Dudley Limestone, a highly fossiliferous limestone belonging to the Silurian system, occurring near Dudley, and equivalent to the Wenlock limestone. It abounds in beautiful masses of coral, shells, and trilobites.
Duel (Lat. duellum, from duo, two), a premeditated and prearranged combat between two persons with deadly weapons, for the purpose of deciding some private difference or quarrel. The combat generally takes place in the presence of witnesses called seconds, who make arrangements as to the mode of fighting, place the weapons in the hands of the combatants, and see that the laws they have laid down are carried out. The origin of the practice of duelling is referred to the trial by 'wager of battle' which obtained in early ages. This form of duel arose among the Germanic peoples, and a judicial combat of the kind was authorized by Gundebald, King of the Burgundians, as early as A.D. 501. When the judicial combat declined, the modern duel arose, being probably to some extent an independent outcome of the spirit and institutions of chivalry. France was the country in which it arose, the sixteenth century being the time at which it first became common, especially after the challenge of Francis I to Charles V in 1528. Upon every insult or injury which seemed to touch his honour, a gentleman thought himself entitled to draw his sword, and to call on his adversary to give him satisfaction, and it is calculated that 6000 persons fell in duels during ten years of the reign of Henri IV. His minister, Sully, remonstrated against the practice; but the king connived at it, supposing that it tended to maintain a military spirit among his people. In 1602, however, he issued a decree against it, and declared it to be punishable with death. Many subsequent prohibitions were issued, but they were all powerless to stop the practice. During the minority of Louis XIV, more than 4000 nobles are said to have lost their lives in duels. The practice of duelling was introduced into England from France in the reign of James I; but it was never so common as in the latter country. Cromwell was an enemy of the duel, and during the Protectorate there was a cessation of the practice. It came
again into vogue, however, after the Restoration, thanks chiefly to the French ideas that then inundated the court. As society became more polished duels became more frequent, and they were never more numerous than in the reign of George III. Among the principals in the chief duels of this period were Charles James Fox, Sheridan, Pitt, Canning, Castlereagh, the Duke of York, the Duke of Richmond, and Lord Camelford. The last mentioned was the most notorious duellist of his time, and was himself killed in a duel in 1804. A duel was fought between the Duke of Wellington and Lord Winchelsea in 1829, but the practice was dying out. It lasted longest in the army. By English law fatal duelling is considered murder, no matter how fair the combat may have been, and the seconds are liable to the same penalty as the principals. In 1813 the principal and seconds in a fatal duel were sentenced to death, though afterwards pardoned. An officer in the army having anything to do with a duel renders himself liable to be cashiered. In France duelling still prevails to a certain extent; but the combats are usually very bloodless and ridiculous affairs. In the German army until 1918 it was common, and was recognized by law. The duels of German students, so often spoken of, seldom cause serious bloodshed.—Bibliography: Millingen, History of Duelling; Steinmetz, Romance of Duelling; G. Letainturier-Fradin, Le duel à travers les âges; C. A. Thimm, Bibliography of Fencing and Duelling; A. Hutton, The Sword and the Centuries.
Duen´na, the chief lady-in-waiting on the Queen of Spain. In a more general sense, an elderly woman holding a middle station between a governess and companion, appointed to take charge of the young daughters of Spanish and Portuguese families.
Dufaure (du˙-fōr), Jules Armand Stanislas, French orator and statesman, born 1798, died 1881. He practised law at Bordeaux; entered the Chamber of Deputies in 1834, and became an influential leader of the Liberal party. Under the Republic he was Minister of the Interior, but was driven from the public service by the coup d'état of 1851, and for the next twenty years devoted himself closely to his Bar practice and pamphlet writing. Under the Government of Thiers he acted as Minister of Justice; and in 1876, and again from 1877 to 1879, he was head of the Cabinet.
Duff, Alexander, Scottish missionary, born 1806, died 1878. Educated at St. Andrews University, in 1829 he set out for India as the first Church of Scotland missionary to that country, and reached Calcutta after being twice shipwrecked. He opened a school in which he taught successfully the doctrines of Christianity, as well as general knowledge, but on his secession (along with the other missionaries of the Church) from the Church of Scotland in 1843, he had to give up the school and begin again. In 1849 he visited Scotland, where he remained until 1856. He assisted in founding the University of Calcutta, and, having been obliged to return home for reasons of health, he raised £10,000 to endow a missionary chair in the New College, Edinburgh, becoming himself its first occupant. His chief writings are: The Church of Scotland's India Mission (1835); Vindication of the Church of Scotland's India Mission (1837); India and India Missions (1840); The Jesuits (1845); and The Indian Mutiny: its Causes and Results (a series of letters published in 1858).
Duff, Sir Mountstuart Elphinstone Grant, writer on political and other subjects, born in Aberdeenshire in 1829, died in 1906. He was educated at Edinburgh Academy, The Grange, Bishop Wearmouth, and Balliol College, Oxford, was called to the Bar at the Inner Temple in 1854, and in 1857 entered the House of Commons as Liberal member for the Elgin Burghs, which constituency he continued to represent until 1881. He was Under-Secretary for India in W. E. Gladstone's ministry from 1868 to 1874, and Under-Secretary for the Colonies from 1880 to 1881, in which latter year he was appointed Governor of Madras. His Indian administration was most successful, and on his retirement in 1886 he was made a G.C.S.I. He was president of the Royal Geographical Society from 1889 to 1893, and of the Royal Historical Society from 1892 to 1899, and was also a trustee of the British Museum. His published works include: Studies in European Politics (1866); A Political Survey (1868); Elgin Speeches (1871); Notes of an Indian Journey (1876); Miscellanies, Political and Literary (1879); Memoir of Sir H. S. Maine (1892); Ernest Renan (1893); and Notes from a Diary (7 vols., 1897-1905).
Duff´erin and Ava, Frederick Temple Hamilton-Blackwood, Marquess of, British statesman and author, son of the fourth Baron Dufferin and a granddaughter of R. B. Sheridan, born at Florence 1826, died in 1902. He began his public services in 1855, when he was attached to Earl Russell's mission to Vienna. Subsequently he was sent as Commissioner to Syria in connection with the massacre of the Christians (1860); was Under-Secretary of State for India (1864-6); Under-Secretary for War (1866); Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (1868-72); Governor-General of Canada (1872-78); Ambassador at St. Petersburg (1879-81); at Constantinople (1882); sent to Cairo to settle the affairs of the country after Arabi Pasha's rebellion (1882-3); Viceroy of India (1884-8); Ambassador to Italy (1889-91); to France (1891-96). He
was elected president of the Royal Geographical Society in 1878, and Lord Rector of Glasgow University in 1891. Besides being a noted diplomatist, he was also a popular author. In 1847 he published Narrative of a Journey from Oxford to Skibbereen during the year of the Irish Famine; in 1860, Letters from High Latitudes; also various pamphlets on Irish questions. In 1888 he was made Marquess of Dufferin and Ava.—Cf. Sir A. Lyall, Life of the Marquess of Dufferin and Ava.
Dufrénoy (du˙-frė-nwä) Pierre Armand, French geologist and mineralogist, born in 1792, died in 1857. He became director of the school of mines, and published a great variety of papers on geology and mineralogy. In 1841 he published, in collaboration with Élie de Beaumont, a great geological map of France with three volumes of text, and this was followed by his Traité de Minéralogie. He introduced a new classification of minerals, based on crystallography.