he painted unaided are considered his masterpieces. Amongst them rank "The Saviour amongst the Doctors," "St. Bartholemew and John," at Rome; "The Murder of the Innocents," at Florence; "The Four Great Doctors of Christianity," at Dresden; the "St. Hieronymus," at Vienna; "The Holy Family," in London; "The Circumcision," in Paris, &c. In spite of his great activity and undoubted merits, Dossi had to combat the most obstinate opposition—an opposition perhaps excited against him by the unbearable character of his brother, who, ugly and proud, had no superior in the art of getting generally detested. Yet Gian Battista was really a good artist, and excelled in landscape; he is believed to have died about 1541.—R. M.
DOST MAHOMED, ruler of Cabul, whose name is to be for ever associated with the sad and glorious war in Affghanistan, was probably born about the beginning of the present century. He was one of the youngest among the many brothers of the celebrated Barukzye Sirdar, Futteh Khan, who procured the early downfall of the ruler of Affghanistan, Shah Soojah, afterwards Lord Auckland's unfortunate protégé, and who reigned in his stead as vizier of his feeble successor. Shah Mahmood. Dost Mahomed was the son of Poyndah Khan, an Affghan sirdar, once of note, but whose local celebrity has been thrown into the shade by that of his two sons. The Dost's mother was a woman of inferior rank, and he was accordingly denied the advantages of education, and spent his early years unnoticed and obscure, discharging menial duties in attendance on his powerful and successful brother. A truly oriental incident raised him from this humble position. Futteh Khan, in the presence of his young brother, once carelessly remarked, that he wished some one would kill a certain person of his acquaintance; and the Dost, a youth of seventeen, went forth and slew the wished-for victim in broad daylight, and in the crowded bazaar of Peshawar. He became forthwith the favourite and confidant of his brother; and when Futteh Khan was cruelly murdered by his master, Shah Mahmood, Dost Mahomed was soon elevated above all his brethren, by the energy and courage with which he sought to take vengeance for the great vizier's death. After a series of wars and revolutions, the murder of Futteh Khan was avenged; Affghanistan was parcelled out among the Barukzye brothers, and Dost Mahomed was eventually, in 1826, firmly seated as ruler of Cabul. It was now that he worked upon himself a change which raised him far above the rank and file of successful oriental adventurers. Brave, handsome, dashing, resolute, and able, he had been hitherto acknowledged; but his prominence and pre-eminence were, after all, only those of an unscrupulous, dissolute, and ignorant soldier. The undisputed ruler of Cabul proceeded to fit himself for his high and responsible position. He learned to read and write; he studied the Koran; he foreswore drinking, and made a public acknowledgment of contrition for the past, and a public promise of improvement for the future. During this his culminating period. Dost Mahomed figures as almost an Affghan Alfred. Order was maintained, and justice was strictly done throughout his dominions. The meanest complainant had access to his ruler, and an attentive consideration of his grievance. When a wrong was tolerated, the common people would exclaim—"Is Dost Mahomed dead, that there is no justice?" He had ruled thus for about ten years—engaging in frequent conflicts with his turbulent brothers, and exposed to the occasional attacks of the wily Sikh sovereign, Runjeet Singh—when he and his territory became objects of more than usual interest to the Indian government. The Persians were besieging Herat. There were rumours of Russian intrigue in Central Asia. Affghanistan, it was feared, might become an advanced post of the czar. Dost Mahomed, on the other hand, afraid of Sikh encroachments, applied for aid to the new governor-general, and Lord Auckland sent Burnes (See Sir Alexander Burnes) on a "commercial mission" to Cabul. Burnes' own opinion was always favourable to Dost Mahomed, whom he considered anxious for the friendship of England, and deserving of its bestowal. Lord Auckland thought otherwise; and when, discouraged and brow-beaten by the British, Dost Mahomed showed, or was supposed to show, some faint leanings towards Russia and Russia's puppet, Persia, the famous Simla manifesto (1st October, 1838) was issued. War was declared against Dost Mahomed, and a large Anglo-Indian force was marched into Affghanistan to depose its actual ruler and enthrone Shah Soojah in his place.
The storm of Ghuznee followed the fall of Candahar. Resolute to the last, Dost Mahomed marched his forces to resist the progress of the invaders at Urgundeh; but his army and his chiefs deserted him when the crisis approached. The Ameer had to turn his horse's head, and fly with a few followers to the Hindoo Koosh; and on the 6th of August the "army of the Indus" entered his capital, Cabul, where Shah Soojah assumed the reins of a short-lived sovereignty. The Dost took refuge at Bokhara, where the Khan treated him after the usual fashion, with blandishments at first, and then with a captivity, which would have been terminated by a speedy murder, had not the prisoner contrived to make his escape. After a series of romantic adventures, he reappeared in Affghanistan at the head of a considerable force, but was routed by the brave Dennie in the affair of Bameean on the 18th of September, 1840. The Ameer had again escaped; and the English at Cabul were speculating on his whereabouts, when, the very day after the battle, a solitary horseman approached Sir William M'Naughten, who was taking his usual evening ride; it was the redoubtable Dost come to surrender himself to the British resident. Sent to Peshawur, and thence to Loodiana, he was kindly treated by the Indian government; and there is every reason to believe that he was a perfect stranger to the vengeance taken on the British invaders of Affghanistan by his son, Akbar Khan. When those terrible disasters were retrieved, and a victorious British army had once more occupied Cabul, the new governor-general. Lord Ellenborough, issued, exactly four years after the publication of the Simla manifesto, a proclamation (dated 1st October, 1842), announcing the withdrawal of the British army to the Sutlej, and the resolution of the government to leave the Affghans to choose their own rulers. Four weeks afterwards the liberated Dost was on his way to Cabul, to resume his old sovereignty. The course of a few years more dictated a still more remarkable change of policy towards Affghanistan and its ruler. In 1852 Sir John Lawrence concluded at Herat a treaty of alliance between the Indian government and Dost Mahomed. Again, in 1856, when the Persians were once more besieging Herat, the Indian government, instead of marching an army against Dost Mahomed, was supplying him with money and arms, with which to repel or harass the common foe. At the outbreak of the Indian mutinies much was expected from the amity of Dost Mahomed; but he died too early in the struggle to prove either a powerful friend or a dangerous foe. His last years were, in other respects, unworthy of his prime; and during them he returned, there is reason to believe, to the dissolute courses of his early life. Numerous and sympathetic notices of Dost Mahomed occur in Mr. J. W. Kaye's lively and vigorous History of the War in Affghanistan; and there is extant a biography of him written in English, but in a style truly oriental, the Life of the Ameer Dost Mohammed Khan, London, 1846, by Mohun Lai, a native "political," who was attached, under Shah Soojah, to the English mission in Cabul, and from whom great impartiality was scarcely to be expected.—F. E.
DOUAREN. See Duaren.
DOUBLEDAY, Edward, a distinguished entomologist, who was descended from a respectable family belonging to the Society of Friends. He was born at Epping on the 9th October, 1810, and died, after a long and painful illness, on the 14th December, 1849. For many years he devoted his attention to his favourite pursuit, and travelled in America and other countries for the purpose of enriching his collection of insects, which was a very extensive one. In 1841 he was appointed one of the zoological assistants to the British museum, and here he undertook that department of entomology devoted to the Lepidoptera. In 1848 he commenced the publication of a magnificent work, in conjunction with his friend, Mr. Hewitson, on the "Diurnal Lepidoptera," but he did not live to complete it. The numbers which were published, however, are valuable in themselves. His contributions to the Annals of Natural History, the Entomologist, Physiologist, and other scientific journals, sufficiently testify to the accuracy and extent of his knowledge on his favourite subjects; and the readiness and kindness with which this information was always communicated to others gained for him great esteem. He became a fellow of the Linnaean Society in 1843, and was, during two years, secretary of the Entomological Society.—E. L.
DOUCE, Francis, an industrious antiquary and collector, was born in 1757, the son of one of the six clerks of chancery. He displayed an early taste for books, antiquities, and music, and entering, under his father, the six clerks office, soon quitted
