province of France, bounded on the west by the river Rhone, on the north by the Rhone and Savoy, on the south by Provence, and on the east by the Alps. Hence the presumptive heir of France is called the Dauphin. In some places it is very fertile; and produces corn, wine, olives, wood, copperas, silk, crystal, iron, and copper. But the greatest part of this province is barren, and the inhabitants are obliged to go into other countries for subsistence. The mountains abound in simples and game of all sorts; and here are fir-trees proper for masts. The principal rivers are, the Rhone, the Durance, the Isere, and the Drôme. There is a great number of mineral springs; and Grenoble is the capital town.

Daurat (John), an eminent French poet, born in 1507. In the reign of Henry II. he was preceptor to the king's pages, and Charles IX. who took great delight in his conversation, and honoured him with the title of his poet; but his generosity and want of management placed him in that class of learned men who have been very near starving. Conformable to the taste of the age, he had to much skill in making anagrams, that several illustrious persons gave him their names to anagrammatise; he also undertook to explain the Centuries of Nostradamus. Making verses was a disease in him; for no book was printed, nor did any person of consequence die, but Daurat made some verses on the occasion; as if he had been poet in ordinary, or his muse had been a hired mourner, to the whole kingdom. Scaliger tells us, that he spent the latter part of his life in endeavouring to find all the bible in Homer. He died in 1588.