with the intention probably of returning to the service of the Low Countries, but instead was given command of an English fleet sent against the Dutch, defeated the enemy near Batavia in the East Indies late in the year 1618, arrived at Masulipatam in July 1619, and died there on the 9th of the following month.
An account of Dale’s career in Virginia is given in Alexander Brown’s The First Republic in America (Boston, 1898); a scholarly discussion of “Dale’s Code” by Walter F. Prince may be found in vol. i. of the Annual Report of the American Historical Association for 1899 (Washington, D.C., 1900), and the code itself is reprinted in Peter Force’s Historical Tracts, vol. iii., No. 11.
DALECARLIA (Dalarne, “the Dales”), a west midland region of Sweden, virtually coincident with the district (län) of Kopparberg, which extends from the mountains of the Norwegian frontier to within 25 m. of Gefle on the Baltic coast. It is a region full of historical associations, and possesses strong local characteristics in respect of its products, and especially of its people. The Dalecarlians or Dalesmen speak their own peculiar dialect, wear their own peculiar costumes, and are famed for their brave spirit and sturdy love of independence. In 1434, led by Engelbrecht, the miner, they rose against the oppressive tyranny of the officers of Eric XIV. of Denmark, and in 1519–1523 it was among them that Gustavus Vasa found his staunchest supporters in his patriotic task of freeing Sweden from the yoke of the Danes. The districts around Lakes Runn and Siljan (“the Eye of the Dales”), the principal sheets of water in the valleys of the Dal rivers, are consequently classic ground. By the banks of Lake Runn, for example, is seen the barn in which Vasa threshed corn in disguise, when still a fugitive from the Danes. The people are for the most part small peasant proprietors. They eke out their scanty returns from tilling the soil by a variety of home industries, such as making scythes, saws, bells, wooden wares, hair goods, and so forth. About three quarters of the whole district is covered with forest. Besides the wealth of the forests, the Dales contain some of the largest and most prolific iron mines in Sweden, notably those of Grängesberg. Copper is mined at Falun (q.v.), the chief town of Kopparberg, and some silver and lead, zinc and sulphur is found. In consequence of this the district has numerous smelting furnaces, blasting and rolling mills, iron and metallurgical works, as well as saw-mills, wood-pulp factories, and chemical works.
See G. H. Mellin, Skildringar af den Skandinaviska Nordens Folklif og Natur, vol. iii. (1865); and Frederika Bremer, I Dalarne (1845), of which there is an English translation by William and Mary Howitt (1852). For the dialect, see a paper by A. Noreen, in De Svenska Landsmålen, vol. iv. (1881).
DALGAIRNS, JOHN DOBREE (1818–1876), English Roman
Catholic priest, was born in Guernsey on the 21st of October
1818. About the age of seventeen he entered Exeter College,
Oxford, and soon after taking his degree he contributed a letter
to Louis Veuillot’s ultramontane organ L’Univers, on “Anglican
Church Parties,” which gave him considerable repute. Together
with Mark Pattison and others, he translated the Catena aurea
of St Thomas Aquinas, a commentary on the Gospels, taken
from the works of the Fathers. He was a contributor to Newman’s
Lives of the English Saints, for which he wrote the beautiful
studies on the Cistercian Saints. The Life of St Stephen Harding
has been translated into several languages. Dalgairns became a
Roman Catholic in 1845, and was ordained priest in the following
year. He joined his friend John Henry Newman in Rome, and,
together with him, entered the Congregation of the Oratory.
On his return to England in 1848, he was attached to the London
Oratory, where he laboured successfully as a priest, with the
exception of three years spent in Birmingham. Dalgairns was a
prominent member of the well-known “Metaphysical Society.”
He died at Burgess Hill, near Brighton, on the 6th of April 1876.
During the Catholic period of his life, Dalgairns wrote The
Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, with an Introduction on the
History of Jansenism (London 1853); The German Mystics of
the Fourteenth Century (London, 1858); The Holy Communion,
its Philosophy, Theology and Practice (Dublin, 1861).
A list of his contributions on religious and philosophical subjects, to the reviews and periodicals, is given in J. Gillow’s Bibliographical Dictionary of English Catholics, vol. ii.
DALGARNO, GEORGE (c. 1626–1687), English writer, was
born at Old Aberdeen about 1626. He appears to have studied
at Marischal College; but he finally settled in Oxford, where,
according to Wood, “he taught a private grammar-school with
good success for about thirty years,” and where he died on the
28th of August 1687. He was master of Elizabeth school,
Guernsey, for some ten years, but resigned in 1672. In his work
entitled Didascalocophus, or the Deaf and Dumb Man’s Tutor
(Oxford, 1680), he explained, for the first time, the hand alphabet
for the deaf and dumb, though he does not claim to have invented
this method of communication. Twenty years before the publication
of his Didascalocophus, Dalgarno had given to the world
a very ingenious piece entitled Ars Signorum (1661), dividing
ideas into seventeen classes, to be represented by the letters
of the Latin alphabet with the addition of two Greek characters.
Among the Sloane manuscripts are several tracts by Dalgarno,
further elucidating his system of universal shorthand. Leibnitz
on various occasions alluded to the Ars signorum in commendatory
terms.
The chief works of Dalgarno were reprinted (1834) for the Maitland Club.
DALHOUSIE, JAMES ANDREW BROUN RAMSAY, 1st
Marquess and 10th Earl of (1812–1860), British statesman and
Indian administrator, was born at Dalhousie Castle, Scotland, on
the 22nd of April 1812. He crowded into his short life conspicuous
public services in England, and established an unrivalled position
among the master-builders of the Indian empire. Denounced
on the eve of his death as the chief offender who failed to notice
the signs of the mutiny of 1857, and even aggravated the crisis
by his overbearing self-consciousness, centralizing activity and
reckless annexations, he stands out in the clear light of history
as the far-sighted governor-general who consolidated British
rule in India, laid truly the foundations of its later administration,
and by his sound policy enabled his successors to stem
the tide of rebellion.
He was the third son of George Ramsay, 9th earl of Dalhousie (1770–1838), one of Wellington’s generals, who, after holding the highest offices in Canada, became commander-in-chief in India, and of his wife Christina Broun of Coalstoun, a lady of noble lineage and distinguished gifts. From his father he inherited a vigorous self-reliance and a family pride which urged him to prove worthy of the Ramsays who had “not crawled through seven centuries of their country’s history,” while to his mother he owed his high-bred courtesy and his deeply seated reverence for religion. The Ramsays of Dalhousie (or Dalwolsie) in Midlothian were a branch of the main line of Scottish Ramsays, of whom the earliest known is Simon de Ramsay, of Huntingdon, England, mentioned in 1140 as the grantee of lands in West Lothian at the hands of David I. A Sir William de Ramsay of Dalhousie swore fealty to Edward I. in 1296, but is famous for having in 1320 signed the letter to the pope asserting the independence of Scotland; and his supposed son, Sir Alexander Ramsay (d. 1342), was the Scottish patriot and capturer of Roxburgh Castle (1342), who, having been made warder of the castle and sheriff of Teviotdale by David II., was soon afterwards carried off and starved to death by his predecessor, the Douglas, in revenge. Sir John Ramsay of Dalhousie (1580–1626), James VI.’s favourite, is famous for rescuing the king in the Gowrie conspiracy, and was created (1606) Viscount Haddington and Lord Ramsay of Barns (subsequently baron of Kingston and earl of Holderness in England). The barony of Ramsay of Melrose was granted in 1618 to his brother George Ramsay of Dalhousie (d. 1629), whose son William Ramsay (d. 1674) was made 1st earl of Dalhousie in 1633.
The 9th earl was in 1815 created Baron Dalhousie in the peerage of the United Kingdom, and had three sons, the two elder of whom died early. His youngest son, the subject of this article, was small in stature, but his firm chiselled mouth, high forehead and masterful manner intimated a dignity that none could overlook. Yet his early life gave little promise of the dominating force of his character or of his ability to rise to the full height of his splendid opportunities. Nor did those brought
