DASENT, SIR GEORGE WEBBE (1817-1896), English writer, was born in St Vincent, West Indies, on the 22nd of May 1817, the son of the attorney-general of that island. He was educated at Westminster school, King’s College, and Oxford, where he was a contemporary of J. T. Delane (q.v.), whose friend he had become at King’s College. On leaving the university in 1840 he was appointed to a diplomatic post in Stockholm. Here he met Jacob Grimm, and at his suggestion first interested himself in Scandinavian literature and mythology. In 1842 he published the results of his studies, a version of The Prose or Younger Edda, and in the following year he issued a Grammar of the Icelandic or Old-Norse Tongue, taken from the Swedish. Returning to England in 1845, he became assistant editor of The Times under Delane, whose sister he married; but he still continued his Scandinavian studies, publishing translations of various Norse stories. In 1853 he was appointed professor of English literature and modern history at King’s College, London. In 1861-1862 he visited Iceland, and subsequently published Gisli the Outlaw and other translations from the Icelandic. In 1870 he was appointed a civil service commissioner and consequently resigned his post on The Times. In 1876 he was knighted. He retired from the public service in 1892, and died at Ascot on the 11th of June 1896. In addition to the works mentioned above, he published The Story of Burnt Njal, from the Icelandic of the Njals Saga (1861).
See the Life of Delane (1908), by Arthur Irwin Dasent.
DASHKOV, CATHERINA ROMANOVNA VORONTSOV, Princess (1744-1810), Russian littérateur, was the third daughter of Count Roman Vorontsov, a member of the Russian senate, distinguished for his intellectual gifts. (For the family see [Vorontsov].) She received an exceptionally good education, having displayed from a very early age the masculine ability and masculine tastes which made her whole career so singular. She was well versed in mathematics, which she studied at the university of Moscow, and in general literature her favourite authors were Bayle, Montesquieu, Boileau, Voltaire and Helvetius. While still a girl she was connected with the Russian court, and became one of the leaders of the party that attached itself to the grand duchess (afterwards empress) Catherine. Before she was sixteen she married Prince Mikhail Dashkov, a prominent Russian nobleman, and went to reside with him at Moscow. In 1762 she was at St Petersburg and took a leading part, according to her own account the leading part, in the coup d’état by which Catherine was raised to the throne. (See [Catherine II.]) Another course of events would probably have resulted in the elevation of the Princess Dashkov’s elder sister, Elizabeth, who was the emperor’s mistress, and in whose favour he made no secret of his intention to depose Catherine. Her relations with the new empress were not of a cordial nature, though she continued devotedly loyal. Her blunt manners, her unconcealed scorn of the male favourites that disgraced the court, and perhaps also her sense of unrequited merit, produced an estrangement between her and the empress, which ended in her asking permission to travel abroad. The cause of the final breach was said to have been the refusal of her request to be appointed colonel of the imperial guards. Her husband having meanwhile died, she set out in 1768 on an extended tour through Europe. She was received with great consideration at foreign courts, and her literary and scientific reputation procured her the entrée to the society of the learned in most of the capitals of Europe. In Paris she secured the warm friendship and admiration of Diderot and Voltaire. She showed in various ways a strong liking for England and the English. She corresponded with Garrick, Dr Blair and Principal Robertson; and when in Edinburgh, where she was very well received, she arranged to entrust the education of her son to Principal Robertson. In 1782 she returned to the Russian capital, and was at once taken into favour by the empress, who strongly sympathized with her in her literary tastes, and specially in her desire to elevate Russ to a place among the literary languages of Europe. Immediately after her return the princess was appointed “directeur” of the St Petersburg Academy of Arts and Sciences; and in 1784 she was named the first president of the Russian Academy, which had been founded at her suggestion. In both positions she acquitted herself with marked ability. She projected the Russian dictionary of the Academy, arranged its plan, and executed a part of the work herself. She edited a monthly magazine; and wrote at least two dramatic works, The Marriage of Fabian, and a comedy entitled Toissiokoff. Shortly before Catherine’s death the friends quarrelled over a tragedy which the princess had allowed to find a place in the publications of the Academy, though it contained revolutionary principles, according to the empress. A partial reconciliation was effected, but the princess soon afterwards retired from court. On the accession of the emperor Paul in 1796 she was deprived of all her offices, and ordered to retire to a miserable village in the government of Novgorod, “to meditate on the events of 1762.” After a time the sentence was partially recalled on the petition of her friends, and she was permitted to pass the closing years of her life on her own estate near Moscow, where she died on the 4th of January 1810.
Her son, the last of the Dashkov family, died in 1807 and bequeathed his fortune to his cousin Illarion Vorontsov, who thereupon by imperial licence assumed the name Vorontsov-Dashkov; and Illarion’s son, Illarion Ivanovich Vorontsov-Dashkov (b. 1837), held an appointment in the tsar’s household from 1881 to 1897.
The Memoirs of the Princess Dashkoff written by herself were published in 1840 in London in two volumes. They were edited by Mrs W. Bradford, who, as Miss Wilmot, had resided with the princess between 1803 and 1808, and had suggested their preparation.
DASS, PETTER (1647-1708), the “father” of modern Norwegian poetry, was the son of Peter Dundas, a Scottish merchant of Dundee, who, leaving his country about 1630 to escape the troubles of the Presbyterian church, settled in Bergen, and in 1646 married a Norse girl of good family. Petter Dass was born in 1647 on the island of Nord Herö; on the north coast of Norway. Seven years later his father died, and his mother placed him with his aunt, the wife of the priest of another little island-parish. In 1660 he was sent to school at Bergen, in 1665 to the university of Copenhagen, and in 1667 he began to earn his daily bread as a private tutor. In 1672 he was ordained priest, and remained till 1681 as under-chaplain at Nesne, a little parish near his birthplace; for eight years more he was resident chaplain at Nesne; and at last in 1689 he received the living of Alstahoug, the most important in the north of Norway. The rule of Alstahoug extended over all the neighbouring districts, including Dass’s native island of Herö, and its privileges were accompanied by great perils, for it was necessary to be constantly crossing stormy firths of sea. Dass lived here in quietude, with something of the honours and responsibilities of a bishop, brought up his family in a God-fearing way, and wrote endless reams of verses. In 1700 he asked leave to resign his living in favour of his son Anders Dass, but this was not permitted; in 1704, however, Anders became his father’s chaplain. About this time Petter went to Bergen, where he visited Dorothea Engelbrechtsdatter, with whom he had been for many years in correspondence. He continued to write till 1707, and died in August 1708. The materials for his biography are very numerous; he was regarded with universal curiosity and admiration in his lifetime; and, besides, he left a garrulous autobiography in verse. A portrait, painted in middle age, now in the church of Melhus, near Trondhjem, represents him in canonicals, with deep red beard and hair, the latter waved and silky, and a head of massive proportions. The face is full of fire and vigour. His writings passed in MS. from hand to hand, and few of them were printed in his lifetime. Nordlands Trompet (The Trumpet of Nordland), his greatest and most famous poem, was not published till 1739; Den norska Dale-Vise (The Norwegian Song of the Valley) appeared in 1696; the Aandelig Tidsfordriv (Spiritual Pastime), a volume of sacred poetry, was published in 1711. The Trumpet of Nordland remains as fresh as ever in the memories of the inhabitants of the north of Norway; boatmen, peasants, priests will alike repeat long extracts from it at the slightest notice, and its popularity is unbounded. It is a rhyming description of the province of Nordland, its natural features, its trades, its advantages and its drawbacks, given in dancing verse of the most breathless kind, and full of humour, fancy, wit and quaint learning. The other poems of Petter Dass are less universally read; they abound, however, in queer turns of thought, and fine homely fancies.
The collected writings of Dass were edited (3 vols., Christiania, 1873-1877) by Dr A. E. Eriksen.