As Life discordant elements arrests, Rejects the noxious, and the pure digests, Combines with Heat the fluctuatiug mass, And gives awhile solidity to gas. Darwin. Oh, the souls of some men Thou wouldst digest what some call treason, and Fools treachery. Byron. DIGEST, DIGESTUM, is a collection of the Roman laws, ranked and digested under proper titles by order of the emperor Justinian. That prince gave his chancellor Tribonianus a commission for this purpose: who, in consequence of this, chose sixteen jurisconsulti, or lawyers, to work upon them. These, accordingly, took the best decisions from the 2000 volumes of the ancient jurisconsulti, and reduced them all into one body; which was published A. D. 533, under the name of the Digest. To this the emperor gave the force of a law, by a letter at the head of the work, which serves it as a preface. The Digest makes the first part of the Roman law, and the first part of the corpus or body of the civil law contained in fifty books. It was translated into Greek under the same emperor, and called Pandecta. See PANDECTS. Čujas says, that Digest is a common name for all books disposed in a good order and economy; and hence Tertullian calls the gospel of St. Luke a digest. Hence also abridgments of the common law are denominated digests of the numerous cases, arguments, readings, pleadings, &c., dienersed in the year books and other reports and books of law, reduced under proper heads. The first was that of Statham, which comes as low as Henry VI. DIGESTER, an instrument invented by Mr. Papin about the beginning of the last century. It is a strong vessel of copper or iron, with a cover adapted to screw on with pieces of felt or paper interposed. A valve with a small aperture is made in the cover, the stopper of which valve may be more or less loaded, either by actual weights, or by pressure from an apparatus on the principle of the steelyard. The purpose of this vessel is to prevent the loss of heat by evaporation. The solvent power of water when heated in this vessel is greatly increased. DIGESTION. For the rationale of this process, see PHYSIOLOGY. See also the word BILE for an account of part of the changes which aliment undergoes, before it may in one sense be said to be duly digested; and, for an account of the derangements in the process of digestion see the article MEDICINE, and the word STOMACH; under which last word, the reader will find a detailed account of those modern theories which have recently excited so much attention in respect of stomach derangements and their general influence over the frame. It is under this word, that we propose discussing the merits and demerits of these theories, and engaging in a somewhat comprehensive disquisition on the subject in all its bearings. DIGESTIVES, in medicine, such remedies as strengthen and increase the tone of the stomach, and assist in the digestion of food. To this class belong all stomachics and strengtheners, or corroborants. DIGGING, among miners, is appropriated to the operation of freeing any kind of ore from the bed or stratum in which it lies, where every stroke of their tools turns to account: in contradistinction to the openings made in search of ore, which are called hatches, or essay hatches: and the operation itself, tracing of mines or hatching. When a bed of ore is discovered,, the beele-men free the ore from the fossils around it; and the shovelmen throw it from one shamble to another, till it reaches the mouth of the hatch. In most mines, to save the expense as well as fatigue of the shovel-men, they raise the ore by means of a winder and two buckets, one of which goes up as the other comes down. DIGHT, v. a. Goth, & Swed. duga; Sax. dihten. To arrange; dress; embelish. It seems always to signify the past; the participle passive is dight, as dighted in Hudibras is perhaps improper. Every spirit as it is most pure If the inverted tube of mercury be but twenty-five digits high, or somewhat more, the quicksilver will not fall, but remain suspended in the tube, because it cannot press the subjacent mercury with so great a force as doth the incumbent cylinder of the air, reaching thence to the top of the atmosphere. Boyle. DIGIT, in astronomy, is used to express the quantity of an eclipse. Thus an eclipse is said to be of six digits, when six of these parts are hid. DIGIT, is also a measure taken from the breadth of the finger. It is properly three-fourths of an inch, and contains the measure of four barleycorns laid breadthwise. DIGITALIS, fox-glove, a genus of the angiospermia order, and didynamia class of plants; natural order twenty-eighth, lurida: CAL. quid fication and dignity are synonymous substantives; and the cognates of the latter. Fr. dignité; Span. dignidad; It. dignita, Dignities is used by Browne for the general or chief maxims of a science. Ayliffe says, that among ecclesiastics, we understand by a dignity that promotion or preferment to which any jurisdiction is attached.' Dignitary has also a peculiar application to clergymen, above the rank of a parishpriest; but is likewise used generally. Angels are not any where spoken so highly of as our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and are not in dignity equal to him. Hooker. Such a day, quepartite: cor. campanulated, quinquefid, and ventricose; CAPS. ovate and bilocular. There are six species: five of which are hardy, herbaceous, biennial, and perennial plants, and the sixth a tender shrubby exotic. The herbaceous species rise two or three feet high, crowned with spikes of yellow, iron-colored, or purple flowers. The shrubby sort rises five or six feet high, having spear-shaped rough leaves, four or five inches long, and half as broad; the branches being all terminated with flowers growing in loose spikes. All the species are easily raised by seeds. An ointment made of the flowers of purple fox-glove and May butter, is much commended by some physicians for scrophulous ulcers which run much and are full of matter. Taken internally this plant is a violent purgative and emetic; and is therefore only to be administered to robust constitutions: indeed it often proves even then a poison. An infusion of two drachms of the leaf in a pint of water, given in half-ounce doses The sciences concluding from dignities, and prinevery two hours or so, till it begin to purge, is ciples known by themselves, receive not satisfaction recommended in dropsy, particularly that of the from probable reasons, much less from bare assevebreast. It is said to have produced an rations. evacuation of water so copious and sudden, in ascites, by stool and urine, that the compression of bandages was found necessary. The plentiful use of diluents is ordered during its operation. But besides being given in infusion, it has also been employed in substance. And when taken at bedtime to the extent of one, two, or three grains of the dried powder, it often in a short time operates as a very powerful diuretic, without producing any other evacuation. Even this quantity, however, will sometimes excite very severe vomiting, and that 100 occurring unexpectedly. A DIGLADIATION, n. s. Lat. digladiatio. combat with swords; any quarrel or contest. Aristotle seems purposely to intend the cherishing of controversial digladiations, by his own affection of an intricate obscurity. Glanville. DIGLIGGYHEUR, a town in the island of Ceylon, about ten miles to the eastward of Candy, on the road to Battacolo. The district around is very wild and impenetrable, for which reason it was once a royal residence; and when the king was driven out of Candy, and his capital burned by the British in 1803, he found here a retreat, to which no European army could penetrate. There are a few villages among the surrounding hills, and some rice grounds. DIGLYPH, in architecture, a kind of imperfect triglyph, console, or the like: with two channels or engravings either circular or angular. DIGNE, the chief town of the department of the Lower Alps, France, famous for the baths near it. It is seated on the Bleone, and is a bishop's see. The streets are steep and winding, and the houses mean; but the cathedral is a respectable edifice, and there are four other churches Not far from the town there is an extinct volcano. It contains about 3500 inhabitants. Thirty miles south of Apt, and thirty-four south by west of Embrun. DIGNIFY v. a. So fought, so followed, and so fairly won, Ben Jonson. Brown. merit meet in any man, it is a double dignification of I grant that where a noble and ancient descent and Abbots are stiled dignified clerks, as having some Ayliffe's Parergon. dignity in the church. If there be any dignitaries, whose preferments are perhaps not liable to the accusation of superfluity, they may be persons of superior merit. Swift. Some men have a native dignity, which will procure them more regard by a look, than others can Clarissa. obtain by the most imperious commands. The peaceable lawyers are, in the first place, many of the benchers of the several inns of court, who seem to be the dignitaries of the law, and are endowed with those qualifications of mind that accomplish a man rather for a raler than a pleader. Addison. Or, turning to the Vatican, go see Laocoon's torture dignifying painA father's love and mortal's agony With an immortal's patience blending. Byron. DIGNITY, as applied to the titles of noblemen, signifies honor and authority. And dignity may be divided into superior and inferior; as the titles of duke, marquis, earl, baron, &c. are the highest names of dignity; and those of baronet, knight, serjeant at law, &c., the lowest. Nobility only can give so high a name of dignity as to supply the want of a surname in legal proceedings; and as the omission of a name of dignity may be pleaded in abatement of a writ, &c., so it may be where a peer who has more than one name of dignity is not named by the Most Noble. No temporal dignity of any foreign nation can give a man a higher title here than that of Esquire. The first personal dignity after the nobility is a knight of the order of St. George, or of the garter, first instituted by Edward III. A. D. 1344. Next (but not till after certain official dignities, as privy-counsellors, the chancellors of the ex chequer and duchy of Lancaster, the chief justice of the king's bench, the master of the rolls, and the other English judges,) follows a knight banneret; who indeed by statutes 5 Richard II. c. 4, and 14 Richard II., c. 11, is ranked next after barons; and his precedence before the younger sons of viscounts was confirmed by order of king James I. But to entitle him to this rank, he must have been created by the king in person, in the field, under the royal banners, in time of open war; else he ranks after baronets, who are the next in order; which title is a dignity of inheritance, created by letters patent, and usually descendible to the issue male. Next follow the knights of the Bath. The last of these inferior nobility are knights bachelors; the most ancient though the lowest order of knighthood amongst us. See BACHELOR. The above, with those enumerated under the article NOBILITY, Sir Edward Coke says, are all the names of dignity in this kingdom; Esquires and Gentlemen being only names of worship. But before these last the heralds rank all colonels, serjeants at law, and doctors of law, physic, and divinity. DIGNOTION, n. s. From Lat. dignosco. Distinction; distinguishing mark. That temperament all dignotions, and conjecture of prevalent humours, may be collected from spots in our nails, we are not averse to concede. Browne's Vulgar Errours. DIGRESS', v. n. Span. and Port digreDIGRESSION, n. s. dir; Ital. digredire ; Lat. DIGRESSIVE, adj. digrediri, digressus, from dis and gradior, gressus, to step; to go aside from a road, or design; to wander; expatiate. Digressive is wandering. Thy noble shape is but a form of wax, Shakspeare. The good man thought so much of his late conceived commonwealth, that all other matters were but digressions to him. Sidney. In the pursuit of an argument, there is hardly room to digress into a particular definition, as often as a man varies the signification of any term. Locke. Digressions in a book are like foreign troops in a state, which argue the nation to want a heart and hands of its own; and often either subdue the natives, or drive them into the most unfruitful corners. Swift. The excellence of this work is not exactness but copiousness. The wild diffusion of the sentiments, and the digressive sallies of imagination, would have been compressed and restrained by confinement to rhyme. Johnson. DIGYNIA; from dis, twice, and yuvn, a woman; the name of an order in the first thirteen classes, except the ninth, in Linnæus's sexual method; consisting of plants, which have two female organs. DII, the divinities of the ancient heathens, were very numerous. Every object which caused terror, inspired gratitude, or bestowed affluence, Man saw a received the tribute of veneration. superior agent in the stars, the elements, or the trees, and supposed that the waters which communicated fertility to his fields and possessions, were under the influence and direction of some invisible power inclined to favor and to benefit mankind. Thus arose a train of divinities which imagination arrayed in different forms and armed with different powers. They were supposed to be endowed with understanding, and actuated by the same passions which daily afflict the human race; and to be appeased or provoked, like the imperfect beings whose fears gave them birth. Their wrath was to be mitigated by sacrifices and incense; and sometimes human victims bled, and thus real crimes were committed, to expiate crimes, which superstition alone supposed to exist. The sun, from his powerful influence and animating nature, first claimed the adoration of the unciviThe moon also lised inhabitants of the earth. was honored with sacrifices, and addressed in prayers; and after immortality had been liberally bestowed on all the heavenly bodies, mankind classed among their deities the brute creation, and the cat and the sow shared equally with Jupiter himself, the father of gods and men, the devout veneration of their votaries. This immense number of deities has been divided into different classes according to the fancy of the mythologists. The Romans generally reckoned two classes of the gods. Among the demi-gods, who were said to have merited immortality by the greatness of their exploits and services to mankind, were Vertumnus, Hercules, Jason, Castor, and Pollux, whose parents were some of the immortal gods. All the passions and moral virtues were also reckoned powerful deities, and temples were raised to the goddesses of concord, peace, &c. According to Hesiod, there were no less than 30,000 gods that inhabited the earth, and were guardians of men, all subservient to Jupiter. To these, succeeding ages added an almost equal number; and indeed they were so numerous, and their functions so various, that we find temples erected and sacrifices offered, to unknown gods. All the gods of the ancients were supposed to have once lived upon earth as mere mortals; and even Jupiter himself, the ruler of heaven, is represented by the mythologists as once a helpless child; and all the particulars, attending the birth and education of Juno, are recorded. In process of time, not only virtuous men, who had been the patrons of learning and the supporters of liberty, but also thieves and pirates, were admitted among the gods, and the Roman senate servilely granted immortality to the most cruel and worthless of their emperors. DIJAMBUS, in Latin poetry, the foot of a verse of four syllables; it is compounded of two iambics, as severitas. DIJON, or DIGON, an ancient and handsome city of France, a bishop's see, in the department of the Cote d'Or and ci-devant province of Burgundy. It has a university which has long been among the most celebrated and best regulated in France. The public structures, and particularly the churches, are very fine. In front of the cidevant Place Royale, is the ancient palace of the The infant, at the accomplished period, struggling to come forth, dilacerates and breaks those parts which restrained him before. Browne's Vulgar 'Errours. The greatest sensation of pain is by the obstruction of the small vessels, and dilaceration of the nervous fibres. DILA'NIATE, v. a. to rend in pieces. Arbuthnot. Lat. dilanio. To tear; Rather than they would dilaniate the entrails of their own mother, and expose her thereby to be ravished, they met half way in a gallant kind. DILAPIDATE, v. n. Į Howel's Eng. Tears. Lat. dilapido. To go to ruin; to fall by. decay. The incumbent's suffering the chancel, or any other edifices of his ecclesiastical living, to go to ruin or decay, by neglecting to repair the same: it likewise extends to his committing, or suffering to be committed, any wilful inheritance of the church. (Ayliffe's Parergon.) waste in or upon the glebe-woods, or any other This word has also been applied generally of dukes of Burgundy; and at the gates of Dijon is a late Chartreuse founded in 1383, in which are some magnificent tombs of those princes. The Place Royale, in the form of a horse-shoe, is the principal part of the city. Among the churches worth notice are, that of St. Benigne, the spire of which has an elevation of 370 feet; the church of St. Michael, remarkable for the richness of its portal; that of St. Stephen, now the cathedral church; and the church of Notre Dame, esteemed one of the best models of Gothic architecture in Europe. Of the old monastic institutions, the richest was the Cistercian abbey, the origin of all of that order throughout Europe. Here is also a citadel built by Louis XI. The streets are well paved, and regular, and the houses in general neat and commodious; the population, including the suburbs, is 21,600. Here are manufactures of silk, cotton, and wool, the trade in which has been much improved by the recent construction of a canal from this place to St. Jean de Loire. Three great annual fairs are held here: March 10th, June 14th, and November 10th, lasting eight days each. Dijon is built on an oval plan and seated in a pleasant plain, which produces excellent wine, between two small rivers, fortyeight miles north-east of Autun, 100 miles north of Lyons, and 175 south-east of Paris; contains professorships of theology, philosophy, mathematics, Latin, German, history, rhetoric, eloquence and poetry. Here are also a drawing school, a library of 4000 volumes, a museum of paintings and engravings, and a theatre. The acade-, to set at large. To extend; spread out; my of sciences was founded in 1725. Among enlarge; hence to relate at length or diffusely: the eminent characters of Dijon, may be mentioned the celebrated Bossuet, and the poets Crebillon and Piron. It has several public walks; of which the most frequented are the ramparts. DIJUDICATION, n. s. Lat. dijudicatio. Judicial distinction. DIKE, n. s. Goth and Swed. dike; Saxon, dic; Erse dyk; Fr. digue; from Gr. Taxos; Heb. Pa wall, or mound. A boundary of lands made by water, and often by embankments on 'the side; a channel for water. God, that breaks up the flood-gates of so great a deluge, and all the art and industry of man is not sufficient to raise up dykes and ramparts against it. Cowley. DIKE denotes also a ditch or drain, made for the passage of waters. The word seems formed from the verb to dig; though others derive it from the Dutch diik, or dyke, a dam, sea-bank, or wall. DIKE, or dyke, is a work of stone, timber, or fascines, raised to oppose the entrance or passage of the waters of the sea, a river, lake, or the like. DILAC'ERATE, v. a ? DILACERA'TION n. s. force in two. Lat. dilacero. To tear; to rend; to late. "Tis the duty of all church-wardens to prevent the Ayliffe. dilapidations of the chancel and mansion-house be- Fr. dilater; Span. dilatar; Ital. & Lat. dilatare, from de and latus; Gr. πλατος, broad, from Heb. as a neuter verb, to widen; speak largely. Dilatability is admitting of extension. Dilatation, the act of extending, or state of being extended. But ye thereby much greater glory gate, Than had ye sorted with a prince's peer; For now your light doth more itself dilate, And in my darkness greater doth appear. Collecting all his might, dilated stood, Like Teneriff, or Atlas, unremoved. Milton. The motions of the tongue, by contraction and dilatation, are so easy and so subtle, that you can hardly conceive or distinguish them aright. Holder. We take notice of the wonderful dilatability or ex tensiveness of the gullets of serpents: I have taken wo adult mice out of the stomach of an adder, whose neck was not bigger than my little finger. Ray. Diffused, it rises in a higher sphere; His heart dilates and glories in his strength, Addison. The second refraction would spread the rays one way as much as the first doth another, and so dilate the image in breadth as much as the first doth in length. Newton. The windpipe divides itself into a great number of branches called bronchia: these end in small airbladders, dilatable and contractible, capable to be inflated by the admission of air, and to subside at the expulsion of it. Arbuthnot on Aliments. The buccinatores, or mowers up of the cheeks, and the dilators of the nose, are too strong in cholerick people. Id. This fluid may possibly be the same with that which, being attracted by and entering into other more solid matter, dilates the substance, by separating the constituent particles, and so rendering some solids fluid, and maintaining the fluidity of others. Franklin. DILATATION, in physics, a motion of the parts o. any body, by which it is so expanded as to occupy a greater space. This expansive motion depends upon the elastic power of the body; whence it appears that dilatation is different from rarefaction, this last being produced by the means of heat. DILATORY PLEAS, in law, are such as are put in merely for delay, and there may be a demurrer to a dilatory plea, or the defendant shall be ordered to plead better, &c. The truth of dilatory pleas is to be made out by affidavit of the fact, by stat. 4 and 5 Anne. DILATRIS, in botany, a genus of the monogynia order, and triandria class of plants: CAL. none: COR. has six petals, and is shaggy; the stigma simple. Species three; all natives of the Cape. DILATORY, adj. Fr. dilatoire; Lat. dilutorius. See DILATE. (For a dilatory person spreads or extends his work.) Slow; delaying; tardy. These cardinals trifle with me: I abhor An inferior council, after former tedious suits in a higher court, would be but dilatory, and so to little Hayward. purpose. Young. All promise is poor dilatory man, And that through every stage. A dilatory temper commits innumerable cruelties without design. Addison's Spectator. DILECTION, n. s. Lat. dilectio. The act of loving; kindness. So free is Christ's dilection, that the grand condition of our felicity is our belief. Boyle's Seraphic Love. DILEMMA. Fr. dilemme; Lat. dilemma; Gr. dinuua, from dig and Anμμa, an assumption, ò λaußave, to take. An argument or sophism capable, apparently, of two equally correct, but opposite conclusions. A dilemma, that Morton used to raise benevolence, some called his fork, and some his crotch. Bacon's Henry VII. If you inquire not attentively and diligently, you shall never be able to discern a number of mechanical motions. Bacon. But the power of nature is only the power of using to any certain purpose the materials which diligence Johnson. procures, or opportunity supplies. Now, who would have suspected your friend Miss Prim of an indiscretion? Yet such is the illnature of people, that they say her uncle stopped her last week, just as she was stepping into the York diligence with her dancing master. Sheridan. DILL, n. s. Sax. dile; Pers. dilee, from dil, the heart, a cordial. It hath a slender, fibrous, annual root; the leaves are like those of fennel; the seeds are oval, plain, streaked, and bordered. Dill is raised of seed, which is ripe in August. Mortimer. DILLEMBURG, or DILLENBURG, a town of Germany, in Westphalia, and capital of Nassau Dillenburg, situated on the Dille. Near it is a furnace for the smelting of copper. The sovereignty of this town was added to the grand duke of Berg, by the late treaty of confederation between the states of the Rhine. It is fourteen miles north-west of Wetzlar. Long. 8° 22′ E., lat. 50° 36′ N. DILLINGEN, a neat town of Bavaria, on the left bank of the Danube, with a university or lyceum. The bishop of Augsburg resided here formerly, and it is still a bishop's see. It contains a chapter and three convents; and was formerly a county; the princes of which were powerful. Near this town Louis XVIII. was fired at, and wounded in the forehead, by some unknown assassin, July 12th, 1796. Population 3120. It is twenty-three miles north-east of Augsburg and twenty-four north-east of Ulm. DILLENIA, in botany, a genus of the polygynia order, and polyandria class of plants: CAL. pentaphyllous; the petals five: CAPS. nu |