Théodore

Bry. Decameron (de-kam'e-ron). [It. Il Decame rone ; from Gr. δέκα , ten, and ἡμέρα , day.] A famous collection of 100 tales, by Boccaccio, published in 1353. Of these tales ten are represented as told each day for ten days, near Florence, during the plague of 1348. They were written from 1344 to 1350, and are preceded by a masterly description of the plague at Florence. They range from the pathetic to the gro ly licentious. "There are few works which have had an equal influence on literature with the Decameron of Boccaccio. Even in England its effects were powerful. From it Chaucer adopted the notion of the frame in which he has inclosed his tales, and the general manner of his stories, while in some instances, as we have seen, he has merely versified the novels of the Italian. In 1566, William Paynter printed many of Boccaccio's stories in English, in his work called the Palace of Pleasure.' This first translation contained sixty novels, and it was soon followed by another volume, comprehending thirty-four additional tales. These are the pages of which Shakspere made so much From Burton's 'Anatomy of Melancholy' we learn use. that one of the great amusements of our ancestors was reading Boccaccio aloud, an entertainment of which the ef fects were speedily visible in the literature of the country." Dunlop , Hist. Prose Fiction, II. 148. Decius 22, 1820. An American naval officer, son of Stephen Decatur. He entered the navy as a midshipman in 1798, and became a lieutenant in 1799. He gained distinction in the Tripoli tan war by surprising and burning in the harbor of Tripoli, Feb, 16, 1804, the frigate Philadelphia, which had been captured by the enemy. For this exploit he was promoted captain, his commi ion being made to date from Feb. 15, 1804. At the beginning of the war of 1812 he commanded the frigate United States, which captured the British frigate Maced on i an Oct. 25, 1812. Attempting, Jan. 15, 1815, to leave the port of New York, which was blockaded by the British, his ve el, the Presi dent, was pursued by four British ve els, and after a sharp engagement with the Endymion compelled to surrender. He commanded in 1815 the expedition against the Dey of Algiers, who was forced to renounce all claims to tribute from the United States. He was killed in a duel with James Barron. Decazes (de-käz'), Élie, Duc. Born at St. Mar tin-de-Laye, Gironde, France, Sept. 28, 1780: died at Decazeville, France, Oct. 25, 1860. A French jurist and statesman. He became minister of police Sept. 24, 1815, and premier and minister of the interior in 1818. He resigned in 1820, and became amba ador at London. He was raised to a hereditary dukedom in the same year, and founded Decazeville about 1827. Decazes, Louis Charles Elie Amanieu, Duc. Born at Paris, May 9, 1819: died at his Château La Grave, Gironde, Sept. 16, 1886. A French statesman, eldest son of Elie Decazes. He was minister of foreign affairs 1873-77. Decazeville (de-käz-vēl'). A town in the department of Aveyron, France, in lat. 44° 33′ N., long. 2o 13′ E. It is noted for iron manu factures, and is the center of the Aveyron coal-fields. Population (1891), commune, 8,871. Deccan (dek'kan), or Dekhan (dek'han). [Hind. dakshin , the south.] A non-official designation for the peninsular portion of India lying south of the river Nerbudda, between the Bay of Bengal on the east and the Arabian Sea on the west; in a restricted sense, the country between the Nerbudda on the north and the Krishna on the south. Decebalus (de-seb'a-lus). [Gr. Δεκέβαλος , chief or king: a title of honor among the Dacians, borne by several of their kings.] Died about 106 A. D. A Dacian king, at war with the Romans in the reigns of Domitian and Trajan. Deceleia (des-e-lē'yä). [Gr. Δεκέλεια.] In ancient geography, a city and strategic point in Attica, Greece, situated 14 miles northeast of Athens. It was occupied by the Lacedæmonians from 413 to 404 в. с. Decelea was situated on the mountain-range north of Athens (Parnes), within sight of the city, from which it was distant 120 stades, or about 14 miles. The road from Rawlinson , Herod., III. 471, note. The seven imaginary ladies and three gentlemen whom Boccaccio supposed to shut out the horrors of the great Athens to Oropus and Tanagra pa ed through it. plague of Florence, in 1348, by enjoying themselves in a garden with a ten-day feast of story-telling, presented- in the best and easiest, though nearly the first, Italian prose-among their hundred tales the choice tales of the day from the French fabliaux , from incidents of actual life, or from whatever source was open to the author. Even the machinery in which the tales are set came from the East, and had existed in a Latin form two centu. ries before. The number of the stories also was perhaps determined by the previous existence of the "Cento Morley, English Writers, I. 22. Novelle Antiche." Decamps (de-kon'), Alexandre Gabriel. Born at Paris, March 3, 1803: died (as the result of an accident) at Fontainebleau, Aug. 22, 1860. A noted French painter, a pupil of Abel de Pujol. He visited Greece and the coast of Asia in 1827, and all his later work exhibits his preference for Oriental subjects. De Candolle. See Candolle . Dec a polis (de-kap'o-lis). [Gr. Δεκαπόλις, the ten cities.] The name of an ancient confederation of cities west and east of the Jordan, inhabited for the most part by a non-Jewish population which probably enjoyed certain privileges and franchises. Pompey put them under the immediate jurisdiction of the governor of Syria. Among the cities belonging to this confederacy are enumerated Scythopolis (Beth-Shean), on the west of the