DANTON OF THE CEVENNES.  Pierre Seguier, prophet and preacher of Magistavols, in France.  He was a leader amongst the Camisards.

DANVERS (Charles), an embyro barrister of the Middle Temple.—­C.  Selby, The Unfinished Gentleman.

DAPH’NE (2 syl.)., daughter of Sileno and Mysis, and sister of Nysa.  The favorite of Apollo while sojourning on earth in the character of a shepherd lad named “Pol.”—­Kate O’Hara, Midas (a burletta, 1778).

(In classic mythology Daphne fled from the amorous god, and escaped by being changed into a laurel.)

DAPH’NIS, a beautiful Sicilian shepherd, the inventor of bucolic poetry.  He was a son of Mercury, and friend both of Pan and Apollo.

  Daph’nis, the modest shepherd.

  This is that modest shepherd, he
  That only dare salute, but ne’er could be
  Brought to kiss any, hold discourse, or sing,
  Whisper, or boldly ask.

  John Fletcher, The Faithful Shepherdess, i. 3
  (1610).

DAPH’NIS AND CHLO’E, a prose pastoral love story in Greek, by Longos (a Byzantine), not unlike the tale of The Gentle Shepherd, by Allan Ramsay.  Gessner has also imitated the Greek romance in his idyll called Daphnis.  In this lovestory Longos says he was hunting in Lesbos, and saw in a grove consecrated to the nymphs a beautiful picture of children exposed, lovers plighting their faith, and the incursions of pirates, which he now expresses and dedicates to Pan, Cupid, and the nymphs.  Daphnis, of course, is the lover of Chloe.

DAPPER, a lawyer’s clerk, who went to Subtle “the alchemist,” to be supplied with “a familiar” to make him win in horse-racing, cards, and all games of chance.  Dapper is told to prepare himself for an interview with the fairy queen by taking “three drops of vinegar in at the nose, two at the mouth, and one at either ear,” “to cry hum thrice and buzz as often.”—­Ben Jonson, The Alchemist (1610).

DAPPLE, the donkey ridden by Sancho Panza, in Cervantes’ romance of Don Quixote (1605-1615).

DARBY AND JOAN.  This ballad, called The Happy Old Couple, is printed in the Gentleman’s Magazine, v. 153 (March, 1735).

It is also in Plumtre’s Collections of Songs, 152 (Camb. 1805), with the music.  The words are sometimes attributed to Prior, and the first line favors the notion:  “Dear Chloe, while thus beyond measure;” only Prior always spells Chloe without “h.”

Darby and Joan are an old-fashioned, loving couple, wholly averse to change of any sort.  It is generally said that Henry Woodfall was the author of the ballad, and that the originals were John Darby (printer, of Bartholomew Close, who died 1730) and his wife Joan.  Woodfall served his apprenticeship with John Darby.

  “You may be a Darby [Mr. Hardcastle], but
  I’ll be no Joan, I promise you.”—­Goldsmith, She
  Stoops to Conquer, i. 1 (1773).