DUCIS, JEAN FRANcOIS (1733-1816), French drama tist and adapter of Shakespeare, succeeded to the fauteuil of Voltaire at the Academy in 1779. His father, originally from Savoy, was a linen-draper at Versailles. In 1768 he produced his first tragedy, Amelise. The failure of this first attempt was com pensated by the success of his Shakespearian adaptations : Hamlet (1769), Romeo et Juliette (1772), Le Roi Lear (1783), Macbeth (1783) and Othello 0792), which last, supported by the acting of Talma, obtained immense applause. Though actuated by honest admiration of the great English dramatist, Ducis is not Shake spearian. His ignorance of the English language left him at the mercy of the translations of Pierre Letourneur (1736-88) and of Pierre de la Place (17o7-93) ; and even this modified Shake speare had still to undergo a process of purification and correction before he could be presented to the fastidious criticism of French taste. He did not pretend to reproduce, but to excerpt and re fashion ; and consequently the French play sometimes differs from its English namesake in everything almost but the name. The plot is different, the characters are different, the motif different, and the scenic arrangement different. To Othello, for instance, he wrote two endings. In one of them Othello was enlightened in time and Desdemona escaped her tragic fate. Of his original works the best were Oedipe chez Admete (1778), and Abufar An edition of his works in three volumes appeared in 1813 ; Oeuvres posthumes were edited by Campenon in 1826; and Hamlet, Oedipe chez Admete, Macbeth and Abufar are reprinted in vol. ii. of Didot's Chefs-d'oeuvre tragiques. See Onesime Leroy, Etude sur la personne et les ecrits de Duds (1832) , based on Ducis' own memoirs preserved in the library at Versailles; Sainte-Beuve, Causeries du lundi, t. vi., and Nouveaux lundis, t. iv. ; Villemain, Tableau de la litt. au XVIIIe siecle.