Mortis." The originals of these are at St. Petersburg, and impressions of them have been frequently repeated under different names.

We may cite as authorities on this subject, Peignot's Recherches sur les Danses des Morts (Dijon and Paris, 1826); Massman's Baseler Todtentänze (Stuttgart, 1847); and Douce's The Dance of Death (Lond. 1833).

DANCETTE, one of the lines of partition in heraldry, which differs from indented (q.v.) only in the greater size of the notches. The indentations where the division is per fess dancette, never exceed three in number.

DANCING may be defined in a general way as the expression of inward feelings by means of rhythmical movements of the body, especially of the lower limbs, usually accompanied by music. Dancing may almost be said to be as old as the world, and prevails in rude as well as in civilized nations. Children, and also the lower animals, dance and gambol as by instinct. Our early records, sacred and profane, make mention of dancing, and in most of the ancient nations it was a constit uent part of their religious rites and ceremonies. They danced before their altars and round the statues of their gods. The Greek chorus, "in the oldest times, consisted of the whole population of the city, who met in the public place (choros, the market-place), to offer up thanksgivings to their country's god, by singing hymns and performing corresponding dances.' The Jewish records make abundant mention of dancing. Moses and Miriam danced to their song of triumph, when the Israelites passed through the Red sea as on dry land; David danced before the ark. It is certain that the primitive Christians danced at their religious meetings, though we have no mention of this in the New Testament. The Greeks made the art of dancing into a system expressive of all the different passions, the dance of the Eumenides, or Furies, especially, creating such terror, that the spectators seemed to see these dreaded deities about to execute heaven's vengeance on earth. The most eminent Greek sculptors did not disdain to study the attitudes of the public dancers for their art of imitating the passions. In Homer, we read of dancing and music at entertainments. Aristotle ranks dancing with poetry, and says, in his Poetics, that there are dancers who, by rhythm applied to gesture, express manners, passions, and actions. In Pindar, Apollo is called the dancer; and Jupiter himself, in a Greek line, is represented as in the act of dancing. The Spartans had a law obliging parents to exercise their children in dancing from the age of five. This was done in the public place, to train them for the armed-dance. They were led by grown men, and all sang hymns and songs as they danced. The young men danced the Pyrrhic dance, in four parts, expressive of overtaking an enemy and of a mock-fight.

Dancing, as an entertainment in private society, was performed in ancient times mostly by professional dancers, and not by the company themselves. Among the sedate Romans, in fact, it was considered disgraceful for a free citizen to dance, except in connection with religion. Having professional dancers at entertainments is still the prac tice among eastern nations. In Egypt there are dancing and singing girls, called almé, who improvise verses as in Italy. They are highly educated, and no festival takes place without them. They are placed in a rostrum, and sing during the repast; then descend, and form dances that have no resemblance to ours. All over India there are nautch girls or bayaderes (q.v.), who dance at festivals and solemnities.

It is among savage nations that the passion for dancing is most strongly mani fested. Their dances are mostly associated with religion and war; and the performers work themselves into a state of frantic excitement-a kind of mechanical intoxication. As civilization advances, dancing-amateur dancing, at least-assumes a more and more subdued character. As a social amusement and a healthful exercise, dancing has much to recommend it; the chief drawbacks are the ill-ventilated and overheated rooms in which it is generally performed. By many, it is unfavorably regarded in a moral point of view; but this seems a relic of that outburst of puritanism that characterized the 17th c.. and which saw sin in every joyous excitement. Dancing is doubtless liable to abuse, but not more so than most other forms of social intercourse. Connected with the subject of dancing, see ACROBATS, BALLET, PANTOMIME, COUNTRY-DANCE, QUADRILLE, POLKA, etc.

DANCING MANIA, a form of epidemic disorder allied to hysteria (q.v.), and evidently the result of imitative emotions acting upon susceptible subjects, under the influ ence of a craving for sympathy or notoriety. There is little donbt that imposture entered to a considerable extent into all the epidemic forms of the dancing mania, which indeed were usually attended and followed by consequences that showed but too clearly the presence of impure motives; but there is also evidence that in many cases the convulsive movements were really beyond the control of the will, whatever may have been the original character of the motives that prompted them. Epidemics of this sort were common in Germany during the middle ages, and are formally described as early as the 14th c.; in Italy, a somewhat similar disease was ascribed to the bite of a spider called the tarantula (see TARANTISM); and similar convulsive affections have been witnessed in Abyssinia, India, and even in comparatively modern times and in the most civilized countries in Europe, under the influence of strong popular excitement, especially connected with religious demonstrations. But the true dancing mania of the middle ages had its theater chiefly in the crowded cities of Germany.

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In July, 1374, there appeared at Aix-la-Chapelle assemblies of men and women, who, excited by the wild and frantic, partly heathenish, celebration of the festival of St. John, began to dance on the streets, screaming and foaming like persons possessed. The attacks of this mania were various in form, according to mental, local, or religious conditions. The dancers, losing all control over their movements, continued dancing in wild delirium till they fell in extreme exhaustion, and groaned as in the agonies of death; some dashed out their brains against walls. When dancing, they were insensible to external impressions, but haunted by visions, such as of being immersed in a sea of blood, which obliged them to leap so high, or of seeing the heavens open, and the Saviour enthroned with the Virgin Mary. The frenzy spread overy many of the towns of the Low Countries. Troops of dancers, inflamed by intoxicating music, and followed by crowds, who caught the mental infection, went from place to place, taking possession of the religious houses, and pouring forth imprecations against the priests. The mania spread to Cologne, Metz, and Strasburg, giving rise to many disorders, impostures, and profligacy. These countries were generally in a miserable condition; and arbitrary rule, corruption of morals, insecurity of property, and low priestcraft, prepared the wretched people, debilitated by disease and bad food, to seek relief in the futoxication of an artificial delirium. Exorcism had been found an efficacious remedy at the commencement of the outbreak; and in the beginning of the 16th c., Paracelsus, that great reformer of medicine, applied immersion in cold water with great success. At the beginning of the 17th c., the St. Vitus's dance, as the affection was called (see CHOREA), was already on the decline; and we now hear of it only in single cases as a sort of nervous affection. A detailed account of the phenomenon is given in Hecker's Epidemics of the Middle Ages. See CONVULSIONARIES.

DANDELION (leontodon taraxacum, or taraxacum officinale), a plant of the natural order composita, sub-order cichoracea, common throughout Britain and the whole of Europe, in pastures and by waysides, and now also so perfectly naturalized in many parts of North America, as to be there one of the most familiar spring-flowers. The names D. and leontodon (Fr. and Gr. lion's tooth) both have reference to the form of the leaves. The whole plant abounds in a milky juice, containing a peculiar crystalline principle, called taraxacin; has a bitter taste; and is tonic, deobstruent, and diuretic. D. root is employed in medicine, in the form of infusion, decoction, and extract, chiefly in diseases of the liver and chronic affections of the digestive organs. It contains resin, inulin, sugar, etc. When roasted and ground, it is also sometimes used as a substitute for coffee. D. coffee, however, is usually a mixture of ordinary coffee and the powder or extract of D. root; and D. chocolate is composed of one part of common chocolate and four parts of the powder of D. root. The young leaves make a good salad.

DAN'DOLO, a famous Venetian family, which has given four doges to the republic. The most illustrious of its members was Enrico D., b. about 1110 or 1115 A.D. Eminent in learning, eloquence, and knowledge of affairs, he ascended from one step to another, until, in 1173, he was sent as ambassador to Constantinople, and in 1192 was elected doge. In this latter capacity, he extended the bounds of the republic in Istria and Dalmatia, defeated the Pisans, and (in 1201) marched at the head of the crusaders. He subdued Trieste and Zara, the coasts of Albania, the Ionian islands, and Constantinople (17th July, 1203). When the emperor Alexius, who had been raised to the throne by the exertions of D., was murdered by his own subjects, D. laid siege to Constantinople, and took it by storm, 13th April, 1204. He then established there the empire of the Latins, and caused count Baldwin of Flanders to be chosen emperor. By the treaty of partition which he concluded with the other leaders of the crusade, Venice obtained possession of some of the islands of the Ionian sea, and of the archipelago, several har bors and tracts of land on the Hellespont, in Phrygia, the Morea, and Epirus, an entire quarter of Constantinople, and also, by purchase, the island of Candia. Soon after this, D. died (June 1, 1205), in Constantinople, and was buried in the church of St. Sophia. His monument was destroyed by the Turks at the taking of Constantinople in 1453.

DAN'DOLO, ANDREA, Doge of Venice, 1342, a member of one of the most illustrious families of that famous city. He was a student and a man of letters, and an inti mate friend of Petrarch. He wrote two chronicles of Venice.

DAN'DOLO, VINCENZO, Count, 1758-1819; an Italian scientist, native of Venice, where he began life as a physician. When Venice came under Austria, he went to Milan, where he became a member of the grand council. He went to Paris in 1799, but soon afterwards returned to the vicinity of Milan and engaged in scientific agriculture. In 1805, Napoleon made him governor of Dalmatia, where he proved himself an excel· lent officer. He published several works on agriculture. In 1809, he retired to private life in Venice.

DANE, a co. in s. Wisconsin, intersected by five or six railroads, the co. seat (Madison) being the capital and the great railroad center of the state; 1235 sq.m.; pop. '80, 53,234. It is mostly prairie, and the soil is fertile, producing wheat, corn, oats, barley, hay, butter, wool, tobacco, hops, etc.

DANE, NATHAN, LL.D., 1752-1835; b. Mass.; graduated at Harvard, 1778; studied law in Salem, and began to practice in 1782 at Beverly. He was successively a member of the Massachusetts house of representatives, the continental congress, and the Massachusetts senate; then held various commissions to codify or revise laws; and was judge of commom pleas. He was also a member of the much abused Hartford conven

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tion. He is credited with placing in the ordinance for the government of the northwestern territory the clause forever prohibiting slavery.

DANE BROG, ORDER OF, the second of the Danish orders, was instituted by king Waldemar in 1219. The word brog in old Danish signifies "cloth," and thus D. is equivalent to the cloth or banner of the Danes. The order is a sort of glorification of the old national flag of Denmark, which long floated, like the oriflamme of France, at the head of the army. It is meant to recompense services rendered to the state, whether civil or military, and irrespective of age or rank. The decoration of the order consists in a cross of gold pattée, enameled with white, and suspended by a white ribbon, embroidered with red.

DANE GELT, or DANEGOLD, a tribute, first of 18., and afterwards of 2s., levied on every hide of land by the Anglo-Saxons, for the purpose of meeting the outlay requisite for defending the country against the Danes. The tax was continued after the conquest, as one of the rights of the crown, till the time of Stephen.

DANE-LAGE, or DANE-LAW. After the overthrow of the Danes under Guthrun at Ethandune by king Alfred (878 A.D.), a treaty was concluded between the two, in virtue of which the entire kingdom of Wessex, from Somerset to Kent, was evacuated by the Danes, who were, however, allowed to retain the greater part of the east coast of England, including the whole of Northumbria. This district was called Danelagh or Dane-law (which name it retained down to the Norman conquest), because the inhabitants were ruled by Danish and not by English law.

DANENHOWER, JOHN WILSON. See page 900.

DANFORTH, CHARLES. See page 901.

DANIEL, a Hebrew prophet, who flourished about 600 B. C. He was a contemporary of Ezekiel, and was carried captive to Babylon in the fourth year of Jehoiakim. He was one of the youths selected to be brought up for future service at the court of the conqueror, and received instruction in all the learning of the Chaldeans. His skill in the interpretation of dreams procured for him the royal favor. He rose to be governor of the province of Babylon under Nebuchadnezzar; and under Darius, the Mede, to be first president of the whole Medo-Persian empire, a dignity only inferior to that of Darius himself. The time and the place of his death are alike unknown. He was alive, however, in the first year of the reign of Cyrus, but did not return to Judea with his countrymen on their release from captivity. Epiphanius and others affirm that he died at Babylon; but the common tradition is that he expired at Susa or Shusan in Persia, when upwards of ninety years of age; and at the present day, a tomb bearing his name is the only standing building among the ruins of that ancient city. D. was the only one of the Hebrew prophets who enjoyed a high degree of worldly prosperity. Ezekiel mentions him as a model of wisdom and piety.-The book of D. consists partly of historical notices of D., and partly of visions and prophecies, some of which are written in Chaldee. The genuineness of the book, in its present form, has been much disputed in recent times.

DANIEL, HERMANN ADALBERT, 1812-72; a German geographer and theologian, edu cated at Halle, and subsequently became a professor at that university. He was one of the most eminent followers of the geographer Ritter.

DANIEL, JOHN WARWICK. See page 901.

DANIEL, SAMUEL, an English poet, was the son of a music-master, and was b. in 1562, near Taunton, in Somersetshire; entered Magdalen hall, Oxford, in 1579, but quitted the university without taking a degree. For some time he acted as tutor to Anne Clifford, daughter of the earl of Cumberland. In 1603, he was appointed master of the queen's revels, and inspector of the plays to be represented by the juvenile performers. Subsequently, he held other offices about the royal household. Towards the close of his life, he retired to a farm which he possessed at Beckington, in his native county, where he died, Oct. 14, 1619. D. is an elegant, if not a great poet. His writings are pervaded by a moral thoughtfulness and purity of taste which are very remarkable, but lack that vital energy of movement and memorableness of expression which result from genuine inspiration. The "well-languaged Daniel" is therefore not the most inter esting of the Elizabethans, although his style is quite modern. His works include sonnets, epistles, masks, and dramas; but his chief production is a poem in eight books, entitled a History of the Civil Wars between York and Lancaster.

DANIEL, BOOK OF, derives its name from the chief person whose history it narrates, and who is generally regarded as its author. The close correspondence of its predictions with historical events has, indeed, led some writers to assert that it was written by some unknown person about 175 years B.C. Porphyry, in the 3d c., held this opinion, and, in modern times, Collins, De Wette, and others. Among the answers to them are: 1. That however plausible, in Porphyry's day, the assertion may have seemed that the so-called predictions of the book were written after the events in the life of Antiochus, to which some of them refer, there is no force in it now, after the progressive accomplishment, which has since been witnessed, of many predictions then unful filled. 2. The first book of Maccabees refers to the book of D. in the same manner

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as to other books of the Old Testament: saying that the enemies of the Jews "set up the abomination of desolation upon the altar:" that "Ananias, Azarias, and Misael, by believing, were saved out of the flame," and that "Daniel, for his innocency, was delivered out of the mouth of lions." 3. It was translated into Greek, B. C. 280-250, before the date which Porphyry assigned to it. 4. At a still earlier date it was received into the Hebrew canon. 5. Its diction, partly Hebrew and partly Chaldaic, proves that its author was master of both languages; its acquaintance with Chaldean manners, customs, and religion, indicates his long residence in the midst of them; and its descriptions of public affairs after the conquest by the Medes and Persians could have been given only by one who had full knowledge of the conquerors and was in favor with them. Daniel, a Jew of noble birth, familiar with the Hebrew as his native tongue, educated from his youth in all that the Chaldeans could teach, and high in office and favor with the successive kings through the whole captivity of 70 years, fulfills all these conditions, and he alone. 6. The great favors which Alexander, in the midst of his career of conquest, conferred on the Jews at Jerusalem, are rationally accounted for by the statement in Josephus that when, at the temple, the book of Daniel was shown to him, wherein Daniel declared that one of the Greeks would destroy the empire of the Persians, he supposed himself to be the person intended, and in his joy called on the people to ask of him any favors which they chose. 7. The testimony of Christ is emphatically given to the book of Daniel, to its prophetic character, and to the approaching fulfillment of things written therein. Its place in the Hebrew canon is not among "the prophets" strictly so called, but in the same division with the Psalms." The prophets were God's ministers among the people at large to instruct, comfort, and reprove, as well as to foretell the future. Daniel's office, as has been seen, was rather that of a statesman, clothed with vice-royal authority by the kings who held him captive and made conspicuous by the manifest wisdom and power of God. He ranks with Moses and David rather than with Isaiah. His personal prosperity, the miracles wrought around him, and the revelations given him, were designed to show, among other things, that although God had allowed the Jews to be carried captive for their sins, his power, as great as it ever had been, was concentrated on Daniel as their representative, and as a pledge that he would restore them to their own land. Their release by Cyrus at the end of their 70 years is without rational explanation if Daniel's life and influence as described in the book are stricken out. The book is partly historical and partly prophetica!, and portions of the history are prophecies fulfilled.

I. The historical part narrates: 1. The captivity of Daniel and his three friends, their education at the court of the king, and their superiority over the rest of the Hebrew youth. 2. The king's dream, Daniel's interpretation of it, and the consequent exaltation of him and his friends. 3. The golden image, the fiery furnace, and the deliverance. 4. The king's second dream and its interpretation, his pride, loss of reason, expulsion, and restoration. 5. Belshazzar's feast, the writing on the wall, the doom declared, the city captured, and the king slain. 6. Daniel's exaltation in the kingdom of Darius, the conspiracy against him, the den of lions and his safety there. 7. His prosperity continued during the reign of Cyrus. II. The prophecies in the book are: 1. Concerning the four kingdoms under the emblem of the image in Nebuchadnezzar's dream its golden head representing the Babylonian; its silver arms and breast, the Medes and Persians, becoming one; its brazen loins and thighs, the Greeks under Alexander, divided after him into two eastern kingdoms, Egypt and Syria; its iron legs, the Romans, consisting of two parts-the senate and people, and led by two consuls; its toes of iron and clay, the kingdoms of Europe, having both the strength of Rome and the weakness of barbarous tribes; the stone cut out without hands and smiting the image, the kingdom of Christ commenced and advanced without human power and destined to subdue the world and continue forever. 2. These kingdoms were represented again in Daniel's vision by four wild beasts coming out of the sea, and explained by the angel as denoting four kingdoms rising out of tumults and wars: (1) The lion with eagle's wings was an emblem of Babylon; (2) The bear with three ribs between its teeth denoted the Medes and Persians conquering Babylon, Lydia, and Egypt; (3) The leopard with four wings and four heads represented the kingdom of Alexander, famous for the swiftness with which it was conquered, and divided after his death into four parts; (4) The fourth beast was great, terrible, and strong, and represented the fourth kingdom, diverse from all others devouring the whole earth, treading it down, and breaking it to pieces; but finally to be judged and destroyed, and to be followed by the kingdom of the Most High that shall endure forever. 3. The vision of a ram, attacked by a goat rushing from the w. without touching the ground, represented the kingdom of the Medes and Persians overthrown by Alexander advancing from Macedonia with unequaled swiftness. When the goat was strong its horn was broken, and in its place came up four, pointing towards the four winds. And when Alexander was at the height of his power he suddenly died, and four kingdoms were formed out of his dominions. 4 The prophecy concerning the 70 weeks-interpreted as 490 years, each day signifying a year-revealed to Daniel by the angel Gabriel, measured off the time between the going forth of the commandment to rebuild Jerusalem and the coming and death of the Messiah. This period is subdivided into three-7 weeks, 62 weeks, and 1 week. During the first the city and wall would be rebuilt; at the end of the sec

ond the Messiah would come, and in the middle of the third he would be cut off. During the third period, both before his death and after it, he would establish the covenant with many; and afterwards desolation would come on the temple and city. 5. The final revelation given to Daniel was from the lips of the Son of God appearing in the similitude of a man. Beginning at the point of time where Daniel then stood, he numbered the kings of Persia who were afterwards to arise, announced the expedition of Xerxes against Greece, and gave a condensed summary of human history onward to the resurrection of the dead to everlasting life or everlasting shame.

DANIELL, JOHN FREDERICK, D.C.L., a distinguished English savant, was b. in London, Mar. 12, 1790. He was a pupil of prof. Brande, along with whom he made several scientific tours; was elected a fellow of the royal society in 1814, and in 1816 started, in connection with prof. Brande, the Quarterly Journal of Science and Art. From this period, D. devoted almost the whole of his time to the subjects of chemistry and meteorology. In 1823, he published his Meteorological Essays, which is still the standard work on meteorology; and in 1824 the horticultural society awarded him their silver medal for his Essay on Artificial Climate. In 1831, he was appointed professor of chemistry in King's college, London; and in 1839 published his Introduction to Chemical Philosophy. In 1843, he received the degree of D.C.L. from the university of Oxford. He also enjoyed the great honor of being the only person who ever obtained all the three medals in the gift of the royal society. Besides his professorship in King's college, D. also held the post of lecturer at Addiscombe, and of examiner in chemistry to the university of London. He died Mar. 13, 1845. D.'s Meteorological Essays was the first attempt to account, in a truly philosophical manner, for the known phenomena of the atmosphere. Besides the works mentioned, D. wrote a large number of interesting and valuable papers for the royal society. For an account of his new hygrometer, see HYGROMETER. DANIELL, THOMAS, 1749-1840; an English landscape painter. He made a journey through India, taking a great number of important sketches. He published Views of Calcutta, Oriental Scenery (144 plates ); Views in Egypt; Picturesque Voyage to China, etc. He was a royal academician and fellow of several other societies. His nephews, William and Daniel, were also artists of repute, the former assisting in the India sketches, and the latter spending many years in Ceylon.

DANISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE. The Danish language, which, with slight modifications, is common to the three Scandinavian kingdoms, is a branch of the ancient Gothic, and has been retained almost in its original form in Iceland. The oldest memorials of the Danish are codes of laws, as the Skaanske Lov, and the old and new Sjællandske Lov, promulgated by Valdemar the great in 1162 and 1171; but these, no less than the writings of Harpestreng, canon of Roeskilde (1244) already show marked deviations from the Icelandic, in consequence of the intermixture of the Anglo-Saxon, English, and Norman elements, due to the Danish occupation of England, and the immigration of monks and artisans into Denmark from Britain. The influence of the English dialect was again modified towards the close of the 12th c. by the influx of Germans into the country. Saxo Grammaticus, the father of Danish history, who died in 1204, wrote, like almost all his ecclesiastical brethren at that day, in Latin, as did also his contemporary, the knight Svend Aagesen. The Danish Kamperiser are the richest poetical remains of the folk-lore of the middle ages in Europe, and consist-1. Of narratives and songs of giants, demigods, and other supernatural creatures of the Scandinavian mythology; 2. Of romantic songs and tales connected with these mythical beings; and 3. Of historical verses, referring to a later period. The names of the writers are unknown, and these compositions seem rather to be the expression of the entire people than the production of individual poets. Many have, from time immemorial, been associated with certain national melodies, which have secured them a permanent place in the hearts of the people, whose disposition leads them to dwell with fondness on the memory of by-gone times and events, and to seek in the glory of the past a compensation for the national humiliation and reverses of the present. The first printed collection of the Kæmpeviser is due to the royal historiographer, Vedel, and appeared at Ribe, 1592; another edition (Copenh. 1695) by Peter Syv found its way to almost every peasant's cottage; but the most complete of any is probably that by Nyerup and Rabek, in 5 vols. (Copenh. 1810-14). After the reformation, the national literature was compar atively neglected, for the composition of poor theological treatises and bald versions of the Psalms. Among the best of the writers in this department we may instance Christian Pedersen (born 1480), who, after having made a metrical version of the ancient national chronicles, devoted himself to the diffusion of the Lutheran faith, and made Danish translations of the New Testament, and the reformer, Hans Taussen (born 1494), who composed catechisms, and translated the Pentateuch into Danish. The Danish language acquired stability and new life by the translation of the whole Bible, which, by order of king Christian III., was effected in 1550 by Palladius and other professors of the university. The close of the 16th c. was memorable for the many admirable writers on history which it produced in Denmark. Among those who edited and annotated the ancient Danish and Icelandic historical chronicles, we may mention Peder Claussen, A. S. Vedel, and Axil Hvitfeldt, whose respective works supply invaluable materials to the historical inquirer. These men were contem