law, John Carstairs, father of the celebrated Principal Carstairs. When the English parliamentary army visited that city in 1651, Cromwell went unexpectedly to the outer Church, and heard, says Principal Baillie, "Mr. Durham preach graciously and well to the time," no doubt giving what the learned writer terms "a fair enough testimony against the sectaries." Cromwell sent for the preacher, and remonstrated with him against this "meddling with matters of public concern in his sermons," but apparently without effect. Durham's health gave way under the pressure of severe study, and he died in 1658 at the age of thirty-six. He was the author of a "Commentary on the Revelations," of two vols. of sermons, a treatise "On Scandal," and an "Exposition of the Commandments." His works were long highly popular in Scotland; but they are now in great measure forgotten. When Dr. Johnson, during his visit to Scotland, challenged Boswell's father to point out any theological works of merit written by Scotch divines, the old judge kept the doctor at bay, by boldly citing the "excellent commentary" of Mr. Durham, which Johnson was obliged to confess he had never read.—J. T.
DURHAM, John George Lambton, first earl of, the aristocratic hope, while he lived, of the ultra-liberal party, was born on the 13th of April, 1792, of a family which had enjoyed possession of its originally small domains in uninterrupted male descent from the twelfth century. His mother was a Villiers of the Jersey branch; his father was Mr. William Henry Lambton of Lambton castle, M.P. for Durham city—a stirring radical in his day and generation; and it is noticed as a curious coincidence, that Lord Durham was born the very day after the formation of the once-celebrated society of the Friends of the People, of which Mr. Lambton was chairman. He was educated at Eton; served in the rifle brigade; married at twenty; and by the death of his father came, at an early age, into the possession of large estates. On attaining his majority he stood for Durham county, and succeeded through his father's influence, and despite the toryism of the constituency, in gaining a seat in the house of commons. In this assembly he at once joined the forlorn hope of liberalism, and gave no silent opposition to the corn bill of the late Lord Ripon—"Prosperity Robinson." His connection with the liberal party was strengthened by a second marriage, contracted in 1816, with a daughter of the late Earl Grey, of reform-bill celebrity. In ensuing years Mr. Lambton figured as a bold opponent of the repressive system in vogue under the Castlereagh-Sidmouth régime, and in 1821 he moved for a committee of the whole house to consider the state of the representation, in a speech which advocated neither more nor less than the establishment of equal electoral districts. In 1827 Mr. Lambton supported Canning's ministry, and after the dissolution of Lord Goderich's administration in 1828, he was raised to the peerage as Baron Durham. On the formation of Earl Grey's reform ministry, he was appointed lord privy-seal, and was one of the committee of the cabinet selected to draw up the new reform bill—a measure which is understood to have owed much to his liberal tendencies. Then, as afterwards, he spoke but rarely in the house of peers; and the death of a favourite son contributed to keep him silent. This affliction was aggravated by constant ill health, and in the March of 1833 he resigned his ministerial office, and was raised to the dignity of earl. In the summer of the same year, however, he consented to go to St. Petersburg, on a special mission to the emperor of Russia, from which he returned the following year; and at the great Grey dinner in Edinburgh in 1834, he made a reply to Lord Brougham, which excited the utmost hopes among the advanced liberals, that they had now a leader who might one day be premier. In the summer of 1837 he returned as ambassador to St. Petersburg; and in 1838 he was sent with extraordinary powers, as governor-general, to Canada, then the seat of a formidable rebellion. Not considering himself sufficiently supported by the ministers at home, he resigned his post in the year of its acceptance, and returned to England. After this apparent breach with his former colleagues, he was more than ever regarded by the advanced liberals as the politician who was to lead them to victory, but he was not allowed time either to fulfil or to disappoint their expectations. On his way to the continent in search of health, in the summer of 1840, he felt so ill that at Dover he diverged to the Isle of Wight, and died at Cowes on the 28th of July, 1840. He was able, courageous, and consistent, but somewhat irritable and arrogant.—F. E.
* DÜRINGSFELD, Ida von, a German poetess and novelist, was born, November 12, 1815, at Militsch in Silesia, and in 1845 was married to Otto Freiherr von Reinsberg, with whom she resided for several years in Switzerland and Italy, and then settled at Breslau. Even after her marriage she continued writing under her paternal name. Both as a writer of poetry and a novelist, she displays a lively and elegant style; and her productions are deservedly popular.—K. E.
DUROC, Geraud-Christophe-Michel, Duc de Friuli, a distinguished French general, was born at Pont-a-Mousson in 1772. He was educated at the military school of his native place, and entered the army at an early age as sous-lieutenant of artillery. He obtained the rank of captain in 1797. His courage and activity attracted the attention of General Bonaparte, who appointed him one of his aid-de-camps. He served with great distinction in the Italian campaigns of 1796-97, accompanied the French expedition to Egypt in 1798, and was severely wounded at the battle of Aboukir. He returned to France along with Bonaparte, whose confidence he had completely gained, and was soon after made his first aid-de-camp, then general of brigade in 1800, and governor of the Tuileries. After the battle of Marengo, in which he took part, Duroc was sent on important diplomatic missions to Berlin, Stockholm, Vienna, and St. Petersburg, and was intrusted with various delicate negotiations connected with the king of Prussia, the elector of Saxony, the confederation of the Rhine, and the cession to Napoleon of the Spanish crown. His imperial master loaded him with favours; created him duke of Friuli in 1808; and in 1813 elevated him to the dignity of a senator. Duroc was mortally wounded at the battle of Wurtzen, 22nd May, 1813, by the same cannon shot which killed General Kirgener. Napoleon displayed deep grief at the loss of his trustworthy and attached follower.—J. T.
* DURUY, Victor, a French historian, born at Paris in 1811. After filling the chair of history for a short time at Reims, he was appointed to the same chair in the college of Henry IV. in Paris in 1833. Since that period he has been incessantly occupied in the production of historical and geographical works of an elementary kind, which, by their admirable method and research, have achieved an extraordinary popularity.
DURY or DURÆUS, John, was born about the end of the sixteenth or beginning of the seventeenth century. It is probable that he was by birth a Scotsman, but there is very little certainly known regarding his parentage and early history. In 1624 he was residing at Oxford, having been induced to take up his abode there by the facilities afforded by the public library for the prosecution of certain literary undertakings on which he was engaged. Soon after he was known in England, and in many parts of the continent of Europe, as a learned and zealous divine who had specially directed his efforts to compose the differences of the various sects of protestants, and to discover a basis for their mutual affection and co-operation, or as he himself says, "for making and settling a protestant union, and peace in the churches beyond seas." He published his scheme of union in 1634; and having obtained a dispensation of nonresidence on his living, and the approval and assistance of several eminent churchmen—Archbishop Laud and Bishop Hall, for example—he travelled in prosecution of his plans over a large portion of the continent, and conducted an extensive correspondence with the political and ecclesiastical leaders of such countries as he could not personally visit. On the breaking out of the civil war, Dury embraced the side of the parliament, and had afterwards the honour of being appointed to preach before the house of commons, and to sit as a member of the Westminster assembly of divines. In 1658 there was published in London a letter from Dury to Peter du Moulin, which contains much curious information regarding the state of the churches in Scotland, England, and Ireland; and in 1661 Dury published at Amsterdam his work entitled "Irenicorum Tractatuum Prodromus, in quo præliminares continetur tractatus de (1.), pacis ecclesiasticæ remoris e medio tollendis; (2.) concordiæ evangelicæ fundamentis sufficienter jactis," &c., in which his arguments for an evangelical alliance are fully set forth. As there is no proof of Dury's having conformed, or of his being ejected along with the nonconformists on the 24th of August, 1662, England's "black Bartholomew day;" it seems likely, that previous to the Restoration he had discontinued his stated ministerial labours, in order to further that union among protestants which had been the great object of his life. His
