JOHN (LORD ASHBURTON), a celebrated English counsellor, was the second son of Mr John Dunning of Ashburton, Devonshire, an Attorney. He was born at Ashburton, on the 18th of October 1731; and was educated at the free grammar school of his native place, where he soon distinguished himself by his proficiency in classical literature, as well as the mathematics. On leaving school, he was taken into his father's office, where he remained until the age of nineteen, when he was sent to the Temple. After he came to the bar, he got very slowly into practice. In the year 1762, he was employed to draw up A Defence of the United Company of Merchants of England trading to the East Indies, and their Servants (particularly those at Bengal), against the Complaints of the Dutch East India Company to his Majesty on that Subject; which was considered a masterpiece of language and reasoning; and from which he derived not only immediate profit, but such a large share of reputation as secured him extensive practice in his profession.

In 1763, he distinguished himself, as counsel, in the memorable proceedings in the case of Wilkes; and his professional business, from that period, gradually increased to such an extent, that, in 1776, he is said to have been in the receipt of nearly L.10,000 per annum. In 1766, he was chosen Recorder of Bristol; and on the 23rd of December 1767, he was appointed to the office of Solicitor-General, which he held until the month of May 1770, when he retired, along with his friend Lord Shelburne. In 1771, he was presented with the freedom of the city of London. From this period, he was considered as a regular member of the opposition party, and distinguished himself by many able speeches in Parliament. He was first chosen member for Calne in 1768, and continued to represent that borough until he was promoted to the peerage. In 1782, when the Marquis of Rockingham became prime minister, Mr Dunning was appointed Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster; and about the same time he was advanced to the peerage, by the title of Lord Ashburton of Ashburton. He died while on a visit to Exmouth, on the 18th of August 1783.

The person of Lord Ashburton was by no means agreeable or prepossessing. He was a short thick man, with a sallow countenance, a constant shake of the head, and a hectic cough, which frequently interrupted the stream of his eloquence. His oratory, however, was at once fluent, elegant, and argumentative; and he possessed a sound knowledge of the laws, and of the theory of our constitution. His language was pure and classical, yet peculiar to himself; and he had a great fund of wit and humour. His disposition was originally timid, but this defect he overcame by practice, as he became more familiar with forensic habits. Of the great extent of his practice some notion may be formed from the fortune he left behind him, which was all earned by his own exertions, and amounted to no less a sum than L.180,000.

Sir William Jones has pronounced a splendid eulogium on the character of Lord Ashburton. "His language," says that accomplished scholar, "was always pure, always elegant; and the best words dropped easily from his lips into the best places, with a fluency at all times astonishing, and, when he had perfect health, really melodious. His style of speaking consisted of all the turns, oppositions, and figures, which the old rhetoricians taught, and which Cicero frequently practised, but which the austere and solemn spirit of Demosthenes refused to adopt from his first master, and seldom admitted into his ora- ingenious theory with respect to the origin of the Greek months. In the course of his investigations upon this subject, he composed a long memoir on the constellations. He had been struck with the singularity of the figures, by which the groups of stars, called constellations, were represented on the most ancient planispheres; and had also remarked, that these groups did not present to the eye any form analogous to their representations. Hence he concluded, that the real configurations of these constellations, or asterisms, could not have been the origin of the figures, and of the names which had been given to them from the highest antiquity. Dupuis attempted to resolve this enigma, in so far, at least, as related to the constellations of the zodiac. He conceived that this representation of the heavens, during the course of the year, must have some reference to the state of the earth, and to the labours of agriculture, at the time, and in the country, in which these signs had been invented; so that the zodiac was, for the people who invented it, a sort of kalender at once astronomical and rural. It seemed only necessary, therefore, to discover the clime and the period, in which the constellation of Capricorn must have risen with the sun on the day of the summer solstice, and the vernal equinox must have occurred under Libra. It appeared to Dupuis, that this clime was Egypt, and that the perfect correspondence between the signs and their significations had existed in that country for a period of between fifteen and sixteen thousand years before the present time; that it had existed only there; and that this harmony had been disturbed by the effect of the precession of the equinoxes. He therefore ascribed the invention of the signs of the zodiac to the people who then inhabited Upper Egypt, or Ethiopia. This was the basis on which Dupuis established his mythological system, and endeavoured to explain the curious subject of fabulous history, and the whole system of the theogony and theology of the ancients.

Persuaded of the importance of his discoveries, which, however, were by no means entirely original, Dupuis published several detached parts of his system in the Journal des Savants, for the months of June, October, and December 1777, and of February 1781; which he afterwards collected and published, first in Lalande's Astronomy, and then in a separate volume in 4to, 1781, under the title of Memoire sur l'Origine des Constellations, et sur l'Explication de la Fable par l'Astronomie. The theory propounded in this memoir was refuted by M. Bailly, in the 5th volume of his History of Astronomy; but, at the same time, with a just acknowledgment of the erudition and ingenuity exhibited by the author.

Condorcet proposed Dupuis to Frederick the Great of Prussia, as a fit person to succeed Thiebault in the Professorship of Literature at Berlin; and Dupuis had accepted the invitation, when the death of the king put an end to this engagement. The chair of Humanity, in the College of France, having, at the same time, become vacant by the death of M. Bejot, it was conferred on Dupuis; and, in 1788, he became a member of the Academy of Inscriptions. He now resigned his professorship at Dupuis Lisieux; and was appointed, by the administrators of the department of Paris, one of the four commissioners of public instruction.

At the commencement of the revolutionary troubles, Dupuis sought an asylum at Evreux; having been chosen a member of the National Convention by the Department of the Seine and Oise, he distinguished himself by the moderation of his speeches and public conduct. In the third year of the republic, he was elected secretary to the Assembly; and, in the fourth, he was chosen a member of the Council of Five Hundred. After the memorable 18th of Brumaire, he was elected, by the Department of the Seine and Oise, a member of the Legislative Body, of which he became the president. He was afterwards proposed as a candidate for the Senate; and here terminated his political career.

In 1794, he published his large work, entitled, *Origine de tous les Cultes, ou la Religion Universelle*, 3 vols. 4to, with an atlas; or 12 vols. 12mo. This work excited considerable sensation at first; it gave umbrage to many; was attacked and defended with warmth; at length, ceased to be read, and fell into utter neglect. In 1798, he published an abridgment of this work in one volume 8vo, which met with no better success. Another abridgment of the same work, executed upon a much more methodical plan, was published by M. de Tracy. The other works of Dupuis consist of two memoirs on the *Pelagii*, inserted in the *Memoirs of the Institute*; a memoir *On the Zodiac of Tentyra*, published in the *Revue Philosophique*, for the month of May 1806; and a *Memoire Explicatif du Zodiacque Chronologique et Mythologique*, published the same year, in one volume 4to. It was from the perusal of the poem of *Nomus*, which he once thought of translating into French, and of which a fragment was printed in the *Nouvel Almanach des Muses*, for the year 1805, that Dupuis caught the first idea of his astronomical system.

Dupuis died at Is-sur-Til, on the 29th of September 1809, leaving behind him several manuscripts on subjects connected with the works he had published during his life. He was a member of the Legion of Honour; and his character was that of an honest man, and a paradoxical writer. He was born poor, and never acquired any fortune. M. Dacier, secretary to the Third Class of the Institute, delivered his *Éloge*; and an historical account of his life and writings was published by his widow. See also Biog. Universelle.

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