DOMINIC, Sτ, founder of the Dominican order of monks, was born at Calahorra, a village of Old Castile, in 1170. His family name is said to have been Guzman, an illustrious name connected with many of the most honourable families in Spain. Little is known of his father and mother, but in the mediaeval legends his birth is surrounded with portents indicative of his future greatness. His mother dreamed she gave birth to a boy with a torch in his mouth, which set the world on fire. At his baptism a new sign was given. A starry radiance encircled the baptismal font. His followers delighted to recognize a similar radiance in his countenance, which drew all hearts to him. His childhood gave evidence of his future devotion and self-denial. He used to creep from his bed and prostrate himself on the hard boards. At seven years of age he quitted the paternal home for the house of his uncle, who was a churchman, and gave him his first lessons in divine things. At fifteen he went to the university of Palencia, afterwards translated to Salamanca, where it attained reputation as the most famous university in Spain. He applied himself to letters and philosophy, but above all to theology,—opening his mind, according to one of his biographers, to the true knowledge, and his ears to the doctrines, of Holy Scripture. Two stories are told of him at this time, showing the intensity of his character, and indicating the future zealot in behalf of religion and the church. He sold his clothes to feed the poor in a time of famine, and, to a woman who complained that her brother had been made a slave by the Moors, he offered himself to be given in exchange. His career as a student is obscure. He appears to have remained at the university for about ten years, and it is only in 1195, when he was ...

DOMINICA, in French Dominique, a British West India island, the largest in the Leeward group of the Lesser Antilles, lying between the French islands of Martinique and Guadaloupe, 24 miles north of the former and about the same distance south of the latter, at the intersection of 15° 30' N. lat. by 6Γ 30' W. long. It has a length of 29 miles with a maximum breadth of 16, and its area is estimated at 291 square miles. The longer axis is formed by a chain of mountains, which attains in some parts a height of upwards of 5000 feet, and gives the whole island a strongly marked profile and great irregularity of surface. The results and symptoms of volcanic activity are abundant, in the shape of solfataras, emissions of subterranean vapours, and hot springs; and in the southern part of the island there exists a boiling lake of unascertained depth, in which the water is frequently projected 3 feet or more above the surface by the force of the ebullition. Besides a large number of minor rivulets, upwards of thirty streams of considerable size might be mentioned, and this abundance of natural irrigation develops great fertility in the rich volcanic soil. The hills are in many parts covered with valuable timber trees of the kinds commonly found in the West Indies; and the sugar-cane, coffee, cocoa, cotton, Indigo, oranges, plantains, and arrow-root are grown in the lowlands. The island is botanically remarkable for the great number of peculiar species which it possesses in comparison with the poverty in this respect of Guadaloupe, Martinique, Montserrat, and Antigua: as many as 24 are mentioned by Grisebach. Game is abundant; the fisheries on the coast are productive; and large quantities of honey and wax are furnished by the wild bees, which were originally introduced from ...

DOMINICANS, the name by which the disciples of St Dominic became known. The Dominican order was founded, as stated in the article on the founder, in 1216 by a bull of Honorius III. It conformed to the general rule of the Augustinians, but further embraced a rule of absolute poverty or mendicancy, in addition to the usual vows of chastity and obedience. Its members were supposed to be exclusively devoted to preaching and public instruction, and were described as mendicant or preaching friars. The order held its first chapter in the year 1220 at Bologna, under the presidency of its founder. It adopted as its insignia within the cloister a white robe and white hood, to which it added outside a black cloak, hence the popular name of black friars by which the Dominicans became known in England. The novitiate was for a year, and candidates were mainly recruited from the schools founded by the order, which became the nurseries of great preachers and great theologians. The order speedily extended itself through the whole Christian world, and popes, cardinals, and learned doctors sprang from it in numbers. Its preachers and teachers addressed all classes, invaded “the high places of the human intellect,” and were soon found, as Milman says, “disputing in the universities of Italy and Germany, in Cologne, Rome, and Oxford. Before long they were to claim two of the greatest luminaries of the prevalent philosophy, Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas.”

DOMINIS, Marc Antonio de (1566-1624), celebrated as a theologian and natural philosopher, was born in the island of Arbe, in 1566. He was educated in the order of the Jesuits at their college at Loretto, and afterwards studied at the university of Padua. He was employed for some time by the Jesuits as a teacher of rhetoric and mathematics, but he did not join the order. In 1596 he was appointed to the bishopric of Segni, and in 1602 he was raised to the archbishopric of Spalatro. His endeavours to reform the church soon after made him obnoxious to the papal authorities, and he was compelled to leave his native country. Having become acquainted with Bishop Bedell, whilst the latter was chaplain to Sir Henry Wotton, ambassador from James I. at Venice, he communicated to that prelate his treatise De Eepublica Ecclesiastica, which was afterwards (1617, 1620) published at London, with Bedell’s corrections. The main argument of the work was directed against the superiority of the bishop of Rome to other bishops. He came to England with Bedell, where he was received with great respect, and preached and wrote against the Roman Catholic religion. In 1619 he published at London Father Paul's History of the Council of Trent, with a dedication to King James. He was favourably received by the king, who bestowed on him the deanery of Windsor and other ecclesiastical preferments. But on the promotion of Pope Gregory XIV., who had been his schoolfellow and old acquaintance, he was deluded by Gondomar, the Spanish ambassador, into the hopes of procuring a cardinal’s hat, and thus of proving an instrument of great reformation within the church. Accordingly he returned to Rome in 1622, recanted his errors, and was at first well received; but he afterwards wrote letters to England ...