(i.e. Beloved), the psalmist of Israel, was born at Bethlehem, and was the youngest son in a princely family of Judah. He was shepherd of his father's flocks when privately anointed by Samuel to fill the throne of the apostate Saul; but his skill as a musician brought him on several occasions to court, to soothe the melancholy of the king, and his personal bravery ultimately raised him to the rank of royal armour-bearer. Having probably retired for some time to his rustic duties, he was recognized neither by Saul nor his captains when he presented himself for single combat with Goliath. His splendid victory, however, soon roused the morbid jealousy of the king; and in his fits of melancholy Saul made several ineffectual attempts to destroy him. Convinced at last that there was a method in the royal madness, David precipitately retreated from the court, and narrowly escaped falling into the hands of the emissaries of Saul. The flight of Abiathar to the rebel, after the massacre of the priests by Saul, now roused the piety of the Hebrews as his heroic deeds had roused their valour, in his favour. For a time he sought refuge with the Philistines, and feigned insanity in order to escape the machinations of their princes. When this retreat became dangerous, he enjoyed a precarious shelter in the cave of Adullam. At last, recommending his family to the protection of the king of Moab, he assumed the defensive, and at the head of 600 men, principally malcontents, he captured the frontier fortress of Keilah. In the wilderness of Ziph he received a consolatory visit from Jonathan, the crown-prince; and twice in the pursuit the person of Saul fell into his hands, but he refused to pave his way to the throne by regicide. Retiring to Ziklag, which he had received from Achish, he engaged in excursions against the predatory enemies of Israel, on whom he was inflicting a dire revenge for the burning of his city, when the death of Saul called him to the vacant throne. Having been recognised as king by the tribe of Judah, he fixed the centre of his administration at Hebron, an ancient city, honourable by its association with Abraham, and appointed one of the cities of refuge at the entrance of the Israelites into Canaan. At this crisis a faint opposition was stirred up in the other eleven tribes in favour of Ishbosheth, Saul's son; but the coalition fell to pieces, and was suffered to die away in silence. After the battle of Gilboa, the Philistines entirely disappear from the field, content perhaps with having broken the power of Saul, and calculating probably on the friendship of the hero whom they had recently sheltered amongst them. Feeling themselves unequal to the task of subjecting the land of Israel, it is probable that they were glad to welcome the prospect of peace held out by the dissensions of the kingdom in regard to the succession. At Hebron David strengthened himself by forming an alliance with the daughter of Talmai, king of Geshur; and it was here that six of his sons were born. In the eighth year of David's reign (B.C. 1048), the rulers of the eleven tribes rendered homage to him as the king appointed by Jehovah, and the event was solemnized by a feast. With the assassination of Ishbosheth the hopes of the house of Saul were extinguished; but the consolidation of the Israelitish power under one constitutional kingdom roused the fears of the surrounding princes. After defeating the Philistines in the valley of Rephaim, David addressed himself to the siege of Jehus or Jerusalem, whose citadel had till then remained in the hands of the Jebusites. At an early period of his history David had recognised the strength of the fortifications of Jerusalem, and had chosen the forts which belonged to Judah as the safest place in which to deposit the head of Goliath. The strength of his arms, however, now enabled him to seize on the Benjaminite fortress, which that tribe, from its weakness, had never been able to wrest from the Jebusites. The previous bipartite division of the fortresses (compare Joshua xv. 8, and xviii. 16) thus absolves us from the necessity of regarding the incident in David's earlier history as an anachronism. Selecting it for his residence, he built a palace on Mount Zion; and soon after removed the ark of the covenant, the throne of Jehovah, from Kirjath-jearim to Jerusalem. The disorganized state of the priesthood during the time of Saul, is apparent from many incidental notices in the narrative. They were now, however, appointed to their various sacred duties, and the monarch himself set a public example of piety, by forgetting his dignity in presence of the ark. His intention to build a temple as a palace for the throne of God, was defeated by Nathan and reserved for his successor. As the author of the inspired psalmody, he conferred a more lasting boon on the universal church. Under David the arms of the Hebrews were victorious in every quarter. The Nomadic Arabs, the Amalekites, Edomites, Moabites, and even the Philistines and Ammonites, were forced to bow to their dominion. The auxiliary kings of Maachah, Bethrephob, Zobah, and Tob, were defeated by him; and even Hadadezer, the king of Nisibis, an ally of the Assyrians, was obliged to remain quiet on the eastern side of the Euphrates, and leave to the Hebrews the kingdom of Damascus as far as Beretus. The last days of David were afflicted by the inevitable results of polygamy and despotism. The rebellion of Absalom, the insurrection of Sheba, and the conspiracy of Adonijah, followed hard upon each other, and peace was restored only by the decisive measure of raising Solomon to the throne. Of all David's sons Absalom had naturally the greatest pretensions to the throne, and his popularity and address gained him numerous adherents in his insurrection. Multitudes flocked to his standard at Hebron; and if the prompt advice of Abithophel had been carried into effect, David would either have been imprisoned or slain in his own capital. The delay of the rebels facilitated his escape, and soon he had mustered sufficient force to crush their army in the field. The slaughter of Absalom by Joab in the retreat put an end to the hopes of the rebels. Far more unaccountable is the insurrection of Sheba; but the vigorous tactics of Amasa isolated him from his followers, and the few who were with him in Bethmaachah compounded for their own safety by throwing their chieftain's head over the wall. The conspiracy of Adonijah, supported by the priestly influence of Abiathar, and the military experience of Joab, seemed more formidable than either of the previous risings; but on the elevation of Solomon to the throne an amnesty was proclaimed, and the coalition quickly fell to pieces. David died at peace in Jerusalem, in the seventy-first year of his age, thirty-three of which he had reigned over the whole people of Israel, and seven over the united tribes of Judah and Benjamin, at his capital in Hebron. In regard to the character of David, his scrupulous attachment to the principles and practice of theocracy gained him the appellation of the "man after God's own heart;" and it was doubtless in this spirit that many of his political acts of vengeance were perpetrated. Of his own generous disposition, we have many unmistakable proofs, even in his later years; as, for example, his choice of pestilence to be the instrument of national punishment, which unlike war or famine struck alike at the peasant and the prince. Certainly he was no ideal model of human perfection; but the flagrant enormities of which he was on several occasions guilty, and more especially the never to be forgotten outrage on the wife of Uriah the Hittite, must be read in the light of those psalms which have not only supplied the language of contrition to penitents of every age, but were the predestined utterances of the Redeemer's agony.

Jacques-Louis, the founder of the modern French school of painting, which he led to the study of antique sculpture. He was born at Paris in 1750; and in 1774 went to Rome, where he devoted himself particularly to historical painting. In this department he soon began to evince considerable talents. In 1784 he finished his Oath of the Horatii, which he had been commissioned by Louis XVI., to design from a scene in the Horaces of Corneille. This work gave a certain impulse to the national taste; but though the figures be correctly drawn, their attitudes are constrained and theatrical; the colouring is hard, and deficient in what is technically termed justness. In the same year he painted his Belisarius; in 1787 appeared his Death of Socrates; and these were followed in quick succession by other works. He had begun to distinguish himself also in portrait-painting, and might have followed out a tranquil and brilliant career; but on the outbreak of the revolution, he was seized with the universal mania, and mixed himself up with some of the most revolting transactions of that bloody period. In 1789 he finished his large picture of Brutus condemning his sons to death. He also furnished the designs of the numerous monuments and republican festivals of that time. In 1792 he was chosen an elector in Paris, and afterwards a deputy; and during the Reign of Terror he David's St. was one of the most zealous Jacobins, and wholly devoted himself to Robespierre. At the trial of Louis XVI., he voted for the death of that unfortunate prince. In January 1794 he presided in the convention. After the fall of Robespierre, he was in great danger, and his fame as a painter alone stood between him and the guillotine. Amongst the scenes of the revolution which David strove to immortalize by his pencil are the murders of Marat and Lepelletier; and particularly the Oath of the Jeu de Paume, and the entrance of Louis into the National Assembly. In 1799 he executed the Rape of the Sabine Women, which is regarded as his masterpiece, and by the exhibition of which he realized, it is said, L.4000 sterling. In 1804 he was appointed first painter to the emperor, and received commands to execute four pieces,—amongst which the coronation of Napoleon was particularly distinguished. Among his finest works of this period are many representations of the emperor, particularly that in which, as first consul, he is represented on horseback on Mount Bernard, pointing out to his troops the path which led them to victory. This piece is now in Berlin. In 1814 he painted Leonidas, the last work which proceeded from his pencil before he quitted Paris on the reverses of his imperial master. When Napoleon returned from Elba he appointed David a commander of the legion of honour. After the second restoration of Louis XVIII., he was included in the decree which expatriated all the regicides. He established himself in Brussels, where he painted Cupid leaving the arms of Psyche. The last of his productions, Venus, Cupid, and the Graces, disarming Mars, was much admired at Paris. David died in exile at Brussels, December 29, 1825. Various opinions are entertained of his merits. It cannot be denied that his pictures are marked by cold correctness and knowledge of the antique; but the works of the bloody agent of the Reign of Terror scarcely can be said to exhibit the fire of true genius. His most celebrated productions, the Oath of the Horatii, and the Rape of the Sabine Women, were purchased by the French government, and are now to be seen in the gallery of the Luxembourg.