o _The Literary Chronicle_, a paper
which was afterwards incorporated with _The Athenaeum_. His play,
_Justice or the Venetian Jew_, was produced at the Surrey theatre in
1824, and in 1830 he began to write translations from French, German,
Latin and Italian authors for _The Bath Journal_. After some years of
travel on the continent he became in 1841 literary editor of _The Church
and State Gazette_, and in 1852 under the title of _Filia dolorosa_
produced a memoir of Maria Therese Charlotte, duchesse d'Angouleme. Two
years later he became a regular contributor to _The Athenaeum_,
succeeding Hepworth Dixon as editor for a short time in 1869, until he
became editor of _Notes and Queries_ in 1870. His most elaborate work,
_Their Majesties' Servants_, a history of the English stage from
Betterton to Kean, was published in 1860, and was supplemented by _In
and About Drury Lane_, which was written for _Temple Bar_ and was not
published in book form till 1885, after Doran's death. Among his other
works may be mentioned _Table Traits_ and _Habits of Men_ (1854), _The
Queens of the House of Hanover_ (1855), _Knights and their Days_ (1856),
_Monarchs retired from Business_ (1856), _The History of Court Fools_
(1858), an edition of the _Bentley Ballads_ (1858), _The Last Journals
of Horace Walpole_ (2 vols., 1859), _The Princess of Wales_ (1860), and
the _Memoirs of Queen Adelaide_ (1861). These were followed by _A Lady
of the Last Century_ (1873), an account of Mrs Elizabeth Montagu and the
blue-stockings; _London in Jacobite Times_ (1877); and _Memories of our
Great Towns_ (1878). Doran died in London, on the 25th of January 1878.

DORAT, CLAUDE JOSEPH (1734-1780), French man of letters, was born in
Paris on the 31st of December 1734. He belonged to a family whose
members had for generations been lawyers, and he entered the corps of
the king's musketeers. He obtained a great vogue by his _Reponse
d'Abailard a Heloise_, and followed up this first success with a number
of heroic epistles, _Les Victimes de l'amour, ou lettres de quelques
amants celebres_ (1776). Dorat was possessed by an ambition quite out of
proportion to his very mediocre ability. Besides light verse he wrote
comedies, fables and, among other novels, _Les Sacrifices de l'amour, ou
lettres de la vicomtesse de Senanges et du chevalier de Versenay_
(1771). He tried to cover his failures as a dramatist by buying up a
great number of seats, and his books were la