In addition to the principal authorities already mentioned see John Forster, Historical and Biographical Essays (1858); G. Saintsbury, “Introduction” to Defoe’s Minor Novels; and valuable notes by G. A. Aitken in The Contemporary Review (February 1890), and The Athenaeum (April 30, 1889; August 31, 1890). A facsimile reprint (1883) of Robinson Crusoe has an introduction by Mr Austin Dobson. Dr Karl T. Bülbring edited two unpublished works of Defoe, The Compleat English Gentleman (London, 1890) and Of Royall Educacion (London, 1905), from British Museum Add. MS. 32,555. Further light was thrown on Defoe’s work as a political agent by the discovery (1906) of an unpublished paper of his in the British Museum by G. F. Warner. This was printed in the English Historical Review, and afterwards separately.
DEGAS, HILAIRE GERMAIN EDGARD (1834- ), French painter, was born in Paris on the 19th of July 1834. Entering in 1855 the École des Beaux Arts, he early developed independence of artistic outlook, studying under Lamothe. He first exhibited in the Salon of 1865, contributing a “War in the middle ages,” a work executed in pastel. To this medium he was ever faithful, using it for some of his best work. In 1866 his “Steeplechase” revealed him as a painter of the racecourse and of all the most modern aspects of life and of Parisian society, treated in an extremely original manner. He subsequently exhibited in 1867 “Family Portraits,” and in 1868 a portrait of a dancer in the “Ballet of La Source.” In 1869 and 1870 he restricted himself to portraits; but thenceforward he abandoned the Salons and attached himself to the Impressionists. With Manet and Monet he took the lead of the new school at its first exhibition in 1874, and repeatedly contributed to these exhibitions (in 1876, 1878, 1879 and 1880). In 1868 he had shown his first study of a dancer, and in numerous pastels he proclaimed himself the painter of the ballet, representing its figurantes in every attitude with more constant aim at truth than grace. Several of his works may be seen at the Luxembourg Gallery, to which they were bequeathed, among a collection of impressionist pictures, by M. Caillebotte. In 1880 Degas showed his powers of observation in a set of “Portraits of Criminals,” and he attempted modelling in a “Dancer,” in wax. He afterwards returned to his studies of the sporting world, exhibiting in December 1884 at the Petit Gallery two views of “Races” which had a great success, proving the increasing vogue of the artist among collectors. He is ranked with Manet as the leader of the “impressionist school.” At the eighth Impressionist Exhibition, in 1886, Degas continued his realistic studies of modern life, showing drawings of the nude, of workwomen, and of jockeys. Besides his pastels and his paintings of genre and portraits—among these, several likenesses of Manet—Degas also handled his favourite subjects in etching and in aquatint; and executed several lithographs of “Singers at Cafés-concert,” of “Ballet-girls,” and indeed of every possible subject of night-life and incidents behind the scenes. His work is to be seen not only at the Luxembourg but in many of the great private collections in Paris, in England and America. In the Centenary Exhibition of 1900 he exhibited “The Interior of a Cotton-Broker’s Office at New Orleans” (belonging to the Museum at Pau) and “The Rehearsal.”
See also G. Moore, “Degas, the Painter of Modern Life,” Magazine of Art (1890); J. K. Huysmans, Certains (Paris, 1889); G. Geffroy, La Vie Artistique (3e Série, Paris, 1894).
DE GEER, LOUIS GERHARD, Baron (1818-1896), Swedish statesman and writer, was born on the 18th of July 1818 at Finspång castle. He adopted the legal profession, and in 1855 became president of the Göta Hofret, or lord justice of one of the Swedish supreme courts. From the 7th of April 1858 to the 3rd of June 1870 he was minister of justice. As a member of the Upper House he took part in all the Swedish Riksdags from 1851 onwards, though he seldom spoke. From 1867 to 1878 he was the member for Stockholm in the first chamber, and introduced and passed many useful reformatory statutes; but his greatest achievement, as a statesman, was the reform of the Swedish representative system, whereby he substituted a bi-cameral elective parliament, on modern lines, for the existing cumbersome representation by estates, a survival from the later middle ages. This great measure was accepted by the Riksdag in December 1865, and received the royal sanction on the 22nd of June 1866. For some time after this De Geer was the most popular man in Sweden. He retired from the ministry in 1870, but took office again, as minister of justice, in 1875. In 1876 he became minister of state, which position he retained till April 1880, when the failure of his repeated efforts to settle the armaments’ question again induced him to resign. From 1881 to 1888 he was chancellor of the universities of Upsala and Lund. Besides several novels and aesthetic essays, De Geer has written a few political memoirs of supreme merit both as to style and matter, the most notable of which are: Minnesteckning öfver A. J. v. Höpken (Stockholm, 1881); Minnesteckning öfver Hans Järta (Stockholm, 1874); Minnesteckning öfver B. B. von Platen (Stockholm, 1886); and his own Minnen (Stockholm, 1892), an autobiography, invaluable as a historical document, in which the political experience and the matured judgments of a lifetime are recorded with singular clearness, sobriety and charm.
See Sveriges historia (Stockholm, 1881, &c.), vi,; Carl Gustaf Malmström, Historiska Studier (Stockholm, 1897).
(R. N. B.)
DEGGENDORF, or Deckendorf, a town of Germany, in the kingdom of Bavaria, 25 m. N.W. of Passau, on the left bank of the Danube, which is there crossed by two iron bridges. Pop. (1905) 7154. It is situated at the lower end of the beautiful valley of the Perlbach, and in itself it is a well-built and attractive town. It possesses an old town hall dating from 1566, a hospital, a lunatic asylum, an orphanage, and a large parish church rebuilt in 1756; but the chief interest centres in the church of the Holy Sepulchre, built in 1337, which attracts thousands of pilgrims to its Porta Caeli or Gnadenpforte (Gate of Mercy) opened annually on Michaelmas eve and closed again on the 4th of October. In 1837, on the celebration of the 500th anniversary of this solemnity, the number of pilgrims was reckoned at nearly 100,000. Such importance as the town possesses is now rather commercial than religious,—it being a depôt for the timber trade of the Bavarian forest, a station for the Danube steamboat company, and the seat of several mills, breweries, potteries and other industrial establishments. On the bank of the Danube outside the town are the remains of the castle of Findelstein; and on the Geiersberg (1243 ft.), in the immediate vicinity, stands another old pilgrimage church. About 6 m. to the north is the village of Metten, with a Benedictine monastery founded by Charlemagne in 801, restored as an abbey in 1840 by Louis I. of Bavaria, and well known as an educational institution. The first mention of Deggendorf occurs in 868, and it appears as a town in 1212. Henry (d. 1290) of the Landshut branch of the ruling family of Bavaria made it the seat of a custom-house; and in 1331 it became the residence of Henry III. of Natternberg (d. 1333), so called from a castle in the neighbourhood. In 1337 a wholesale massacre of the Jews, who were accused of having thrown the sacred host of the church of the Holy Sepulchre into a well, took place in the town; and it is probably from about this date that the pilgrimage above mentioned came into vogue. The town was captured by the Swedish forces in 1633, and in the war of the Austrian Succession it was more than once laid in ashes.