It had a great and deserved popularity. Denham wrote a translation of Cato Major and of Virgil, which by no means equals his other compositions, and several smaller pieces. He took a decided part in the politics of the day, being a steadfast supporter of the Stuarts, who frequently intrusted him with missions of trust and delicacy; and in 1648 he conveyed James, duke of York, to France, where he remained, sharing the exile of the royal family, and enlivening their sad state by his verses. Returning to England on the Restoration, he received not only honour, but substantial rewards. The latter was much needed, as the parliament had confiscated the little property that a gay life had left him. In the latter years of his life he seems to have been seriously disposed, and wrote a metrical version of the Psalms. After his second marriage, Denham was for a time disordered in mind, but he appears to have recovered the full vigour of his faculties. He died in March, 1668, at Whitehall, and was interred in Westminster Abbey, near Chaucer and Spenser. As a poet, Denham is deservedly considered one of the fathers of English poetry. He was one of the first who attended to the laws of harmony and gave a melody to verse; and discarding affectation, sought a simpler and truer taste and more natural mode of expression. With this he possessed vigour and occasional loftiness, not undeserving of Pope's appellation of "majestic Denham." Dryden, who followed in his school and improved upon his master, eulogizes, not unjustly, four very fine lines in Denham, to which Dr. Johnson, while praising them, has applied some silly criticism, pointing out as an imperfection what cannot be justly considered so. Denham's fame may well rest on the appreciation of such eminent authorities as Pope, Cowley, Dryden, and Scott.—J. F. W.
DENINA, Giacom-Maria-Carlo, a celebrated Piedmontese historian, was born at Revel in 1731. After studying at Saluzzo he took orders as a priest, and in 1753 was appointed Latin professor at Pignerol. Having eulogized the conduct of the secular priests in the direction of education, as contrasted with that of the monks, he drew upon himself the hatred of the jesuits, and was compelled to leave Pignerol. At Milan, however, in 1756, he received the degree of doctor of theology, and was afterwards nominated extraordinary professor of humanity and rhetoric at the college of Turin. In 1760 he published a "Discours sur les Vicissitudes de la littérature," which was translated into English; and in 1769 appeared the first volume of a "History of Italian Revolutions." The second volume of this work obtained for its author the advancement to the chair of Italian eloquence and Greek at Turin. His enemies, however, on occasion of Denina's printing a pamphlet at Turin, "Dell Impiego delle Persone," took advantage of the law forbidding any Piedmontese to publish in a foreign country without permission of the Turin censors, and procured his dismissal from his chair, together with banishment to Vercelli. The friendship of the archbishop of Turin enabled Denina to return to that city. Subsequently he accepted an invitation to Berlin, given in the name of Frederick II., for the purpose of finishing his history of German revolutions, which appeared at Florence in 1804 in 8 vols. At Mayence Denina met the Emperor Napoleon, who persuaded him to remove to Paris, in the character of imperial librarian. Denina died at Paris in 1813. In addition to the works already named, Denina wrote a eulogy on Peter the Great; an essay on the reign of Frederick II.; considerations on the origin of language, with various guides to French, German, and Italian literature; but his History of Italian Revolutions is by far the most remarkable. Denina also wrote a "History of Piedmont," which only exists in the form of a German translation from the Italian MS.—L. L. P.
* DENIS, Jean Ferdinand, was born in Paris, August, 1798. This gentleman, who fills the honourable post, and the one so agreeable to the scholar, of conservator of the public library of St. Genevieve, is a distinguished Orientalist. His father having held an appointment in the foreign office, had interest enough to have his son attached to diplomatic missions, in the course of which he became acquainted with eastern languages and literature. M. Denis has in his published writings critically traced the influence of Moorish ideas on the literature of Spain and Portugal, especially on the dramas of the former, of which he edited a collection. Having in the course of his peregrinations visited Brazil, he investigated the circumstances of that country as they presented themselves at the time, and gave his information to the world in a work of recognized merit.—J. F. C.
DENIS, Johann Michael Cosmus, a German poet and bibliographer, was born at Schärding on the Inn, 27th September, 1729, and died at Vienna on the 29th September, 1800. He was educated at Passau by the jesuits, into whose order he was himself received in 1747, and for whose literary merits and achievements he always entertained a high regard. In 1759 he was called to a mastership in the Theresianum at Vienna, and in 1791 promoted to the principal librarianship in the imperial library. His numerous bibliographical works are of high value. We mention—"Grundriss der Bibliographie und Bücherkunde;" "Einleitung in die Bücherkunde;" and "Wien's Büchdruckergeschichte bis MDLX." As a poet, Denis first rendered Ossian's poems into German, and wrote some volumes of original odes in the strain of Klopstock, under the anagrammatical name of Sined. His Latin poems were published under the title, "Carmina quædam Denisii," Vienna, 1794.—K. E.
* DENISON, John Evelyn, Speaker of the House of Commons, is the eldest son of the late John Denison, M.P., of Ossington, and was born in 1800. He was educated at Eton college, and took the degree of B.A. at Christ's Church, Oxford, in 1823. When in his twenty-third year he was elected M.P. for Newcastle-under-Lyne, which he continued to represent until 1826, and in December of the same year he was returned for Hastings, which place he represented till 1830. In May, 1827, he was appointed one of the lords of the admiralty, which office he occupied till February, 1828. In 1831-32 he was M.P. for Notts, and in 1833-37 for South Notts. In 1841 he was returned for Malton, which he represented for sixteen years, and in 1857 he was chosen member for North Notts. On the dissolution of parliament in March, 1857, Viscount Eversley resigned the speakership of the house of commons, and on 30th April Mr. Denison was unanimously chosen his successor, an office which he is well qualified to hold, possessing good abilities, a commanding voice, and a dignified bearing. In 1827 Mr. Denison married Charlotte, daughter of the late duke of Portland. He is a magistrate and deputy-lieutenant for Notts. In politics he is a liberal.—W. H. P. G.
* DENISON, Sir William Thomas, K.C.B., brother of the preceding, governor-in-chief and governor-general of all the Australian colonies, was born in the parish of Marylebone, London, in 1804. After the usual course of education at Eton, he prepared at Woolwich for the royal engineers, which corps he entered in March, 1826, and embarked the following year for Canada, where he remained till 1830. He was gazetted second captain in 1841, and in July, 1842, he was ordered to Bermuda, where he remained till the following October, when he returned to England, and was employed on particular service under the admiralty till 27th June, 1846, when he was appointed lieutenant-governor of Van Diemen's Land (now called Tasmania), in succession to Sir J. Eardley Wilmot, receiving the honour of knighthood at the same time, and whilst on his way to the colony, being also gazetted full captain in the royal engineers. He was much beloved and respected whilst in Tasmania, and in September, 1854, succeeded Sir C. A. Fitzroy as governor-in-chief of the Australian colonies, when he removed to Sydney. In the same year he was gazetted lieutenant-colonel, and three years afterwards brevet-colonel in the army. Since his appointment he has been a zealous promoter of everything calculated to advance the interests of the colonies. In 1857 her majesty conferred upon him the honour of K.C.B. In 1838 he was married at Woolwich to Caroline, daughter of Admiral Hornby.—W. H. P. G.
DENMAN, Thomas, a well-known physician, who practised in London in the latter end of the last century. He was born in 1733, and died in 1815. He held a post in the household of George III., and was the father of Lord Denman the celebrated judge, barrister, and chief-justice. Dr. Denman, with an ample independence, chose retirement and comparative obscurity for himself, in order that his fortune might benefit his family at a time when it was most needed by them. His professional career, and his papers on medical subjects, entitle him to a high position as a physician, and his latter days to that of a philosopher and philanthropist.—E. L.
DENMAN, Thomas, first baron, an eminent lawyer and judge, the only son of the preceding, was born in London on the 23rd of February, 1779. He received his earliest education at a school presided over by Mr. and Mrs. Barbauld, and his latest at St. John's college, Cambridge, which he quitted about the beginning of the century. Called to the bar in 1806, two years
