of Lord Roxburgh’s marriage in 1615. Meanwhile had appeared, in 1605, Certain Small Poems, with the tragedy of Philotas; the latter was a study, in the same style as Cleopatra, written some five years earlier. This drama brought its author into difficulties, as Philotas, with whom he expressed some sympathy, was taken to represent Essex. In 1607, under the title of Certaine small Workes heretofore divulged by Samuel Daniel, the poet issued a revised version of all his works except Delia and the Civil Wars. In 1609 the Civil Wars had been completed in eight books. In 1612 Daniel published a prose History of England, from the earliest times down to the end of the reign of Edward III. This work afterwards continued, and published in 1617, was very popular with Drayton’s contemporaries. The section dealing with William the Conqueror was published in 1692 as being the work of Sir Walter Raleigh, apparently without sufficient grounds.
Daniel was made a gentleman-extraordinary and groom of the chamber to Queen Anne, sinecure offices which offered no hindrance to an active literary career. He was now acknowledged as one of the first writers of the time. Shakespeare, Selden and Chapman are named among the few intimates who were permitted to intrude upon the seclusion of a garden-house in Old Street, St Luke’s, where, Fuller tells us, he would “lie hid for some months together, the more retiredly to enjoy the company of the Muses, and then would appear in public to converse with his friends.” Late in life Daniel threw up his titular posts at court and retired to a farm called “The Ridge,” which he rented at Beckington, near Devizes in Wiltshire. Here he died on the 14th of October 1619.
The poetical writings of Daniel are very numerous, but in spite of the eulogies of all the best critics, they were long neglected. This is the more singular since, during the 18th century, when so little Elizabethan literature was read, Daniel retained his poetical prestige. In later times Coleridge, Charles Lamb and others expended some of their most genial criticisms on this poet. Of his multifarious works the sonnets are now, perhaps, most read. They depart from the Italian sonnet form in closing with a couplet, as is the case with most of the sonnets of Surrey and Wyat, but they have a grace and tenderness all their own. Of a higher order is The Complaint of Rosamond, a soliloquy in which the ghost of the murdered woman appears and bewails her fate in stanzas of exquisite pathos. Among the Epistles to Distinguished Persons will be found some of Daniel’s noblest stanzas and most polished verse. The epistle to Lucy, countess of Bedford, is remarkable among those as being composed in genuine terza rima, till then not used in English. Daniel was particularly fond of a four-lined stanza of solemn alternately rhyming iambics, a form of verse distinctly misplaced in his dramas. These, inspired it would seem by like attempts of the countess of Pembroke’s, are hard and frigid; his pastorals are far more pleasing; and Hymen’s Triumph is perhaps the best of all his dramatic writing. An extract from this masque is given in Lamb’s Dramatic Poets, and it was highly praised by Coleridge. In elegiac verse he always excelled, but most of all in his touching address To the Angel Spirit of the Most Excellent Sir Philip Sidney. We must not neglect to quote Musophilus among the most characteristic writings of Daniel. It is a dialogue between a courtier and a man of letters, and is a general defence of learning, and in particular of poetic learning as an instrument in the education of the perfect courtier or man of action. It is addressed to Fulke Greville, and written, with much sententious melody, in a sort of terza rima, or, more properly, ottava rima with the couplet omitted. Daniel was a great reformer in verse, and the introducer of several valuable novelties. It may be broadly said of his style that it is full, easy and stately, without being very animated or splendid. It attains a high average of general excellence, and is content with level flights. As a gnomic writer Daniel approaches Chapman, but is far more musical and coherent. He is wanting in fire and passion, but he is pre-eminent in scholarly grace and tender, mournful reverie.
Daniel’s works were edited by A. B. Grosart in 1885–1896. (E. G.)
DANIELL, JOHN FREDERIC (1700–1845), English chemist
and physicist, was born in London on the 12th of March 1790,
and in 1831 became the first professor of chemistry at the newly
founded King’s College, London. His name is best known for
his invention of the Daniell cell (Phil. Trans., 1836), still extensively
used for telegraphic and other purposes. He also
invented the dew-point hygrometer known by his name (Quar.
Journ. Sci., 1820), and a register pyrometer (Phil. Trans., 1830);
and in 1830 he erected in the hall of the Royal Society a water-barometer,
with which he carried out a large number of observations
(Phil. Trans., 1832). A process devised by him for the
manufacture of illuminating gas from turpentine and resin was
in use in New York for a time. His publications include Meteorological
Essays (1823), an Essay on Artificial Climate considered in
its Applications to Horticulture (1824), which showed the necessity
of a humid atmosphere in hothouses devoted to tropical plants,
and an Introduction to the Study of Chemical Philosophy (1839).
He died suddenly of apoplexy on the 13th of March 1845, in
London, while attending a meeting of the council of the Royal
Society, of which he became a fellow in 1813 and foreign secretary
in 1839.
DANIELL, THOMAS (1749–1840), English landscape painter,
was born at the Chertsey inn, kept by his father, in 1749, and
apprenticed to an heraldic painter. Daniell, however, was animated
with a love of the romantic and beautiful in architecture
and nature. Up to 1784 he painted topographical subjects and
flower pieces. By this time his two nephews (see below) had come
under his influence, the younger, Samuel, being apprenticed to
Medland the landscape engraver, and the elder, William, being
under his own care. In this year (1784) he embarked for India
accompanied by William, and found at Calcutta ample encouragement.
Here he remained ten years, and on returning to London
he published his largest work, Oriental Scenery, in six large
volumes, not completed till 1808. From 1795 till 1828 he
continued to exhibit Eastern subjects, temples, jungle hunts, &c.,
and at the same time continued the publication of illustrated
works. These are—Views of Calcutta; Oriental Scenery, 144
plates; Views in Egypt; Excavations at Ellora; Picturesque
Voyage to China. These were for the most part executed in
aquatint. He was elected an Academician in 1799, fellow of
the Royal Society about the same time, and at different times
member of several minor societies. His nephews both died before
him; his Indian period had made him independent, and he lived
a bachelor life in much respect at Kensington till his death on the
19th of March 1840.
William Daniell (1769–1837), his nephew, was fourteen when he accompanied his uncle to India. His own publications, engraved in aquatint, were—Voyage to India; Zoography; Animated Nature; Views of London; Views of Bootan, a work prepared from his uncle’s sketches; and a Voyage Round Great Britain, which occupied him several years. The British Institution made him an award of £100 for a “Battle of Trafalgar,” and he was elected R.A. in 1822. He turned to panorama painting before his death, beginning in 1832 with Madras, the picture being enlivened by a representation of the Hindu mode of taming wild elephants.
Samuel Daniell, William’s younger brother, was brought up as an engraver, and first appears as an exhibitor in 1792. A few years later he went to the Cape and travelled into the interior of Africa, with his sketching materials in his haversack. The drawings he made there were published, after his return, in his African Scenery. He did not rest long at home, but left for Ceylon in 1806, where he spent the remaining years of his life, publishing The Scenery, Animals and Natives of Ceylon.
DANNAT, WILLIAM T. (1853– ), American artist, was
born in New York city in 1853. He was a pupil of the Royal
Academy of Munich and of Munkacsy, and became an accomplished
draughtsman and a distinguished figure and portrait
painter. He early attracted attention with sketches and pictures
made in Spain, and a large composition, “The Quartette,” now
in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, was one of the
successes of the Paris Salon of 1884. Dannat settled in Paris,
