822 



DILATORY PLEAS 



DILLINGEN 



Dilatory Pleas. See PLEA. 



Dilemma. A true dilemma is defined by 

 Whately as 'a conditional syllogism with two o 

 more antecedents in the major, and a disjunctive 

 minor.' The following dilemma, of the kind callec 

 destructive, will perhaps convey a clearer notion 

 than any definition. 'If this man were wise, he 

 would not speak irreverently of Scripture in jest 

 and if he were good, he would not do so in earnest 

 but he does it, either in jest or earnest ; therefore > 

 he is either not wise, or not good.' There being 

 two conclusions, one or other of which your 

 opponent must admit, he is in a manner caughl 

 between them ; hence we speak of the horns of a 

 dilemma. 



Dilettanti ( pi. dilettanti, Ital. ), in its original 

 sense, is synonymous with an amateur, or lover oi 

 the fine arts. It is often used as a term of re- 

 proach, to signify an amateur whose taste lies in 

 the direction of what is trivial and vulgar, or of a 

 critic or connoisseur whose knowledge is mere 

 affectation and pretence. It is sometimes assumed, 

 in a spirit of self -depreciation, by those who are 

 unwilling that their critical acquirements, or 

 artistic productions, should be judged by the rules 

 which would be applied to those of persons Avho 

 had made a professional study of art. It was in 

 this sense that it was assumed by the Dilettanti 

 Society, a body of noblemen and gentlemen by 

 whose exertions the study of antique art in Eng- 

 land has been largely promoted. The society was 

 founded in 1734, and thirty years later it sent out 

 an expedition to make drawings of the most re- 

 markable artistic monuments of antiquity, under 

 Chandler, the editor of the Marmora Oxoniensia ; 

 Revett, joint-author with Stuart of a great work, 

 Athenian Antiquities ; and Pars, as artist. They 

 returned in 1766 ; and four splendid folios on the 

 Antiquities of Ionia appeared in 1769, 1797, 1840, 

 1 88 1 . Other publications were Specimens of A ncient 

 Sculpture (1809-35), Bronzes of Siris 1836, and 

 Athenian Architecture (1851; new ed. 1889). See 

 Lionel Gust's History of the Society ( 1898). 



Diligence, in the Law of Scotland, is a term 

 used in various significations. ( 1 ) It means the 

 care incumbent on the parties to a contract with 

 regard to the preservation of the subject matter. 

 In this sense the term is also used in English law, 

 which recognises three degrees of diligence ( a ) 

 common, such as men in general exert in managing 

 their own affairs ; (b) high, such as great prudence 

 demands ; and (c) low, such as persons of less than 

 common prudence take in connection with their 

 own affairs. ( 2 ) The warrants issued by courts for 

 enforcing the attendance of witnesses and the pro- 

 duction of writings. (3) The process of law by 

 which person, lands, or effects are attached either 

 on Execution (q.v.) or in security for debt. In the 

 second of these senses, it corresponds to the 

 English subpoena; and in the third, generally to 

 execution. 



Diligence, the name given in French-speaking 

 countries to a public conveyance of the nature of a 

 stagecoach. 



Dilke, CHARLES WENTWOBTH, an English 

 critic and journalist, was born December 8, 1789, 

 graduated at Cambridge, and served for twenty 

 years in the navy pay-office. In 1830 he became 

 proprietor of the Athenaeum, and from that year 

 until 1846 he filled also its editor's chair. He 

 established the Daily News in 1846, and edited it 

 for three years. He died at Alice Holt, Hants, 

 August 10, 1864. A collection of his articles con- 

 tributed to the Athenceum and Notes and Queries 

 between 1848 and 1863 appeared in 1875 as The 

 Papers of a Critic: with biographical sketch by 

 his grandson, Sir Charles Wentworth Dilke, Bart., 



M.P. (2 vols. ) ; the first volume treating Pope, Lady 

 Mary Wortley Montagu, and Swift; the second, 

 Junms, Wilkes, the Grenville Papers, and Burke. 

 He is known also by his Old English Plays ( 6 vols. 

 1814). SIR CHARLES WENTWORTH DILKE, only 

 son of the preceding, was born in London, February 

 18, 1810, and educated at Westminster School, and 

 Trinity Hall, Cambridge. He studied law, gradu- 

 ating as LL.B. in 1834, but did not enter upon the 

 practice of his profession. One of the most active 

 originators, as well as member of the executive 

 committee, of the Great Exhibition of 1851, he was 

 offered a knighthood by the Queen and a large 

 pecuniary reward by the royal commission, but both 

 offers he declined. In 1853 he was sent as a com- 

 missioner to the New York Industrial Exhibition, 

 and in 1862 he was one of the five royal com- 

 missioners for the second exhibition, in the January 

 of which year he accepted a baronetcy. In 1865 

 he was returned to parliament for Wallingford, 

 and in 1869 he was sent to Russia as the repre- 

 sentative of England, to the horticultural exhibi- 

 tion held at St Petersburg. Here he died sud- 

 denly, 10th May of the same year. SIR CHARLES 

 WENTWORTH DILKE, son of the preceding, was 

 born at Chelsea, September 4, 1843. He studied 

 at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where he graduated 

 in 1866, being soon after called to the bar. His 

 travels in Canada and the United States, Australia 

 and New Zealand, he described in his Greater 

 Britain: a Record of Travel in English-speaking 

 Countries during 1866-67 (2 vols. 1868). He was 

 returned to parliament for Chelsea in 1868. He is 

 a doctrinaire Radical in politics, and was once at 

 least an avowed Republican, yet he held office as 

 Under-secretary for Foreign Affairs, and afterwards 

 President of the Local Government Board under 

 Mr Gladstone. In 1885 he married the widow of 

 Mark Pattison, herself the author of Claud Lorrain, 

 sa Vie et ses (Euvres (Paris, 1884), and The Shrine 

 of Death ( 1886), a collection of stories. About the 

 same time his name was much before the public in 

 connection with a divorce case, and this led to his 

 defeat at the Chelsea election in 1886, and sub- 

 sequent compulsory retirement from public life. 

 He still continued, however, to influence public 

 opinion indirectly through the press. His Position 

 of European Politics (1887) was a collection of 

 striking essays that had appeared anonymously in 

 the Fortnightly Review. 



Dill (Anethum), a genus of Umbel liferae. The 

 Common Dill (A. graveolens) is an annual or bien- 

 nial plant, which grows wild in cornfields in the 

 East and in the countries around the Mediter- 

 ranean, but is quite hardy in Britain. It has from 

 a very early period been in general cultivation 

 as an aromatic, stimulant, and carminative, being 

 used in cookery like anise, and in medicine as dill 

 water, &c. A. Sowa is similarly cultivated, and 

 used in Bengal, &c. 



Dilleniaceae, a tropical and subtropical order 

 of thalamifloral dicotyledons, allied to Magno- 

 liacese in habit as well as structure, and often 

 of no less beautiful foliage and flowers. There are 

 about two hundred species, generally astringent, 

 and hence frequently useful in medicine and tan- 

 ling ; many yield excellent timber, and some also 

 ruit, that of Dillenia speciosa being especially 

 eaten in India. 



Dillingen, a town of Bavaria, on the Danube, 

 51 miles WSW. of Ingoistadt by rail, with two 

 monasteries, a royal high school, a seminary, and 

 a girls' deaf-and-dumb institution. In the old 

 jastle the bishops of Augsburg formerly resided, 

 ind here they founded a university (1554-1804), 

 (vhich from 1564 was an active Jesuit centre. Pop. 

 '860. 



