actual sin, and therefore needed no deodand to purchase propitiatory masses ; but every adult who died in actual sin stood in need of such atonement, according to the humane superstition of the founders of the English law." Sir Matthew Hale s explanation was that the child could not take care of himself, whereon Blackstone asks why the owner should save his forfeiture on account of the imbecility of the child, which ought to have been an additional reason for caution. The finding of a jury was necessary to con stitute a deodand, and the investigation of the value of the instrument by which death was caused occupies an important place among the provisions of our early criminal law. It became a necessary part of an indictment to state the nature and value of the weapon employed as, that the stroke was given by a certain penknife, of the value of sixpence so that the king might have his deodand. Accidents on the high seas did not cause forfeiture, being beyond the domain of the common law ; but it would appear that in the case of ships in fresh water, the law as quoted above from Britton held good. The king might grant his right to deodands to another.
In later times these forfeitures, so unintelligible in their purpose, so capricious and unjust in operation, became extremely unpopular; and juries, with the connivance of judges, found deodands of trifling value, so as to defeat the inequitable claim. But deodands were not abolished till the 9 and 10 Viet. c. 62 was passed, whereby it is enacted that " there shall be no forfeiture of any chattel for or in respect of the same having caused the death of a man ; and no coroner s jury sworn to inquire, upon the sight of any dead body, how the deceased came by his death, shall find any forfeiture of any chattel which may have moved to or caused the death of the deceased, or any deodand whatsoever ; and it shall not be necessary in any indictment or inquisition for homicide to allege the value of the instrument which caused the death of the deceased, or to allege that the same was of no value." The date of this Act (1846) may suggest the great inconvenience which the law, if it had remained in operation, would have caused to railway and other enterprise in which loss of life is a frequent occurrence.
DEPRÈS, Josquin (1440–1521), also called Desprez, and, by a Latinized form of his name, Jodocus Pratensis or a Prato, a celebrated musical composer, was born about 1440 at Vermand, near St Quentin, in French Flanders. He was a pupil of Ockenhehn, the great contrapuntist, and himself one of the most learned musicians of his time. In spite of his great fame, the accounts of his life are vague and scanty, and even the place of his birth has only lately been established beyond dispute Belgians, Germans, Italians, and Frenchmen claiming him as their countryman. M. Fetis, the well-known historian of music, has contributed greatly towards elucidating the doubtful points, and to that author s Biographic Universelle the reader is referred for more detailed information. In his early youth Josquin seems to have been a member of the choir of the collegiate church at St Quentin ; when his voice changed he went (about 1455) to Ockenheim to take lessons in counterpoint; afterwards he again lived at his birth-place for some years, till Pope Sixtus IV. invited him to Rome to teach his art to the musicians of Italy, where musical knowledge at that time was at a low ebb. Ih Rome Depres lived till the death of his protector (1484), and it was there that many of his works were written. His reputation grew rapidly, and he was considered by his contemporaries to be the greatest master of his age. Luther, himself an excellent musical amateur, is credited with the saying that " other musicians do with notes what they can, Josquiu what he likes." The composer s journey to Rome is in itself a most important event in the history of musical progress : for it marks in a manner the transference of the art from its Gallo- Belgian birth-place to Italy, which for the next two centuries remained the centre of the musical world. To the school of the Netherlands, of which Depres and his pupils Arcadelt, Mouton, and others are the chief repre sentatives, modern music owes its rise. But far more important than this school itself was its outgrowth and successor, the so-called Roman school, immortalized by the name of Palestrina. After leaving Rome Depres went for a time to Ferrara, where the art-loving duke Hercules I. offered him a home ; but before long he accepted an invitation of King Louis XII. of France to become the chief singer of the royal chapel. According to another account, he was for a time at least in the service of the emperor Maximilian I. The date of his death has by some writers been placed as early as 1501. But this is suffi ciently disproved by the fact of one of his finest com positions, A Dirge (Dcploration) for Five Voices, being written to commemorate the death of his master Ocken heim, which took place after 1512. The real date of Josquin s decease has since been settled as the 27th August 1521. He was at that time a canon of the cathedral of Conde. The most complete list of Depres s compositions consisting of masses, motets, psalms, and other pieces of sacred music will be found in Fetis. The largest collection of his MS. works, containing no less than 20 masses, is in the possession of the Papal chapel in Rome. The well-known works by Drs Burney and Hawkins give specimens of his music.
DEPTFORD, a town of England situated at the junction of the Ravensbourne with the Thames, 3J miles east of London Bridge. It forms the western portion of the par liamentary borough of Greenwich, occupying an area of about 1G50 acres, situated mostly in the county of Kent, and partly in Surrey. It comprises two parishes that of St Nicholas, including Lower Deptford on the Thames, and St Paul s, or the landward part of the town, which extends into Surrey and includes Hatcham Manor. Lower Deptford consists of irregular narrow streets, and the houses are mostly of a mean description. It contains the site of the old dockyard, and the royal victualling yard is also situated there. The former was discontinued as a dockyard in 1869; it was filled up and converted into a foreign cattle market by the corporation of London, but this was given up in 1873. The victualling yard immedi ately to the west of it is the most important establish ment of its kind in the kingdom, supplying the navy with provisions, medicines, furniture, &c., which are manufac tured or stored in the large warehouses that constitute the establishment. As many as 500 hands are employed in the warehouses and at the lading wharf. The only other industrial employment of importance in the place is to be found in the engineering works, which are carried on near the river. Of public buildings the most noteworthy are St Nicholas Church, with a square embattled tower, built on the site of an older structure at the beginning of the last century, and St Paul s, of classic design, erected in 1730. There is also the hospital for master mariners, maintained by the corporation of the Trinity House, which was origin ated here. Of the mansion known as Sayes Court, with, which Deptford is historically identified, nothing now re mains but the garden. The house- taken down in 1729 was the residence of the duke of Sussex in Queen Eliza beth s time ; it was occupied in the following century by John Evelyn, the author of Sylva, and by Peter the Great during his residence in England in 1698. The popula tion of Deptford in 1871 amounted to 60,188 persons, seven-eighths living in the landward parish of St Paul's.
DE QUINCEY, Thomas (1785-1859), an eminent English author, was born at Greenhay, near Manchester,
