DORIS, in ancient geography, a small district in central Greece, forming a wedge between Mts. Oeta and Parnassus, and containing the head-waters of the Cephissus, which passes at the gorge of Dadion into the neighbouring land of Phocis. This little valley, which nowhere exceeds 4 m. in breadth and could barely give sustenance to four small townships, owed its importance partly to its command over the strategic road from Heracleia to Amphissa, which pierced the Parnassus range near Cytinium, but chiefly to its prestige as the alleged mother-country of the Dorian conquerors of Peloponnesus (see [Dorians]). Its history is mainly made up of petty wars with the neighbouring Oetaeans and Phocians. The latter pressed them hard in 457, when the Spartans, admitting their claim to be the Dorian metropolis, sent an army to their aid, and again during the second Sacred War (356-346). Except for a casual mention of its cantonal league in 196, Doris passed early out of history; the inhabitants may have been exterminated during the conflicts between Aetolia and Macedonia.
See Strabo, pp. 417, 427; Herodotus i. 56, viii. 31; Thucydides i. 107, iii. 92; Diodorus xii. 29, 33; W. M. Leake, Travels in Northern Greece, chap. xi. (London, 1835).
(M. O. B. C.)
DORISLAUS, ISAAC (1595-1649), Anglo-Dutch lawyer and diplomatist, was born in 1595 at Alkmaar, Holland, the son of a minister of the Dutch reformed church. He was educated at Leiden, removed to England about 1627, and was appointed to a lectureship in history at Cambridge, where his attempt to justify the Dutch revolt against Spain led to his early resignation. In 1629 he was admitted a commoner of the College of Advocates. In 1632 he made his peace at court, and on two occasions acted as judge advocate, in the bishops’ war of 1640 and in 1642 in the army commanded by Essex. In 1648 he became one of the judges of the admiralty court, and was sent on a diplomatic errand to the states general of Holland. He assisted in preparing the charge of high treason against Charles I., and, while negotiating an alliance between the Commonwealth and the Dutch Republic, was murdered at the Hague by royalist refugees on the 10th of May 1649. His remains were buried in Westminster Abbey, and moved in 1661 to St Margaret’s churchyard.
DORKING, a market town in the Reigate parliamentary division of Surrey, England, 26 m. S.S.W. of London, on the London, Brighton & South Coast and the South-Eastern & Chatham railways. Pop. of urban district (1901) 7670. It is pleasantly situated on the river Mole, in a sheltered vale near the base of Box Hill. It is the centre of an extensive residential district. The parish church of St Martin’s is a handsome edifice rebuilt in 1873. Lime of exceptionally good quality is burnt to a large extent in the neighbourhood, and forms an important article of trade; it is derived from the Lower Chalk formation. Dorking has long been famous for a finely flavoured breed of fowl distinguished by its having five toes. Several fine mansions are in the vicinity of the town, notably that of Deepdene, containing part of a gallery of sculpture collected here by Thomas Hope, the author of Anastasius. A Roman road, which crossed from the Sussex coast to the Thames, passed near the present churchyard of St Martin.
DORLÉANS, LOUIS (1542-1629), French poet and political pamphleteer, was born in 1542, in Paris. He studied under Jean Daurat, and after taking his degree in law began to practise at the bar with but slight success. He wrote indifferent verses, but was a redoubtable pamphleteer. After the League had arrested the royalist members of parliament, he was appointed (1589) advocate-general. His ”Avertissement des catholiques anglais aux Français catholiques du danger où ils sont de perdre la religion et d’expérimenter, comme en Angleterre, la cruauté des ministres s’ils reçoivent à la couronne un roi qui soit hérétique” went through several editions, and was translated into English. One of his pamphlets, Le Banquet ou après-dînée du comte d’Arète, in which he accused Henry of insincerity in his return to the Roman Catholic faith, was so scurrilous as to be disapproved of by many members of the League. When Henry at length entered Paris, Dorléans was among the number of the proscribed. He took refuge in Antwerp, where he remained for nine years. At the expiration of that period he received a pardon, and returned to Paris, but was soon imprisoned for sedition. The king, however, released him after three months in the Conciergerie, and by this means attached him permanently to his cause. His last years were passed in obscurity, and he died in 1629.