DABNEY, Richard, author, born in Louisa County, Virginia, in 1787; died there in November 1825. His name was originally the same as that of the historian D'Aubigne. He applied himself to the acquisition of Latin, Greek, and Italian, acquiring a remarkable proficiency in those languages, and was employed as a teacher in a school in Richmond. At the burning of the theatre in December 1811, he sustained severe injuries. In 1812 he published a volume of "Poems, Original and Translated." of which an improved edition was printed in Philadelphia in 1815. The collection contained spirited and elegant translations from Euripides, Alcaeus, Sappho, Martial, Seneca, and Petrarch. Matthew Carey, who employed Dabney for a few years, published the second edition. Carey's political tract, called the "Olive Branch, or Faults on Both Sides," is supposed to have been in great part written by Dabney. In a few years he returned to Virginia and taught a class of boys. The painful injuries received at a fire, together with the use of opium, taken to allay his sufferings, and indulgence in intoxicating drinks, caused his early death.

-His nephew, Robert Lewis Dabney, clergyman, born in Louisa County, Virginia, 5 March 1820. He studied at Hampden Sidney College, and was graduated at the University of Virginia in 1842. After teaching for two years, he studied at the Union theological seminary in Virginia, was licensed to preach in 1846, ordained by the Lexington presbytery in July 1847, and became pastor of Tinkling Spring Church in Augusta County, Virginia, where he remained for six years. In 1853 he accepted the professorship of Church history in Union seminary, Virginia, and remained until 1883, except during the civil war, when he was actively engaged in the Confederate service as chaplain of the 18th Virginia regiment, and afterward as chief of staff to General T. J. Jackson. In 1883 he was elected to the chair of moral philosophy in the University of Texas. The Southwestern Presbyterian University, Tennessee, conferred the degree of D. D. on him by Hampden Sidney College in 1853, and that of LL.D. in 1877, and simultaneously by Hampden Sidney College. Besides being a voluminous contributor to periodical literature, Dr. Dabney has published "Life of Rev. Dr. F. S. Sampson" (Richmond. 1854);" Life of General T. J. (Stonewall) Jackson" (London, 1864); "Sacred Rhetoric" (Richmond, 1866); " Defence of Virginia and the South" (New York. 1868); " Sensualistic Philosophy of the Nineteenth Century Considered" (1876); "A Course of Systematic and Polemic Theology" (St. Louis, 1878); and" The Christian Sabbath" (Philadelphia, 1881).

--Charles William Lewis, son of Robert Lewis, chemist, born in Hampden-Sidney, Va.. 19 June 1855. He was graduated at Hampden-Sidney College in 1873, and, after teaching for a year, spent some time at the University of Virginia, following special studies, principally scientific. In 1877 he became professor of chemistry and mineralogy in Emory and Henry College, but relinquished this chair at the end of a year and visited Germany, where in 1880 he received the degree of Ph.D. from the University of Gottingen. In October 1880, he became state chemist of North Carolina and director of the North Carolina agricultural experiment station, and to these offices was added, in November 1886. that of director of the North Carolina weather service. He has edited numerous technical circulars giving valuable scientific information to farmers, and prepared /;he annual reports from 1881 till 1886. Dr. Dabney is a member of several sci-entitle societies, and has been secretary of the American association of official agricultural chemists, editing in that capacity the reports of their proceedings. He has discovered numerous minerals in North Carolina, not previously known in that state, such as tin and arsenic ores, and he has published scientific investigations in the "American Chemical Journal."