DUNLAP, WILLIAM, an American painter, dramatist, and historian, born at Perth Amboy, N. J., in 1766; died in 1839. He studied in London under Benjamin West, and on his return to America busied himself with painting and dramatic writing. His best play is The Father of an Only Child, which was brought out in 1789, and was very successful. He was sole manager of the Park Theatre, New York, from 1798 to 1805. He then gave himself up to the practice of his art, to literature, and to theatrical management. In 1821 he painted his first great picture "Christ Rejected" (18x12 ft.), after the style of one by West on the same subject; in 1828 appeared "Calvary" (18x14 ft.), both of which he exhibited in the principal cities of the United States. He was the author of The Memoirs of George Frederick Cooke (1812); A Life of Charles Brockden Brown, A History of the American Theatre, a standard work (1833); History of the Arts of Design in the United States (1834); Thirty Years Ago; or the Memoirs of a Water Drinker (1836); A History of New York for Schools (1837), and a History of New Netherlands, Province of New York, and State of New York, with a curious and valuable appendix (1839). Mr. Dunlap was one of the founders of the New York Academy of Design.

CHARLES MATHEWS.

It was in the month of April, in the year 1823, that I embarked with two hundred and fifty others, in the steamboat Chancellor Livingston, for Albany. After the bustle of leave-taking, and the various ceremonies and multifarious acts of hurried business which daily take place on the departure of one of these selfmoving hotels from the city of New York, I had leisure. to look around me, with the intention of finding some acquaintance as a companion, or at least to satisfy my curiosity as to who were on board. I had seen many faces known to me when I first entered the boat, but they had vanished: all appeared, at first, strange. I soon, however, observed James Fenimore Cooper, the justly celebrated novelist, in conversation with Dr. Francis. . . . I soon after noted a man of extraordinary appearance, who moved rapidly about the deck, and occasionally joined the gentlemen above named. His age might be forty; his figure was tall, thin, and muscular; one leg was shorter than the other, which, although it occasioned a halt in his gait, did not impede his activity; his features were extremely irregular, yet his physiognomy was intelligent, and his eyes remarkably searching and expressive. I had never seen Mathews, either in private or public, nor do I recollect that I had at that time ever seen any representation of him, or heard his person described; but I instantly concluded that this was no other than the celebrated mimic and player. Doubtless his dress and manner, which were evidently English, and that peculiarity which still marks some of the votaries of the histrionic art, helped me to this conclusion. I say, "still marks"; for I remember the time when the distinction was so gross that a child would say, "There goes a playactor."

The figure and manner of the actor were sufficiently uncommon to attract the attention of a throng of men usually employed in active business, but here placed in a situation which, of all others, calls for something to while away time; but when some who traced the likeness

between the actor on the deck of the steamboat, and the actor on the stage of the theatre, buzzed it about that this was the mirth-inspiring Mathews, curiosity showed itself in as many modes as there were varieties of character in the motley crowd around him. This very natural and powerful propensity, which every person who exposes himself or herself upon a public stage, to the gaze of the mixed multitude, wishes ardently to excite, was, under the present peculiar circumstances of time, place, and leisure, expressed in a manner rather annoying to the hero of the sock, who would now have willingly appeared in the character of a private gentleman. One clown, in particular followed the object of his very sincere admiration with a pertinacity which deserved a better return than it met. He was to Mathews a perfect Monsieur Tonson, and his appearance seemed to excite the same feelings. The novelist and physician pointed out to me the impertinent curiosity of this admirer of the actor, and we all took some portion of mischievous delight in observing the irritability of Mathews. It increased to a ludicrous degree when Mathews found that no effort or change of place could exclude his tormentor from his sight; and when, after having made an effort to avoid him, he, on turning his head, saw Monsieur Tonson fixed as a statue, again listening in motionless admiration to his honeyed words, the actor would suddenly change from the animated relation of story or anecdote, with which he had been entertaining his companions, to the outpouring of a rhapsody of incoherent nonsense, uttered with incredible volubility. . . . But he found that this only made his admirer listen more intently, and open his eyes and mouth more widely and earnestly.-History of the American Theatre.

D'URFEY, THOMAS, an English humorous poet and dramatist, of French descent, born at Exeter, Devonshire, in 1650; died in 1723. He was trained for the law, but abandoned the legal profession for literature. He wrote numerous dramatic pieces, ballads, songs, and sonnets, and was a court favorite during the reigns of Charles II., William and Mary, and Anne. Most of his works are of a very loose character. He published Laugh and Be Fat and Joy to Great Cæsar. He is best known through a collection of poems, only a part of which are by himself, entitled Wit and Mirth, or Pills to Purge Melancholy.

STILL WATER.

Damon, let a friend advise you,
Follow Closes, though she flies you;
Though her tongue your suit is slighting,
Her kind eyes you'll find inviting:

Women's rage, like shallow water,

Does but show their hurtless nature;

When the stream seems rough and frowning,
There is then less fear of drowning.

Let me tell the adventurous stranger,
In our calmness lies our danger;
Like a river's silent running,

Stillness shows our depth and cunning:

She that rails you into trembling,

Only shows her fine dissembling;

But the fawner, to abuse you,

Thinks you fools, and so will use you.

DURUY, JEAN VICTOR, a French historian and statesman, was born at Paris, September 11, He began his classical studies in 1823 at the College Rollin, then called Collége SainteBarbe; was admitted into the Normal School in 1830, was appointed to the class of history at the College of Rheims in 1833, and in the same year to a similar position in the College of Henry IV., in Paris, afterward called the Collége Napoleon. About this time he published anonymously various elementary historical works. In 1853 he took the degree of doctor "ès lettres;" afterward became Inspector of the Academy of Paris, Master of the Conferences at the École Normale, Professor of History at the École Polytechnique, and by decree, June 23, 1863, was appointed Minister of Public Instruction, in which department he introduced many changes, chiefly in the direction of secularizing instruction, and rendering it gratuitous. On resigning the office of Minister of Public Instruction in July, 1869, he was appointed a Senator, and remained a member of the Senate until the Revolution of September 4, 1870. His principal works are: Géographie Politique de la République Romaine et de l'Empire (1838); Géographie Historique du Moyen Age (1839); Géographie de la France (1840); Atlas de Géographie