Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 6.djvu/871

Rh DAUPHINÉ, an ancient province of south-eastern France, now forming the departments of Isere, Drome, and Hautes Alpes. It was bounded on the E. by Piedmont, N.E. by Savoy, S. by Provence, S.W. by the Comte Venaissin, and N. and W. by the Rhone. The western portion was known as Lower, and the eastern portion as Upper Dauphine&quot;, the latter including the districts of Matesine, Champ-saur, Oisans, Diais, Gapengais, Embrunais, and Briangonnais ; and the former, Gresivaudan, Viennais, Valentinais, Royannez, the Baronies, and Tricastinais. When it first appears in history the district was inhabited by the Allobroges, the Caturiges, and other Celtic tribes, who were gradually incorporated in the Roman Empire. It was afterwards successively comprised in the first Bur- gundian kingdom, the Carolingian empire, the second Burgundian kingdom, and the German empire. In the course of the 9th, 10th, llth, and 12th centuries it was broken up into several small principalities, ecclesiastical and secular ; of which the most important proved that of the lords of Albon, who, first as counts and afterwards as dauphins of Viennais, gradually extended their influence and possessions. The Burgundian line dying out in 1281, the lordship passed to the house of La Tour du Pin, which in the person of Guiges VIII. was offered the royal dignity by Louis the Bavarian. Guiges s successor, Hubert II., having lost his only son in 1335, made over his lands to Charles of Valois, the grandson of Philip VI., in return for an annual payment, and on condition that the independence and the privileges of the countship should be maintained. From this time the eldest son of the king of France bore the title of Dauphin. The history of Dauphine* down to the Revolution consists mainly of the struggles of its inhabitants to maintain their liberties against the gradual encroachments of the Crown. Louis XI. was the first to demand the payment of an annual tax. Richelieu abolished their estates ; but the constitutional spirit of the people continued alive, and in 1788 displayed itself in violent resistance to the dissolution of the provincial parle- ment and in the convocation of the three orders in the castle of Vizille, where the popular rights were boldly asserted.

1em  DAURAT, (or ; in Latin, undefined), French poet of the renaissance, and founder of the Pleiade, was born at Limoges in 1507. He was of illustrious family, and, after studying at the college of Limoges, came up to Paris to be presented to Francis I., who made him tutor to his pages. He rapidly gained an immense reputa tion, especially for proficiency in classical learning. As private tutor in the house of Lazare de Baif, he had J. A. de Baif, afterwards famous as a poet, for his pupil. His son, Louis, was of a marvellous precocity, and at the age of ten translated into French verse one of his father s Latin pieces ; his poems were published with his father s. Jean Daurat became the director of the College de Coqueret, where he had among his pupils, besides Baif, Ronsard, Remy Belleau, and Pontus de Thyard. Du Bellay was added by Ronsard to this group ; and these five young poets, under the direction of Daurat, formed a species of society for the reformation of the French language and litera ture. They increased their number to seven by the initia tion of the dramatist fitienne Jodelle, and thereupon they named themselves &quot; La Pleiade,&quot; in emulation of the seven Greek poets of Alexandria. The election of Daurat as their president proved the weight of his personal influence, but as a writer of French verse he is the least important of the eeven. Meanwhile he collected around him a sort of A cademy, and stimulated the students on all sides to a passionate study of Greek and Latin poetry. He himself wrote incessantly in both those languages, and was styled the Modern Pindar. In 1500 he was appointed professor of Greek at the College Royale, a post which he continued to hold until, in his extreme old age, he resigned it in favour of his nephew, Nicolas Goulu. Charles IX. gave him the title of poete regius. His flow of language was the wonder of his time ; he is said to have composed more than 15,000 Greek and Latin verses. What he considered the best of these were comprised in a volume of Foemata, published at Paris in 1586. He died at Paris on the 1st of November 1588, having survived all his illustrious pupils of the P16iade, except Pontus de Thyard. He was a little, restless man, of untiring energy, rustic in manner and appearance. His unequalled personal influence over the most graceful minds of his age gives him an importance in the history of literature for which his own somewhat vapid writings do not fully account.  DAVENANT, (1605-1668), poet and dramatist, was born in February 1605, at the Crown Inn, Oxford, where his father was a wealthy vintner. It was stated that Shakespeare always stopped at this house in passing through the city of Oxford, and out of his known or rumoured admiration of the hostess, a very fine woman, there sprang a scandalous story which attributed Davenaut e paternity to the greatest of poets, a legend which there is reason to believe Davenant himself encouraged, but which later criticism has cast aside as spurious. In 1621 the vintner was made mayor of Oxford, and in the same year his son left the grammar-school of All Saints, where his master had been Edward Sylvester, and was entered an undergraduate of Lincoln College. He did not stay at the university, however, long enough to take a degree, but was hurried away to appear at court as a page, in the retinue of the gorgeous duchess of Richmond. From her service he passed into that of Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke, in whose house he remained until the murder of that eminent man in 1628. This blow threw him upon the world, not altogether without private means, but greatly in need of a profitable employment. He turned to the stage for sub sistence, and in 1629 produced his first play, the tragedy of Albovine. It was not a very brilliant performance, but it pleased the town, and decided the poet to pursue a dramatic career. The next year saw the publication of The Cruel Brother, a tragedy, and The Just Italian, a tragi-comedy. Inigo Jones, the court architect, for whom Ben Jonson had long supplied the words of masques and complimentary pieces, quarrelled with his great colleague in the year 1634, and applied to William Davenant for verses. The result was The Temple of Love, performed by the queen and her ladies at Whitehall on Shrove Tuesday, 1634, and printed in that year. Another masque, The Triumphs of the Prince D 1 Amour, followed in 1635. The poet returned to the legitimate drama by the publication of three of his cleverest and most successful pieces, the. tragi-comedy of Love and Honour, in 1635, and the tragi comedy of The Platonic Lovers, and the famous comedy of The Wits, in 1636. The masque of Britannia Triumphans brought him into some trouble, for it was suppressed, as a punishment for its first performance having -been arranged for a Sunday. By this time Davenant had, however, thoroughly ingratiated himself with the court ; and on the death of Ben Jonson in 1637 he was rewarded with the office of poet-laureate, to the exclusion of May, who con sidered himself entitled to the honour. It was shortly after this event that Davenant collected his minor lyrical pieces into a volume entitled Madagascar and other Poem*, 1638 ; and in 1639 he became manager of the new theatre 