publication. In 1854 he was elected president of the American association for the advancement of science, having been for many years one of the standing committee of that body, and in Aug. 1855, he delivered the annual address before that association at its meeting in Providence. Prof. Dana has been elected a member of various learned societies in Europe, including the royal academy of sciences in Berlin, the royal academy of sciences in Munich, the geological and Linnæan societies in London, the philomathic society in Paris, and others.

DANA, JAMES FREEMAN, an American chemist, born in Exeter, N. H., in 1793, died in the city of New York in 1827. He was the son of Luther Dana, an officer in the American naval service in the revolution. He was graduated at Harvard college in 1813, studied medicine with Dr. Gorham of Boston, spent 6 months in London in the study of chemistry under the instruction of the celebrated Accum, and on his return was employed to refit and refurnish the laboratory of Harvard college, and established himself in Cambridge as a physician, holding also the office of assistant to the professor of chemistry. In 1819 he was appointed professor of chemistry in the medical school of Dartmouth college, where he lectured also on mineralogy and botany. In 1825 he was chosen professor of chemistry in the New York college of physicians and surgeons, which office he held at the time of his death. His only considerable publication was a small work on the "Mineralogy and Geology of Boston and its Vicinity," written in conjunction with his brother, Dr. S. L. Dana.

DANA, RICHARD, an American jurist, born at Cambridge, Mass., July 7, 1699, was graduated at Harvard college in 1718, died May 17, 1772. He was a grandson of Richard Dana, the first of the family who came from England and settled at Cambridge in 1640. After practising law for a time at Marblehead and Charlestown, he removed to Boston, where he became a leading barrister. Judge Story, in his work on American precedents, has taken more examples from him than from any other pleader, except Judge Trowbridge. In the obituary notices of him he is spoken of as at the head of the bar. He was more generally distinguished for his prominence in the measures of resistance which immediately preceded the revolution. His age already advanced, his office of magistrate and position at the bar and in society, and the intrepidity of his character, carried great weight to the side of his young patriot friends. Although devoted to his profession and declining office, he was a leading figure in those important political assemblages, where he sometimes presided, the Boston town meetings from 1763 to 1772. It was the custom of Boston in those troubled times to address the country at large on public affairs under the form of published instructions to the representatives of the town. Warren, Hancock, and the Adamses were on committees for this purpose. Mr. Dana was always a member, and often at their head.

He reported the papers of Nov. 20, 1767, and May 8, 1770, noted at that time. He was a member of the association of the sons of liberty, and at their celebrated meeting of Dec. 17, 1769, administered to Secretary Öliver the oath of nonexecution of the stamp act, and made and signed a solemn official record of that fact, by which he would seem to have exposed himself to the charge of treason under the constructions of those days. His death, which occurred 3 years before the battle of Lexington, is spoken of in the letters of the leading patriots as a great loss to the cause. He was married to the sister of Judge Trowbridge, and was the father of Chief Justice Francis Dana.

DANA, RICHARD HENRY, an American poet and essayist, born at Cambridge, Mass., Nov. 15, 1787. He entered Harvard college in 1804, where he remained 3 years, but did not graduate, being involved in the noted rebellion of the classes in 1807. He passed the next 2 years at Newport, R. I., in completing the usual collegiate studies. He read law partly with his father, Chief Justice Dana, and partly in Boston, and was admitted to the bar there in 1811, and afterward, with a view to practising in the latter city, to the bar of Baltimore, after an additional short term of study. He returned in the winter of 1811-'12 to his native town, where he entered upon his profession, and was for a time also warmly interested in politics, on the federal side, as a member of the legislature and otherwise. His paramount tastes, however, were literary, and he joined in 1814 the club of gentlemen in Cambridge and Boston by whom the "North American Review" was projected and for a time conducted. His earliest writings were published in that periodical, the "Essay on Old Times," and an article upon the poems of Washington Allston, afterward his brotherin-law. In 1818-19 he was associated with Prof. E. T. Channing in the editorship of that review, which subsequently passed to Mr. Edward Everett. His criticisms at that time excited much attention, perhaps as much surprise, and even some indignation. It was then believed that Pope was the touchstone of English poetry; the Elizabethan writers were in less esteem, while Wordsworth and the names associated with his were a matter for jest. The ethics and educational system of the Edgeworths were also in fashion. Mr. Dana expressed a very different opinion on these subjects. In 1821-22 he published in numbers the "Idle Man," with some aid from his friends Bryant and Allston. It was read and admired by a class of literary men, this was too small a public for its continuance. His first pieces in verse, the "Dying Raven" and the "Husband and Wife's Grave," appeared in the "New York Review," in 1825, then edited by Mr. Byrant. In 1827 he ventured the "Buccaneer and other Poems” in a small volume. This was well received, indeed highly commended by the critics, and for a volume of American poetry at that day was not unsuccessful. Wilson's praise of the "Buccaneer" in "Black

but

wood's Magazine," as "the most powerful and original of American poetical compositions," was perhaps not without an effect on the already changing tendency of poetical taste in this country. In 1833 he published an enlarged volume, including new poems and the papers of the "Idle Man ;" and again in 1850, "Poems and Prose Writings,” in 2 vols., in which to the contents of the former volume are added poems, the essays and reviews from the "North American Review," and others of a recent date; being a complete collection of his writings, with the exception of a series of 8 lectures upon Shakespeare, prepared at the instance of his cousin, Dr. Wm. Ellery Channing, and delivered with marked appreciation before the best audiences in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. In the controversy between the Unitarian and Trinitarian Congregationalists of Massachusetts, in 1825-'35, Mr. Dana took an active part with the latter. For many years past, however, he has been connected with the Episcopal church. He resides in Boston, and at a beautiful summer retreat on the shore of Cape Ann.-The success of Mr. Dana as an author is, perhaps, more noteworthy for its quality than its extent. His peculiar style is most highly appreciated by lovers of the simple and masculine beauties of the older English writers. In dealing with the greater passions, the handling is bold, and the language instinctively true, but the manner is dramatic, not melodramatic, nor what is called popular. His vein of sentiment has a charm for meditative minds, and though in a new country, his thoughts turn singularly toward whatever has been consecrated by reverence or the touch of time. The influence of his critical principles is often observable in that order of minds which form the minds of others, and has thus been greater in the literature of the country than may at first appear.

DANA, RICHARD HENRY, jr., an American advocate, son of the preceding, born at Cambridge, Mass., Aug. 1, 1815, was graduated at Harvard college in 1837. Being compelled to interrupt his collegiate course, in 1834, by a weakness of the eyes, he made the voyage described in his "Two Years before the Mast," to California, then a wild and almost unknown region. He was a member of the Dane law school from 1837 to 1840, under Judge Story and Prof. Greenleaf, and during 2 years of that time also acted as adjunct to Prof. Channing in the department of rhetoric at the university. He was admitted to the Boston bar in 1840, and was directly much employed in the admiralty courts, having been naturally led to pay special attention to maritime and commercial law. In 1841 he published a manual of sea usages and law, "The Seaman's Friend," republished in England as the "Seaman's Manual." A letter published by him at the time of the melancholy affair of the U. S. brig Somers, 1843, and in detailed explanation of the critical position of the officers on that occasion, served to moderate the natural public feeling, and rendered it more favorable

to Capt. Mackenzie. Mr. Dana's practice gradually became general in the law courts, where he is now one of the leading advocates, and has been engaged in a larger than usual proportion of causes of public interest; among others, in the well-known reinvestigation of the presumption of murder from homicide (York's case, 1845), which has led to new enactments on the general subject in several states; on the legal right to require the use of the Bible in the common schools in Maine (Donahoe rs. Richards, 1854); on the canon law of the Episcopal church, in the Rev. Mr. Prescott's cases, 1852; on the title to public and religious charities, in the case of the Presbyterian synod vs. the parish of the late Dr. Channing, 1854; in the numerous trials for the rescue of the slave Shadrack in 1853, and in the still more noted case of Anthony Burns in 1854. He appeared, however, voluntarily in 1855, against the removal of Judge Loring in the then state of the law, but not after the Massachusetts statute of May 21, 1855, under which the removal eventually took place. Mr. Dana has not been a candidate for office, but his political course has been one of some mark. He was one of the founders of the freesoil party, a delegate from Boston to the Buffalo convention of 1848, and a popular speaker in that and the republican movement of 1856. He was one of the ablest members of the Massachusetts constitutional convention of 1853, and his speeches in that body have received high praise in the chief work of an eminent foreign publicist (Mohl's Geschichte und Literatur der Staatswissenschaften). The "Two Years before the Mast," by which Mr. Dana is so well known, is the ship and shore life of a common sailor detailed from personal experience by a man of education. It gained at once both in America and England a popularity that may be compared to that of "Robinson Crusoe." It is also a trustworthy authority on a subject of some importance, the distinctive character of the American merchant service. Mr. Dana has been for many years a member of the Episcopal convention of the diocese of Massachusetts, and taken a leading part in its proceedings. He has published biographical sketches of the lamented Major Vinton, and of his relatives, Prof. Channing and Washington Allston, prefixed to posthumous volumes of their writings. He has also occasionally contributed to the "North American Review" and the "Law Reporter."

DANA, SAMUEL LUTHER, an American chemist, brother of James Freeman Dana, born at Amherst, N. H., July, 1795. He was graduated at Harvard college in 1813, while war raged between the United States and Great Britain. He was desirous of becoming a military engineer, solicited the appointment of a cadet to enter West Point, and was immediately commissioned a lieutenant in the 1st regiment U. S. artillery, and served both in New York and Virginia, until the close of the war. He was retained on the peace establishment when the army was disbanded, but resigned his commis

sion in June, 1815. He immediately commenced the study of medicine, and received the degree of M.D. in 1818. Practising as a physician from 1819 to 1826, in Waltham, Mass., he was in daily friendly intercourse with those able and enterprising men who founded the cotton manufacturing industry of the state; and having established on his own account a chemical laboratory for the manufacture of oil of vitriol and bleaching salts, he founded the "Newton Chemical Company," of which he was the chemist till 1834. He then accepted the appointment of resident and consulting chemist to the Merrimack manufacturing company, the duties of which office he still performs. In his first work he was associated with his brother, Prof. James F. Dana, in publishing the "Mineralogy and Geology of Boston and its Vicinity" (1818). His next publication, made while he was in England in 1833, was a clear exposition of the chemical changes occurring in the manufacture of sulphuric acid. This was followed by a report to the city council of Lowell, on the danger arising from the use of lead water pipes. About this period, although the responsible duties of his position absorbed the principal portion of his time, the experiments and observations which have connected his name with agricultural science were made, and the original materials obtained for the "Farmers' Muck Manual," published in 1842. In 1843, "An Essay on Manures" was honored by the prize of the Massachusetts agricultural society, and has been printed in successive editions, while his labors in connection with the agricultural and geological reports of the state survey have been gratefully acknowledged. The translation and systematic arrangement of the treatise of Tanquerel on lead diseases, was a contribution to medical knowledge most earnestly called for, and most important in its influence. The discussion of the lead pipe question gave rise to several papers and pamphlets from Dr. Dana's pen. He has also contributed several papers to the "North American Review," and other periodicals. His investigations have shed light on the more obscure points of the important art of printing cotton, and led to many improvements. His discoveries in connection with bleaching cotton were first published in the Bulletin de la société industrielle de Mülhausen, in several papers, as correspondence with that society. The principles there established have led to the American method of bleaching, of which that acute practical chemist Persoz, in his Traité de l'impression des tissus, says "that it realizes the perfection of chemical operations." (See BLEACHING.)

DANAE, in Greek mythology, the daughter of Acrisius, king of Argos, and mother of Perseus. An oracle had predicted that a son of Danae would one day kill Acrisius, and the latter, in order to prevent the fulfilment of the prophecy, shut up Danaë in a brazen tower. But Jupiter was enabled to visit her by transforming himself into a shower of gold, and descending through the roof of the tower, and Danaë gave

birth to a son. Seeing his designs thus thwarted, Acrisius placed the mother and child in a chest, and cast them into the sea. But Jupiter watched over their safety, and wafted them to the island of Seriphus, where they were kindly received by King Polydectes. Perseus grew up, and did afterward actually kill his father by an accident. Another legend relates that Danaë went to Italy, where she became the mother of Daunus, the ancestor of Turnus, who was king of the Rutuli when Æneas arrived in Italy.

DANAIDES, according to the Grecian legend, 50 daughters of Danaus. They were married to the 50 sons of their uncle Ægyptus, and their father, who was in dread of Egyptus and his sons, made them promise to murder their husbands on their wedding night. This promise they all fulfilled except Hypermnestra, who spared her husband Lynceus. For their punishment they were condemned, in Hades, to fill sieves with water.

DANAUS, a mythical personage in Grecian story, son of Belus, and twin brother of Ægyptus. He had received from his father the kingdom of Libya; but fearing Ægyptus, he fled to Argos, where he became king. According to one legend, he was afterward killed by his nephew Lynceus, the only one of the sons of Egyptus who escaped death at the hands of his wife.

DANBURY, a post town, and one of the capitals of Fairfield co., Conn.; pop. of the whole township in 1850, 5,964. It is a handsome town, built principally on one street, over a mile in length, and beside the county buildings contains 7 churches, 2 banks, a savings bank, a printing office, 4 fulling, 5 grist, and 15 saw mills, numerous hat factories, and 3 comb factories. The Danbury and Norwalk railroad and Still river, a good mill stream, flowing into the Housatonic, pass through it. Value of real estate in 1857, $1,827,161. In 1777 it was attacked and burned by the British, on which occasion Gen. Wooster, the American commander, was killed. Incorporated in 1696.

DANBY, FRANCIS, a British painter, born at Wexford, Ireland, Nov. 16, 1793. Among the best known of his early pictures are Christ Walking on the Sea," "Cleopatra setting out to meet Anthony," the "Opening of the Seventh Seal," &c. His later works are more familiar to the general public through the medium of the illustrated art journals. Such are the "Ship on Fire," "Departure of Ulysses from Ithaca, "Caius Marius among the ruins of Carthage." Mr. Danby has 2 sons who are also painters.

DANCE, GEORGE, an English architect, died Feb. 8, 1768. As architect to the corporation of London, he built the mansion house in 1739-'40. He was also architect of St. Botolph's, St. Luke's, and other churches in London.-GEORGE, jr., son of the preceding, born in 1740, died Jan. 14, 1825, was the architect of the prison of Newgate and of St. Luke's hospital. In 1789 he erected the front of Guildhall. Among his minor works are the British institution, Pallmall, and the theatre at Bath. He was one of

the earliest members of the royal academy, and professor of architecture. He published a series of portraits of artists and public characters in 1811-'14, engraved by William Daniell, R. A., after the original drawings.

DANCE OF DEATH (Lat. chorea machaboorum; Fr. danse macabre, and danse des morts; Ger. Todtentanz), a mediæval religious dance, long a favorite subject of painting and poetry, in which persons of all ranks and ages were represented as dancing together with the skeleton form of death, which led them to the grave. The gaunt and stalking anatomy, in which Gothic imagination personified death, was treated both by the poets and populace of the 14th century with mingled humor and seriousness. Masked figures representing it appeared during carnival, with the privilege of taking by the hand and dancing with whomsoever they might meet. With the approbation of the clergy, a sort of masquerade was instituted, which was performed in the churches, in which the chief characters in society from the pope to the beggar were supported, dramatic conversations being intermingled between death and the persons in the procession, each of whom in turn vanished from the scene, as a symbol of departure from life. This custom, as represented by art, appears for more than 3 centuries in a vast number of forms, most various in pathos, humor, and grotesqueness; in verse in nearly every European language; and in paintings on town halls, in market places, in the arcades of burying grounds, and on the walls of palaces, cloisters, and churches. One of the most interesting poems on the subject is in Spanish, the Dança general de los muertos (found entire in the appendix to Ticknor's "6 History of Spanish Literature"), which belongs to the 14th century, and in which death summons to his mortal dance first the pope, then the cardinals, kings, bishops, and so on, down to day laborers. Each makes some remonstrance, but in vain, “for still the cry is, haste! and haste to all." Jacques Jacques, a facetious canon of Ambrun (1658), gives a collection of the useless excuses which were of fered, and makes death exclaim: "Were I not absolute over them, they would confound me with their long speeches; but I have business, and must gallop on." Poetical inscriptions often accompanied the paintings, which are first traced in the south-western parts of Germany, in Switzerland, Alsace, and Swabia, the oldest being that in a convent of Basel, which, according to the inscribed verses, was painted in 1312, and was renewed probably in the 16th century. Among the most celebrated dances of death are those of the cloister of the Dominicans at Basel, painted in 1480 and often renewed, of the palace of St. Mary at Lübeck, in the castle and cemetery of Dresden, at Lucerne, Anneberg, Leipsic, Strasbourg, and Rouen, in the church of the innocents at Paris, in the church of La chaise Dieu in Auvergne, in the crypts of the church of St. Michel at Bordeaux, in the cathedral of Amiens, in the church of St. Paul in

London, to which John Lydgate added verses that were translated from the French, in the palace of St. Ildefonso in Spain, and the famous painting of the Trionfo della morte in the campo santo of Pisa, by Andrea Orcagna, in the 14th century. Many of these have been preserved in engravings, are found on missals and on the margins of numerous old books, and in the 16th century were reproduced in miniature as ornaments for the sheaths of swords and poniards. The fresco at Basel was destroyed by the falling of the walls in 1805, only fragments of it being preserved, but in the 16th century it suggested to Holbein his celebrated series entitled the "Dance of Death," which combines 53 distinct and most diverse scenes. Death here assumes various ironical costumes, while meeting with and overcoming persons in every condition of life. The older pictures are not divided into single scenes, but the skeleton appears leading after it a procession of all ranks and ages. All of the poems and paintings on this grim subject are of a mingled sublime and grotesque character, betraying a sentiment of profound sadness beneath a gay and ironical manner. The best works treating of it are Massmann, Literatur der Todtentänze (Leipsic, 1841), Baseler Todtentänze (Stuttgart, 1847); Peignot, Recherches sur la danse des morts (Dijon and Paris, 1826); Langlois, Essai historique, philosophique, et pittoresque sur les danses des morts, with 54 engravings (2 vols., Rouen, 1852); and Douce, the "Dance of Death" (London, 1833).

DANCING (Ger. tanzen, Fr. danser, to dance), the art of rhythmical movement, consisting of steps, bounds, and inclinations of the figure, usually performed to the cadence of music. Though the feet, by which the body changes from place to place, are the principal agents in dancing, yet all the slight wavy motions of the bust, head, and arms are also to be considered, since it is by the harmony of all the movements that dancing becomes a thing of beauty and art. Especially when several persons join in the dance, the most diverse postures and motions have a general symmetry, so that the dancing group presents an aesthetic unity. Dancing is perhaps the oldest and most universal of the fine arts, and has been in vogue for various purposes, in greater or less perfection, from the earliest times, equally among savage and civilized nations. Among the ancient Egyptians, it was both a social recreation and a religious exercise. Persons of high rank did not, however, indulge in it either in public or private assemblies, but employed professional dancers, like the almeh and ghawazee of the present time, who obtained a livelihood by performances in wealthy houses. A modern Asiatic ambassador once remarked to his European host: "You are then very poor, since you are obliged to dance yourselves." The object of Egyptian dances was to exhibit a great variety of graceful gestures and attitudes. They followed the music of the harp, lyre, guitar, pipe, tambourine, or drum, or even the clapping of hands or snapping of fingers; many of their

postures resembled those of the modern ballet; and the pirouette seems to have been a favorite in Egypt 4,000 years ago. There was a figure dance common throughout the country, in which two partners advanced toward each other, stood face to face upon one leg, and having performed a series of movements, retired in opposite directions, continuing to hold each other by one hand, and concluding by whirling each other around. The costume of the female dancers was a flowing and ornamented robe, reaching to the ankles, and of the finest texture, so as hardly to conceal the figure. The Egyptians danced also at the temples in honor of the gods, some of their sacred dances being mysterious imitations of the celestial movements and of the harmony of the universe. The Hebrews also introduced dancing into solemn festivities, especially on occasions of triumph and pleasure, the Hebrew word for dance meaning literally to "leap for joy." The description given of Miriam who took a timbrel in her hand, while all the women went out after her with timbrels and with dances, applies to many modern oriental dances, led by a principal person, whose steps, gyrations, and songs, often extemporaneous, are skilfully imitated by the group of attendants. Both sexes bore a part in the Hebrew dancing processions, but always remained in separate companies. In Babylon the worship of Astarte was celebrated by the dances of maidens in the temples; and a Persian dance is mentioned whose movements, performed to the music of the flute, consisted in dashing crescent-shaped shields together, falling upon the knee, and rising again. In India the most ancient sacred writings mention the bayadeers, or dancing girls, whose performances are still indispensable in religious and social festivities, and whose style of dancing, unlike that of the ballet, consists in but slightly raising the feet and in expressing vehemence of passion by the eyes and by gliding and waving movements of the neck, bust, and arms. The dancing girls of Java are painted entirely white, and though they move their feet but slightly, they keep their arms and the upper portion of their body in so ceaseless and rapid circular and undulatory motion that it is impossible for the eye to distinguish any definite outlines to their figure. In Greece dancing formed a part of the education of youth, and was included with song and poetry in the wide sense of music. It was in high esteem from the heroic ages, was connected with nearly every religious ceremony, and skilful dancers sometimes were honored with golden crowns, and had statues erected to their memory. The strophes and antistrophes of odes are supposed to owe their origin to the alternate movements of different parties of dancers, and the dramatic chorus probably consisted at first of all the population of a city meeting in a public place, and worshipping the gods by hymns and dances. Plato thought that all dancing should be of a religious character, and should be an object of legislative care, as being essential to grace of motion. The Greek

religious dances, excepting the Bacchie and corybantian, were very simple, consisting of gentle inclinations of the body and a gliding promenade around the altar. The Bacchic dance, representing the adventures of the god Dionysus, was common throughout Greece, forming a principal part of the Bacchanalian festivities; and the most illustrious men in the state combined with persons representing satyrs and titans, and with husbandmen, in performing it. The corybantian dance, known chiefly in Crete and Phrygia, was of the wildest character, the performers being armed and dashing together their swords and shields with extravagant fury. Greek dancing was a gymnastic and military as well as a mimetic and religious exercise. The Pyrrhic dance, which existed from the mythical age, is described by Plato as representing by rapid movements of the body the ways of avoiding strokes of the javelin and sword, and the mode of attacking an enemy. It was remarkable for somersets, tumblings, and swift evolutions in the midst of projecting daggers and drawn swords, and seems to have surpassed in skilful escapes any thing known in modern times. Tacitus mentions that the German youths were taught to dance amid swords and spears pointed at them. Prof. Wilson, who was a most accomplished athlete, is recorded to have mounted one of the tables at a festival in commemoration of Burns, and to have danced a pas seul among the wine glasses and decanters, without causing any fracture; but this precarious mode of dancing has rarely been cultivated in modern times, except by professional artists. In many of the Greek states dancing was carried to great perfection by the hetara, who were often admitted to divert the guests at the close of a repast.-Dancing among the Romans was at first most strictly connected with religion, and it was always deemed dishonorable for a Roman citizen to take part in other than religious dances. During the latter years of the republic this art was even deemed unworthy of a free man, and Cicero affirmed that it was rare for any one to dance who was not either intoxicated or a fool. But under the empire the pantomime and mimetic dances attained a high degree of perfection. The performers were in such esteem that when at the approach of famine the emperor Constantius banished all philosophers from Rome, he retained more than 3,000 dancers. Lucian, in his dialogue on dancing, maintains that the mimetic dancer should be familiar with poetry, geometry, music, and even philosophy; he should be a good rhetorician to express the passions of the soul, and a good painter and sculptor to reproduce attitudes and countenances; he should rival Chalcas in knowing the present, past, and future, and Thucydides in the sense and observation of decorum; he should be inventive, judicious, with a delicate ear, a quick sensibility, and a firm and supple body; in short, it would seem that he should be the most perfect of men.-In the early centuries of the church, the dance was sometimes united