fleet. Nejm Eddin, the sultan's son, who was encamped near Damietta, covered it with an army. To stop the enemy's vessels, he threw a bridge over the Nile. The Franks overturned it, and the prince adopted the measure of choking up the mouth of the river, which he rendered almost impassable by several large boats he sunk there. After alternate successes, many bloody battles, and a siege of seventeen months, the Christian princes took Damietta by storm. They did not, however, long enjoy the fruit of so much blood spilt, and of an armament which had cost immense sums. Completely invested near the canal of Achmoun, by the waters of the Nile, and by the Egyptian army, they purchased their lives and their liberty by the sacrifice of their conquest. Thirty-one years after this defeat, St. Louis carried Damietta without striking a stroke. The Arabs, however, soon recovered it; but, tired of keeping a place, which continually drew upon them the most warlike nations of Europe, they totally destroyed it, and built another further up in the country. This modern Damietta, first called Menchie, as Abulfeda tells us, has preserved the memory of its origin, in a square still called by that name. Writers, in general, have confounded these two towns, ascribing to the one the attributes of the other.

The present Damietta is of a semicircular form, and stands also on the east bank of the Nile, seven miles and a-half from its mouth. It is reckoned, by Savary, to contain 80,000 souls, but this has been thought an excessive estimate. It has several squares, the most considerable of which has retained the name of Menchie. The bazaars are filled with merchants. Spacious okals, or khans, collecting under their porticos the stuffs of India, the silks of Mount Lebanon, sal ammoniac, and pyramids of rice, proclaim its commercial respectability. The houses, those in particular which are on the banks of the river, are very lofty. They have, in general, handsome saloons on the top of their terraces, open to every wind; where the Turk, reclining on a sofa, passes his life in smoking, or in looking on the sea, which bounds the horizon on one side; on the great lake that extends itself on the other; and on the Nile, which, running between them, traverses a rich country. Several large mosques, adorned with minarets, are dispersed over the town. The public baths, lined with marble, are distributed in the same manner as those of Grand Cairo, The linen is clean, and the water very pure. The heat, and the treatment in them, so far from injuring the health, serve to strengthen and improve it, if used with moderation. This custom, founded on experience, is general in Egypt. The port of Damietta is continually filled with a multitude of boats and small vessels. Those called scherm serve to convey the merchandise on board the ships in the road, and to unload them: the others carry on the coastingtrade. This town carries on a great trade with Syria, Cyprus, and Marseilles. The rice, called mezelaoui, of the finest quality in Egypt, is cultivated in the neighbouring plains. The exports of it amount, annually, to about six millions of livres. Other articles of the produce of the country are linens, sal ammoniac, corn, &c. The Christians

of Aleppo and Damascus, settled in this town, have, for several ages, carried on its principal commerce. The bad state of the port is very detrimental to Damietta. The road, where the vessels lie, being exposed to every wind, the slightest gale obliges the captains to cut their cables, and take shelter in Cyprus, or stand off to sea. The tongue of land, on which Damietta is situated, straitened on one side by the river, and on the other by the western extremity of the lake Menzale, is only from two to six miles wide from east to west. It is intersected by innumerable rivulets in every direction, which render it the most fertile spot in Egypt. There are many villages around the town, in which are manufactures of the most beautiful linens. The finest napkins, in particular, are made here, fringed with silk. Damietta is 100 miles N. N. E. of Cairo.

DAMN, v. a.

DAMNED, part. & n. s. DAM'NABLE, adj. DAM'NABLENESS, n. s. DAM'NABLY, adv. DAM'NATION, n. s. DAM'NATORY, adj. DAM'NIFY, v. a. DAM'NINGNESS, n. s.

1,

Lat. damno; Old Fr. damner; which Minsheu derives from the Heb. the shedding of blood in sacrifice or punishment. To condemn; and the state of being condemned, temporally or eternally. To curse; to disapprove; to explode. Indecently used,' also, as Johnson says, in a ludicrous (and trifling) sense.'

I answeride, that it is not custom to romayns, to dampne ony man before that he that is accused haue his accuseris present. Wicklif. Dedis. 25.

And not as we ben blasfemed, and as sum men seyn, that we seyn, do we yuele things that goode thingis come, whos dampnacioun is just.

Id. Romayss, iii. 8.

For wel thou wost thy selven veraily That thou and I be damned to prison Perpetual; us gaineth no rainson.

Chaucer. Cant. Tales. When now he saw himself so freshly rear, As if late fight had nought him dumnified, He was dismayed, and 'gan his fate to fear.

Faerie Queene.

Not in the legions Of horrid hell can come a devil more damned In evils to top Macbeth. Shakspeare. Macbeth.

Let not the royal bed of Denmark be A couch for luxury and damned incest. Id. Hamlet. He's a creature unprepared, unmeet for death; And to transport him in the mind he is Were damnable.

Id. Measure for Measure. It gives him occasion of labouring with greater earnestness elsewhere, to entangle unwary minds with the snares of his damnable opinion.

Hooker.

Whence damned vice is shrouded quite from shame, And crowned with virtue's meed, immortal name! Infamy dispossest of native due, Ordained of old on looser life to sue.

Bishop Hall. Prologue to Satires. He that hath been affrighted with the fears of hell, or remembers how often he hath been spared from an horrible damnation, will not be ready to strangle his brother for a trifle. Taylor's Worthy Communicant.

He may vow never to return to those sins which he hath had such experience of, for the emptiness and damningness of them, and so think himself a complete penitent,

Hammond.

Rise curling fast beneath me, white and sulphury, Like foam from the roused ocean of deep Hell, Whose every wave breaks on a living shore, Heaped with the damned like pebbles.—I am giddy. Byron.

DAMNII, an ancient people of Britain, who inhabited the district situated between the territories of the Selgovæ on the south, and the Caledonii on the north, now called Clydesdale.

DAMOCLES, one of the flatterers of Dionysius the elder, of Sicily. He admired the tyrant's wealth, and pronounced him the happiest man on earth. Dionysius prevailed upon him to undertake, for a while, the charge of royalty, and be convinced of the happiness which a sovereign enjoyed. Damocles ascended the throne, and while he gazed upon the wealth and splendor which surrounded him, he perceived a sword hanging over his head by a single hair. This so terrified him, that all his imaginary felicity vanished at once, and thus represented to him the danger and misery of royal state.

DAMON AND PYTHIAS, two illustrious friends of antiquity, who have immortalised their names by the strength and sincerity of their friendship. Damon was a Pythagorean philosopher, who, having incurred the displeasure of Dionysius, tyrant of Syracuse, was condemned to death. He asked a short respite, till he should settle some domestic business, of the utmost importance to his family, but which required his personal presence at some distance from Syracuse. Dionysius agreed to grant his request, upon a condition, which he supposed impossible to be complied with, viz. that Damon should find some person who was willing to suffer death in his stead, provided he did not return at the time appointed. Pythias, to the surprise of the tyrant, cheerfully surrendered himself as pledge for his friend Daman; who, after settling

a

his business, astonished the tyrant still more, by returning punctually at the hour fixed for his execution. Dionysius was so struck with the fidelity of these two friends, that he remitted the punishment, and entreated them to permit him to share their friendship, and enjoy their confidence.

DAMP, v. a., n. s. & adj."
DAMP'NESS, n. s.
DAMP'ISH, adj.
DAMP'ISHNESS, n. s.
DAMP'Y, adj.

Sax. and Belg. damp; Teutonic, dampf. Serenius says from Scyth. dua, vapor.

To

wet, moisten, make humid; foggy, moist, or heavy air; and hence to depress, deject, make dull, discourage. Dampish, dampishness, and dampy are diminutives of the same signification.

It has been used by some with great success to make their walls thick; and to put a lay of chalk between the bricks, to take away all dampishness. Bacon. A soft body dampeth the sound much more than a Id. hard. Night; not now, as ere man fell, Wholesome and cool, and mild; but with black air Accompanied, with damps and dreadful gloom. Milton.

An eternal state he knows and confesses that he

has made no provision for, that he is undone for ever: a prospect enough to cast a damp over his sprightliest hours. Rogers.

Dread of death hangs over the mere natural man, and, like the hand-writing on the wall, damps all his jollity. Atterbury.

The heat of the sun, in the hotter seasons, penetrating the exterior parts of the earth, excites those mineral exhalations in subterraneous caverns, which are called damps: these seldom happen but in the summer-time; when, the hotter the weather is, the more frequent are the damps. Woodward.

The lords did dispel dampy thoughts, which the remembrance of his uncle might raise, by applying him with exercises and disports. Hayward.

Cypress and ivy, weed and wall-flower grown Matted and massed together, hillocks heaped On what were chambers, arch crushed, column strown In fragments, chok'd up vaults, and frescos steeped In subterranean damps, where the owl peeped, Deeming it midnight.

Byron. DAMPS, in natural history, from the Saxon word damp, siguifying vapour, are certain noxi

ous exhalations issuing from some parts of the earth, chiefly observed in mines and coal-pits: though vapors of the same kind often issue from old lavas of burning mountains, in those countries where volcanoes are common. In mines and coalpits they are chiefly of two kinds, called by the miners and colliers the choke and fire-damps. The choke-damp is very much of the nature of fixed air; and usually infests those places which have been formerly worked, but long neglected, and are known to the miners by the name of wastes. The choke-damp suffocates the miners suddenly, with all the appearances found in those suffocated by fixed air. Being heavy, it descends towards the lowest parts of the workings, and thus is dangerous to the miners, who can scarcely avoid breathing it. The fire-damp, which seems chiefly to be composed of inflammable air, rises to the roof of the workings, as being specifically lighter than the common atmosphere; and hence, though it will suffocate as well as the other, it seldom proves so dangerous in this way as by its inflammable property, by which it often takes fire at the candles, and explodes with extreme violence. See COAL-MINES.

Of the formation of these damps we have as yet no certain theory; nor, though the experiments of aerologists are able to show the composition and manner of forming these noxious airs artificially, have they yet thrown much light on the method by which nature prepares them on a large scale, There are two general ways in which we may suppose this to be done; one by the stagnation of atmospherical air in old waste places of mines and coal-pits, and its conversion into these mephitic exhalations; the other by their original formation from the phlogistic or other materials found in the earth, without any interference of the atmosphere. See GAS.

DAMPIER (William), a famous navigator, descended from a respectable family in Somersetshire, and born in 1652. Losing his father when very young, he went to sea, where he soon distinguished himself. His Voyage round the World, &c. are well known, and have gone through many editions. He appears afterwards to have engaged in an expedition concerted by the merchants of Bristol to the South Sea, commanded by captain Woods Rogers; who sailed in August 1708, and returned in September 1711: but no further particulars of his life or death are recorded.

Dryden.

Kneeling, I my servant's smiles implore, And one mad damsel dares dispute my power. Prior.

DAM'SON, n. s. Corruptly from damascene A small black plum. See DAMASCENE.

My wife desired some damsons,

And made me climb with danger of my life.
Shakspeare.

DAN, n. s. From dominus, as now don in Spain, and Ital. donna, from domina. The old term of honor for men, as we now say master. 'I know not,' says Dr. Johnson, that it was ever used in prose, and imagine it to have been rather of ludicrous import.' But Spenser uses it in serious praise of Chaucer, below.

Old dan Geffrey, in whose gentle spright
The pure well-head of poetry did dwell-
He whilst he lived was the soveraigne head
Of shepherds all.
Spenser.

This whimpled, whining, purblind, wayward boy,

This signor Junio's giant dwarf, dan Cupid.

Shakspeare.

Dick, if this story pleaseth thee, 'Pray thank dan Pope, who told it me. Prior's Alma.

DAN, Heb. i. e. judgment, one of the twelve patriarchs, the fifth son of Jacob. Of his history nothing is recorded, except that he had but one son, named Hushim; though his posterity was afterwards very numerous.

DAN, or the DANITES, one of the twelve tribes of Israel, descended from the patriarch_Dan. Their number, at the emigration from Egypt, amounted to 62,700, and they increased in the wilderness. After their settlement in Canaan, a party of them, who went to take Laish, in their way robbed Micah the Ephraimite of his idol, which they continued to worship till they were carried captive by Tiglath Pileser. Samson, the heroic judge of Israel, was of this tribe; and 28,600 of them attended at David's coronation. The Danites appear to have been early acquainted with commerce, for they had ships in the time of Jabin, king of the Canaanites. See Judges v. 17. Their territory extended west of Judah, and was terminated by Azotus and Dora on the Mediter

ranean.

DAN, in scripture geography, a city of the Danites, situated on the east side of the springs of Jordan, on the south of Mount Lebanon. It was named Laish or Leshem. Here Jeroboam established idolatry by setting up his golden calves. This city and Beersheba were the two extremities of the kingdom of Israel. Dan was taken and pillaged by Benhadad king of Syria; notwithstanding which it made some figure after the captivity. Some authors say, that it was rebuilt by Philip the tetrarch of Galilee, in our Saviour's time, and nained by him Cæsarea Philippi. It lay east of Sidon and west of DamasIt is thought by some to be the Lasha of Gen. x. 19.

cus.

DAN, in modern geography, a considerable river of the United States in North Carolina, which has been rendered navigable for boats a great way up. It unites with the Staunton in Virginia, and forms the Roanoke,

DANAE, in antiquity, a coin somewhat more than an obolus, used to be put into the mouths of the dead, to pay their passage over the river Styx.

DANAE, in fabulous history, the daughter of Acrisius, king of Argos, by Eurydice. She was confined in a brazen tower by her father, who had been told by an oracle that his daughter's son would put him to death. But Jupiter, who was enamoured of 'Danae, introduced himself to her bed by changing himself into a shower of gold. From his embraces Danae had a son, with whom she was exposed on the sea by her father. The wind drove the bark which carried her to the coasts of the island of Seriphus; where she was saved by some fishermen, and carried to Polydectes king of the place, whose brother, Dictys, educated the child, named Perseus, and tenderly treated the mother. Polydectes fell in love with her; but, being afraid of her son, he sent him to conquer the Gorgons, pretending that he wished Medusa's head to adorn his nuptials with Hippodamia the daughter of Enomaus. When Perseus had victoriously finished his expedition, he retired to Argos with Danae to the house of Acrisius, whom he inadvertently killed. Virgil says that Danae after this came to Italy, and founded the city of Ardea. Some suppose that it was Prœtus, the brother of Acrisius, who introduced himself to Danae in the brazen tower; but, whoever was her seducer, the fable of the golden shower plainly implies that the keepers of the tower were bribed. Against such showers, indeed, towers of brass and bars of iron are no

defence.

DANAIDES, in fabulous history, the fifty daughters of Danaus king of Argos. When their uncle Egyptus came from Egypt with his fifty sons, they were promised in marriage to their cousins; but before the celebration of their nuptials, Danaus, who had been informed by an oracle that he was to be killed by the hands of one of his sons-in-law, made his daughters solemnly promise that they would destroy their husbands. They were provided with daggers, and all except Hypermnestra proved but too obedient to their father's bloody injunctions, as a proof of which they presented him with the heads of their murdered husbands, on the morning after their nuptials. Hypermnestra was summoned to appear and answer for her disobedience in suffering her husband Lynceus to escape; but the unanimous voice of the people declared her innocent, and she dedicated a temple to the goddess of Persuasion. The forty-nine sisters were condemned, in hell, to fill with water a vessel full of holes, so that their labor was infinite and their punishment eternal.

DANAUS, in fabulous history, a son of Belus and Anchinoe, who, after his father's death, reigned conjointly with his brother Ægyptus on the throne of Egypt. Some time after a difference arose between the brothers, and Danaus set sail with his fifty daughters in quest of a settlement. He visited Rhodes, where he consecrated a statue to Minerva, and arrived safe on the coast of Peloponnesus, where he was hospitably received by Gelanor king of Argos. Gelanor had lately ascended the throne, and the first years

of his reign were marked by dissensions with his subjects. Danaus took advantage of his unpopularity, and obliged him to resign the crown. The success of Danaus led the fifty sons of Ægyptus to embark for Greece. They were received with hypocritical kindness by their uncle; and soon after all murdered, except Lynceus. See DANAIDES. Danaus at first persecuted Lynceus with unremitted fury; but he was afterwards reconciled to him, and acknowledged him for his son-in-law and successor after a reign of fifty years. He began his reign about A.A.C. 1586; and after death was honored with a splendid monument in Argos, which existed in the age of Pausanias.

DANBURY, a town of the United States of America, in Connecticut, fifty-five miles N. N. E. of New York, and 116 south-west of Boston. This town was settled in 1687, and, with a great quantity of military stores, was burnt by the British on the 26th of April, 1777, but has been rebuilt since the peace. It lies thirty-three miles north-west by west of New Haven. DANCE, v. a.. v,n. & n. s.` DANCER, DANCING. DANCING-MASTER,

DANCING-SCHOOL,

Goth, & Belg. dans; Fr. danse; Ital. danza, from

the Heb. 1, to leap, says Minsheu. To step, or move in measure; to dandle; a motion of one or more musically regulated: one who practises such motions is a dancer; he who teaches them a dancing-master; and a dancing-school the place where they are professedly taught. Dancing is also used for any concerted and regular motion or attendance.

But in the day of eroudis birthe, the daughtir of erodias daunside in the myddil and pleside eroude. Wiclif. Matt. xiv.

Now his elder son was in the field, and, as he came and drew nigh to the house, he heard music and dancing. Luke xv.

In olde dayes of the king Artour,-
The Elf quene with hire joly compagnie
Danced ful ofte in many a grene mede.
This was the old opinion as I rede.
Chaucer. Cant, Tales.

In pestilences, the malignity of the infecting danceth the principal spirits. Bacon.

vapour The honourablest part of talk is to give the occasion,

and again to moderate and pass to somewhat else; for then a man leads the dance.

Id.

What say you to young Mr. Fenton? He capers, he dances, he has eyes of youth, he writes verses. Shakspeare.

Thy grandsire loved thee well,
Id.
Many a time he dunced thee on his knee.
He at Philippi kept

His sword e'en like a dancer, while I strook The lean and wrinkled Cassius.

Id.

DANCES, ANCIENT. There is no account of the origin of dancing among mankind. It is found to exist among the most barbarous and uncivilised nations, and is too intimately connected with the mechanism of the human body to be originally derivable from art. The Greeks were the first people, however, who reduced it to a system. At Athens, it is said, that the dance of the Eumenides, or Furies, on the theatre had so expressive a character as to strike the spectators with irresistible terror; and people imagined they saw in earnest the personified deities commissioned with the vengeance of heaven to pursue and punish their crimes. They had also martial dances, to keep up the warlike spirit of their youth. Plato reduces the dances of the ancients to three classes, viz.

1. Domestic Dances. Of these, some were but simply gambols, or sportive exercises, which had no character of imitation, and of which the greater part exist to this day. The others were more complex, more agreeable, figured, and were always accompanied with singing. Among the first or simple ones was the ascoliasmus; which consisted in jumping, with one foot only, on bladders filled with air or with wine, and rubbed on the outside with oil. The kybestesis was what is called in this country the Somerset. Of the second kind was that called the wine-press, of which there is a description in Longinus, and the Ionian dances.

2. Mediatorial Dances. These were used in expiations and sacrifices. Among the ancients there were no festivals nor religious assemblies but what were accompanied with songs and dances. They were looked upon to be so essential in these kinds of ceremonies, that to express

the crime of such as were guilty of revealing the sacred mysteries, they employed the word kheistæ, 'to be out of the dance.' The most ancient of these religious dances is the Bacchic; which was not only consecrated to Bacchus, but to all the deities whose festival was celebrated with a kind of enthusiasm. The most grave and majestic was the hyporchematic; it was executed to the lyre, and accompanied with the voice.At his return from Crete, Theseus instituted a dance at which he himself assisted, at the head of a numerous and splendid band of youth, round the altar of Apollo. The dance was composed of three parts, the strophe, the antistrophe, and the stationary. In the strophe the movements were from the right to the left; in the antistrophe from the left to the right. In the stationary they danced before the altar; so that the stationary did not mean absolute pause or rest, but only a more slow or grave movement. Plutarch is persuaded that in this dance there is a profound mystery. He thinks that by the strophe is indicated the motion of the world from east to west; by the antistrophe the motion of the planets from west to east; and, by the stationary, the stability of the earth. To this dance Theseus gave the name of geranos, or 'the crane;' because the figures which characterised it bore a resemblance to those described by cranes in their flight.

3. Military Dances, which tended to make the body robust, active, and well disposed for all the exercises of war. Of these there were two sorts; viz. the gymnopedic, and the pyrrhic. 1. The gymnopedic dance, or the dance of children, was invented by the Spartans for an early excitation of courage in their children, and to lead them on insensibly to the exercise of the armed dance. This dance used to be executed in the public place. It was composed of two choirs; the one of grown men, the other of children; whence, being chiefly designed for the latter, it took its name. They were both in a state of nudity. The choir of the children regulated their motions by those of the men, and all danced at the same time, singing the poems of Thales, Alcman, and Dionysodotus.

The Pyrrhic, or Enoplian dance, was performed by young men armed cap-a-pee, who executed, to the sound of the flute, all the proper movements either for attack or for defence. It was composed of four parts: 1. The podism or footing, which consisted in a quick shifting motion of the feet, such as was necessary for overtaking a flying enemy, or for getting away from him when an overmatch: 2. The xiphism was a kind of mock fight, in which the dancers imitated all the motions of combatants; aiming a stroke, darting a javelin, or dexterously dodging, parrying, or avoiding a blow or thrust. 3. The komos consisted in very high leaps or vaultings, which the dancers frequently repeated, for the better using themselves occasionally to leap over a ditch, or spring over a wall. 4. The tetracomos was the last part; this was a square figure, executed by slow and majestic movements, but it is uncertain whether it was every where executed in the same manner. Of all the Greeks, the Spartans most cultivated the Pyrrhic dance.