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# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Davis, Thomas Osborne

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​DAVIS, THOMAS OSBORNE (1814–1845), Irish poet and journalist, was born at Mallow, Co. Cork, on the 14th of October 1814. His father, James Thomas Davis, a surgeon in the royal artillery, who died in the month of his son’s birth, belonged to an English family of Welsh extraction, and his mother, Mary Atkins, belonged to a Protestant Anglo-Irish family. Davis graduated B.A. at Trinity College, Dublin, in 1836, and was called to the bar two years later. Brought up in an English and Tory circle, he was led to adopt nationalist views by the study of Irish history, a complicated subject in which text-books and the ordinary guides to knowledge were then lacking. In 1840 he made a speech appealing to Irish sentiment before the college historical society, which had been reorganized in 1839. With a view to indoctrinating the Irish people with the idea of nationality he joined John Blake Dillon in editing the Dublin Morning Register. The proprietor very soon dismissed him, and Davis saw that his propaganda would be ineffective if he continued to stand outside the national organization. He therefore announced himself a follower of Daniel O’Connell, and became an energetic worker (1841) on the committee of the repeal association. He helped Dillon and Charles Gavan Duffy to found the weekly newspaper, The Nation, the first number of which appeared on the 15th of October 1842. The paper was chiefly written by these three promoters, and its concentrated purpose and vigorous writing soon attracted attention. Davis, who had never written verse, was induced to attempt it for the new undertaking. The “Lament of Owen Roe O’Neill” was printed in the sixth number, and was followed by a series of lyrics that take a high place in Irish national poetry—“The Battle of Fontenoy,” “The Geraldines,” “Máire Bhán a Stoír” and many others. Davis contemplated a history of Ireland, an edition of the speeches of Irish orators, one volume of which appeared, and a life of Wolfe Tone. These projects remained incomplete, but Davis’s determination and continuous zeal made their mark on his party. Differences arose between O’Connell and the young writers of The Nation, and as time went on became more pronounced. Davis was accused of being anti-Catholic, and was systematically attacked by O’Connell’s followers. But he differed, said Sir Charles Gavan Duffy, from earlier and later Irish tribunes, “by a perfectly genuine desire to remain unknown, and reap neither recognition nor reward for his work.” His early death from scarlet fever (September 15th, 1845) deprived “Young Ireland” of its most striking personality.
His Poems and his Literary and Historical Essays were collected in 1846. There is an edition of his prose writings (1889) in the Camelot Classics. See the monograph on Thomas Davis by Sir Charles Gavan Duffy (1890, abridged ed. 1896), and the same writer’s Young Ireland (revised edition, 1896).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Davitt, Michael

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​DAVITT, MICHAEL (1846–1906), Irish Nationalist politician, son of a peasant farmer in Co. Mayo, was born on the 25th of March 1846. His father was evicted for non-payment of rent in 1851, and migrated to Lancashire, where at the age of ten the boy began work in a cotton mill at Haslingden. In 1857 he lost his right arm by a machinery accident, and he had to get employment as a newsboy and printer’s “devil.” He drifted into the ranks of the Fenian brotherhood in 1865, and in 1870 he was arrested for treason-felony in arranging for sending fire-arms into Ireland, and was sentenced to fifteen years’ penal servitude. After seven years he was released on ticket of leave. He at once rejoined the “Irish Republican Brotherhood,” and went to the United States, where his mother, herself of American birth, had settled with the rest of the family, in order to concert plans with the Fenian leaders there. Returning to Ireland he helped C. S. Parnell to start the Land League in 1879, and his violent speeches resulted in his re-arrest and consignment to Portland by Sir William Harcourt, then home secretary. He was released in 1882, but was again prosecuted for seditious speeches in 1883, and suffered three months’ imprisonment. He had been elected to parliament for Meath as a Nationalist in 1882, but being a convict was disqualified to sit. He was included as one of the respondents before the Parnell Commission (1888–1890) and spoke for five days in his own defence, but his prominent association with the revolutionary Irish schemes was fully established. (See Parnell.) He took the anti-Parnellite side in 1890, and in 1892 was elected to parliament for North Meath, but was unseated on petition. He was then returned for North-East Cork, but had to vacate his seat through bankruptcy, caused by the costs in the North Meath petition. In 1895 he was elected for West Mayo, but retired before the dissolution in 1900. He died on the 31st of May 1906, in Dublin. A sincere but embittered Nationalist, anti-English to the backbone, anti-clerical, and sceptical as to the value of the purely parliamentary agitation for Home Rule, Davitt was a notable representative of the survival of the Irish “physical force” party, and a strong link with the extremists in America. In later years his Socialistic Radicalism connected him closely with the Labour party. He wrote constantly in American and colonial journals, and published some books, always with the strongest bias against English methods; but his force of character earned him at least the respect of those who could make calm allowance for an open enemy of the established order, and a higher meed of admiration from those who sympathized with his objects or were not in a position to be threatened by them.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Davos

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​DAVOS (Romonsch Tavau, a name variously explained as meaning a sheep pasture or simply “behind”), a mountain valley in the Swiss canton of the Grisons, lying east of Coire (whence it is 40 m. distant by rail), and north-west of the Lower Engadine (accessible at Süs in 18 m. by road). It contains two main villages, 2 m. from each other, Dörfli and Platz (the chief hamlet), which are 5015 ft. above the sea-level, and had a population in 1900 of 8089, a figure exceeded in the Grisons only by the capital Coire. Of the population 5391 were Protestants, 2564 Romanists, and 81 Jews; while 6048 were German-speaking and 486 Romonsch-speaking. In 1860 the population was only 1705, rising to 2002 in 1870, to 2865 in 1880, to 3891 in 1888, and to 8089 in 1890. This steady increase is due to the fact that the valley is now much frequented in winter by consumptive patients, as its position, sheltered from cold winds and exposed to brilliant sunshine in the daytime, has a most beneficial effect on invalids in the first stages of that terrible disease. A local doctor, by name Spengler, first noticed this fact about 1865, and the valley soon became famous. It is now provided with excellent hotels, sanatoria, &c., but as lately as 1860 there was only one inn there, housed in the 16th-century Rathhaus (town hall), which is still adorned by the heads of wolves shot in the neighbourhood. At the north end of the valley is the fine lake of Davos, used for skating in the winter, while from Platz the splendidly engineered Landwasserstrasse leads (20 m.) down to the Alvaneubad station on the Albula railway from Coire to the Engadine.
We first hear of Tavaus or Tavauns in 1160 and 1213, as a mountain pasture or “alp.” It was then in the hands of a Romonsch-speaking population, as is shown by many surviving field names. But, some time between 1260 and 1282, a colony of German-speaking persons from the Upper Valais (first mentioned in 1289) was planted there by its lord, Walter von Vaz, so that it has long been a Teutonic island in the midst of a Romonsch-speaking population. Historically it is associated with the Prättigau or Landquart valley to the north, as it was the most important village of the region, and in 1436 became the capital of the League of the Ten Jurisdictions. (See Grisons.) It formerly contained many iron mines, and belonged from 1477 to 1649 to the Austrian Habsburgs. In 1779 Davos was visited and described by Archdeacon W. Coxe.  (W. A. B. C.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Dawari

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​DAWARI, or Dauri, a Pathan tribe on the Waziri border of the North-West Frontier Province of India. The Dawaris inhabit the Tochi Valley (q.v.), otherwise known as Dawar or Daur, and are a homogeneous tribe of considerable size, numbering 5200 fighting men. Though surrounded on all four sides by a Waziri population they bear little resemblance to Waziris. They are an agricultural and the Waziris a pastoral race, and they are much richer than their neighbours. They thrive on a rich sedimentary soil copiously irrigated in the midst of a country where cultivable land of any kind is scarce and water in general hardly to be obtained. But they pay a heavy tax in health and well-being for the possession of their fertile acres. Fevers and other ravaging diseases are bred in the wet sodden lands of the Tochi Valley, lying at the bottom of a deep depression exposed to the burning rays of the sun; and the effects of these ailments may be clearly traced in the drawn or bloated features and the shrunken or swollen limbs of nearly every Dawari that has passed middle life. They have an evil name for indolence, drug-eating and unnatural vices, and are morally the lowest of the Afghan races; but in spite of these defects, and of the contempt with which they are regarded by the other Afghan tribes, they have held their own for centuries against the warlike and hardy Waziris. The secret of this is that the Dawaris stand together, and the Waziris do not, while the weaker race is gifted with infinite patience and tenacity of purpose. With the advent of British government, however, the Dawaris are now secured in the possession of their ancestral lands.
See J. G. Lorimer, Grammar and Vocabulary of Waziri Pushtu (1902).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Davis Strait

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​DAVIS STRAIT, the broad strait which separates Greenland from North America, and connects Baffin Bay with the open Atlantic. At its narrowest point, which occurs just where the Arctic Circle crosses it, it is nearly 200 m. wide. This part is also the shallowest, a sounding of 112 fathoms being found in the centre, whereas the depth increases rapidly both to north and to south. Along the western shore (Baffin Land) a cold current passes southward; but along the east there is a warm northward stream, and there are a few Danish settlements on the Greenland coast. The strait takes its name from the explorer John Davis.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Davison, William

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​DAVISON, WILLIAM (c. 1541–1608), secretary to Queen Elizabeth, was of Scottish descent, and in 1566 acted as secretary to Henry Killigrew (d. 1603), when he was sent into Scotland by Elizabeth on a mission to Mary, queen of Scots. Remaining in that country for about ten years, Davison then went twice to the Netherlands on diplomatic business, returning to England in 1586 to defend the hasty conduct of his friend, Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester. In the same year he became member of parliament for Knaresborough, a privy councillor, and assistant to Elizabeth’s secretary, Thomas Walsingham; but he soon appears to have acted rather as the colleague than the subordinate of Walsingham. He was a member of the commission appointed to try Mary, queen of Scots, although he took no part in its proceedings. When sentence was passed upon Mary the warrant for her execution was entrusted to Davison, who, after some delay, obtained the queen’s signature. On this occasion, and also in subsequent interviews with her secretary, Elizabeth suggested that Mary should be executed in some more secret fashion, and her conversation afforded ample proof that she disliked to take upon herself any responsibility for the death of her rival. Meanwhile, the privy council having been summoned by Lord Burghley, it was decided to carry out the sentence at once, and Mary was beheaded on the 8th of February 1587. When the news of the execution reached Elizabeth she was extremely indignant, and her wrath was chiefly directed against Davison, who, she asserted, had disobeyed her instructions not to part with the warrant. The secretary was arrested and thrown into prison, but, although he defended himself vigorously, he did not say anything about the queen’s wish to get rid of Mary by assassination. Charged before the Star Chamber with misprision and contempt, he was acquitted of evil intention, but was sentenced to pay a fine of 10,000 marks, and to imprisonment during the queen’s pleasure; but owing to the exertions of several influential men he was released in 1589. The queen, however, refused to employ him again in her service, and he retired to Stepney, where he died in December 1608. Davison appears to have been an industrious and outspoken man, and was undoubtedly made the scapegoat for the queen’s pusillanimous conduct. By his wife, Catherine Spelman, he had a family of four sons and two daughters. Two of his sons, Francis and Walter, obtained some celebrity as poets.
Many state papers written by him, and many of his letters, are extant in various collections of manuscripts. See Sir N. H. Nicolas, Life of W. Davison (London, 1823); J. A. Froude, History of England (London, 1881 fol.); Calendar of State Papers 1580–1609; and Correspondence of Leicester during his Government of the Low Countries, edited by J. Bruce (London, 1844).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Fork

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​FORK (Lat. furca), an implement formed of two or more prongs at the end of a shaft or handle, the most familiar type of which is the table-fork for use in eating. In agriculture and horticulture the fork is used for pitching hay, and other green crops, manure, &c.; commonly this has two prongs, “tines”; for digging, breaking up surface soil, preparing for hand weeding and for planting the three-pronged fork is used. The word is also applied to many objects which are characterized by branching ends, as the tuning-fork, with two branching metal prongs, which on being struck vibrates and gives a musical note, used to give a standard of pitch; to the branching into two streams of a river, or the junction where a tributary runs into the main river; and in the human body, to that part where the legs branch off from the trunk.
The furca, two pieces of wood fastened together in the form of the letter Λ, was used by the Romans as an instrument of punishment. It was placed over the shoulders of the criminal, and his hands were fastened to it, condemned slaves were compelled to carry it about with them, and those sentenced to be flogged would be tied to it; crucifixions were sometimes carried out on a similar shaped instrument. From the great defeat of the Romans by the Samnites at the battle of the Caudine Forks (Furculae Caudinae), a narrow gorge, where the vanquished were compelled to pass under the yoke (jugum), as a sign of submission, the expression “to pass through or under the forks” has been loosely used of such a disgraceful surrender. The “forks” in any allusion to this defeat should refer to the topographical name and not to the jugum, which consisted of two upright spears with a third placed transversely as a cross-bar.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Forlimpopoli

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​FORLIMPOPOLI (anc. Forum Popillii), a village of Emilia, Italy, in the province of Forlì, from which it is 5 m. S.E. by rail, 105 ft. above sea-level. Pop. (1901) 2299 (town); 5795 (commune). The ancient Forum Popillii, a station on the Via Aemilia, was destroyed by Grimuald in 672. Whether its site is occupied by the present town is not certain; the former should perhaps be sought a mile or so farther to the S.E., where were found most of the inscriptions of which the place of discovery is certain. Forlimpopoli was again destroyed by Cardinal Albornoz in 1360, and rebuilt by Sinibaldo Ordelaffi, who constructed the well-preserved medieval castle (1380), rectangular with four circular towers at the corners.  (T. As.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Forman, Andrew

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​FORMAN, ANDREW (c. 1465–1521), Scottish ecclesiastic, was educated at the university of St Andrews and entered the service of King James IV. about 1489. He soon earned the favour of this king, who treated him with great generosity and who on several occasions sent him on important embassies to the English, the French and the papal courts. In 1501 he became bishop of Moray and in July 1513 Louis XII. of France secured his appointment as archbishop of Bourges, while pope Julius II. promised to make him a cardinal. In 1514 during a long absence from his own land Forman was nominated by Pope Leo X. to the vacant archbishopric of St Andrews and was made papal legate in Scotland, but it was some time before he secured possession of ​the see owing to the attempts of Henry VIII. to subject Scotland to England and to the efforts of his rivals, Gavin Douglas, the poet, and John Hepburn, prior of St Andrews, and their supporters. Eventually, however, he resigned some of his many benefices, the holding of which had made him unpopular, and through the good offices of the regent, John Stewart, duke of Albany, obtained the coveted archbishopric and the primacy of Scotland. Afterwards he was one of the vice-regents of the kingdom and he died on the 11th of March 1521. As archbishop he issued a series of constitutions which are printed in J. Robertson’s Concilia Scotiae (1866). Mr Andrew Lang (History of Scotland, vol. i.) describes Forman as “the Wolsey of Scotland, and a fomenter of the war which ended at Flodden.”
See the biography of the archbishop which forms vol. ii. of The Archbishops of St Andrews, by J. Herkless and R. K. Hannay (1909).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Forlorn Hope

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​FORLORN HOPE (through Dutch verloren hoop, from Ger. verlorene Haufe = “lost troop”; Haufe, “heap,” being equivalent in the 17th century to “body of troops”; the French ​equivalent is enfants perdus), a military term (sometimes shortened to “forlorn”), used in the 16th and 17th centuries for a body of troops thrown out in front of the line of battle to engage the hostile line, somewhat after the fashion of skirmishers, though they were always solid closed bodies. These troops ran great risks, because they were often trapped between the two lines of battle as the latter closed upon one another, and fired upon or ridden down by their friends; further, their mission was to facilitate the attacks of their own main body by striking the first blow against or meeting the first shock of the fresh and unshaken enemy. In the following century (18th), when lines of masses were no longer employed, a thin line of skirmishers alone preceded the three-deep line of battle, but the term “forlorn hope” continued to be used for picked bodies of men entrusted with dangerous tasks, and in particular for the storming party at the assault of a fortress. In this last sense “forlorn hope” is often used at the present time. The misunderstanding of the word “hope” has led to various applications of “forlorn hope,” such as to an enterprise offering little chance of success, or, further still from the original meaning, to the faint or desperate hope of such success.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Forkel, Johann Nikolaus

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​FORKEL, JOHANN NIKOLAUS (1749–1818), German musician, was born on the 22nd of February 1749 at Meeder in Coburg. He was the son of a cobbler, and as a practical musician, especially as a pianoforte player, achieved some eminence; but his claims to a more abiding name rest chiefly upon his literary skill and deep research as an historian of musical science and literature. He was an enthusiastic admirer of J. S. Bach, whose music he did much to popularize. His library, which was accumulated with care and discrimination at a time when rare books were cheap, forms a valuable portion of the royal library in Berlin and also of the library of the Königlicher Institut für Kirchenmusik. He was organist to the university church of Göttingen, obtained the degree of doctor of philosophy, and in 1778 became musical director of the university. He died at Göttingen on the 20th of March 1818. The following is a list of his principal works: Über die Theorie der Musik (Göttingen, 1777); Musikalisch kritische Bibliothek (Gotha, 1778); Allgemeine Geschichte der Musik (Leipzig, 1788). The last is his most important work. He also wrote a Dictionary of Musical Literature, which is full of valuable material. To his musical compositions, which are numerous, little interest is to-day to be attached. But it is worth noting that he wrote variations on the English national anthem “God save the king” for the clavichord, and that Abt Vogler wrote a sharp criticism on them, which appeared at Frankfort in 1793 together with a set of variations as he conceived they ought to be written.