1 he administered the
colony with success, and named the rising seaport of Algoa Bay Port
Elizabeth in memory of his wife. In 1821 he became lieutenant-general
and G.C.H. The rest of his life was spent in literary and political
work. He was one of the original fellows of the Royal Geographical
Society, and was a member of the Royal Society and of many other learned
bodies. His theories as to the course of the river Niger, published
under the title _Dissertation on the Course and Probable Termination of
the Niger_ (London, 1829), involved him in a good deal of controversy.
From 1832 onwards he sat in the House of Commons, and in 1835 was made
surveyor-general of the ordnance. He committed suicide at Southampton in
1841. He was then a general, and colonel of the 11th Foot.

See Jerdan, _National Portraits_, vol. iii.; _Gentleman's Magazine_,
xcii. i. 273.

DONNAY, CHARLES MAURICE (1859- ), French dramatist, was born of
middle-class parents in Paris in 1859. He made his serious debut as a
dramatist on the little stage of the Chat Noir with _Phryne_ (1891), a
series of Greek scenes. _Lysistrata_, a four-act comedy, was produced at
the Grand Theatre in 1892 with Mme Rejane in the title part. Later plays
were _Folle Entreprise_ (1894); _Pension de famille_ (1894); _Complices_
(1895), in collaboration with M. Groselande; _Amants_ (1895), produced
at the Renaissance theatre with Mme Jeanne Granier as Claudine Rozeray;
_La Douloureuse_ (1897); _L'Affranchie_ (1898); _Georgette Lemeunier_
(1898); _Le Torrent_ (1899), at the Comedie Francaise; _Education de
prince_ (1900); _La Clairiere_ (1900), and _Oiseaux de passage_ (1904),
in collaboration with L. Descaves; _La Bascule_ (1901); _L'Autre
danger_, at the Comedie Francaise (1902); _Le Retour de Jerusalem_
(1903); _L'Escalade_ (1904); and _Paraitre_ (1906). With _Amants_ he won
a great success, and the play was hailed by Jules Lemaitre as the
_Berenice_ of contemporary French drama. Very advanced ideas on the
relations between the sexes dominate the whole series of plays, and the
witty dialogue is written with an apparent carelessness that
approximates very closely to the language of every day.

DONNE, JOHN (1573-1631), English poet and divine of the reign of James
I., was born in 1573 in the parish of St Nicholas Olave, in the city of
London. His father was a wealthy merchant, who next year became warden
of the Company of Ironmongers, but died early in 1576.