Dulse, a red sea-weed, the Rhodymenia palmāta, used in some parts of Scotland as an edible. It has a reddish-brown, or purple, leathery, veinless frond, several inches long, and is found at low water adhering to the rocks. It is an important plant to the Icelanders, and is stored by them in casks to be eaten with fish. In Kamchatka a fermented liquor is made from it. In the south of England the name is given to the Iridæa edūlis, also an edible red sea-weed.
Duluth (du-luth´), a town of the United States,
capital of St. Louis county, Minnesota, at the south-west extremity of Lake Superior. The Northern Pacific and Lake Superior and Mississippi railways terminate here; and extensive docks and other works have been constructed, affording a convenient outlet for the surrounding wheat region. Pop. 97,077.
Dulwich (dul´ich), a suburb of London, in County Surrey, about 5 miles south of London Bridge, giving name to a parliamentary division of the borough of Camberwell; noticeable on account of its school, Dulwich College, called the 'College of God's Gift,' founded as a charitable institution in 1619 by the actor Edward Allen or Alleyn. Four parishes were benefited by the charity: St. Luke's, Middlesex; St. Botolph's, Bishopsgate; St. Saviour's, Southwark; and St. Giles', Camberwell. Having outlived its usefulness, in 1857 an Act was passed by which the college was reconstituted. It now consists of two branches, the educational and the eleemosynary, between which the surplus revenue is divided in the proportion of three-fourths to the former and one-fourth to the latter. The educational branch comprises two schools, the upper and the lower; the former giving boys a high-class education (lower fees for those of the privileged parishes), and having a number of scholarships and exhibitions. The eleemosynary branch maintains a certain number of resident and non-resident poor people. The original revenues were only £800, but now amount to £20,000. Dulwich College is celebrated for its pictures, many of which were bequeathed by the founder; but the greater and more valuable portion of them was the bequest of Sir Francis Bourgeois, a landscape-painter, who died in 1810. The collection includes many fine pictures of the Dutch school.
Duma, or Douma, the Lower House of the former Russian Parliament, the Upper House being the Council of the Empire. In 1905 Tsar Nicholas II granted his country a Constitution, promising that responsible Government would be established, and that no law would be made effective without the consent of the Duma. The first Duma accordingly met in 1906, and was to have had the power of a Parliament in Constitutional countries. The Legislative Assembly could make new laws, modify existing ones, issue the national Budget, &c., but had no right to alter the fundamental laws of the empire. In spite of the promises, however, given by the Tsar, the Imperial Government paid no attention to the demands of the Assembly, and when the criticisms of the Deputies became too loud, the first Duma was dissolved. A second Duma assembled the next year, but its members, in consequence of governmental restrictions on elections, were mostly Conservatives. In the opinion of the Government, however, even the second Duma was too Liberal in its tendencies, and it was promptly dissolved. The third Duma, which met in 1907, and whose members were mostly landed proprietors, retired officers, and priests, was absolutely subservient to the autocratic Government, and, from that date to the outbreak of the Russian Revolution in 1917, the power and influence of the Russian Duma were almost nil. The Duma ceased to exist on 7th Nov., 1917, when the Bolsheviks came into power, and the Government of Commissaries of the People was set up.
Dumas (du˙-mä), Alexandre (called Dumas Père), French novelist and dramatist, born at Villers-Cotterets 1803, died at Puys, near Dieppe, 1870. He was the son of a republican general, and grandson of the Marquis de la Pailleterie and a negress, Tiennette Dumas. In 1823 he went to Paris, and obtained an assistant-secretaryship from the Duke of Orleans, afterwards Louis Philippe. He soon began to write for the stage, and in 1829 scored his first success with his drama Henri III et sa cour. It was produced when the battle between the Romanticists and the Classicists was at its height, and hailed as a triumph by the former school. The same year appeared his Christine, and in quick succession Antony, Richard d'Arlington, Térésa, La Tour de Nesle, Catharine Howard, and Mlle de Belle-Isle. Dumas had now become a noted Parisian character. The critics fought over the merits of his pieces, and the scandal-mongers over his prodigality and galanteries. Turning his attention to romance, he produced a series of historical romances, among which may be mentioned: Le bâtard de Mauléon; Isabelle de Bavière; Les Deux Dianes; La Reine Margot; Les Trois Mousquetaires, with its continuations Vingt Ans Après and the later Vicomte de Bragelonne. His Monte-Cristo and several others are also well known to English readers through translations. Several historical works were also written by him: Louis XIV et son Siècle, Le Regent et Louis XV, Le Drame de '93, Florence et les Médicis, &c. The works which bear his name amount to some 1200 volumes, including about 60 dramas; but the only claim he could lay to a great number of the productions issued under his name was that he either sketched the plot or revised them before going to press. He earned vast sums of money, but his recklessness and extravagance eventually reduced him to the adoption of a shifty, scheming mode of living. His Mémoires, begun in 1852, present interesting sketches of literary life during the Restoration, but display intense egotism. In 1860 he accompanied Garibaldi in the expedition which freed Naples from the Bourbons. He died at the residence of his son, and was buried in Villers-Cotterets in
1872. Dumas was remarkable for his creative rather than for his artistic genius, and although he frequently squandered his gifts, he was admired even by the highly cultured, such as Thackeray and others.—Bibliography: H. Blaze de Bury, Alexandre Dumas: sa vie, son temps, son œuvre; A. B. Davidson, Alexandre Dumas père: his Life and Works.
Dumas, Alexandre, son of the above, born 1824, died in 1895, novelist and dramatist. His works treat mostly of the relations between vice and morals. His first novels, La Dame aux Camélias and Diane de Lys, were very successful, as were also the plays which were founded on them. His dramas, which are much superior to his novels, deal satirically with the characters, follies, and manners of French society. He was thus a pioneer in the 'comedy of manners'. His plays, besides his dramatized novel La Dame aux Camélias, which marked a date in the history of the French stage, and which supplied Verdi with the plot for La Traviata, are: Le demi-monde, Le fils naturel, L'Ami des femmes, La princesse Georges, and L'Étrangère.
Dumas, Matthieu, French soldier and military writer, born in 1753, died in Paris 1837. He early entered the French cavalry, took part in the War of American Independence, and was employed in the Levant and in Holland. At the commencement of the Revolution he assisted Lafayette in organizing the National Guard. On the triumph of the extreme party in 1797 Dumas was proscribed, but made his escape to Holstein, where he wrote the first part of his Précis des Événements Militaires, a valuable source for the history of the period of which it treats (1798-1807). He was recalled from exile by Napoleon, who had become First Consul. His first employment was to organize the reserve for the army of Italy. In 1802 he was appointed State Councillor; in 1805 he became general of division, and was shortly afterwards Neapolitan minister in the service of Joseph Bonaparte. In 1808 he was actively employed in the arrangements for the war against Austria, fought in the battles of Essling and Wagram, and arranged the terms of the armistice of Znaim. He held the office of General Intendant of the army in the campaign of 1812. After the Restoration Louis XVIII appointed him Councillor of State, and gave him several important appointments connected with the army. In 1830 he aided in bringing on the revolution of July, and after the fall of Charles X he obtained the chief command of all the national guards of France, together with a peerage. He published a translation of Napier's History of the Peninsular War.
Du Maurier (du˙-mō´ri-ā), George Louis Palmella Busson, artist and writer, was born in Paris 1834, died in 1896. He was the son of an English mother and a Frenchman who had been naturalized as a British subject. At the age of seventeen he took up the study of chemistry in London, but soon adopted art as a profession. After studying in Belgium and France, he returned to London, and soon began to contribute drawings to Punch, Once a Week, Cornhill Magazine, &c. He succeeded Leech on Punch, and became famous chiefly through his drawings for that publication. He also illustrated various books, and wrote three novels, Trilby, Peter Ibbetson, and The Martian. His elder son, Guy Du Maurier, born in 1865, killed in France in 1915, was the author of An Englishman's Home (1909).