DOUCE, FRANCIS English antiquary, was born in London. He interested himself in antiquities, and was for a short time keeper of manuscripts in the British Museum. He left his books, illuminated manuscripts, coins, etc., to the Bodleian library ; his own manuscript works to the British Museum, but they were returned; and his paintings, carvings and miscellaneous antiquities to Sir Samuel Meyrick, who published an account of them, entitled The Doucean Museum. His published works are Illustrations of Shakespeare and Ancient Manners (2 vols., 1807), and Dissertation on the Various Designs of the Dance of Death (1833), the substance of which had appeared forty years before. He also contributed a considerable number of papers to the Archaelogia and The Gentleman's Magazine.