In the Imperial Chamber, the term for the prosecution of an appeal is not circumscribed by the term of one or two years, as the law elsewhere requires in the empire; this being the dernier resort. Ayliffe. The court of dernier resort is the peerage of England. Franklin. DERMESTES, in zoology, a genus of insects belonging to the order of coleoptera. The antennæ are clavated, with three of the joints thicker than the rest; the breast is convex; and the head is inflected below the breast. Many varieties of this genus, as well as their larvæ, are to be met with in dried skins, bark of trees, wood, seeds, flowers, the carcases of dead animals, &c. There are eighty-seven species, of which the following are the most remarkable: D. domesticus varies greatly in size and color, some being found of a dark brown, others of a much lighter hue. The form of it is oblong, almost cylindrical. The elytra are striated, the thorax is thick and rather gibbous. This little animal, when touched, draws in its head under its thorax, and its feet beneath its abdomen, remaining so motionless that one would think it dead. This is the insect which makes in wooden furniture those little round holes that reduce it to powder. D. ferrugineus is the largest of the genus; its color is a rusty iron, having many oblong, velvet black spots upon the elytra, which give the insect a gloomy, yet elegant appearance. D. lardarius, of an oblong form and of a dim black color, easily distinguishable by a light brown stripe that occupies transversely almost the anterior half of the elytra. That color depends on small gray hairs situated on that part. The stripe is irregular at its edges, and intersected through the middle by a small transversal streak of black spots, three in number, on each of the elytra, the middlemost of which is somewhat lower than the rest, which gives the black streak a serpentine form. Its larva, which is oblong, somewhat hairy, and divided into segments alternately dark and light colored, gnaws and destroys preparations of animals preserved in collections, and even feeds upon the insects; it is also to be found in old bacon. This species may be destroyed by arsenic. D. violaceous, a beautiful little insect: its elytra are of a deep violet blue. The thorax is covered with greenish hairs, the legs are black. The whole animal's being of a glittering brilliancy renders it a pleasing object. The larva, as well as the perfect insect, inhabits the bodies of dead animals. DERMODY (Thomas), an English poet, was born in the south of Ireland in 1775. His father was a schoolmaster at Ennis, and employed him, when only nine years old, in teaching the Latin and Greek languages. He, however, ran away from home at an early age, and enlisted as a common soldier. Having obtained the notice of the present marquis of Hastings, that nobleman procured him a commision; but his conduct was most dissipated, and rendered all efforts to serve him abortive. A volume of his poems appeared in 1800; and another was published in 1802, in which year he died, at Sydenham in Kent, of disease brought on by his vices. His pieces have since been collected and published by Mr. Raymond. DEROGATORY CLAUSE, in a testament, is a certain sentence, cipher, or secret character, which the testator inserts in his will, and of which he reserves the knowledge to himself alone, adding a condition, that no will he may make hereafter is to be reckoned valid, if this derogatory clause is not inserted expressly and word for word. It is a precaution invented by lawyers against latter wills extorted by violence or obtained by suggestion. DERRY, a township of the United States, in Dauphin county, Pennsylvania, situated on the east side of Swatara Creek, two miles above its confluence with the Susquehannah, and celebrated for its curious cave. Its entrance is under a high bank, nearly twenty feet wide, and about eight or ten feet in height. It descends gradually nearly to a level with the creek. Its apartments are numerous, of different sizes, and adorned with stalactites curiously diversified in size and color. DER'VIS, n. s. Fr. dervis, from Per. dervish. See the article below. A priest or monk among the Turks. Even there, where Christ vouchsafed to teach, Their dervises dare an impostor preach. Sandys. The dervis at first made some scruple of violating his promise to the dying brachman; but told him, at last, that he could conceal nothing from so excellent 'a prince. Spectator. DERVIS, OF DERVICH, a name given to a sort of monks among the Turks, who lead a very austere life, and profess extreme poverty; though they are allowed to marry. The word originally signifies a beggar, or a person who has nothing; and because the religious, and particularly the followers of Mevelava, profess not to possess any thing, they call both the religious in general, and the Mevelavites in particular, dervises. There are in Egypt several kinds: those that are in convents are a kind of religious order and live retired; though there are of these some who travel and return again to their convents. Some take this character, and yet live with their families, and exercise their trades: of this kind are the dancing dervises at Damascus, who go once or twice a week to a little uninhabited convent, and perform their extraordinary exercises. There is a third sort of them who travel about the country, and beg, or rather oblige people to give, for whenever they sound their horn something must be given them. The people of these orders, in Egypt, wear an octagonal badge, of a greenish white alabaster, at their girdles, and a high stiff cap without any thing round it. The dervises in Persia, are called abdals, servants of God. See ABDALS. The dervises called Mevelavites are a Mahommedan order of religious; the chief or founder of which was one Mevelava. They are very numerous. Their chief monastery is that near Cogni in Natolia, where the general makes his residence, and where all the assemblies of the order are held; the other houses being all dependent on this, by a privilege granted to this monastery under Ottoman I. These dervises affect humility and charity. They always go bare-legged and open-breasted, and frequently burn themselves with hot irons, to inure themselves to patience. They always fast on Wednesdays, eating nothing on those days till after sun-set. Tuesdays and Fridays they hold meetings, at which the superior presides. One of them plays all the while on a flute, and the rest dance, turning their bodies round and round with the greatest swiftness imaginable. This practice they observe with great strictness, in memory, it is said, of Mevelava their patriarch turning miraculously round for the space of four days, without any food or refreshment, his companion Hamsa playing on the flute; after which he fell into an ecstacy, and therein received revelations for the establishment of his order. They believe the flute an instrument consecrated by Jacob and the shepherds of the Old Testament, because they sang the praises of God upon it. They profess poverty, chastity, and obediVOL. VII. ence; but if they choose to go out and marry, they are always allowed. The generality of dervises are mountebanks: some apply themselves to legerdemain, postures, &c., to amuse the people; others pretend to sorcery and magic: but all of them, contrary to Mahomet's precept, are said to drink wine, brandy, and other strong liquors, to give them the degree of gaiety their order requires. The dervises are great travellers; and, under pretence of preaching, and propagating their faith, are continually passing from one place to another: on which account they have been frequently used as spies. DERWENT, a rapid river of the county of Cumberland, rising in Borrowdale, from whence it emerges to form a lake. It receives the Cocker at Cockermouth, after which it falls into the Irish sea at Workington. DERWENT, a second river of England, which runs into the Ouse, five miles south-east of Selby, in the county of York. 3. A river of England, which rises in Northumberland, and flows into the Tyne, about three miles above Newcastle. 4. A river of England which rises in the northern part of the county of Derby, and is formed of several streams, one of which issues from the cavern of Castleton. It forms one of the principal ornaments of the magnificent seat of Chatsworth and afterwards falls into the Trent, eight miles E. S. E. of Derby. DERWENT FELLS; a chain of mountains in Cumberland, reckoned among the loftiest in England. One of them is celebrated for its mines of black lead, from which, for its superior quality, great part of Europe and America are supplied. În travelling through the valley of Borrowdale, amongst these mountains, they exhibit to the adınirer of nature's romantic beauties, the representation of a stormy ocean; the numerous distant hills appearing like so many waves rising and undulating behind each other. The immense masses of rugged rocks, however, abruptly broken off here and there, occasionally start up to dispel the illusions of fancy; and, together with the trees, villages, farms, and cattle, which he discovers as he proceeds, serve to convince the traveller that he is still on terra firma. DERWENT WATER, or the LAKE OF KESWICK, a beautiful lake of Cumberland, in the vale of Keswick, lying between the mountain of Skiddaw on the north and the craggy hills of Borrowdale on the south, whence it derives its chief supplies of water. See CUMBERLAND. DESAGULIERS (John Theophilus), a Protestant divine, born at Rochelle in 1683. He was educated at Christ Church, Oxford; where he succeeded Dr. Keill in reading lectures on experimental philosophy at Hart Hall. The duke of Chandos made Dr. Desaguliers his chaplain, and presented him to the living of Edgware, near his seat at Cannons: he was afterwards chaplain to Frederic prince of Wales. He introduced the practice of reading public lectures on experimental philosophy, in London, and continued them with great success to the time of his death in 1749. He communicated many curious papers to the Philosophical Transactions; published a valuable Course of Experimental Philosophy, in 2 vols, 4to; and edited N an edition of Gregory's Elements of Catoptrics and Dioptrics, with an Appendix on Reflecting Telescopes, 8vo. He was also a member of several foreign academies. DESAIX (Louis Charles Anthony), a celebrated French general, born near Riom, in 1768. At an early age he made choice of the military life, and before the revolution had arisen to the rank of lieutenant. In the republican army he was first employed as aid-de-camp to general Custine. He displayed great bravery at the battle of Lauterbourg, where, though severely wounded, he kept the field, rallying the disordered battalions. Having been successively created general of brigade and of division, he contributed, very considerably, to the famous retreat of Moreau. At the battle of Rastadt he commanded the left wing of the French army, obliging the archduke Charles to fall back; and he afterwards heroically defended the bridge of Kehl, where he was severely wounded. He accompanied Buonaparte into Egypt, where he was appointed governor of the upper part of the country. Having signed the treaty of El Arish with the Turks and English, he returned to Leghorn, but was detained there as a prisoner of war by admiral lord Keith. Upon obtaining his parole he returned to France, and accompanied Buonaparte to Italy. He was killed at the battle of Marengo, June 14th, 1800. DESAQUADERO, a river of South America, in Peru, over which the Ynca Huana Capac built a bridge of flags and rushes, to transport his army to the other side, and which remained a few years since. DESART, or DESERT, a large extent of country entirely barren, and producing nothing. In this sense some are sandy desarts; as those of Lop, Xamo, Arabia, and several others in Asia; in Africa, those of Libya and Zara: others are stony, as the desart of Paran in Arabia Petræa. The Desart, peculiarly so called in Scripture geography, is that part of Arabia south of the Holy Land, where the children of Israel wandered forty years. See Desert. DE'SCANT, v. n., & n. s. Span. and Ital. discanto, from Lat. de and canto, to sing. The verb seems formed in our language from the noun, which signifies a song or tune, in parts; a harmony for different voices or instruments: hence, a discourse consisting of various parts; and to sing in various parts. To discourse; declaim; generally used in the latter sense, contemptuously. Nay, now you are too flat, And mar the concord with too harsh a descant. Look you get a prayer-book in your hand, The wakeful nightingale Milton. DESCANT, in music, signifies the art of composing in several parts. Descant is three-fold, viz. double, figurative, and plain. Double descant is when the parts are so contrived, that the treble, or any high part, may be made the bass; and, on the contrary, the bass the treble. Figurative or florid descant is that part of an air of music wherein some discords are concerned, as well, though not so much, as concords. This may be termed the ornamental and rhetorical part of music, in regard that there are introduced all the varieties of points, syncopes, diversities of measure, and whatever is capable of adorning the composition. Plain descant is the ground-work and foundation of all musical compositions, consisting altogether in the orderly placing of many concords answering to simple counterpoint. Fr. descendre, Span. descender, Ital. discendere ; Lat. descendere, from de privative, and scandere, to clamber. To walk DESCEND', v. a. & v. n.`' DESCENDANT, n. s. DESCEND'ENT, adj. DESCEND'IBLE, DESCEN'SION, n. S. DESCEN'SIONAL, adj. DESCENT', n. s. downwards; or cling as to a rope, going downwards. As a neuter verb, to fall, or sink, or go downwards: hence, to be derived from, and to come in order of inheritance. A descendant is applied to offspring, near or remote: descendent, falling, sinking; derived from: descendible, that which may be descended, or may descend. Descension, figuratively, a degradation, or a declension. He shall descend into battle and perish. 1 Sam. xxvi. 10. The rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not, for it was founded upon a rock. Matthew vii. 25. Then all the sons of these five brethren reigned, By due success, and all their nephews late, Even thrice eleven descents the crown retained, Till aged Heli by due heritage it gained. Faerie Queene. Adam himself. The descendants of Neptune were planted there. I give my voice on Richard's side, From a god to a bull! a heavy descension. It was Jove's case. From a prince to a 'prentice a low transformation: that shall be mine. He ended, and they both descend the hill; Id. Milton. The care of our descent perplexes us most, Id The duke was general himself, and made that unfortunate descent upon the Isle of Rhee, which was attended with a miserable retreat, in which the flower of the army was lost. Clarendon, A foreign son upon the shore descends, Id. Id. He cleft his head with one descending blow. O, true descendant of a patriot line, Vouchsafe this picture of thy soul to see. Turnus, for high descent and graceful mien, Was first, and favoured by the Latian queen. Id. Should we allow that all the property, all the estate of the father ought to descend to the eldest son; yet the father's natural dominion, the paternal power, cannot descend unto him by inheritance. Locke. Observing such gradual and gentle descents downwards, in those parts of the creation that are beneath men, the rule of analogy may make it probable, that it is so also in things above. Foul with stains Of gushing torrents and descending rains. Id. Addison. In the midst of this plain stands a high hill, so very steep, that there would be no mounting or descending it, were not it made up of a loose crumbled earth. Id. Oblique descension is the arch of the equator, which descends with the sign below the horizon of an oblique sphere. Ozenam. Why do fragments, from a mountain rent, Tend to the earth with such a swift descent? Blackmore. He revealed his own will, and their duty, in a more ample manner than it had been declared to any of my descendants before them. Atterbury. More than mortal grace Collier against Despair. Descend from heaven, immortal Dove, from the grandfather to the father, from the father to the son, and from the son to the grandson, &c. DESCENT OF DIGNITIES. A dignity differs from common inheritances, and goes not according to the rules of the common law: for it descends to the half blood: and there is no coparcenership in it, but the eldest takes the whole. The dignity of peerage is personal, annexed to the blood; and so inseparable, that it cannot be transferred to any person, nor surrendered even to the crown: it can move neither forward nor backward, but only downward to posterity; and nothing but corruption of blood, as if the ancestor be attainted of treason or felony, can hinder the descent to the heir. To DESCRIBE', v. a. Fr. descrire; Span DESCRIBER, n. s. descriver; Ital. descriDESCRIPTION, n. s. vere; Lat. describere, DESCRIPTIVE, adj. from de, concerning, and DESCRIVE', v. a. scribere, to write. delineate; trace out; distribute a thing or country into its parts: description is both the act and form of describing. Descrive is used for describe by Surrey. Men passed through the land, and described it by Jos. xviii. 9. cities into seven parts in a book, Speedy of foot, of wing likewise as swift: Shall lose a hair. Browne. He that writes well in verse will often send his thoughts in search, through all the treasure of words that express any one idea in the same language, that so he may comport with the measures of the rhyme, or with his own most beautiful and vivid sentiments Watts. of the thing he describes. In all societies, consisting of various descriptions of citizens, some descriptions must be uppermost. Darwin. DESCENT, in heraldry, is used to express the coming down of any thing from above; as, a lion en descent is a lion with his head towards the base points, and his heels towards one of the corners of the chief, as if he were leaping down from some high place. DESCENT, or hereditary succession, in law, is the title whereby a man, on the death of his ancestor, acquires his estate by right of representation, as his heir at law. An heir, therefore, is he upon whom the law casts the estate immediately on the death of the ancestor; and an estate so descending to the heir is in law called the inheritance. See INHERITANCE. Descent is either lineal or collateral. Collateral descent is that springing out of the side of the line or blood; as from a man to his brother, nephew, or the like. See CONSANGUINITY. Lineal descent is that conveyed down in a right line No further faults descry; For upwards gazing as he lay, An acorn loosened from its spray Fell down upon his eye. Watts. DESEADA, DESIRADA, or DESIDERADA, the first of the Caribbee Islands, discovered by Columbus in his second voyage, in 1494, when he gave it that name. It is ten miles long and five broad, and looks at a distance like a galley, with a low point at the north-west end. The soil is in some places black and good, in others sandy and unproductive. It lies twelve miles cast of Guadaloupe. DESEADA, OF CAPE DESIRE, the south point of the Straits of Magellan, at the entrance of the South Sea. Long. 74° 18′ W., lat. 53° 4' S. DES'ECRATE, v. a. Į Lat. desacro, from DESECRATION. de, privative, and sacro, to consecrate; although the Latin compound desacro also signifies to hallow. To apply to common or profane purposes, that which has been consecrated. The founders of monasteries imprecated evil on those who should desecrate their donations. DESERT, v. a., n. s. & adj. Salmon's Survey. Fr. deserter; from Lat. desero, desertum. DESER'TRICE, n. s. Fem. To leave, forsake, abandon. A desert is a solitary, forsaken place; hence, as an adjective, wild, unfrequented, uninhabited: a deserter, he who forsakes his post of duty; and Milton has afforded us a feminine substantive of this meaning. And it is written in the book of salmys, the abstacioun of hem be maad desert, and be there noon that dwelle in it, and anothir take his bishopriche. Wiclif. Dedis. 1. He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness. Deuteronomy, xxxii. 10. For light she hated, as the deadly bale, Ay wont in desert darkness to remaine, Where plain none might her see, nor she see ony plainc. Spenser. Faerie Queene. I have words That would be howled out in the desert air, Where hearing should not catch them. Shakspeare. Пe, looking round on every side, beheld A pathless desert, dusk with horrid shades. Milton. [It is] as vain to go about to compel (the unhappy pair) into one flesh as to weave a garment of sand.— Cleave to a wife, but let her be a wife, not an adversary, not a desertrice. Id. Tetrachordon. Hosts of deserters, who your honour sold, And basely broke your faith for bribes of gold. Dryden. Christ hears and sympathises with the spiritual agonies of a soul under desertion, or the pressures of South. some stinging affliction. What is it that holds and keeps the orbs in fixed stations and intervals, against an incessant and inheBentley. rent tendency to desert them? The members of both houses, who at first withdrew, were counted deserters, and outed of their places in parliament. King Charles. Thou, false guardian of a charge too good, Thou, mean deserter of thy brother's blood. Pope. A deserter, who came out of the citadel, says the garrison is brought to the utmost necessity. Tatler. No. 59. Deserted is my own good hall, Its hearth is desolate; Byron. My dog howls at the gate. DESERTER. A deserter is, by the articles of war, punishable by death; which, after conviction, is executed upon him at the head of the regiment he formerly belonged to, with his crime written on his breast. A reward of twenty : shillings is given to every person who apprehends buying the clothes, arms, &c. of such person, are a deserter, and persons concealing, harboring, or liable to very heavy penalties. No non-commissioned officer or soldier shall enlist himself in any other regiment, troop, or company, without a regular discharge from the regiment, troop, or company, in which he last served, on the penalty of being reputed a deserter, and suffering accordingly and in case any officer shall knowingly receive and entertain such non-commissioned officer or soldier, or shall not, after his being discovered to be a deserter, immediately confine him, and give notice thereof to the corps in which he last served, he, the said officer so offending, shall, by a court-martial, be cashiered. DESERT', n. s. Old Fr. deserte, or a DESERT LESS, adv. Sparticipial form of DESERVE, which see. Merit or demerit; title to reward or punishment: desertless is used by Dryden for without merit. the manifold persuasions, dispositions, and occasions Being of necessity a thing common, it is, through of men, with equal desert both of praise and dispraise, shunned by some, by others desired. Hooker. Use every man after his desert, and who shall 'scape whipping? Shakspeare. She said she loved, Loved me descrtless; who with shame confest Another flame had seized upon my breast. Dryden. All desert imports an equality between the good conferred, and the good deserved, or made due. South. |