ion in France instituted in 1790,
under which the old division into provinces was broken up; each
department, of which there are now 87, is broken up into arrondissements.

DEPPING, a learned French historian, born at Muenster; wrote a
"History of Normandy," and on "Trade of Europe with the Levant"
(1784-1853).

DEPTFORD (101), a town on the S. bank of the Thames, partly in Kent
and partly in Surrey, now forming part of London; once with an extensive
Government dockyard and arsenal, the site of it purchased by the
Corporation of London as a market for foreign cattle; is now the central
station for the Electric Light Company.

DE QUINCEY, THOMAS, a great English prose writer, born in
Manchester; son of a merchant called Quincey; his father dying, he was
under a guardian, who put him to school, from which in the end he ran
away, wandered about in Wales for a time, and by-and-by found his way to
London; in 1803 was sent to Oxford, which in 1807 he left in disgust; it
was here as an anodyne he took to opium, and acquired that habit which
was the bane of his life; on leaving Oxford he went to Bath beside his
mother, where he formed a connection by which he was introduced to
Wordsworth and Southey, and led to settle to literary work at Grasmere,
in the Lake District; here he wrote for the reviews and magazines,
particularly _Blackwood's_, till in 1821 he went up to London and
published his "Confessions" under the _nom de plume_ of "The English
Opium-Eater"; leaving Grasmere in 1828 he settled in Edinburgh, and at
Polton, near Lasswade, where he died; is characterised by Stopford Brooke
as "owing to the overlapping and involved melody of his style one of our
best, as he is one of our most various miscellaneous writers"; he was a
writer of very miscellaneous ability and acquirement (1785-1859).

DERBEND (14), capital of Russian Daghestan, on the W. of the Caspian
Sea, 140 m. NW. of Baku.

DERBY (94), county town of Derbyshire, on the Derwent, with
manufactures of silk, cotton hosiery, lace, porcelain, &c.; it is the
centre of a great railway system.

DERBY, CHARLOTTE COUNTESS OF, wife of the 7th Earl who was taken
prisoner at Worcester in 1651, and was beheaded at Bolton; famous for her
gallant defence of Lathom House against the Parliamentary forces, which
she was obliged to surrender; lived to see the Restoration; _d_. 1663.

DERBY, 14TH EARL OF, British statesman, born at Knowsley Hall,
Lancashire; ente