it in disgust, and devoted himself to his favourite pursuits. He was for a time keeper of the manuscripts in the British museum, but his irritable temper could not brook the interference of a superior, and he resigned what must have been otherwise a congenial post. He published, in 1807, his learned and ingenious "Illustrations of Shakspeare," specially remarkable for the curious lore of its disquisition on the old clowns, and for its account of the Gesta Romanorum, one much superior to Warton's. The minute knowledge accumulated in the work was laughed at by some critics, especially the Edinburgh reviewers, as laborious trifling; and the irritated author foreswore publishing, while he went on collecting and note-taking. He deviated so far from his self-imposed abstinence as to publish after a long interval, in 1833, a volume of curious dissertation on the "Dance of Death;" but otherwise he contented himself with occasional contributions to such publications as the Archæologia, and the Gentleman's Magazine, He even determined to visit, as he thought, on mankind for several generations the sins of his own, and left in his will the bulk of his materials, available for future works, to the British museum, on condition that the repositories containing them should not be opened until the year 1900! His printed books, illuminated MSS., &c., he left to the Bodleian library, by which a catalogue of them was published in 1840. His paintings and carvings, &c., he bequeathed to Sir Samuel Meyrick, who published an account of them under the title of the Doucean Museum. Mr. Douce died in 1834.—F. E.
DOUELI AL-BASRI, Aboul-Aswed Tzalim ben-Amr ben-Sofiyan-ad-Deli, an Arabian grammarian, and one of the four most celebrated misers in Arabia, born in 606 at Bassora. He used to recommend his children "not to attempt to rival God Almighty in his generous gifts," and himself taking good heed to the precept, attained unexampled notoriety as a miser. Next to the master passion, however, was one which brought him celebrity of another kind—he was the most devoted philologist and grammarian of his time, and as he he is called in Muzuru's book, the "father of the celebrated vowel-points." Young Doueli was introduced as an ornamental writer of manuscripts to the Kalif Ali, and the well-known Tabis, pupils of the companions of Mahomet. From Ali, whose northern accent would change the vowel a into i, and o into e, he derived his notions of the necessity of isophony in the practice of reading the sacred words of the prophet. There were at that time no fewer than eighty millions of the human family who were either Arabic, speaking Arabic, or who used that language for their religious service. The Koran was strictly forbidden by Mahomet to be translated or read in any other tongue or dialect. In the absence of any isophonic standard (the same vowel having nine different sounds in Arabic, and none of them written in the Arabic manuscripts), some of the Tabis had been employed to interpret the Koran at Mecca. Their performance was most distressing to witness, not merely by the Mahomedans, but also the Christians and the Jews who inhabited Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, Tripoli, Palestine, and Mesopotamia, and used a different vowel, only understood by their own fraternity. A question from one of the Tabis was followed by a five minutes' wrangle between the teacher and the convert. "I am told," says Doueli, "that their Arabic has the greatest possible degree of remoteness from resemblance to the prophet's language, and it would puzzle the herd of the heavenly camels to understand the vowels they extract from the pilgrims who have come from Turkey, Persia, Bokhara, Tartary, Circassia, Georgia, Hindostan, and even from parts of China. If the Koran-reading Mecca is to have an extensive intercourse with the world, let the reading of the Koran at Mecca have a pronunciation intelligible to the world." Hence the origin of the Arabic vowel-points, which have fixed and determined, in both sacred and profane manuscripts, the regular sound of the vowels in the eastern languages. Doueli's other work is his celebrated chapter on passive and active, which contains upwards of ten thousand doctrinal and grammatical illustrations, arranged respectively for the use of his four sons; a work highly esteemed amongst the Arabian scholars. He died in 688 at Bassora, at the age of eighty-two.—(Chrestomath. Arabica.)—Ch. T.
DOUGLAS, the name of one of the oldest and most illustrious families in Scotland. The founder of the family is believed to have come from Flanders about the year 1147, and to have received from the abbot of Kelso a grant of a tract of land on the water of Douglas in Lanarkshire. He was termed Theobald the Fleming.—William, his son and heir, assumed from his estate the surname of Douglas, which is derived from two Pictish words, Dhu Glas, signifying the dark blue stream. The family did not make any particular figure in history until the eventful period of the war of independence.—William, the fifth chief of the house, surnamed the Hardy, espoused the patriotic cause, and was in consequence deprived of his estates by Edward I., and sent a prisoner to England, where he died about the year 1302.—His son—
Sir James Douglas, was the most illustrious man of the family, and one of the most remarkable of the band of heroes who vindicated the independence of Scotland against the English usurper. On the imprisonment of his father he retired to France, where he spent three years. He was then received into the household of Lamberton, bishop of St. Andrews, and was residing there when Robert Bruce took up arms against the enemies of his country in 1305-6. Young Douglas, on receiving intelligence of the revolt, secretly quitted the bishop's palace, not without the knowledge and approbation of the patriotic prelate, and joined the standard of Bruce. He was present at the battles of Methven and Dairy, in which the new king was defeated, and strove to cheer the fugitive band, with the queen and their leaders, in their privations and wanderings amid the mountains of Breadalbane. Barbour says Sir James was peculiarly active in providing for the wants, and promoting the comforts of the ladies, by bringing them venison and pike, salmon and trout, caught in snares wrought by his own hands; and the king himself was often comforted by his wit and cheerfulness. It was he who discovered the small leaky boat in which the remnant of Bruce's army was ferried over Lochlomond. Douglas spent the subsequent winter with the king on the island of Rachrin, and on the approach of spring he made a successful descent on the island of Arran. Shortly after, while Bruce was engaged in wresting his patrimonial domains in Carrick from the English, Sir James repaired secretly into Douglasdale, which was held by Lord Clifford, surprised the English garrison on Palm Sunday (1306-7), took possession of Douglas castle, destroyed all the provisions, put his prisoners to the sword, flung their dead bodies on the pile of goods heaped on the floor of the storeroom, and then set fire to the fortress. This barbarous deed was long commemorated in the traditions of the country by the name of the "Douglas larder." He continued to lurk for some time among the fastnesses of Douglasdale; for "he loved better," he said, "to hear the lark sing, than the mouse squeak." Douglas castle was shortly after rebuilt, the garrison was again surprised by Douglas in 1307, and a third time, in 1308, he took it by stratagem, and levelled its fortifications with the ground. He continued to take a prominent part in the struggles of the patriots to expel the English, and in 1312-13 he captured the important fortress of Roxburgh, and took the garrison prisoners. He commanded the left wing of the Scottish army at the memorable battle of Bannockburn; and his chivalrous behaviour towards Randolph on the evening before the conflict, clearly shows the true nobility of his character. In 1317 he defeated an English army in Jedburgh forest under the earl of Arundel, and in the succeeding year, along with Randolph, he made himself master of Berwick. He made repeated inroads into England, from which his followers returned laden with booty. The last and most successful of these invasions took place in 1327, when he and Randolph entered England at the head of twenty-three thousand men, ravaged the northern counties as far as the Wear, completely baffled the attempts of Edward to intercept their progress, and regained their own country in safety. The result of this expedition contributed not a little to bring about a treaty of peace between the two kingdoms. In 1329, when King Robert was on his deathbed, he requested Sir James, his old friend and companion in arms, to repair with his heart to Jerusalem, and to deposit it in the holy sepulchre. Douglas lost no time in preparing to execute the last commands of his beloved master. He set sail for the Holy Land, attended by a numerous and splendid retinue, but turned aside on his voyage to assist Alphonso, king of Leon and Castile, in a war with the Moorish king of Grenada. He was surrounded by overwhelming numbers, and slain in a battle fought near Theba, on the frontiers of Andalusia, 25th August, 1330. The body of the hero of seventy battles was found next day on the field beside the silver casket which contained the heart of his sovereign, and sorrowfully conveyed by his surviving
