issued ‘Theodora,’ a novel, in 1770, dedicated to the Countess of Hertford. In 1771 she published ‘The Divorce,’ 4to, a musical entertainment sung at Marylebone Gardens in 1772; and ‘The Haunted Grove,’ another musical entertainment by her, not printed, was acted at Dublin. About 1772 she brought out ‘The Lady's Polite Secretary,’ preceded by a ‘Short English Grammar.’ Meanwhile, the Anglesey estates were subject to lawsuits from various sides, but none of them benefited Lady Dorothea, and her life was passed in bitter poverty. She died in Grafton Street, Dublin, of an apoplectic fit, early in 1774.
[Gent. Mag. xiv. from month to month, xxxvi. 537–9, xlii. 224, 291, xliv. 94; manuscript notes to Theodora, Brit. Mus. copy; the Case; Baker's Biog. Dram. (Reed), i. 210, ii. 168, 285.]
DU BOIS, EDWARD (1622–1699), painter. [See under Du Bois, Simon.]
DUBOIS, EDWARD (1774–1850), wit and man of letters, son of William Dubois, a merchant in London, originally from the neighbourhood of Neufchatel, was born at Love Lane, in the city of London, 4 Jan. 1774. His education was carried on at home, and he became possessed of a considerable knowledge of the classics and a fair acquaintance with French, Italian, and Spanish. He adopted literature as his profession, and although he was called to the bar at the Inner Temple, on 5 May 1809, he did not meet with sufficient success to abandon his pen. He was a regular contributor to various periodicals, and especially to the ‘Morning Chronicle’ under Perry. Art notices, dramatic criticisms, and verses on the topics of the day were his principal contributions; and to the last day of his life he retained his position of art critic on the staff of the ‘Observer.’ When the ‘Monthly Mirror’ was the property of the eccentric Thomas Hill, it was edited by Dubois, and on Hill's death he was benefited as one of the two executors and residuary legatees by a considerable accession of fortune. Theodore Hook was among his assistants on that periodical, and from Dubois Barham obtained, when writing Hook's life, ‘many of the most interesting details’ of the wit's early history. He assisted Thomas Campbell in editing the first number of Colburn's ‘New Monthly Magazine,’ but before the second number could be issued differences broke out and they separated (Redding, Fifty Years' Recollections, ii. 161–5). For a few years he was the editor of the ‘Lady's Magazine,’ and for the same period he conducted the ‘European Magazine.’ He is sometimes said to have been ‘a connection’ of Sir Philip Francis, at other times his private secretary, and they were certainly on intimate terms of friendship from 1807 until Francis's death in 1818. If Francis had gone out as governor of Buenos Ayres in 1807, Dubois would have accompanied him as private secretary. He compiled Francis's biography in the ‘Monthly Mirror’ for 1810, and wrote the life of Francis which appeared in the ‘Morning Chronicle’ for 28 Dec. 1818. When Lord Campbell was composing his ‘Memoir’ of Lord Loughborough, Dubois obtained for him a long memorandum from Lady Francis on the authorship of the ‘Letters of Junius’ (Campbell, Chancellors, vi. 344–7). The first of these lives is said to have prompted the publication of John Taylor's ‘Junius Identified,’ and it has more than once been insinuated that Dubois was the real author of that volume. Considerable correspondence and articles on the general subject of the ‘Letters of Junius’ and on Mr. Taylor's work appeared in the ‘Athenæum’ and ‘Notes and Queries’ for 1850 (some of which will be found in Dilke's Papers of a Critic, vol. ii.), but the connection of Dubois with the authorship of ‘Junius Identified’ was set at rest by the assurance of Mr. Taylor (Notes and Queries, 1850, pp. 258–9) that he ‘never received the slightest assistance from Mr. Dubois.’ For many years, at least twenty years, he was assistant to Serjeant Heath, judge of the court of requests, a ‘strange and whimsical court,’ as it has been designated. When county courts were established a judgeship was offered to Dubois, but he preferred to continue as Mr. Heath's deputy. In 1833 he was appointed by Lord Brougham to the office of treasurer and secretary of the Metropolitan Lunacy Commission, and on the abolition of that body in 1845 was employed under the new commission without any special duties. These appointments he retained until his death, and their duties were discharged by him with success; for although he loved a joke, even in court, he never allowed this propensity to get the mastery over his natural astuteness. His face was naturally droll, his wit was caustic, and he was ‘capital at the dinner table.’ He died at Sloane Street, Chelsea, on 10 Jan. 1850, aged 76. He married at Bloomsbury Church in August 1815 Harriet Cresswell, daughter of Richard Cheslyn Cresswell, registrar of the Arches Court of Canterbury. By her, who survived him, he had three sons, and one daughter. One of his last acts was to raise a subscription for the family of the late R. B. Peake, the dramatist.
Dubois's works were of an ephemeral char-
