said—"God's will be done: His will is always the best." His resignation and calmness astonished and overcame the conquerors, and his parsonage remained untouched.—M. H.
DORSET, the title, now extinct, of an ancient and powerful English family seated in Sussex, who trace their origin to Hubrand de Sackville, a follower of William the Conqueror. The most celebrated members of the family were—
Charles Sackville, sixth earl of Dorset, who was born in 1637. In his youth he was the companion of Rochester, Jedley, and other notorious libertines of his day, and equalled them in their wildest excesses. In the midst of his follies and vices, however, his courage, splendid abilities, and amiable disposition made him a general favourite, and his maturer life was distinguished both by public spirit and unbounded generosity. In 1665 he attended the duke of York as a volunteer in the Dutch war, and finished his well-known song, "To all you Ladies now on Land," the night before the sea-fight in which Opdam the Dutch admiral was blown up with all his crew. He was made a gentleman of the bedchamber to Charles II., and was favourably noticed also by James II., but he joined in the opposition to the arbitrary designs of that monarch, and was in consequence deprived of his office of lord-lieutenant of Sussex. Having concurred in the Revolution, Dorset was appointed lord-chamberlain of the household, and received the order of the garter. He was under the painful necessity of removing Dryden from the office of poet-laureate, but with characteristic generosity he assisted the poet liberally out of his own purse. This munificent patron of letters died in 1706, universally regretted. The writers of the day, whig and tory, unite in praising "his graceful manners, his brilliant conversation, his soft heart, and his open hand." He was eulogized by Waller, Pope, and Prior, and almost idolized by Dryden. Pope terms him—
" Blest courtier, who could king and country please,
Yet sacred keep his friendships and his ease."
And his taste and judgment in questions of polite learning were regarded by his contemporaries as unimpeachable. Dorset's own compositions are not numerous, and consist of only a few satires and songs, characterized by elegance, sprightliness, and point, rather than by power. Lord Macaulay says—"In the small volume of his works may be found songs which have the easy vigour of Suckling, and little satires which sparkle with wit as splendid as that of Butler."
Edward Sackville, fourth earl of Dorset, grandson of the great earl, was born in 1590. He spent a gay and dissipated youth, and fought several duels, in one of which he killed Edward, Lord Bruce of Kinloss, who had been his friend and companion in his life of pleasure. Clarendon states that on Sackville's part the cause was "unwarrantable." (See Nos. 129 and 133 of the Guardian.) Sackville was a great favourite of James I., who appointed him to the command of the forces which he sent to the assistance of his son-in-law, the elector palatine. He enjoyed no less the confidence of Charles I., who appointed him president of the council in 1641. He fought with distinguished courage on the royal side in the great civil war, and died in 1652.
Thomas Sackville, first earl of Dorset, who was born in 1536. He was educated both at Oxford and Cambridge, and afterwards studied law in the inner temple, according to the custom of young men of rank at that period. He was elected a member of the house of commons in 1557, and some time after travelled through France and Italy. He returned home on the death of his father in 1566, and was shortly after elevated to the peerage, with the title of Baron Buckhurst. In 1570 Elizabeth sent him on an embassy to Charles IX. of France. He was one of the commissioners for the trial of Mary, queen of Scots, and was appointed to the miserable office of superintending her execution. In 1587 he was sent as ambassador to the United Provinces, to hear and satisfy their complaints against the earl of Leicester. He discharged this duty faithfully; but, through the influence of that unworthy favourite, he was not only recalled, but closely confined to his own house for nine or ten months. On the death of Leicester, however, he was restored to favour, and made a knight of the garter. In 1591 he was elected chancellor of the university of Oxford, and, on the death of the great Lord Burleigh, was appointed lord high-treasurer of England. He was one of the privy councillors on whom the administration of the kingdom devolved on the death of Queen Elizabeth. His patent for the office of treasurer was confirmed by James before leaving Scotland, and in March, 1604, he was created Earl of Dorset. The earl died suddenly, April, 1608, of water on the brain, while sitting at the council table. Few ministers, as Horace Walpole remarks, have left behind them so untarnished a character. Lord Dorset was distinguished for his poetical genius, as well as for his political sagacity. While a student of the law he wrote the tragedy of "Gorboduc," the earliest regular English drama, which was represented before Queen Elizabeth in 1562 by the members of the inner temple. It is founded on a fabulous British legend, and is full of slaughter and civil broils; but "the characters," says Hallam, "are clearly drawn and consistently sustained, the political maxims grave and profound, the language not glowing or passionate, but vigorous; and, upon the whole, it is evidently the work of a powerful mind." Sackville also contributed an induction or prologue, and one of the stories—that of the first duke of Buckingham—to the second edition of the Mirror of Magistrates, published in 1568. Like Dante, he lays the scene of his story in the infernal regions, and makes his chosen actors relate their history at the gates of Elysium, under the guidance of an allegorical personage named Sorrow. The induction, says Hallam, displays "a fertility of imagination, a vividness or description, and strength of language which not only leave his predecessors far behind, but may fairly be compared with some of the most poetical passages in Spenser." It bears the stamp, however, of a saturnine genius, and is justly likened by Campbell to a gloomy landscape on which the sun never shines.—J. T.
DORVIGNY, Louis, born at Versailles in 1744, and died in 1812, was the reputed son of Louis XV. After the king's death he was left to his own resources, when he began to write for the stage, producing some small pieces which had immense success. His morals were, however, so loose, that for the sake of indulging his low tastes he would sacrifice his productions for any price they would immediately bring, so that although he wrote, as is estimated, some hundreds of pieces, he was ever in want, until he at last died in misery.—J. F. C.
DOSIO, Giovanni Antonio, a distinguished Italian sculptor and architect, born in 1533; died about 1600. He is supposed to have been a native of Tuscany, but was very early in life removed to Rome, and apprenticed there to a silversmith. From the shop he soon passed to the studio, and under Raffaelle de Montelupo he completed his education as a sculptor. Many and important are the specimens he left in the city of the popes, and especially in the Belvedere palace. In later years, having proceeded to Florence, he was employed on the Niccolini chapel at Santa Croce, a work which shows his talent, both as architect and as sculptor, to the greatest advantage.—R. M.
DOSITHEUS, a Samaritan heresiarch who flourished about the commencement of the christian era. He is by some regarded as the preceptor, and by others as the disciple, of Simon Magus. There is little authority for connecting the two in either way, save as in the case of Simon and Menander—similarity of blasphemous pretensions. Dositheus, who boldly claimed for himself the honours of Messiah, had, it is said, some thirty disciples upon whom he impressed the necessity of ascetic practices, and of contempt for their brethren of mankind. When his pretensions were scorned and denounced by the Jews, whom he first attempted to ensnare, he turned to the Samaritans, by whom also the pretended Messiah was disowned. To escape the pursuit of the emissaries of the high-priest, he was ultimately, it is said, obliged to take refuge in a cave, where he died. His career as prophet, which would seem to have been more that of a visionary, and less that of a knave, than the career of Simon Magus, was but short. Some of his disciples, however, appear to have faithfully transmitted his pretensions to later times, and to have obtained for them credit enough to form a party bearing the name of Dositheus; for in Egypt, as late as the sixth century, we find mention of the Dositheans.—J. S., G.
DOSSI, Dosso, the founder of the Ferrarese school of painting, was born in 1474; died in 1558 or 1560; was a pupil of L. Costa. His career would have been obscure, and his merit scarcely recognized, had it not been for the active friendship of Ariosto, who introduced him to the duke, and celebrated his works in the Orlando Furioso. The artist in return painted Ariosto's portrait to such a degree of perfection, that it is difficult to say which of the two is most indebted to the other. In many of his works Dossi had the assistance, often rather troublesome, of his ill-favoured brother Gian Battista. But those which
