DON, David, an eminent botanist, second son of the celebrated George Don, was born at Forfar in 1800, and died in London on 8th December, 1841. He received part of his education at Edinburgh, where he was patronized by Dr. Patrick Neill. He was employed for some time in Messrs. Dicksons' nurseries. In 1819 he went to London, and became librarian to Mr. Lambert, in whose house he stayed. He took charge of Mr. Lambert's extensive herbarium. He published some notices of rare Scottish plants, and a monograph of the genus saxifraga. These works brought him into notice, and in 1822 he was appointed librarian of the Linnæan Society, on the resignation of Robert Brown. In 1836 he succeeded Burnett as professor of botany in King's college, London. In 1840 a cancerous disease appeared on his lip, which afterwards extended to the neck, and ultimately proved fatal. He was an excellent systematic botanist, and contributed many valuable papers to the Transactions of the Linnæan Society. Among his important publications are "Prodromus Floræ Nepalensis," monograph of the Melastomaceæ, memoirs on Composite, and papers on the plants of Peru and Chili.—J. H. B.
DON, George, a zealous Scottish botanist, was born in Dundee about the year 1770, and died at Forfar in January, 1814. After getting his early education at a parish school, he was apprenticed to a clockmaker in Dunblane. When he became a journeyman he removed to Glasgow; here he generally worked five days a week at his business, and devoted the remainder of it to botanizing. Occasionally he made a trip to some of the Highland mountains in quest of alpine plants. After saving a small sum of money, he went with his wife to Forfar, and procured a long lease of a small piece of ground, on which he reared vegetables for sale, and cultivated many interesting native plants, which were arranged after the Linnæan system. Here he spent four years in a very frugal style. The situation of superintendent of the Edinburgh botanic garden having become vacant, Don was appointed to the office by Professor Rutherford. During his residence in Edinburgh Don attended the medical classes. He subsequently resigned his office in the garden and returned to Forfar, where he added the nursery business to that of the botanic garden. He formed an extensive collection of plants, principally hardy, as well as a considerable herbarium, chiefly of British plants. Following the profession of country surgeon, for which he had qualified himself in Edinburgh, his botanical zeal, and his constant alpine trips in search of rare plants, interfered much with his practice. He was celebrated as the discoverer of many of the most interesting alpine plants of Scotland. Some of the plants which he gathered on the mountains, such as Ranunculus alpestris, have not been found by any one since his death. He was a correspondent of Sir James Edward Smith, who, in his English Flora, under "Rosa Doniana," speaks of him as one of the most indefatigable as well as accurate of botanists, who loved the science for its own sake, and braved every difficulty in its service. He was buried in Forfar churchyard.—J. H. B.
DON, George, a Scottish botanist, son of the preceding, was born at Forfar on 17th May, 1798, and died at Campden Hill, Kensington, on 25th February, 1856, in the fifty-eighth year of his age. On the death of his father, he, in conjunction with his younger brother, David, made an attempt to carry on the nursery at Forfar, but they were not successful in this. In 1815 George Don went to Edinburgh; the following year he went to London, and was employed in the Chelsea botanic garden, where he remained as foreman till 1821, and then entered the service of the Horticultural Society. He was sent by the society as their collector to tropical Africa and South America. He sent home valuable collections. The secretary of the society, Mr. Joseph Sabine, published an account of the edible fruits of Sierra Leone drawn up from Don's notes. In 1826 Don read a paper on combretum before the Linnæan Society, and he communicated to the Wernerian Society a paper on the genus allium. From 1828 to 1837 he was engaged in the publication of his general system of gardening and botany, which extended to four quarto volumes, containing a history of dichilamydeous plants. He furnished the botanical articles to the Encyclopædia Metropolitana. He superintended the rearing of the trees and shrubs in Kensington garden and park, and he aided Loudon in his Encyclopædia of Plants. He was a fellow of the Linnæan Society.—J. H. B.
DONALD I., king of Scotland, reigned during the third century, and is said to have been the first christian prince of that country.
DONALD II. succeeded his brother Kenneth, though the latter left both a son and a daughter. This mode of inheritance was common both in the Scottish and Pictish royal families. After a reign of four years, Donald died in 863, and was buried at Iona, or Icolmkill, "the grand storehouse of his progenitors."
DONALD IV., son of Constantine II., in 893 succeeded Grig, on whom monkish writers have conferred the high-sounding title of Gregory the Great. Donald fell in battle near Forteviot in 904, defending his country against the Danish pirates, whose leader he slew.
DONALD BANE was the son of Duncan, whom Macbeth killed, and the brother of Malcolm Canmore, whom in 1073 he succeeded on the throne, to the exclusion of Malcolm's own sons. He fled to the Hebrides on the death of his father, and remained there during the whole of his brother's reign. On Malcolm's decease he hurried to Scotland, and, supported by a powerful party among the Scottish nobles who were hostile to the innovations of Malcolm and his Saxon queen, took possession of the throne apparently with little opposition. His first edict was a sentence of banishment against all foreigners, and he set himself to bring back the country to the savage state of the western isles. After a reign of about a year, however, he was expelled in May, 1094, by Duncan, an illegitimate son of Malcolm Canmore. But in November of that year, Duncan was assassinated by the instigation of Edmund, second son of Malcolm, who agreed to share the throne with Donald. This arrangement lasted only two years. In 1097 Edgar Atheling, along with his nephew Edgar, third son of Malcolm Canmore, raised an army in England, defeated Donald Bane, took him prisoner, and put out his eyes. Donald died at Roscobie in Forfarshire. With him terminated the line of Scottish kings. During the great competition for the crown in the days of Bruce and Baliol, John Comyn, lord of Badenoch, claimed the succession as heir of Donald Bane through the female line.—J. T.
* DONALDSON, Thomas Leverton, a living English architect, born in London in 1795, and known as much for his artistical productions as for the extent of his learned information on everything connected with art. Mr. Donaldson's profound and cosmopolitan studies, the works and illustrations resulting therefrom, and his genial manners, have rendered his name as well known and as much esteemed abroad, as it is a favourite and a respected one in England.—R. M.
DONALDSON, Walter, LL.D., a learned Scotchman, was born at Aberdeen about the year 1575. He was in the retinue of Bishop Cunningham of Aberdeen, and Sir Peter Young, when they were sent, probably in 1594, on an embassy to the king of Denmark and to some of the princes of Germany. After his return from this mission he again went to the continent, and for some time prosecuted his studies at Heidelberg. He delivered there a course of lectures on moral philosophy, a synopsis of which was published by one of his students without his consent or knowledge. Donaldson was afterwards appointed principal of the protestant university of Sedan, and also discharged the duties of professor of Greek and of moral and natural philosophy. The celebrated Andrew Melville was one of his colleagues. After residing at Sedan for sixteen years, he was invited to open a college at Charenton, near Paris, but the attempt was frustrated by the jealousy of the Romish party. The subsequent history of Dr. Donaldson is unknown. He was the author of a work entitled "Synopsis Œconomica," 8vo, Paris, 1620, and of a "Synopsis Locorum Communium "from the writings of Diogenes Laertius.—J. T.
DONATELLO, the name commonly applied to the famous Italian sculptor Donato di Belto di Bardi. He was born of humble parents at Florence in 1383, and under the tuition of Lorenzo Bicci, procured for him by the patronage of the Martelli family, became a proficient prospectician, a clever architect, and rare sculptor. The first production of the Florentine youth—an "Annunciation"—by the simple and original grace of its style, no less than by the wonderful pathos of its design, created quite a sensation among his townsmen. Its merits gained for its author the attention of Cosimo de Medici, who from that time proved his staunch patron. It was to Cosimo that Donatello owed an excellent opportunity of study, in being intrusted with the restoration of many of the ancient marbles belonging to the Medici family. This contact with the dead language of
