country, he was ordained priest in the Greek church, and appointed an archimandrite by his relation Melitius Piga, at that time possessing a dignity equivalent with that of grand vicar, and afterwards patriarch of Alexandria; by whom he was sent into Lithuania, where he opposed the union that was projected between the Lutheran and Romish churches. Being accused by his enemies, on this occasion, of his ftrong bias towards lutheranism, he published a confession of his faith, in which he vindicated himself from that charge. On the death of his patron and relation, Piga, he succeeded him in the patriarchate of Alexandria, in which city he resided for some years, governing his church with prudence and mildness. In the year 1621 he was appointed patriarch of Constantinople. When in this situation, he had the courage to declare his inclination towards the religious sentiments of the protestant reformed churches, and his wish to render the doctrines and rituals of the Greeks more conformable than they are at present to the purity and simplicity of the gospel. This degree of liberality, however, was too exalted for the times and circumstances in which he was placed, and excited the violent opposition of the bigotted members of his own communion, who were joined by the friends of the Romish church, by whom his conduct in Lithuania was not forgotten, nor forgiven. By their united intrigues at the Porte, he was deposed from the patriarchate, and exiled to Rhodes. Through the influence of the English embassador he was afterwards reinstated in that dignity; when he had the resolution again to prosecute the measures which he had formerly conceived, for introducing a gradual reformation into the Greek church. But the renewed opposition which he met with, and the artifices of his enemies, proved too powerful and successful to be withstood by him, and ultimately accomplished his ruin. For, after being perplexed and persecuted by them in various ways, he was at length accused, by false witnesses, of high-treason against the state, and put to death, by an order of the grand seignior, in the year 1638. His confession of faith was published in Holland, in 1645, and is inserted, together with twenty-seven letters from the patriarch to the clergy of Geneva, and to other doctors of the reformed church, in M. Aymon's Munimens authentiques de la Religion des Grecs. Farther particulars of this respectable prelate may be obtained from Smith's Narratio de Vita, Studiis, Gestis, & Martyrio Cyrilli-Lucaris, in his Miscellania, 8vo. 1686. Moreri. Nouv. Mash. Hist. Eccl. Sac. XVII.-M. CYRILLO, or CIRILLO, DOMINICO, a cele

Dict. Hist.

brated physician, was born in Grumo, in the neighbourhood of Naples, about the year 1730.. He was scarcely twenty-five years of age, when he was appointed professor of botany in the university of Naples, and it was on that occasion he published his first work, "Introductio ad Botanicam." The next year, Mr. Cyrillo being introduced, in his capacity of physician, to lady Walpole, when travelling through Italy, he attended her in her return to London. Here he assisted at Dr. Hunter's lectures, and was honoured with a fellowship in the Royal Society. On his return to Naples, he occupied the first medical chair in the university; and from that time he communicated many useful discoveries to the Neapolitan Academy, to the Institute of Bologna, to the Royal Society, and, most of all, to the Gazzetta Civica of Naples. His metaphysical work, "Meditazioni Filosofiche," is little known out of Italy.. In the year 1783 he published his great work, "Plante Rariores Regni Neapolitani," or The Description of many rare Species of Plants never noticed before, among which is the convolvulus stoloniferus, so much spoken of by the continental reviewers. Mr. Cyrillo was also an accomplished moral character. During the short reign of the Parthenopean republic, he was a member of the legislature; and when Naples was reconquered by the ferocious bands of cardinal Ruffo, he was condemned to death as guilty of high-treason. Lord Nelson, and sir William Hamilton, then in Naples, who were intimately acquainted with him, offered their intercession to procure him pardon from his Sicilian majesty. Mr. Cyrillo thanked them for their generous offer, and declared, that he was too good a patriot to accept of any grace from a tyrant. Accordingly, he was executed in the month of July, 1799, about seventy years of age.-D.

CYRUS, king of Persia, a great conqueror, of ancient fame, but whose true history is involved in much obscurity, was the son of Cambyses, and is supposed to have been born about B.C. 599. There are only two Greek writers who can be called original authorities concerning his life and actions, Herodotus and Xenophon, and these differ so widely, that they cannot be reconciled. The authority of the first has been generally preferred, and apparently with justice; for, though his account is intermixed with narrations strongly tinctured with fable, yet real history was probably his aim; whereas the very purpose of Xenophon has always been understood to be that of composing a sort of didactic romance, or a philosophical institute of regal government. Following Herodotus, therefore, we may admit that Astyages king of the

nations, with a considerable flect, he proceeded eastwards, and he had arrived at Tarsus, in Cilicia, before his army knew whither he was marching them. The Greeks then suspected his real intentions, and refused to advance further. Through the influence of Clearchus, and magnificent promises, they were at last persuaded to proceed against the Great King, and all the force of the Persian empire, now alarm ed, and prepared for resistance. Cyrus ingratiated himself with his troops on the march, by extraordinary kindness and affability; indeed he seems to have been particularly attached to the Greek nation, from which he had chosen his favourite concubine, the charming Aspasian (see her article). On the plains of Cunaxa, in the province of Babylon, he came in sight of Artaxerxes at the head of a host, which is numbered at 900,000 men. Cyrus disdained the advice of Clearchus, to remain in the rear of the Greeks, but posted himself in the van. The

Greeks easily overthrew all that opposed them, and their success appeared so decisive, that he was saluted king by those around him. Eut perceiving the horse guards of Artaxerxes wheeling about to attack him, he made a furious charge upon them with 600 chosen cavalry, and with his own hand killed their captain. His brother's person was now exposed to view; and Cyrus exclaiming "I see him," rushed on to the encounter with all the fury of fraternal hatred and rivalry. He unhorsed the king, twice wounded him, and was about to repeat the stroke, when he fell under a shower of darts. The king himself boasted of giving him his. death-wound, though a Carian soldier, and a. Persian nobleman, also claimed that honour The friends of Cyrus refused to survive him, and were slain by his side. This battle is sup-posed to have been fought B.C. 400. Xenophon Exped, Cyr. Plutarch in Vit. Artaxerx.-A

1

DACIER,

ANDREW, a man of letters, was the son of a protestent advocate in the chamber of the edict at Castres, where he was born in 1651. He studied in the college of his native place till its direction was given exclusively to the Jesuits, and afterwards removed to Saumur, where he completed his education under the celebrated Tannegui le Fevre. He formed an attachment to the learned daughter of his tutor, whom he married in 1683; and two years afterwards they both renounced Calvinism, and conformed to the Roman-catholic faith. He became known to the learned world, in 1681, by his Delphin editions of "Pompeius Festus,' and "Verrius Flaccus ;" and in the same year he published a new prose translation of Horace, with critical remarks, which were greatly augmented in the edition of 1709, in ten volumes, 12mo. This translation, though heavy and ungraceful, was much read, which Boileau attributes to the curiosity he himself had excited in the French public with respect to Horace's epistles and satires by his own imitations of them. Some of Dacier's singular interpretations of passages in his author, were called by that satirist "the revelations of M. Dacier." Boileau, however, esteemed our critic's observations on Longinus sufficiently to annex them to his own translation of that author. Dacier proceeded in his course of editing and translating the ancients, being constantly aided in his labours by his learned spouse, with whom he lived in perfect union of heart and mind. He was admitted into the Academy of Inscriptions, and the French Academy, in 1695, and was elected perpetual secretary to the latter. He had also the post of keeper of the cabinet of the Louvre. He died in 1722. Dacier has the character of possessing more learning than taste; and it has been said of him, that he understood every thing of the ancients except their elegance and delicacy. He was an enthusiast in favour of every author whom he

translated or commented, and would not admit the least defect in them. He was an outrageous opponent of Perrault in the famous dispute concerning the merit of the ancients and the moderns, but he did little honour to his favour ites by his displays of the taste which he had imbibed from them. Boileau used to say, that the ancients had more cause to complain of their translator, Dacier, than of their traducer, Perrault. Besides the works above mentioned, he published translations, with notes, of "The Meditations of Marcus Antoninus;" "The Poetics of Aristotle," "The Oedipus and Electra of Sophocles;" parts of the works of "Hippocrates," and "Plato;" "The Works and Lives of Pythagoras and Hierocles ;" "The Manual of Epictetus;" and "The Lives of Plutarch," in the translation of which Mad. Dacier bore a part. He likewise had a share in the "Medallic History of Lewis XIV." for which he received a pension. Moreri. Nouv. Dict. Hist.-A.

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DACIER, ANNE LE FEVRE, wife of the preceding, daughter of Tannegui le Fevre, was born at Saumur, in 1651. She was carefully educated in classical erudition by her learned father, and became known to the literary world in 1674 by a valuable edition of " Callimachus." She afterwards wrote learned commentaries on various authors in usum Delphini; "Florus," "Aurelius Victor," "Eutropius," and "Dictys Cretensis." It is related that one of her early works, dedicated to the king, could not be presented to him, on account of the aversion he openly expressed against all his subjects of the protestant religion, till the duke de Montausier honourably undertook the office of her introducer; and being reprimanded by the king for his protection of a proscribed sect, none of whom, he declared, should have permission to dedicate their works to him, the duke, in very spirited language, expostulated with his majesty for this narrow bigotry, and

added, that he should send mademoiselle le Fevre a hundred pistoles in the king's name, which he might repay or not, as he thought proper, (D'Alembert, Eloge de Flechier.) Soon after her marriage with M. Dacier, however, the couple thought it advisable to remove all obstacles to court favour by conforming to the established religion; but whatever might be the original motive of the conversion, Mad. Dacier, by her subsequent conduct, never gave reason to doubt of the sincerity of her piety. She was remarkably charitable to the poor, even when in straitened circumstances; and displayed in all the emergencies of life great firmness of mind, and all the virtues of her sex. Her literary reputation did not inspire her with presumption; yet perhaps there was more affected than real modesty in the circumstance of her writing in the album of a German baron, a line of Sophocles, declaring that "silence is the proper ornament of a woman;" since she had not scrupled to speak by her publications to all the literati in Europe. She was more consistent when, upon being solicited to publish some remarks she had drawn up on the Scriptures, she quoted the precept of St Paul for the silence of females on such topics; for in fact she kept them to herself. Probably, they might not have been entirely correspondent to her new faith. Mad. Dacier had as much pedantic attachment to the ancients as her husband had, and could as little endure attacks upon them. She undertook the defence of Sappho's moral conduct; and in reply to some known stories against her which Boileau hinted at in conversation, she coolly said, that "Sappho had her enemies." Her prose translation of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, in the learned notes to which she vindicates the old bard from every charge that has been made against him, drew on the dispute between her and La Motte. In the controversy on this topic, Mad. Dacier is said to have written like a man of erudition, and her antagonist like an ingenious lady. To the warm invectives of the female critic, he only replied by cool argument and pleasantry. He compared her railings to "those charming Greek particles, which signify nothing, and which are yet alleged to add so much more force and beauty to Homer's verse." It is, however, asserted, that the rudeness of Mad. Dacier in her literary encounters has been exaggerated; and she certainly wrote with more elegance than her husband. She had composed a dissertation to prove, that the Amphytrion of Plautus was much superior to its imitation by Moliere; but hearing that this comic writer was about to

produce his Femmes Sçavantes, she suppressed her piece. In the occurrences of domestic life she exhibited great constancy of mind, which was tried by the loss of a son of great hopes, and of a darling daughter. She herself died, much esteemed and regretted, in 1720. Her works, besides those which have been mentioned, are, "A Translation of three Comedies of Plautus, with Notes, and a preliminary Dissertation on the ancient Stage" "A Translation of the Comedies of Terence, with Notes ;" "A Translation of the Plutus and Clouds of Aristophanes ;""A Translation of Anacreon, and the Remains of Sappho;" "Considerations on the Causes of the Corruption of Taste," this is the work against La Motte; "Homer defended against the Apology of F. Hardouin." Her version of Homer was reprinted in 1756, in eight volumes 12mo. Moreri. Nouv. Dict. Hist. Eloges Academ. par d'Alembert.-A.

DAGOBERT I. king of France, born in 602, was son of Clotaire II. His father sent him at an carly age to reside at Metz, and take upon himself the government of Austrasia, assisted by Arnoul bishop of Metz, and Pepin mayor of the palace. At his father's death in 628 he succeeded to his other kingdoms of Neustria and Burgundy, obliging his younger brother Aribert, or Caribert, to be contented with an apanage in Aquitain. He himself began his reign with paying great attention to the duties of his station, being easy of access, rendering justice to all, visiting the principal cities of his dominions, and causing law and good order to prevail. In the sequel, however, he became dissolute, particularly with regard to women. He repudiated his first wife on pretext of barrenness, and took two more, besides a number of concubines; and he supported his expences by means of imposts, confiscations, and usurpations. He was engaged in a war with the Sclavonians on the banks of the Danube, called Vinides, who had chosen for their chief Samon, originally a French merchant. They were at first victorious, and made ravages on the frontiers, being faintly resisted by the Austrasians, who were become disaffected to Dagobert's government. In order to gain them, he sent his eldest son, Sigebert, then a child, to reside among them as their king, and thenceforth the incursions of the Sclavonians were. repressed. Dagobert was led by his apprehensions to order the cruel massacre of 9000 Bulgarians, who had put themselves under his protection in Bavaria. He assisted Sisenand to ascend the Gothic throne of Spain; and he