the
education office. He became a disciple of Leconte de Lisle and one of
the most distinguished of the Parnassians. In the death of Stephane
Mallarme in 1898 he was acclaimed "prince of poets" by "les jeunes." His
works include: _Poemes et poesies_ (1864); _Levres closes_ (1867);
_Paroles d'un vaincu_ (1871); _La Rencontre_, a dramatic scene (1875)
and _Les Amants_ (1879). His _Poesies completes_ (1872) were crowned by
the French Academy. A complete edition of his works was published in 2
vols., 1894-1896.

DIES, CHRISTOPH ALBERT (1755-1822), German painter, was born at Hanover,
and learned the rudiments of art in his native place. For one year he
studied in the academy of Dusseldorf, and then he started at the age of
twenty with thirty ducats in his pocket for Rome. There he lived a
frugal life till 1796. Copying pictures, chiefly by Salvator Rosa, for a
livelihood, his taste led him to draw and paint from nature in Tivoli,
Albano and other picturesque places in the vicinity of Rome. Naples, the
birthplace of his favourite master, he visited more than once for the
same reasons. In this way he became a bold executant in water-colours
and in oil, though he failed to acquire any originality of his own. Lord
Bristol, who encouraged him as a copyist, predicted that he would be a
second Salvator Rosa. But Dies was not of the wood which makes original
artists. Besides other disqualifications, he had necessities which
forced him to give up the great career of an independent painter. David,
then composing his Horatii at Rome, wished to take him to Paris. But
Dies had reasons for not accepting the offer. He was courting a young
Roman whom he subsequently married. Meanwhile he had made the
acquaintance of Volpato, for whom he executed numerous drawings, and
this no doubt suggested the plan, which he afterwards carried out, of
publishing, in partnership with Mechan, Reinhardt and Frauenholz, the
series of plates known as the _Collection de vues pittoresques de
l'Italie_, published in seventy-two sheets at Nuremberg in 1799. With so
many irons in the fire Dies naturally lost the power of concentration.
Other causes combined to affect his talent. In 1787 he swallowed by
mistake three-quarters of an ounce of sugar of lead. His recovery from
this poison was slow and incomplete. He settled at Vienna, and lived
there on the produce of his brush as a landscape painter, and on that of
his pencil or graver as a draughtsman and etche