Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 7.djvu/527

Rh service for which he was rewarded with the order of the Bath and a pension of 1000 a year. Promoted to be vice-admiral of the blue, he was appointed in 1804 to the Jamaica station. Two years later, while cruising off Cadiz with Lord Collingwood, he was detached with his squadron to pursue a French fleet that had been sent to the relief of St Domingo. He came up with the enemy on the 6th February 1806, and, after two hours fighting, inflicted a signal defeat upon them, capturing three of their five vessels and stranding the other two. For this, the most distin guished service of his life, he received the thanks of the Jamaica Assembly, with a sword of the value of a thousand guineas, the thanks of the English Parliament, and the freedom of the city of London. In 1807 he was again sent to the Mediterranean to watch the movements of the Turks. In command of the &quot; Royal George &quot; he forced the passage of the Dardanelles, but sustained considerable loss in effecting his return, the Turks having strengthened their position. He held the command of the Newfoundland fleet for four years from 1810, and at the close of that period he was made a baronet. In 1815 he was appointed to the chief command at Plymouth, which he held until his death on the 14th April 1817. Sir John Duckworth sat in Parliament for some time as member for New Romney.  DUCLOS, (1704-1772), a French author, was born at Dinant, in Brittany, in 1704. At an early age he was sent to study at Paris. After some time spent in dissipation he began to cultivate the society of the wits of the time, and became a member of that club or association of young men who published their joint efforts in light literature under the titles of Recueil de ces Messieurs, Etrennes de la St Jean, (Eufs de Pdques, &amp;lt;fcc. His romance of Acajou ami Zirphile, which was composed after a series of plates which had been engraved for another work, was one of the fruits of this association, and was produced in consequence of a sort of wager amongst its members. Duclos had previously written two other romances, which were more favourably received The Baroness de Luz, and the Confessions of the Count de ***. His first serious publication was the History of Louis XI., which is dry and epigrammatical in style, but displays considerable powers of research and impartiality. The reputation of Duclos as an author was confirmed by the publication of his Considerations sur les Moeurs, a work which is much and justly praised by Laharpe, as containing a great deal of sound and ingenious reflection. It was translated into English and German. The Memoires pour servir a V Histoire du dix-huitieme Siecle, which were intended by the author as a sort of sequel to the preceding work, are nevertheless much inferior in respect of both style and matter, and are, in reality, little better than a kind of romance. In consequence of his History of Louis XI., he was appointed historiographer of France, when that place became vacant on Voltaire s retirement to Prussia. His Secret Memoirs of the reigns of Louis XIV. and Louis XV., and his Considerations on Italy, were not published until after the Revolution. The former work is highly spoken of by Chamfort. Duclos became a member of the Academy of Inscriptions in 1739, and of the French Academy in 1747. Of the latter he was appointed perpetual secretary in 1755. Both academies were indebted to him not only for many valuable contributions, but also for several useful regu lations and improvements. As a member of the Academy of Inscriptions, he composed several memoirs on the Druids, on the origin and revolutions of the Celtic and French languages, on trial by battle and proof by ordeal, and on scenic representations and the ancient drama. As a member of the French Academy, he assisted in compiling the new edition of the Dictionary, which was published in 1762; and he made some just and philosophical remarks on the Port Royal Grammar. On several occasions he distinguished himself by vindicating the honour and prerogatives of the societies to which he belonged, and the dignity of the literary character in general. He used to say of himself, &quot; I shall leave behind me a name dear to literary men.&quot; The citizens of Dinant, whose interests he always supported with zeal, appointed him mayor of their town in 1744, though he was resident at Paris. He was afterwards elected deputy from the commons to the assembly of the states of Brittany; and upon the requisition of this body the king granted him letters of nobility. In 1766 he was advised to retire from France for some time, having rendered himself obnoxious to the Government by the opinions he had expressed on the dispute between the Due d Aiguillon and M. de la Chalotais, the friend and countryman of Duclos. Accordingly he set out for Italy ; and on his return he wrote an account of his travels, which is also praised by Chamfort. He died at Paris, March 26, 1772, in the sixty-ninth year of his age. The character of Duclos was singular in its union of impulsiveness and prudence. Rousseau described him very laconically as a man droit el adroit. In his manners he displayed a sort of bluntness in society, which frequently rendered him disagreeable ; and his caustic wit on many occasions created enemies. To those who knew him, however, he was a pleasant companion. A considerable number of his bon mots have been preserved by his biographers. A complete edition of the works of Duclos, including an unfinished autobiography, was published by Desessarts, at Paris, in 10 vols. 8vo, 1806.  DUDEVANT, (1804-1876), known to all the world as the second, if not the greatest, of French novelists, by her assumed name of George Sand, was born at Paris 5th July 1804, and died 8th June 1876. Her life is as fantastic and eventful as any of her fictions, and the main secret of her success has been her power to clothe in artistic form her varied experiences of men and places. It is no easy task to set down in a short space the out ward events of her life, and to trace the development of her genius, not only because of the abundance of materials she has left behind her, but still mor-e from the subtle way in which she has interwoven fact and fiction. In the History of her Life, which covers half a century, the omissions are no less surprising than the revelations, and though she never indulges in the self-illusions of Dichtung und Wahrheit, which perplex or myetify the biographers of Goethe, yet she wisely refuses to satisfy the curiosity of the public on the most delicate episodes of her life. If, to fill up the blanks, we turn to her novels, George Sand justly warns us that in trying to raise the mask and identify her with any one of her characters, we shall not only lose our pains, but show that we mistake the fundamental conditions of art. Yet by the help of critics to supply the missing clue (and no writer of this century has so provoked criticism), it is possible to decipher the chief lineaments of the most remarkable woman of this age, and the greatest authoress in the world s history. Aurore was the daughter of Lieutenant Dupin and of his newly-married mistress Sophie Delaborde, the daughter of a Paris bird-fancier. Her paternal grandfather was M. Dupin de Francueil, a farmer-general of the revenue, who had married Mdlle. Rinteau, widow of Count Horn (a natural son of Louis XV.), and natural daughter of Marshal Saxe, the most famous of the many illegitimate children of Augustus the Strong by the lovely countess of Konigsmarck. This strange pedigree has been traced in detail by George Sand, and she recognizes it as one of the elements which went to mould her character. She boasts of the royal blood which she inherited through her father, and, disregarding the bar sinister, claims relationship with Charles X. 