious opinions, arising as it did chiefly out of his connection with the Encyclopædia, has no longer any living interest now that the Encyclopædists generally have ceased to be regarded with unqualified suspicion by those who count themselves orthodox. It is to be observed, moreover, that as D'Alembert confined himself chiefly to mathematical articles, his work laid him less open to charges of heresy and infidelity than that of some of his associates. The fullest revelation of his religious convictions is given in his correspondence with Voltaire, which was published along with that with Frederick the Great in Bossange's edition of his works.



DALGARNO, (c. 1626–1687), an ingenious but now almost forgotten writer, born at Old Aberdeen about 1626. He appears to have studied at Marischal College; and in 1657 he went to Oxford, where, according to Wood, &ldquo;he taught a private grammar-school with good success for about thirty years,&rdquo; and where he died on August 28, 1687. In his work entitled Didascalocophus, or the Deaf and Dumb Man's Tutor, printed at Oxford in 1680, he has the merit of anticipating some of the most useful modern discoveries as to the education of the deaf and dumb, including the hand-alphabet. &ldquo;In prosecution of his general idea,&rdquo; says Dugald Stewart in his &ldquo;Account of a Boy Born Blind and Deaf&rdquo; (Trans. of Royal Soc. of Edinb. vol.vii.) &ldquo;he has treated, in one short chapter, of a Deaf Man's Dictionary, and, in another, of a Grammar for Deaf Persons, both of them containing a variety of precious hints, from which useful practical lights might be derived by all who have any concern in the tuition of children during the first stage of their education.&rdquo; Twenty years before the publication of his Didascalocophus, Dalgarno had given to the world a very ingenious piece entitled Ars Signorum, from which, says MrStewart, it appears indisputably that he was the precursor of Bishop Wilkins in his speculations concerning &ldquo;a real character and a philosophical language.&rdquo; It is alleged that, although Wilkins does not refer to Dalgarno, it was from him that he took the hint of his celebrated work. Leibnitz on various occasions alluded to the Ars Signorum in commendatory terms. The works of Dalgarno, which had become exceedingly rare, have been reprinted by the Maitland Club. 

DALHOUSIE,, (1812-1860), in the peerage of the United Kingdom, the great administrator who was the last of the historic governors-general under the East India Company, and may be ranked with his two most distinguished predecessors, -Warren Hastings and the Marquis Wellesley. The family was founded by Sir John Ramsay, who rescued James VI. in the Gowrie outrage ; but there is mention in 1140 of Simon de Ramsay as witness to the grant of Livingston Church in West Lothian ; and Sir Alexander Ramsay, whom David II. made sheriff of Teviotdale, was starved to death by the Douglas. The grateful King James made Sir John Lord Ramsay of Barns and Viscount Haddington, and his son obtained a change of the title to Baron Ramsay of Dalhousie. His son was created earl of Dalhousie. The ninth earl was a distinguished Waterloo officer, held high command in Canada, was commander-in-chief in British India previous to 1832, and was created a peer of the United Kingdom as Baron Dalhousie of Dalhousie. He married Miss Broun, the heiress of Coalstoun near Haddington, a woman of remarkable ability and force of character, which she transmitted to her distinguished son, who closely resembled her in features also. He was their third son, but the early death of his brothers, followed by that of their father, made him the tenth earl while yet a youth. For his long and brilliant services in India he received the thanks of Parliament, arid the Crown made him marquis, a dignity that passed away with him, his only issue being two daughters, the Lady Susan, married to the Honourable R. Bourke, M.P., brother of the sixth earl of Mayo, and the Lady Edith, first wife of Sir James Fer- gusson.

Born in 1812, the boy was educated at Harrow, and entered at Christ Church, Oxford, where he gave bright promise of his future career. The two most remarkable of his fellow-students were Lord Canning and Lord Elgin, who both succeeded their college rival in the viceroy s seat, and more than once in their public career alluded to the friendship that had united the three. When Lord Ramsay, he attempted, as a follower of Sir Robert Peel, to snatch the representation of Edinburgh from Sir John (afterwards Lord Chancellor) Campbell, and James Aber- cromby, afterwards Speaker and Lord Dunfermline. He was afterwards elected for the county of Haddington, which he represented for a short time till called to the House of Lords on his father s death. The duke of Wellington was soon attracted by the industry and ability of the young peer, in whom, moreover, he felt an interest for his father s sake. When the Whigs went out of office under Lord Melbourne, Sir Robert Peel came into power with three colleagues who were successively to be governor-general, Lord Ellen- borough as president of the Board of Control, Sir H. Har- dinge as secretary at war, and Lord Dalhousie as vice-presi dent of the Board of Trade under Mr Gladstone, and in 1844 as president. It was in the Board of Trade that he sowed the seeds of that disease which carried him off in the prime of life. The time was that of the corn-law struggle and, still more to him, of the railway mania. Night and day the president had to work. In 1845 he organized that railway department of the Board of Trade, through which in one year he passed, after detailed personal study, 332 projects, involving a capital of 271,000,000, besides many foreign schemes which appea ed to the English money-market. At the last hour of November for lodging applications no fewer than 600 schemes were deposited on his table. To him, more than any other man, Great Britain owes its railway system, and if the experienced warning of the over-worked president had been heeded, the disasters of 1847-48 would never have taken place. At the same time the duty of leading 