‘having a close to make ad libitum, wandered about so long in a fit of abstract modulation that he seemed uncertain of the original key. At length, however, he accomplished a safe arrival at the shake which was to terminate this long close, when Handel, to the great delight of the audience, cried out, loud enough to be heard in the most remote parts of the theatre, “Welcome home, welcome home, Mr. Dubourg!”’ On 3 March 1750–1 Dubourg was elected a member of the Royal Society of Musicians, and in 1752 he succeeded Festing as master of the king's band; but he still continued to retain his post at Dublin, where he was visited in 1761 by Geminiani, who died in his house. Dubourg died at London, 3 July 1767, and was buried in the churchyard of Paddington Church. The epitaph on his gravestone has been printed by Burney. As a violinist he was remarkable for his fire and energy, and it was noticed that his style differed materially from that of his master, Geminiani. Hawkins mentions a portrait of him when a boy, which hung in a Mrs. Martin's concert room, Sherborn Lane: this seems to have disappeared, though a miniature of him when a boy is now in the possession of his great-granddaughter. Burney says a portrait of him was in the possession of his daughter, Mrs. Redmond Simpson. A portrait of him by Van der Smissen is now in the possession of his great-grandson, Mr. A. W. Dubourg.
[Dubourg's Hist. of the Violin, ed. 1836, p. 184; Hawkins's Hist. of Music, v. 76, 362–3; Burney's Hist. of Music, iv. 645; Records of the Royal Society of Musicians; Egerton MS. 2159, 51; newspapers for 1715; Schœlcher's Life of Handel; information from Mr. A. W. Dubourg.]
DUBRICIUS (in Welsh Dyfrig), Saint (d. 612), was one of the most famous of the early Welsh saints, and the reputed founder of the bishopric of Llandaff. The date of his death is the most authentic information we have about him, as that is obtained from the tenth-century Latin annals of Wales (Annales Cambriæ, p. 6: ‘Conthigirni obitus et Dibric episcopi’); but this meagre statement does not even mention the name of his see, if, indeed, fixed bishops' sees existed at that period in the British church. Later accounts of Dubricius are much more copious, but are in no sense of an historical character. The earliest of his lives is that contained in the twelfth-century ‘Lectiones de vita Sancti Dubricii,’ printed in the ‘Liber Landavensis’ (pp. 75–83). This was probably composed in 1120, on the occasion of the translation of the saint's bones from Bardsey to a shrine within Llandaff Cathedral by Urban, bishop of that see. It is, of course, a pious homily, intended primarily for edification, but it is important as having been written before Geoffrey of Monmouth's fictions were published, and as therefore containing whatever ancient tradition of the saint remained. According to this life, Dubricius was the son of Eurddil, daughter of a British king called Pebiau. He was miraculously conceived and more miraculously born. When he became a man ‘his fame extended throughout all Britain, so that there came scholars from all parts to him, and not only raw students, but also learned men and doctors, particularly St. Teilo.’ For seven years he maintained two thousand clerks at Henllan on the Wye, and again at his native district, called from his mother Ynys Eurddil, also apparently in the same neighbourhood. He afterwards became a bishop, visited St. Illtyd, performed many miracles, and at last, laying aside his bishop's rank, he left the world and lived till the end of his life as a solitary in the island of Bardsey, ‘the Rome of Britain,’ where he was buried among the twenty thousand other saints in the holy island. In this life there is nothing more incredible than in most lives of early Celtic saints; the title archbishop is only once given to him, and more stress is laid upon his sanctity than upon his episcopal rank. His chief abodes are on the banks of the Wye. But in the account of the early state of the church of Llandaff prefixed to this life, it is said that Dubricius was consecrated by Germanus, archbishop over all the bishops of southern Britain, and bishop of the see of Llandaff, founded by the liberality of King Meurig. But Germanus died in 448, and the date of Dubricius's death here given is 612, the same as that in the ‘Annales Cambriæ.’ This latter fact is in itself some evidence that old traditions at least had been embodied in this account, though the chronological error in the account of the foundation is so gross. But the author, in regretting his inability to describe at length Dubricius's miracles, tells us that ‘the records were consumed by the fires of the enemy or carried off to a far distance in a fleet of citizens when banished.’ A few years later, however, Geoffrey of Monmouth gave a much more elaborate account of Dubricius in his ‘History of the Britons,’ which is absolutely unhistorical. This describes Dubricius as the archbishop of the Roman see of Caerleon, who crowned Arthur king of Britain and harangued the British host before the battle of Mount Baden. Other accounts connect Dubricius with David and the synod of Llanddewi Brevi. When Dubricius laid down his episcopal office he consecrated David ‘archbishop of Wales’ in his stead. Thus was the
