FRANCIS

See also:

• FRANCIS DOUCE (1757-1834)

DOUCE (1757-1834)  , English antiquary, was born in London in 1757 . His father was a clerk in Chancery . After completing his education he entered his father's office, but soon. quitted it to devote himself to the study of antiquities . He became a prominent member of the Society of Antiquaries, and for a time held the post of keeper of manuscripts in the British Museum, but was compelled to resign it owing to a quarrel with one of the trustees . In 1807 he published his Illustrations of Shakespeare and Ancient Manners (2 vols . 8vo), which contained some curious information, along with a great deal of trifling criticism and mistaken interpretation . An unfavourable notice of the work in The Edinburgh Review greatly irritated the author, and made him unwilling to venture any further publications . He contributed, however, a considerable number of papers to the Archaeologia and The Gentleman's :Al agazine . In 1833 he published a Dissertation on the various Designs of the Dance of Death, the substance of which had appeared forty years before . He died on the 3oth of March 1834 . By his will he left his printed books, illuminated manuscripts, coins, &c., to the Bodleian library; his own manuscript works to the British Museum, with directions that the chest containing them should not be opened until the 1st of January 1900; and his paintings, carvings and miscellaneous antiquities to Sir Samuel Meyrick, who published an account of them, 'entitled The Doucean Museum .