Bibliography.—I.Editions and Translations.—The collected works of Descartes were published in Latin in 8 vols. at Amsterdam (1670-1683), in 7 vols. at Frankfort (1697) and in 9 vols. by Elzevir(1713); in French in 13 vols. (Paris, 1724-1729), republished by Victor Cousin (Paris, 1824-1826) in 11 vols., and again under the authority of the minister of public instruction by C. Adam and P. Tannery (1897 foll.). These include his so-called posthumous works.The Rules for the Direction of the Mind,The Search for Truth by the Light of Nature, and other unimportant fragments, published (in Latin) in 1701. In 1859-1860 Foucher de Careil published in two parts some unedited writings of Descartes from copies taken by Leibnitz from the original papers. Six editions of theOpera philosophicaappeared at Amsterdam between 1650 and 1678; a two-volume edition at Leipzig in 1843; there are also French editions,Œuvres philosophiques, by A. Garnier, 3 vols. (1834-1835), and L. Aimé-Martin (1838) andŒuvres morales et philosophiquesby Aimé-Martin with an introduction on life and works by Amedée Prévost (Paris, 1855);Œuvres choisies(1850) by Jules Simon. A complete French edition of the collected works was begun in the Romance Library (1907 foll.). German translations by J. H. von Kirchmann under the titlePhilosophische Werke(with biography, &c., Berlin, 1868; 2nded.,1882-1891), by Kuno Fischer,Die Hauptschriften zur Grundlegung seiner Philosophie(1863), with introduction by Ludwig Fischer (1892). There are also numerous editions and translations of separate works, especially theMethod, in French, German, Italian, Spanish and Hungarian. There are English translations by J. Veitch,Method, Meditations and Selections from the Principles(1850-1853; 11th ed., 1897; New York, 1899); by H. A. P. Torrey (New York, 1892).II.Biographical.—A. Baillet,La Vie de M. Des Cartes(Paris, 1691; Eng. trans., 1692), exhaustive but uncritical; notices in the editions of Garnier and Aimé-Martin; A. Hoffmann,René Descartes(1905); Elizabeth S. Haldane,Descartes, his Life and Times(1905), containing full bibliography; A. Barbier,René Descartes, sa famille, son lieu de naissance, &c. (1901); Richard Lowndes,René Descartes, his Life and Meditations(London, 1878); J. P. Mahaffy,Descartes(1902), with an appendix on Descartes’s mathematical work by Frederick Purser; Victor de Swarte,Descartes directeur spirituel(Paris, 1904), correspondence with the Princess Palatine; C. J. Jeannel,Descartes et la princesse palatine(Paris, 1869);Lettres de M. Descartes, ed. Claude Clerselier (1657). A useful sketch of recent biographies is to be found inThe Edinburgh Review(July 1906).III.Philosophy.—Beside the histories of philosophy, the articleCartesianism, and the above works, consult J. B. Bordas-DemouliniLe Cartésianisme(2nd ed., Paris, 1874); J. P. Damiron,Histoire de la philosophie du XVIIesiècle(Paris, 1846); C. B. Renouvier,Manuel de philosophie moderne(Paris, 1842); V. Cousin,Fragments philosophiques, vol. ii. (3rd ed., Paris, 1838),Fragments de philosophie cartésienne(Paris, 1845), and in theJournal des savants(1860-1861); F. Bouillier,Hist. de la philosophie cartésienne(Paris, 1854), 2 vols., andHist. et critique de la révolution cartésienne(Paris, 1842); J. Millet,Descartes, sa vie, ses travaux, ses découvertes avant 1637(Paris, 1867), andHist. de Descartes depuis 1637(Paris, 1870); L. Liard,Descartes(Paris, 1882); A. Fouillée,Descartes(Paris, 1893);Revue de métaphysique et de morale(July, 1896, Descartes number); Norman Smith,Studies in the Cartesian Philosophy(1902); R. Keussen,Bewusstsein und Erkenntnis bei Descartes(1906); A. Kayserling,Die Idee der Kausalität in den Lehren der Occasionalisten(1896); J. Iverach,Descartes, Spinoza and the New Philosophy(1904); R. Joerges,Die Lehre von den Empfindungen bei Descartes(1901); Kuno Fischer,Hist. of Mod. Phil. Descartes and his School(Eng. trans., 1887); B. Christiansen,Das Urteil bei Descartes(1902); E. Boutroux, “Descartes and Cartesianism” inCambridge Modern History, vol. iv. (1906), chap. 27, with a very full bibliography, pp. 950-953; P. Natorp,Descartes’ Erkenntnisstheorie(Marburg, 1882); L. A. Prévost-Paradol,Les Moralistes français(Paris, 1865); C. Schaarschmidt,Descartes und Spinoza(Bonn, 1850); R. Adamson,The Development of Modern Philosophy(Edinburgh, 1903); J. Müller,Der Begriff der sittlichen Unvollkommenheit bei Descartes und Spinoza(1890); J. H. von Kirchmann,R. Descartes’ Prinzipien der Philos.(1863); G. Touchard,La Morale de Descartes(1898); Lucien Lévy-Bruhl,Hist. of Mod. Philos. in France(Eng. trans., 1899), pp. 1-76.IV.Science and Mathematics.—F. Cajori,History of Mathematics(London, 1894); M. Cantor,Vorlesungen über die Geschichte der Mathematik(Leipzig, 1894-1901); Sir Michael Foster,Hist. of Physiol. during the Sixteenth, Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries(1901); Duboux,La Physique de Descartes(Lausanne, 1881); G. H. Zeuthen,Geschichte der Mathematik im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert(1903); Chasles,Aperçu historique sur l’origine et le développement des méthodes en géométrie(3rd ed., 1889).
Bibliography.—I.Editions and Translations.—The collected works of Descartes were published in Latin in 8 vols. at Amsterdam (1670-1683), in 7 vols. at Frankfort (1697) and in 9 vols. by Elzevir(1713); in French in 13 vols. (Paris, 1724-1729), republished by Victor Cousin (Paris, 1824-1826) in 11 vols., and again under the authority of the minister of public instruction by C. Adam and P. Tannery (1897 foll.). These include his so-called posthumous works.The Rules for the Direction of the Mind,The Search for Truth by the Light of Nature, and other unimportant fragments, published (in Latin) in 1701. In 1859-1860 Foucher de Careil published in two parts some unedited writings of Descartes from copies taken by Leibnitz from the original papers. Six editions of theOpera philosophicaappeared at Amsterdam between 1650 and 1678; a two-volume edition at Leipzig in 1843; there are also French editions,Œuvres philosophiques, by A. Garnier, 3 vols. (1834-1835), and L. Aimé-Martin (1838) andŒuvres morales et philosophiquesby Aimé-Martin with an introduction on life and works by Amedée Prévost (Paris, 1855);Œuvres choisies(1850) by Jules Simon. A complete French edition of the collected works was begun in the Romance Library (1907 foll.). German translations by J. H. von Kirchmann under the titlePhilosophische Werke(with biography, &c., Berlin, 1868; 2nded.,1882-1891), by Kuno Fischer,Die Hauptschriften zur Grundlegung seiner Philosophie(1863), with introduction by Ludwig Fischer (1892). There are also numerous editions and translations of separate works, especially theMethod, in French, German, Italian, Spanish and Hungarian. There are English translations by J. Veitch,Method, Meditations and Selections from the Principles(1850-1853; 11th ed., 1897; New York, 1899); by H. A. P. Torrey (New York, 1892).
II.Biographical.—A. Baillet,La Vie de M. Des Cartes(Paris, 1691; Eng. trans., 1692), exhaustive but uncritical; notices in the editions of Garnier and Aimé-Martin; A. Hoffmann,René Descartes(1905); Elizabeth S. Haldane,Descartes, his Life and Times(1905), containing full bibliography; A. Barbier,René Descartes, sa famille, son lieu de naissance, &c. (1901); Richard Lowndes,René Descartes, his Life and Meditations(London, 1878); J. P. Mahaffy,Descartes(1902), with an appendix on Descartes’s mathematical work by Frederick Purser; Victor de Swarte,Descartes directeur spirituel(Paris, 1904), correspondence with the Princess Palatine; C. J. Jeannel,Descartes et la princesse palatine(Paris, 1869);Lettres de M. Descartes, ed. Claude Clerselier (1657). A useful sketch of recent biographies is to be found inThe Edinburgh Review(July 1906).
III.Philosophy.—Beside the histories of philosophy, the articleCartesianism, and the above works, consult J. B. Bordas-DemouliniLe Cartésianisme(2nd ed., Paris, 1874); J. P. Damiron,Histoire de la philosophie du XVIIesiècle(Paris, 1846); C. B. Renouvier,Manuel de philosophie moderne(Paris, 1842); V. Cousin,Fragments philosophiques, vol. ii. (3rd ed., Paris, 1838),Fragments de philosophie cartésienne(Paris, 1845), and in theJournal des savants(1860-1861); F. Bouillier,Hist. de la philosophie cartésienne(Paris, 1854), 2 vols., andHist. et critique de la révolution cartésienne(Paris, 1842); J. Millet,Descartes, sa vie, ses travaux, ses découvertes avant 1637(Paris, 1867), andHist. de Descartes depuis 1637(Paris, 1870); L. Liard,Descartes(Paris, 1882); A. Fouillée,Descartes(Paris, 1893);Revue de métaphysique et de morale(July, 1896, Descartes number); Norman Smith,Studies in the Cartesian Philosophy(1902); R. Keussen,Bewusstsein und Erkenntnis bei Descartes(1906); A. Kayserling,Die Idee der Kausalität in den Lehren der Occasionalisten(1896); J. Iverach,Descartes, Spinoza and the New Philosophy(1904); R. Joerges,Die Lehre von den Empfindungen bei Descartes(1901); Kuno Fischer,Hist. of Mod. Phil. Descartes and his School(Eng. trans., 1887); B. Christiansen,Das Urteil bei Descartes(1902); E. Boutroux, “Descartes and Cartesianism” inCambridge Modern History, vol. iv. (1906), chap. 27, with a very full bibliography, pp. 950-953; P. Natorp,Descartes’ Erkenntnisstheorie(Marburg, 1882); L. A. Prévost-Paradol,Les Moralistes français(Paris, 1865); C. Schaarschmidt,Descartes und Spinoza(Bonn, 1850); R. Adamson,The Development of Modern Philosophy(Edinburgh, 1903); J. Müller,Der Begriff der sittlichen Unvollkommenheit bei Descartes und Spinoza(1890); J. H. von Kirchmann,R. Descartes’ Prinzipien der Philos.(1863); G. Touchard,La Morale de Descartes(1898); Lucien Lévy-Bruhl,Hist. of Mod. Philos. in France(Eng. trans., 1899), pp. 1-76.
IV.Science and Mathematics.—F. Cajori,History of Mathematics(London, 1894); M. Cantor,Vorlesungen über die Geschichte der Mathematik(Leipzig, 1894-1901); Sir Michael Foster,Hist. of Physiol. during the Sixteenth, Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries(1901); Duboux,La Physique de Descartes(Lausanne, 1881); G. H. Zeuthen,Geschichte der Mathematik im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert(1903); Chasles,Aperçu historique sur l’origine et le développement des méthodes en géométrie(3rd ed., 1889).
(W. W.; X.)
1It was only published after the author’s death; and of it, besides the French version, there exists an English translation “by a Person of Quality.”2Œuvres, v. 255.3Ib. vi. 199.4Œuvres, viii. 59.5Ib. viii. 173.6Ib. viii. 181.7Ib. vi. 123.8Ib. x. 375.9Ib. ix. 6.10Ib. iii. 24.11Ib. vi. 234.12Ib. ix. 131.13Ib. ix. 341.14Ib. vi. 89.15Ib. vi. 210.16Ib. vi. 73.17Ib. vi. 239.18Ib. vi. 248.19Œuvres, vi. 276.20Ib. ix. 250.21Princip.L. iii. S. 45.22Œuvres, x. 26.23Œuvres, x. 3.24Ib. x. 53.25Regulae,Œuvres, xi. 202.26Œuvres, xi. 219.27Disc. de méthode, part ii.28Géométrie, book iii.29Œuvres, xi. 224.30Ib. xi. 212.31Disc. de méthode, part. ii.32Œuvres, xi. 243.33Ib. vii. 381.34Œuvres, vi. 132.35Ib. vi. 109.36Princip.part ii. 37.37Ib. part iii. 47.38Œuvres, iv. 494.39Ib. ix. 426.40Ib. x. 204.41Ib. vi. 339.42Ib. x. 208.43Ib. iv. 452 and 454.44Œuvres, ix. 166.45Passions de l’âme, 36.46Ib. 48.47Œuvres, ix. 170.
1It was only published after the author’s death; and of it, besides the French version, there exists an English translation “by a Person of Quality.”
2Œuvres, v. 255.
3Ib. vi. 199.
4Œuvres, viii. 59.
5Ib. viii. 173.
6Ib. viii. 181.
7Ib. vi. 123.
8Ib. x. 375.
9Ib. ix. 6.
10Ib. iii. 24.
11Ib. vi. 234.
12Ib. ix. 131.
13Ib. ix. 341.
14Ib. vi. 89.
15Ib. vi. 210.
16Ib. vi. 73.
17Ib. vi. 239.
18Ib. vi. 248.
19Œuvres, vi. 276.
20Ib. ix. 250.
21Princip.L. iii. S. 45.
22Œuvres, x. 26.
23Œuvres, x. 3.
24Ib. x. 53.
25Regulae,Œuvres, xi. 202.
26Œuvres, xi. 219.
27Disc. de méthode, part ii.
28Géométrie, book iii.
29Œuvres, xi. 224.
30Ib. xi. 212.
31Disc. de méthode, part. ii.
32Œuvres, xi. 243.
33Ib. vii. 381.
34Œuvres, vi. 132.
35Ib. vi. 109.
36Princip.part ii. 37.
37Ib. part iii. 47.
38Œuvres, iv. 494.
39Ib. ix. 426.
40Ib. x. 204.
41Ib. vi. 339.
42Ib. x. 208.
43Ib. iv. 452 and 454.
44Œuvres, ix. 166.
45Passions de l’âme, 36.
46Ib. 48.
47Œuvres, ix. 170.
DESCHAMPS, ÉMILE(1791-1871), French poet and man of letters, was born at Bourges on the 20th of February 1791. The son of a civil servant, he adopted his father’s career, but as early as 1812 he distinguished himself by an ode,La Paix conquise, which won the praise of Napoleon. In 1818 he collaborated with Henri de Latouche in two verse comedies,Selmours de FlorianandLe Tour de faveur. He and his brother were among the most enthusiastic disciples of thecénaclegathered round Victor Hugo, and in July 1823 Émile founded with his master theMuse française, which during the year of its existence was the special organ of the romantic party. HisÉtudes françaises et étrangères(1828) were preceded by a preface which may be regarded as one of the manifestos of the romanticists. The versions of Shakespeare’sRomeo and Juliet(1839) and ofMacbeth(1844), important as they were in the history of the romantic movement, were never staged. He was the author of several libretti, among which may be mentioned theRoméo et Julietteof Berlioz. The list of his more important works is completed by his two volumes of stories,Contes physiologiques(1854) andRéalités fantastiques(1854). He died at Versailles in April 1871. HisŒuvres complèteswere published in 1872-1874 (6 vols.).
His brother, Antoine François Marie, known asAntony Deschamps, was born in Paris on the 12th of March 1800 and died at Passy on the 29th of October 1869. Like his brother, he was an ardent romanticist, but his production was limited by a nervous disorder, which has left its mark on his melancholy work. He translated theDivina Commediain 1829, and his poems,Dernières ParolesandRésignation, were republished with his brother’s in 1841.
DESCHAMPS, EUSTACHE,calledMorel(1346?-1406?), French poet, was born at Vertus in Champagne about 1346. He studied at Reims, where he is said to have received some lessons in the art of versification from Guillaume de Machaut, who is stated to have been his uncle. From Reims he proceeded about 1360 to the university of Orleans to study law and the seven liberal arts. He entered the king’s service as royal messenger about 1367, and was sent on missions to Bohemia, Hungary and Moravia. In 1372 he was madehuissier d’armesto Charles V. He received many other important offices, wasbailliof Valois, and afterwards of Senlis, squire to the Dauphin, and governor of Fismes. In 1380 his patron, Charles V., died, and in the same year the English burnt down his house at Vertus. In his childhood he had been an eye-witness of the English invasion of 1358; he had been present at the siege of Reims and seen the march on Chartres; he had witnessed the signing of the treaty of Bretigny; he was now himself a victim of the English fury. His violent hatred of the English found vent in numerous appeals to carry the war into England, and in the famous prophecy1that England would be destroyed so thoroughly that no one should be able to point to her ruins. His own misfortunes and the miseries of France embittered his temper. He complained continually of poverty, railed against women and lamented the woes of his country. His last years were spent on hisMiroir de mariage, a satire of 13,000 lines against women, which contains some real comedy. The mother-in-law of French farce has her prototype in theMiroir.
The historical and patriotic poems of Deschamps are of much greater value. He does not, like Froissart, cast a glamour over the miserable wars of the time but gives a faithful picture of the anarchy of France, and inveighs ceaselessly against the heavy taxes, the vices of the clergy and especially against those who enrich themselves at the expense of the people. The terrible ballad with the refrain “Sà, de l’argent; sà, de l’argent” is typical of his work. Deschamps excelled in the use of the ballade and the chant royal. In each of these forms he was the greatest master of his time. In ballade form he expressed his regret for the death of Du Guesclin, who seems to have been the only man except his patron, Charles V., for whom he ever felt any admiration. One of his ballades (No. 285) was sent with a copy of his works to Geoffrey Chaucer, whom he addresses with the words:—
“Tu es d’amours mondains dieux en AlbieEt de la Rose en la terre Angélique.”
“Tu es d’amours mondains dieux en Albie
Et de la Rose en la terre Angélique.”
Deschamps was the author of anArt poétique, with the title ofL’Art de dictier et de fere chancons, balades, virelais et rondeaulx. Besides giving rules for the composition of the kinds of verse mentioned in the title he enunciates some curious theories on poetry. He divides music into music proper and poetry. Music proper he calls artificial on the ground that everyone could by dint of study become a musician; poetry he calls natural becausehe says it is not an art that can be acquired but a gift. He lays immense stress on the harmony of verse, because, as was the fashion of his day, he practically took it for granted that all poetry was to be sung.
The work of Deschamps marks an important stage in the history of French poetry. With him and his contemporaries the long, formless narrations of thetrouvèresgive place to complicated and exacting kinds of verse. He was perhaps by nature a moralist and satirist rather than a poet, and the force and truth of his historical pictures gives him a unique place in 14th-century poetry. M. Raynaud fixes the date of his death in 1406, or at latest, 1407. Two years earlier he had been relieved of his charge asbailliof Senlis, his plain-spoken satires having made him many enemies at court.
HisŒuvres complèteswere edited (10 vols., 1878-1901) for theSociété des anciens textes françaisby Queux de Saint-Hilaire and Gaston Raynaud. A supplementary volume consists of an Introduction by G. Raynaud. See also Dr E. Hoeppner,Eustache Deschamps(Strassburg, 1904).
HisŒuvres complèteswere edited (10 vols., 1878-1901) for theSociété des anciens textes françaisby Queux de Saint-Hilaire and Gaston Raynaud. A supplementary volume consists of an Introduction by G. Raynaud. See also Dr E. Hoeppner,Eustache Deschamps(Strassburg, 1904).
1“De la prophécie Merlin sur la destruction d’Angleterre qui doit brief advenir” (Œuvres, No. 211).
1“De la prophécie Merlin sur la destruction d’Angleterre qui doit brief advenir” (Œuvres, No. 211).
DESCHANEL, PAUL EUGÈNE LOUIS(1856-), French statesman, son of Émile Deschanel (1819-1904), professor at the Collège de France and senator, was born at Brussels, where his father was living in exile (1851-1859), owing to his opposition to Napoleon III. Paul Deschanel studied law, and began his career as secretary to Deshayes de Marcère (1876), and to Jules Simon (1876-1877). In October 1885 he was elected deputy for Eure and Loire. From the first he took an important place in the chamber, as one of the most notable orators of the Progressist Republican group. In January 1896 he was elected vice-president of the chamber, and henceforth devoted himself to the struggle against the Left, not only in parliament, but also in public meetings throughout France. His addresses at Marseilles on the 26th of October 1896, at Carmaux on the 27th of December 1896, and at Roubaix on the 10th of April 1897, were triumphs of clear and eloquent exposition of the political and social aims of the Progressist party. In June 1898 he was elected president of the chamber, and was re-elected in 1901, but rejected in 1902. Nevertheless he came forward brilliantly in 1904 and 1905 as a supporter of the law on the separation of church and state. He was elected a member of the French Academy in 1899, his most notable works beingOrateurs et hommes d’état(1888),Figures de femmes(1889),La Décentralization(1895),La Question sociale(1898).
DES CLOIZEAUX, ALFRED LOUIS OLIVIER LEGRAND(1817-1897), French mineralogist, was born at Beauvais, in the department of Oise, on the 17th of October 1817. He became professor of mineralogy at the École Normale Supérieure and afterwards at the Musée d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris. He studied the geysers of Iceland, and wrote also on the classification of some of the eruptive rocks; but his main work consisted in the systematic examination of the crystals of numerous minerals, in researches on their optical properties and on the subject of polarization. He wrote specially on the means of determining the different felspars. He was awarded the Wollaston medal by the Geological Society of London in 1886. He died in May 1897. His best-known books areLeçons de cristallographie(1861);Manuel de minéralogie(2 vols., Paris, 1862, 1874 and 1893).
DESCLOIZITE,a rare mineral species consisting of basic lead and zinc vanadate, (Pb, Zn)2(OH)V04, crystallizing in the orthorhombic system and isomorphous with olivenite. It was discovered by A. Damour in 1854, and named by him in honour of the French mineralogist Des Cloizeaux. It occurs as small prismatic or pyramidal crystals, usually forming drusy crusts and stalactitic aggregates; also as fibrous encrusting masses with a mammillary surface. The colour is deep cherry-red to brown or black, and the crystals are transparent or translucent with a greasy lustre; the streak is orange-yellow to brown; specific gravity 5.9 to 6.2; hardness 3½. A variety known as cuprodescloizite is dull green in colour; it contains a considerable amount of copper replacing zinc and some arsenic replacing vanadium. Descloizite occurs in veins of lead ores in association with pyromorphite, vanadinite, wulfenite, &c. Localities are the Sierra de Cordoba in Argentina, Lake Valley in Sierra county, New Mexico, Arizona, Phoenixville in Pennsylvania, and Kappel (Eisen-Kappel) near Klagenfurt in Carinthia.
Other names which have been applied to this species are vanadite, tritochorite and ramirite; the uncertain vanadates eusynchite, araeoxene and dechenite are possibly identical with it.
DESCRIPTIVE POETRY,the name given to a class of literature, which may be defined as belonging mainly to the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries in Europe. From the earliest times, all poetry which was not subjectively lyrical was apt to indulge in ornament which might be named descriptive. But the critics of the 17th century formed a distinction between the representations of the ancients and those of the moderns. We find Boileau emphasizing the statement that, while Virgilpaints, Tassodescribes. This may be a useful indication for us in defining not what should, but what in practice has been called “descriptive poetry.” It is poetry in which it is not imaginative passion which prevails, but a didactic purpose, or even something of the instinct of a sublimated auctioneer. In other words, the landscape, or architecture, or still life, or whatever may be the object of the poet’s attention, is not used as an accessory, but is itself the centre of interest. It is, in this sense, not correct to call poetry in which description is only the occasional ornament of a poem, and not its central subject, descriptive poetry. The landscape or still life must fill the canvas, or, if human interest is introduced, that must be treated as an accessory. Thus, in theHero and Leanderof Marlowe and in theAlastorof Shelley, description of a very brilliant kind is largely introduced, yet these are not examples of what is technically called “descriptive poetry,” because it is not the strait between Sestos and Abydos, and it is not the flora of a tropical glen, which concentrates the attention of the one poet or of the other, but it is an example of physical passion in the one case and of intellectual passion in the other, which is diagnosed and dilated on. On the other hand Thomson’sSeasons, in which landscape takes the central place, and Drayton’sPolyolbion, where everything is sacrificed to a topographical progress through Britain, are strictly descriptive.
It will be obvious from this definition that the danger ahead of all purely descriptive poetry is that it will lack intensity, that it will be frigid, if not dead. Description for description’s sake, especially in studied verse, is rarely a vitalized form of literature. It is threatened, from its very conception, with languor and coldness; it must exercise an extreme art or be condemned to immediate sterility. Boileau, with his customary intelligence, was the first to see this, and he thought that the danger might be avoided by care in technical execution. His advice to the poets of his time was:—
“Soyez riches et pompeux dans vos descriptions;C’est-là qu’il faut des vers étaler l’élégance,”
“Soyez riches et pompeux dans vos descriptions;
C’est-là qu’il faut des vers étaler l’élégance,”
and:—
“De figure sans nombre égayez votre ouvrage;Que toute y fasse aux yeux une riante image,”
“De figure sans nombre égayez votre ouvrage;
Que toute y fasse aux yeux une riante image,”
and in verses of brilliant humour he mocked the writer who, too full of his subject, and describing for description’s sake, will never quit his theme until he has exhausted it:—
“Fuyez de ces auteurs l’abondance stérileEt ne vous chargez point d’un détail inutile.”
“Fuyez de ces auteurs l’abondance stérile
Et ne vous chargez point d’un détail inutile.”
This is excellent advice, but Boileau’s humorous sallies do not quite meet the question whether such purely descriptive poetry as he criticizes is legitimate at all.
In England had appeared the famous translation (1592-1611), by Josuah Sylvester, of theDivine Weeks and Worksof Du Bartas, containing such lines as those which the juvenile Dryden admired so much:—
“But when winter’s keener breath beganTo crystallize the Baltic ocëan,To glaze the lakes, and bridle up the floods,And perriwig with wool the bald-pate woods.”
“But when winter’s keener breath began
To crystallize the Baltic ocëan,
To glaze the lakes, and bridle up the floods,
And perriwig with wool the bald-pate woods.”
There was also the curious physiological epic of Phineas Fletcher,The Purple Island(1633). But on the whole it was not until French influences had made themselves felt on English poetry,that description, as Boileau conceived it, was cultivated as a distinct art. TheCooper’s Hill(1642) of Sir John Denham may be contrasted with the less ambitiousPenshurstof Ben Jonson, and the one represents the new no less completely than the other does the old generation. If, however, we examineCooper’s Hillcarefully, we perceive that its aim is after all rather philosophical than topographical. The Thames is described indeed, but not very minutely, and the poet is mainly absorbed in moral reflections. Marvell’s long poem on the beauties of Nunappleton comes nearer to the type. But it is hardly until we reach the 18th century that we arrive, in English literature, at what is properly known as descriptive poetry. This was the age in which poets, often of no mean capacity, began to take such definite themes as a small country estate (Pomfret’sChoice, 1700), the cultivation of the grape (Gay’sWine, 1708), a landscape (Pope’sWindsor Forest, 1713), a military manœuvre (Addison’sCampaign, 1704), the industry of an apple-orchard (Philip’sCyder, 1708) or a piece of topography (Tickell’sKensington Gardens, 1722), as the sole subject of a lengthy poem, generally written in heroic or blank verse. Thesetours de forcewere supported by minute efforts in miniature-painting, by touch applied to touch, and were often monuments of industry, but they were apt to lack personal interest, and to suffer from a general and deplorable frigidity. They were infected with the faults which accompany an artificial style; they were monotonous, rhetorical and symmetrical, while the uniformity of treatment which was inevitable to their plan rendered them hopelessly tedious, if they were prolonged to any great extent.
This species of writing had been cultivated to a considerable degree through the preceding century, in Italy and (as the remarks of Boileau testify) in France, but it was in England that it reached its highest importance. The classic of descriptive poetry, in fact, the specimen which the literature of the world presents which must be considered as the most important and the most successful, isThe Seasons(1726-1730) ofJames Thomson(q.v.). In Thomson, for the first time, a poet of considerable eminence appeared, to whom external nature was all sufficient, and who succeeded in conducting a long poem to its close by a single appeal to landscape, and to the emotions which it directly evokes. Coleridge, somewhat severely, describedThe Seasonsas the work of a good rather than of a great poet, and it is an indisputable fact that, at its very best, descriptive poetry fails to awaken the highest powers of the imagination. A great part of Thomson’s poem is nothing more nor less than a skilfully varied catalogue of natural phenomena. The famous description of twilight in “the fading many-coloured woods” of autumn may be taken as an example of the highest art to which purely descriptive poetry has ever attained. It is obvious, even here, that the effect of these rich and sonorous lines, in spite of the splendid effort of the artist, is monotonous, and leads us up to no final crisis of passion or rapture. Yet Thomson succeeds, as few other poets of his class have succeeded, in producing nobly-massed effects and comprehensive beauties such as were utterly unknown to his predecessors. He was widely imitated in England, especially by Armstrong, by Akenside, by Shenstone (inThe Schoolmistress, 1742), by the anonymous author ofAlbania, 1737, and by Goldsmith (inThe Deserted Village, 1770). No better example of the more pedestrian class of descriptive poetry could be found than the last-mentioned poem, with its minute and Dutch-like painting:—
“How often have I paused on every charm:The sheltered cot, the cultivated farm;The never-failing brook, the busy mill,The decent church that topped the neighbouring hill:The hawthorn-bush, with seats beneath the shade.For talking age and whispering lovers made.”
“How often have I paused on every charm:
The sheltered cot, the cultivated farm;
The never-failing brook, the busy mill,
The decent church that topped the neighbouring hill:
The hawthorn-bush, with seats beneath the shade.
For talking age and whispering lovers made.”
On the continent of Europe the example of Thomson was almost immediately fruitful. Four several translations ofThe Seasonsinto French contended for the suffrages of the public, and J. F. de Saint-Lambert (1716-1803) imitated Thomson inLes Saisons(1769), a poem which enjoyed popularity for half a century, and of which Voltaire said that it was the only one of its generation which would reach posterity. Nevertheless, as Madame du Deffand told Walpole, Saint-Lambert is “froid, fade et faux,” and the same may be said of J. A. Roucher (1745-1794), who wroteLes Moisin 1779, a descriptive poem famous in its day. The Abbé Jacques Delille (1738-1813), perhaps the most ambitious descriptive poet who has ever lived, was treated as a Virgil by his contemporaries; he publishedLes Géorgiquesin 1769,Les Jardinsin 1782, andL’Homme des champsin 1803, but he went furthest in his brilliant, though artificial,Trois règnes de la nature(1809), which French critics have called the masterpiece of this whole school of descriptive poetry. Delille, however, like Thomson before him, was unable to avoid monotony and want of coherency. Picture follows picture, and no progress is made. The satire of Marie Joseph Chénier, in his famous and wittyDiscours sur les poèmes descriptifs, brought the vogue of this species of poetry to an end.
In England, again, Wordsworth, who treated the genius of Thomson with unmerited severity, revived descriptive poetry in a form which owed more than Wordsworth realized to the model ofThe Seasons. InThe ExcursionandThe Prelude, as well as in many of his minor pieces, Wordsworth’s philosophical and moral intentions cannot prevent us from perceiving the large part which pure description takes; and the same may be said of much of the early blank verse of S. T. Coleridge. Since their day, however, purely descriptive poetry has gone more and more completely out of fashion, and its place has been taken by the richer and directer effects of such prose as that of Ruskin in English, or of Fromentin and Pierre Loti in French. It is almost impossible in descriptive verse to obtain those vivid and impassioned appeals to the imagination which are of the very essence of genuine poetry, and it is unlikely that descriptive poetry, as such, will again take a prominent place in living literature.
(E. G.)
DESERT,a term somewhat loosely employed to describe those parts of the land surface of the earth which do not produce sufficient vegetation to support a human population. Few areas of large extent in any part of the world are absolutely devoid of vegetation, and the transition from typical desert conditions is often very gradual and ill-defined. (“Desert” comes from Lat.deserere, to abandon; distinguish “desert,” merit, and “dessert,” fruit eaten after dinner, fromdeandservier, to serve.)
Deserts are conveniently divided into two classes according to the causes which give rise to the desert conditions. In “cold deserts” the want of vegetation is wholly due to the prevailing low temperature, while in “hot deserts” the surface is unproductive because, on account of high temperature and deficient rainfall, evaporation is largely in excess of precipitation. Cold deserts accordingly occur in high latitudes (seeTundraandPolar Regions). Hot desert conditions are primarily found along the tropical belts of high atmospheric pressure in which the conditions of warmth and dryness are most fully realized, and on their equatorial sides, but the zonal arrangement is considerably modified in some regions by the monsoonal influence of elevated land. Thus we have in the northern hemisphere the Sahara desert, the deserts of Arabia, Iran, Turan, Takla Makan and Gobi, and the desert regions of the Great Basin in North America; and in the southern hemisphere the Kalahari desert in Africa, the desert of Australia, and the desert of Atacama in South America. Where the line of elevated land runs east and west, as in Asia, the desert belt tends to be displaced into higher latitudes, and where the line runs north and south, as in Africa, America and Australia, the desert zone is cut through on the windward side of the elevation and the arid conditions intensified on the lee side. Desert conditions also arise from local causes, as in the case of the Indian desert situated in a region inaccessible to either of the two main branches of the south-west monsoon.
Although rivers rising in more favoured regions may traverse deserts on their way to the sea, as in the case of the Nile and the Colorado, the fundamental physical condition of an arid area is that it contributes nothing to the waters of the ocean. The rainfall chiefly occurs in violent cloud-bursts, and the soluble matter in the soil is carried down by intermittent streams to salt lakesaround which deposits are formed as evaporation takes place. The land forms of a desert are exceedingly characteristic. Surface erosion is chiefly due to rapid changes of temperature through a wide range, and to the action of wind transferring sand and dust, often in the form of “dunes” resembling the waves of the sea. Dry valleys, narrow and of great depth, with precipitous sides, and ending in “cirques,” are probably formed by the intense action of the occasional cloud-bursts.
When water can be obtained and distributed over an arid region by irrigation, the surface as a rule becomes extremely productive. Natural springs give rise to oases at intervals and make the crossing of large deserts possible. Where a river crosses a desert at a level near that of the general surface, irrigation can be carried on with extremely profitable results, as has been done in the valley of the Nile and in parts of the Great Basin of North America; in cases, however, where the river has cut deeply and flows far below the general surface, irrigation is too expensive. Much has been done in parts of Australia by means of artesian wells.
For a general account of deserts see Professor Johannes Walther,Das Gesetz der Wüstenbildung(Berlin, 1900), in which many references to other original authorities will be found.
For a general account of deserts see Professor Johannes Walther,Das Gesetz der Wüstenbildung(Berlin, 1900), in which many references to other original authorities will be found.
(H. N. D.)
DESERTION,the act of forsaking or abandoning; more particularly, the wilful abandonment of an employment or of duty, in violation of a legal or moral obligation.
The offence of naval or military desertion is constituted when a man absents himself with the intention either of not returning or of escaping some important service, such as embarkation for foreign service, or service in aid of the civil power. In the United Kingdom desertion has always been recognized by the civil law, and until 1827 (7 & 8 Geo. IV. c. 28) was a felony punishable by death. It was subsequently dealt with by the various Mutiny Acts, which were replaced by the Army Act 1881, renewed annually by the Army (Annual) Act. By § 12 of the act every person subject to military law who deserts or attempts to desert, or who persuades or procures any person to desert, shall, on conviction by court martial, if he committed the offence when on active service or under orders for active service, be liable to suffer death, or such less punishment as is mentioned in the act. When the offence is committed under any other circumstances, the punishment for the first offence is imprisonment, and for the second or any subsequent offence penal servitude or such less punishment as is mentioned in the act. § 44 contains a scale of punishments, and §§ 175-184 an enumeration of persons subject to military law. By § 153 any person who persuades a soldier to desert or aids or assists him or conceals him is liable, on conviction, to be imprisoned, with or without hard labour, for not more than six months. § 154 makes provision for the apprehension of deserters. § 161 lays down that where a soldier has served continuously in an exemplary manner for not less than three years in any corps of regular forces he is not to be tried or punished for desertion which has occurred before the commencement of the three years. Desertion from the regular forces can only be tried by a military court, but in the case of the militia and reserve forces desertion can be tried by a civil court. The Army Act of 1881 made a welcome distinction between actual desertion, as defined at the commencement of this article, and the quitting one regiment in order to enlist in another. This offence is now separately dealt with as fraudulent enlistment; formerly, it was termed “desertion and fraudulent enlistment,” and the statistics of desertion proper were consequently and erroneously magnified. The gross total of desertions in the British Army in an average year (1903-1904) was nearly 4000, or 1.4% of the average strength of the army, but owing to men rejoining from desertion, fraudulent enlistment, &c., the net loss was no more than 1286, i.e. less than .5%. The army of the United States suffers very severely from desertion, and very few deserters rejoin or are recaptured (seeJournal of the Roy. United Service Inst., December 1905, p. 1469). In the year 1900-1901, 3110 men deserted (4.3% of average strength); in 1901-1902, 4667 (or 5.9%); in 1904-1905, 6553 (or 6.8%); and in 1905-1906, 6258 out of less than 60,000 men, or 7.4%.
In all armies desertion while on active service is punishable by death; on the continent of Europe, owing to the system of compulsory service, desertion is infrequent, and takes place usually when the deserter wishes to leave his country altogether. It was formerly the practice in the English army to punish a man convicted of desertion by tattooing on him the letter “D” to prevent his re-enlistment, but this has been long abandoned in deference to public opinion, which erroneously adopted the idea that the “marking” was effected by red-hot irons or in some other manner involving torture. The Navy Discipline Act 1866, and the Naval Deserters Act 1847, contain similar provisions to the Army Act of 1881 for dealing with desertions from the navy. In the United States navy the term “straggling” is applied to absence without leave, where the probability is that the person does not intend to desert. The United States government offers a monetary reward of between $20 and $30 for the arrest and delivery of deserters from the army and navy.
In the British merchant service the offence of desertion is defined as the abandonment of duty by quitting the ship before the termination of the engagement, without justification, and with the intention of not returning.
Desertion is also the term applied to the act by which a man abandons his wife and children, or either of them. Desertion of a wife is a matrimonial offence; under the Matrimonial Causes Act 1857, a decree of judicial separation may be obtained in England by either husband or wife on the ground of desertion, without cause, for two years and upwards (see alsoDivorce).
For the desertion of children seeChildren, Law relating to;Infant.
(T. A. I.)
DES ESSARTS, EMMANUEL ADOLPHE(1839-), French poet and man of letters, was born at Paris on the 5th of February 1839. His father, Alfred Stanislas Langlois des Essarts (d. 1893), was a poet and novelist of considerable reputation. The son was educated at the École Normale Supérieure, and became a teacher of rhetoric and finally professor of literature at Dijon and at Clermont. His works are:Poésies parisiennes(1862), a volume of light verse on trifling subjects;Les Élévations(1864), philosophical poems;Origines de la poésie lyrique en France au XVIesiècle(1873);Du génie de Chateaubriand(1876);Poèmes de la Révolution(1879);Pallas Athéné(1887);Portraits de maîtres(1888), &c.
DESFONTAINES, RENÉ LOUICHE(1750-1833), French botanist, was born at Tremblay (Île-et-Vilaine) on the 14th of February 1750. After graduating in medicine at Paris, he was elected a member of the Academy of Sciences in 1783. In the same year he set out for North Africa, on a scientific exploring expedition, and on his return two years afterwards brought with him a large collection of plants, animals, &c., comprising, it is said, 1600 species of plants, of which about 300 were described for the first time. In 1786 he was nominated to the post of professor at the Jardin des Plantes, vacated in his favour by his friend, L. G. Lemonnier. His great work,Flora Atlantica sive historia plantarum quae in Atlante, agro Tunetano el Algeriensi crescunt, was published in 2 vols. 4to in 1798, and he produced in 1804 aTableau de l’école botanique du muséum d’histoire naturelle de Paris, of which a third edition appeared in 1831, under the new titleCatalogus plantarum horti regii Parisiensis. He was also the author of many memoirs on vegetable anatomy and physiology, descriptions of new genera and species, &c., one of the most important being a “Memoir on the Organization of the Monocotyledons.” He died at Paris on the 16th of November 1833. His Barbary collection was bequeathed to the Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle, and his general collection passed into the hands of the English botanist, Philip Barker Webb.
DESFORGES, PIERRE JEAN BAPTISTE CHOUDARD(1746-1806), French dramatist and man of letters, natural son of Dr Antoine Petit, was born in Paris on the 15th of September 1746. He was educated at the Collège Mazarin and the Collège de Beauvais, and at his father’s desire began the study of medicine. Dr Petit’s death left him dependent on his own resources, and after appearing on the stage of the Comédie Italienne in Paris he joined a troupe of wandering actors, whom he served in thecapacity of playwright. He married an actress, and the two spent three years in St Petersburg, where they were well received. In 1782 he produced at the Comédie Italienne an adaptation of Fielding’s novel with the titleTom Jones à Londres. His first great success was achieved withL’Épreuve villageoise(1785) to the music of Grétry.La Femme jalouse, a five-act comedy in verse (1785),Joconde(1790) for the music of Louis Jaden,Les Époux divorcés(1799), a comedy, and other pieces followed. Desforges was one of the first to avail himself of the new facilities afforded under the Revolution for divorce and re-marriage. The curious record of his own early indiscretions inLe Poète, ou mémoires d’un homme de lettres écrits par lui-même(4 vols., 1798) is said to have been undertaken at the request of Madame Desforges. He died in Paris on the 13th of August 1806.
DESGARCINS, MAGDELEINE MARIE[Louise] (1769-1797), French actress, was born at Mont Dauphin (Hautes Alpes). In her short career she became one of the greatest of French tragédiennes, the associate of Talma, with whom she nearly always played. Her début at the Comédie Française occurred on the 24th of May 1788, inBajazet, with such success that she was at once madesociétaire. She was one of the actresses who left the Comédie Française in 1791 for the house in the rue Richelieu, soon to become the Théâtre de la République, and there her triumphs were no less—inKing Lear,Othello, La Harpe’sMélanie et Virginie, &c. Her health, however, failed, and she died insane, in Paris, on the 27th of October 1797.
DESHAYES, GÉRARD PAUL(1795-1875), French geologist and conchologist, was born at Nancy on the 13th of May 1797, his father at that time being professor of experimental physics in the École Centrale of the department of la Meurthe. He studied medicine at Strassburg, and afterwards took the degree ofbachelier ès lettresin Paris in 1821; but he abandoned the medical profession in order to devote himself to natural history. For some time he gave private lessons on geology, and subsequently became professor of natural history in the Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle. He was distinguished for his researches on the fossil mollusca of the Paris Basin and of other Tertiary areas. His studies on the relations of the fossil to the recent species led him as early as 1829 to conclusions somewhat similar to those arrived at by Lyell, to whom Deshayes rendered much assistance in connexion with the classification of the Tertiary system into Eocene, Miocene and Pliocene. He was one of the founders of the Société Géologique de France. In 1839 he began the publication of hisTraité élémentaire de conchyliologie, the last part of which was not issued until 1858. In the same year (1839) he went to Algeria for the French Government, and spent three years in explorations in that country. His principal work, which resulted from the collections he made,Mollusques de l’Algérie, was issued (incomplete) in 1848. In 1870 the Wollaston medal of the Geological Society of London was awarded to him. He died at Boran on the 9th of June 1875. His publications includedDescription des coquilles fossiles des environs de Paris(2 vols. and atlas, 1824-1837);Description des animaux sans vertèbres découverts dans le bassin de Paris(3 vols. and atlas, 1856-1866);Catalogue des mollusques de l’île la Réunion(1863).
DESHOULIÈRES, ANTOINETTE DU LIGIER DE LA GARDE(1638-1694), French poet, was born in Paris on the 1st of January 1638. She was the daughter of Melchior du Ligier, sieur de la Garde,maître d’hôtelto the queens Marie de’ Medici and Anne of Austria. She received a careful and very complete education, acquiring a knowledge of Latin, Spanish and Italian, and studying prosody under the direction of the poet Jean Hesnault. At the age of thirteen she married Guillaume de Boisguerin, seigneur Deshoulières, who followed the prince of Condé as lieutenant-colonel of one of his regiments to Flanders about a year after the marriage. Madame Deshoulières returned for a time to the house of her parents, where she gave herself to writing poetry and studying the philosophy of Gassendi. She rejoined her husband at Rocroi, near Brussels, where, being distinguished for her personal beauty, she became the object of embarrassing attentions on the part of the prince of Condé. Having made herself obnoxious to the government by her urgent demand for the arrears of her husband’s pay, she was imprisoned in the château of Wilworden. After a few months she was freed by her husband, who attacked the château at the head of a small band of soldiers. An amnesty having been proclaimed, they returned to France, where Madame Deshoulières soon became a conspicuous personage at the court of Louis XIV. and in literary society. She won the friendship and admiration of the most eminent literary men of the age—some of her more zealous flatterers even going so far as to style her the tenth muse and the French Calliope. Her poems were very numerous, and included specimens of nearly all the minor forms, odes, eclogues, idylls, elegies, chansons, ballads, madrigals, &c. Of these the idylls alone, and only some of them, have stood the test of time, the others being entirely forgotten. She wrote several dramatic works, the best of which do not rise to mediocrity. Her friendship for Corneille made her take sides for thePhèdreof Pradon against that of Racine. Voltaire pronounced her the best of women French poets; and her reputation with her contemporaries is indicated by her election as a member of the Academy of the Ricovrati of Padua and of the Academy of Arles. In 1688 a pension of 2000 livres was bestowed upon her by the king, and she was thus relieved from the poverty in which she had long lived. She died in Paris on the 17th February 1694. Complete editions of her works were published at Paris in 1695, 1747, &c. These include a few poems by her daughter, Antoine Thérèse Deshoulières (1656-1718), who inherited her talent.
DESICCATION(from the Lat.desiccare, to dry up), the operation of drying or removing water from a substance. It is of particular importance in practical chemistry. If a substance admits of being heated to say 100°, the drying may be effected by means of an air-bath, which is simply an oven heated by gas or by steam. Otherwise adesiccatormust be employed; this is essentially a closed vessel in which a hygroscopic substance is placed together with the substance to be dried. The process may be accelerated by exhausting the desiccator; this so-called vacuum desiccation is especially suitable for the concentration of aqueous solutions of readily decomposable substances. Of the hygroscopic substances in common use, phosphoric anhydride, concentrated sulphuric acid, and dry potassium hydrate are almost equal in power; sodium hydrate and calcium chloride are not much behind.
Two common types of desiccator are in use. In one the absorbent is placed at the bottom, and the substance to be dried above. Hempel pointed out that the efficiency would be increased by inverting this arrangement, since water vapour is lighter than air and consequently rises. Liquids are dried either by means of the desiccator, or, as is more usual, by shaking with a substance which removes the water. Fused calcium chloride is the commonest absorbent; but it must not be used with alcohols and several other compounds, since it forms compounds with these substances. Quicklime, barium oxide, and dehydrated copper sulphate are especially applicable to alcohol and ether; the last traces of water may be removed by adding metallic sodium and distilling. Gases are dried by leading them through towers or tubes containing an appropriate drying material. The experiments of H. B. Baker on the influence of moisture on chemical combination have shown the difficulty of removing the last traces of water.
In chemical technology, apparatus on the principle of the laboratory air-bath are mainly used. Crystals and precipitates, deprived of as much water as possible by centrifugal machines or filter-presses, are transported by means of a belt, screw, or other form of conveyer, on to trays staged in brick chambers heated directly by flue gases or steam pipes; the latter are easily controlled, and if the steam be superheated a temperature of 300° and over may be maintained. In some cases the material traverses the chamber from the coolest to the hottest part on a conveyer or in wagons. Rotating cylinders are also used; the material to be dried being placed inside, and the cylinder heated by a steam jacket or otherwise.
DESIDERIO DA SETTIGNANO(1428-1464), Italian sculptor, was born at Settignano, a village on the southern slope of the hillof Fiesole, still surrounded by the quarries of sandstone of which the hill is formed, and inhabited by a race of “stone-cutters.” Desiderio was for a short time a pupil of Donatello, whom, according to Vasari, he assisted in the work on the pedestal of David, and he seems to have worked also with Mino da Fiesole, with the delicate and refined style of whose works those of Desiderio seem to have a closer affinity than with the perhaps more masculine tone of Donatello. Vasari particularly extols the sculptor’s treatment of the figures of women and children. It does not appear that Desiderio ever worked elsewhere than at Florence; and it is there that those who are interested in the Italian sculpture of the Renaissance must seek his few surviving decorative and monumental works, though a number of his delicately carved marble busts of women and children are to be found in the museums and private collections of Germany and France. The most prominent of his works are the tomb of the secretary of state, Marsuppini, in Santa Croce, and the great marble tabernacle of the Annunciation in San Lorenzo, both of which belong to the latter period of Desiderio’s activity; and the cherubs’ heads which form the exterior frieze of the Pazzi Chapel. Vasari mentions a marble bust by Desiderio of Marietta degli Strozzi, which for many years was held to be identical with a very beautiful bust bought in 1878 from the Strozzi family for the Berlin Museum. This bust is now, however, generally acknowledged to be the work of Francesco Laurana; whilst Desiderio’s bust of Marietta has been recognized in another marble portrait acquired by the Berlin Museum in 1842. The Berlin Museum also owns a coloured plaster bust of an Urbino lady by Desiderio, the model for which is in the possession of the earl of Wemyss. Other important busts by the master are in the Bargello, Florence, the Louvre in Paris, the collections of M. Figdor and M. Benda in Vienna, and of M. Dreyfus in Paris. Like most of Donatello’s pupils, Desiderio worked chiefly in marble, and not a single work in bronze has been traced to his hand.