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DOBRODJA DOCET^E 165 to Vienna, where he enjoyed the favor of Maria Theresa. His principal work is a his- tory in Latin of the Abipones (Vienna, 1784), of which a German translation appeared in Pesth in the same year, and an English transla- tion by Miss Sara Coleridge in London in 1822. DOBRODJA. See DOBEUDJA. DOBROVSKT, Jozef, a Slavic scholar, born near Raab, Hungary, Aug. 17, 1753, died in Brunn, Moravia, Jan. 6, 1829. He early applied himself to the study of the German language, and acquired afterward still greater knowledge of the Bohemian. He studied at the univer- sity of Prague, became a Jesuit at Brunn in October, 1772, and after the dissolution of that order in July, 1773, devoted himself to literature. From 1780 to 1787 he conducted a journal de- voted to the literature of Bohemia and Moravia. His subsequent works on the Slavic languages and history gained him the reputation of hav- ing laid the foundation of Slavic philology. The most celebrated of them are the Geschichte der bohmischen Sprache (1792), Entwurf zu einem allgemeinen EtymologiTcon der slawiscJien SpracTien (1813), and Institutions Lingua Slavic Dialecti veteris (Vienna, 1822). In 1792 and 1794 he visited Sweden, Russia, and western Europe, to collect documents bearing upon Slavic history. On his return he was for several years afflicted with insanity, brought about by the intensity of his labors, but recov- ered his health in 1803. An account of his life and writings was published by Palacky at Prague in 1833. DOBRUDJA, the N. E. portion of Bulgaria, Turkey, on the right side of the Danube, ex- tending from Silistria and Varna to the mouth of that river, offering the most accessible mili- tary route from the north to Constantinople. The Russians commenced here their operations against Turkey in 1828; and again in 1854, having crossed the Danube at Braila and Ga- latz, they gained an important advantage by securing Matchin, one of the principal towns of the district. It was restored to Turkey by the treaty of peace of 1856. The population consists of 16,000 to 20,000 families of Bulga- rians, Tartars, Cossacks, Turkomans, Armeni- ans, Greeks, and Jews, who support themselves chiefly by the raising of cattle and bees, by the manufacture of salt, and by fisheries. The country is flat, containing several large swamps, and lakes on the coast. Some parts are very fertile, and produce good crops of grain ; others are covered with grasses. The herbage dries up early in summer, and the flocks of sheep and herds of buffaloes go to the borders of the Danube for pasture. The wall of Trajan crosses the Dobrudja at about lat. 44 10' N. The most important towns in this district are Tultcha, Kustendji, Baba Dagh, and Hirsova. A rail- way connects Tchernavoda on the Danube with Kustendji on the Black sea. DOBSON, Thomas, a bookseller and author of Philadelphia, died March 8, 1823. He repub- Hshed the " Encyclopedia Britannica" (21 vols. 4to, including the supplement, 1798- 1803), and wrote "Letters on the Character of the Deity and the Moral State of Man " (2 vols. 12mo, 1807). DOBSON, William, an English painter, born in London in 1610, died in 1646. He served an apprenticeship with a portrait painter and picture dealer, and availed himself of the op- portunity thus offered him to copy some of the works of Titian and Vandyke. One of his pictures fell by chance under the eye of Van- dyke, who was so much struck by its merit that he presented the painter to Charles I., who sat to Dobson for his picture, and upon the death of Vandyke conferred upon him the title of his chief painter. Several of his portraits are in the cabinet of the duke of Northumber- land. One of his best historical pictures is the "Decollation of St. John," at Wilton. DOCE, Rio, a river of Brazil, rising at the base of Mt. Itacolumi, S. E. of the city of Ouro Preto, province of Minas Geraes. It flows N". 180 m., then bends first E., afterward S. E., then N". E., flowing through the province of Es- pirito Santo, finally curves abruptly to the S. E., and falls into the Atlantic near the town of Regencia. The mouth is wide and shallow, and traversed by a bar on which the waves break with great violence, so that the entrance to the river is always difficult, and often for weeks together impossible. As far up as Porto de Souza the river is navigable all the year round by small steamers ; but at that point begin the rapids which render navigation impossible save for canoes, and even these must in some parts be unloaded before hauling them over the rapids. The banks of the Doce are for the most part high and steep, bordered by mountains with a rich clothing of forest, in which abound trees furnishing many species of valuable wood. During the rainy season the Doce sometimes rises 20 feet above its ordinary level. DOCETJE, in the primitive church, the par- tisans of those doctrines which admitted the appearance but denied the reality of the human form and nature of Jesus Christ. Those who looked upon matter as essentially evil were offended at the idea of a revelation of Deity through sensible objects, and declared that everything corporeal in Christ was only in ap- pearance, and for the manifestation of the spirit, and that his life was merely a continued theophany. It was probably against Docetic doctrines, which had appeared even in the time of the apostles, that some passages in the gospels and epistles of St. John were directed. Docetism, of which there were various forms, was itself one of the earlier forms of Gnosticism, and its teachers, as Valentinus, Cassianus, and Bardesanes, who flourished in the latter half of the 2d century, are reckoned among the Gnos- tics. Its purpose was to reconcile the narra- tive of the gospels with the respect due to the Deity, in maintaining that the sufferings and death of Christ were only apparent, in opposi j tion to the realistic doctrine of the Ebionites.