g )od family, and in his youth served as an officer in a regiment of Cavalry. Finding it necessary to quit the army in order to take charge of his younger brothers who had been left orphans, he was appointed a farmer-general by Louis XV. In 1777 he visited England, Germany, and Holland : and in the following year he travelled through Italy, with the view of exploring thoroughly the remains of ancient art. He afterwards settled at Rome, and devoted himself to preparing the results of his researches for publication. He died on the 24th September 1814, leaving the work, which was being issued in parts, unfinished ; but it was carried on by M. Gence, and published complete under the title L llistoire de I Art par les Monuments, depuis sa decadence au quatrieme siecle itisqu a son renouvellement au seizieme (6 vols. fol. with 325 plates, Paris, 1823). An English translation by Owen Jones was published in 1347. In the year of his death D Agincourt published at Paris a Recueil de Fragments de
Sculpture antique, en terre cuite (1 vol. 4to).DAGON, a national god of the Philistines, spoken of in Judg. xvi. 23 ; 1 Sam. v. 2 ; 1 Chron. x. 10 ; 1 Mace. x. 83. The name is derived from Dag, a fish, with the suffix of endearment, the older etymology from Dagan, corn, suggested by Philo Byblius, being generally regarded as untenable. The principal temples of the god were at Ashdod (1 Sara. v. 1), and Gaza (Judg. xvi. 1, 23), and the former existed until the time of the Maccabees, when it was destroyed (148 B.C.) by Jonathan, the brother of Judas (1 Mace. x. 84). Dagon was a fish-god of the male gender, as the form of the name indicates, the correspond ing female deity being Atargatis. From 1 Sam. v. 4. it appears that his image was composed of the head and hands of a man and the tail of a fish. The words " the stump of" at the close of the verso- are an interpolation of the translators ; the original reads " only Dagon (i.e., the fish) was left." Selden and Niebuhr identify the Philistine Dagon with the Dagon ( figa/ciov) of the Babylonian mythology ; but Rawlinson considers it " extremely doubt ful " whether the two had any connection (Rawliuson s Herodotus, 3d ed. i. 614). The fish was worshipped as the symbol of fertility, both on account of its own fecundity and as representing water, the life-giving and fertilizing element.
DAGUERRE, Louis Jacques Mandé (1789-1851), a French painter and physicist, was born at Cormeilles, in the department of Seine-et-Oise, and died July 12, 1851, at Petit-Brie-sur-Marne, near Paris. He was at first occupied as an inland revenue officer, but soon betook himself to scene-painting for tho opera, in which he ere long surpassed his predecessors Bibieua and Munich, and his teacher Degoti, more especially in his remarkable power of representing light and shade. Among the most admired of his productions were the Chapel of Glenthorn, at the Ambigu, and the Rising of the Sun in " Les Mexicains." He assisted M. Pre vost in the execution of panoramic views of Rome, Naples, London, Jerusalem, and Athens, and subsequently (July 11, 1822), in conjunction with Bouton, he opened at Paris the Diorama (Si s, double ; "pafj.a, view), an exhibition of pictorial views, the effect of which was heightened by changes in the light thrown upon them. As an example of these may be instanced the Midnight Mass at the Church of Saint-Etienne du Mont. An establishment similar to that at Paris was opened by Daguerre in the Regent s Park, London. On the 3d March 1839 tho Diorama, together with the work on which Daguerre was then engaged, the Interior of Sainte-Marie- Majeure, was destroyed by fire. This reverse of fortune was soon, however, more than compensated for by the dis tinction he achieved as the inventor of the daguerreotype photographic process. Nicephore Niepce, who since 1814 had been seeking a means of obtaining permanent pictures by the action of sunlight, learned in 1826 that Daguerre was similarly occupied. In the following year he com municated to Daguerre particulars of his method of fixing the images produced in the camera lucida by making use of metallic plates coated with a composi tion of asphalt and oil of lavender ; this where acted on by the light remained undissolved when the plate was plunged into a mixture of petroleum and oil of lavender, and the development of the image was effected by the action of acids and other chemical reagents on the exposed surface of the plate. The two investigators laboured together in the production of their " heliogiaphic pictures " from 1829 until the death of Niepce, July 3, 1833. Daguerre, continuing his experiments, discovered eventually the process connected with his name. This, as he described it, consists of five operations : the polishing of the silver plate; the coating of the plate with iodide of silver by submitting it for about 20 minutes to the action of iodine vapour ; the projection of the image of the object upon the golden-coloured iodized surface ; the development of the latent image by means of the vapour of mercury ; and, lastly, the fixing of the picture by immersing the plate in a solution of sodium " hyposulphite " (sodium thiosulphate). On January 9, 1839, at a meeting of the Academy of Sciences, Arago dwelt on the importance of the discovery of the daguerreotype ; and, in consequence of the repre sentations made by him and Gay Lussac to the French Government, Daguerre was on the 15th of June appointed an officer of the Legion of Honour. On the same day a bill was presented to the Chambers, according to the provisions of which Daguerre and the heir of Niepce were to receive annuities of 6000 and 4000 francs respectively, on the condition that their process should be made known to the Academy. The bill having been approved at the meetings of the two Chambers on the 9th of July and the 2d of August, Daguerre s process, together with his system of transparent and opaque painting, was published by the Government, and soon became generally known. The first great improvement upon it, due to Mr Towson of Devonport, was the use of enlarged lenses, with which Mr Draper of New York was the first to secure portraits from the life. Then followed Mr Goddard s introduction, in 1840, of bromine for increasing the sensi tiveness of the plates, and Fizeau s method of strengthen ing the lights and shades by the application of chloride of gold in the fixing operation. Previous to the time of Daguerre both Wedgwood and Sir H. Davy had attempted, but in vain, to prevent the unshaded portions of pictures taken by means of the solar rays from becoming coloured by exposure to diffused light; this result Daguerre secured by the use of sodium thiosulphate, and thus became the chief pioneer of the modern art of photography.
Daguerre s Historiqne et description des precedes da Daguerreotype et-du Diorama (Paris, 1839), passed through several editions, and was translated into English. Besides this he wrote an octavo work, entitled Nouveau moyen de prfyarer la couche sensible des plaques destinies a recevoir les images photographiques (Paris, 1844).
cellor of France, illustrious for his virtues, learning, and talents, was born at Limoges on the 27th of November 1668. Under the careful supervision of his father, a man of great worth and ability, who held the posts of intendant of Languedoc and councillor of state, D Aguesseau devoted himself to study with great ardour and with extraordinary results. When little more than twenty-one years of age he was, through his father s influence with the king, appointed one of the three advocates-general ; and the eloquence and learning which he displayed in his first speech gained him
a very lofty reputation, which was well sustained by his