sake of a faint reflex lustre which the intercourse of years with a great man has shed around his memory. He was well known to Dr. Johnson, and was one of the minor orbs—one, indeed, of the least possible magnitude—which revolved round that great sun of the literary system. He was governor or tutor to Boswell during what the laird of Auchinleck calls his "days of effervescence" in London, about the year 1760. Johnson used to say that he had a kindness for Derrick; but he had sometimes an odd way of showing it. For instance, when asked which in his opinion was the better poet. Derrick or Smart, he replied—"Sir, it is not easy to settle the point of precedency between a louse and a flea." Derrick's flighty careless way of living involved him in continual embarrassments, to which Johnson probably referred when he remarked to Boswell—"Derrick may do very well as long as he can outrun his character; but the moment his character gets up with him, it is all over." When Beau Nash died, Derrick had the good luck to be chosen to succeed him as master of the ceremonies at Bath. In this post he seems to have given satisfaction. He died about the year 1770.—T. A.
DE RUYTER, Michel Adriaanszoon, a celebrated Dutch admiral, was born at Flushing in 1607, the son of a humble burgher, whose wife, however, had pretensions to knightly descent, and conferred her maiden name, De Ruyter, on the future hero. Going to sea, at the age of eleven, as a cabin-boy, he had risen in 1645 to be a rear-admiral in the Dutch navy. His earlier achievements were in the West Indian waters, in aid of the Portuguese at war with the Spaniards, and afterwards in the Mediterranean against the Barbary corsairs. In the Dutch war with England, 1652-54, he served as second in command, under Van Tromp and De Witt, and distinguished himself by very skilful seamanship and personal prowess. During the ensuing ten years he served in the Mediterranean, and when a rupture was at hand between Charles II. and the States of Holland, De Ruyter was sent to the coast of Africa to recapture the Dutch forts which had been seized by the English. Having effected this operation he returned to Europe and mainly commanded the Dutch fleets in the war with England, 1665-67. In the great engagement which lasted several days of the first week of June, 1665, the duke of Albemarle (Monk) and Prince Rupert were pitted against De Ruyter and another Tromp, the son of his former chief. The victory was claimed by both sides; De Ruyter sailed away, but Albemarle and Rupert were in no condition to pursue him. The battle fought a few weeks later was more decisive, and De Ruyter was fairly overmatched. But while the peace of Breda was being negotiated, the Dutch government turned to some account the shameful neglect of the English navy by Charles II., who, in the meantime, had been wasting on his pleasures the sums voted by parliament for the support of the fleet. Within a twelvemonth after his defeat, De Ruyter was in the Thames, not only unopposed, but triumphant. Breaking the chain which had been thrown across the Medway, he got to Chatham on the one side, destroying fortifications and burning first-rates; while another division of the Dutch fleet proceeded up the Thames nearly to Gravesend, and threw London into consternation. This was in the June of 1667, and after a few weeks peace was concluded at Breda. On the breaking out of the Anglo-French war with Holland in 1671, De Ruyter was again in command, and on the 28th of May, 1672, he attacked the combined fleets of France and England in Southwold Bay, when a terrible conflict ensued, the result being if anything slightly in favour of the Dutch. In two great naval engagements, De Ruyter's success was sufficient to weary England of the war, and a separate peace was concluded with Holland in the February of 1674. The war between France and Holland still continuing, De Ruyter was despatched on an expedition against Martinique, and on his return to Europe was sent in 1675 to Messina, which had revolted against Holland's new ally, Spain, and was occupied by French troops. In a naval engagement in the Gulf of Catania, he found pitted against him the celebrated French admiral, Duquesne, and after a severe conflict, in which De Ruyter had one foot and one leg shot away, he gave the order for retreat, and reaching Syracuse, died there of his wounds on the 29th of April, 1676. The admiral's life has been written by his countryman Sebastian Brandt.—F. E.
DERWENTWATER, James Radcliffe, third and last earl of, was born in 1688. He was the representative of an ancient and powerful Northumbrian family which professed the Roman catholic religion, and throughout the troubles of the 17th century uniformly espoused the cause of royalty. Francis, the first earl, married a natural daughter of Charles II., and was raised to the peerage by King James in 1668. His grandson, James, was brought up at St. Germains in France with the son of the exiled king, who was of the same age, and to whom he formed a strong attachment. On the death of his father in 1705 the young nobleman succeeded, in his seventeenth year, to the titles and estates of his family, and by his amiable disposition, judicious management of his extensive property, and kindness to the poor, gained the esteem and affection of men of every rank. On the breaking out of the Jacobite rebellion in 1715, the earl of Derwentwater was induced, it is said, by the foolish taunts of his wife, to take up arms in behalf of the exiled Stewarts. On the 6th of October, 1715, a few weeks after the earl of Mar had raised the standard of rebellion in Scotland, about sixty of the Northumbrian jacobites, headed by the earl of Derwentwater and Mr. Foster, M.P. for the county, followed the example of the northern insurgents. The earl possessed no special talents for such an enterprise, and Mr. Foster, who was chosen commander-in-chief, was an exceedingly weak and incompetent person. They marched from place to place, apparently without any definite plan or object, proclaiming James III. in Alnwick, Hexham, and other market towns in Northumberland. They were ultimately joined by a body of jacobites belonging to the south-west of Scotland under Lord Kenmure, and by a detachment of highlanders from Mar's army under Brigadier Mackintosh, and after many keen disputes as to the course they should follow, they entered England on the 1st of November, and marched as far as Preston without meeting any resistance. But there they were attacked by Generals Carpenter and Willis, and after a brief though vigorous resistance, in which the earl of Derwentwater and his brother displayed great bravery, the insurgents, finding their situation desperate, surrendered on the 13th of November, the day after the battle of Sheriffmuir. The prisoners were treated with great severity. Those of most note were conveyed to London, which they entered on the 9th of December in a kind of triumphal procession, amid the shouts and insults of the mob, and were divided among the five principal prisons. The earl of Derwentwater was soon after impeached of high treason, and on the 19th of February, 1716, he was taken to Westminster hall for trial. He pleaded guilty, and threw himself upon the king's mercy. He was, however, condemned to suffer death as a traitor; and was beheaded on Towerhill on the 24th of February, in the twenty-eighth year of his age. The magnificent estates of the Derwentwater family were confiscated, and ultimately conferred upon Greenwich hospital. Their annual value now amounts to £60,000.—The gallant Charles Radcliffe, the brother of the earl, made his escape from Newgate, and found an asylum in France; but he was captured in 1745 on board a French ship of war, and executed upon the old sentence, December 8th, 1746, in the fifty-fourth year of his age.—J. T.
DERZAWINE or DERJARINA, Gabriel Romanowicz, born at Kazan in 1743. It is not generally known that Derzawine, as he is one of the most lyrical, is also one of the most entertaining of the Russian poets, owing to the soldier-like frankness of his manner, the reality of his narrations, and the traits of character, sketched with the force and freshness of life, which abound in his celebrated "Ode to God." His treatise on lyrical poetry is written in the most engaging form that a treatise can assume; nor, excepting the peculiarities which belong to the Russian character, does the reader perceive throughout its pages inferiority to those of the most classical treatises of Germany, England, Italy, and France. Longinus, Pope, Boileau, need not have been ashamed to be the authors of such a production. The "Waterfall," and the "Autumn," two very interesting poems, are worthy of a place in every well furnished library. Derzawine served as an officer in the Russian army in his younger days, and was appointed general treasurer in 1802. At that time he was an ardent poet, and to be so was almost to despair of success and advancement in his profession. He died in 1816.—Ch. T.
DE SACY, Antoine Isaac Silvestre, the celebrated orientalist, was the son of Jacques Abraham Silvestre, notary of Paris, where he was born on the 21st of September, 1758. Having lost his father at the age of seven years, he was brought
