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DIATONIC DICKINSON. 



without the use of any oilier remedies ; and, by a 

 I roper regulation of the diet, the parts resume their 

 healthy action. Considerable advantage lias been 

 gained by Uie use of warm clothing, ana particularly 

 of flannel worn next to the skin, in those who 

 are subject to frequent attacks of diarrhoea ; and 

 sometimes it lias ap|>eared that the warm bath, or 

 even the removal to a milder climate, has been of 

 permanent utility. 



DIATONIC (from the Greek) ; a term in music, 

 applied by the Greeks to that one of their three 

 genera, which consisted, like the modern system of 

 intervals, of major tones and semitones. The dia- 

 tonic genus has long since been considered as more 

 natural than either the chromatic or enharmonic. 

 Aristoxenus asserts it to have been the first, and in- 

 forms us that the other two were formed from the 

 division of its intervals. 



DIATONUM INTENSUM, or SHARP DIA- 

 TONIC ; the name given by musical theorists to those 

 famous proportions of the intervals proposed by 

 Ptolemy, in his system of that name ; a system which, 

 long after the time of this ancient speculative musi- 

 cian, was received in our counterpoint, and is pro- 

 nounced by doctor Wallis, doctor Smith, and the 

 most learned writers on harmonics, to be the best di- 

 vision of the scale. 



DIAZ ; 1. Michael, an Arragonese, companion of 

 Christopher Columbus. In 1495, he discovered the 

 gold mines of St Christopher, in the new world, and 

 contributed much to the founding of New Isabella, 

 afterwards St Domingo. He died in 1512. 2. 

 Bartholomew ; a Portuguese. In 1486, he was com- 

 missioned by his government, during the reign of 

 John II., to seek a new way to the East Indies. He 

 advanced boldly to the south, and reached the south- 

 ern extremity of Africa ; but the mutinous spirit of 

 his crew, and the dangerous tempests that raged 

 there, compelled him to return to Lisbon. Diaz 

 called the southern cape of Africa Cabo de todos los 

 tormentos; but his king, John II., gave it the name 

 of the cape of Good Hope, convinced that the expected 

 way to India was now found. 



DIB, or DIV, signifying island ; the final syllable 

 of several Hindoo names, as Maldives, Laccadives, 

 Serendib (Ceylon). 



DIBDIN, CHARLES, an English dramatic mana- 

 ger and poet, composer and actor, was born at 

 Southampton in 1745. At the age of fifteen, he 

 made his appearance on the stage, and was early dis- 

 tinguished as a composer. He excited uncommon 

 admiration, and soon gained friends and a sufficient 

 support. He invented a new kind of entertainment, 

 consisting of music, songs, and public declamations, 

 which he wrote, sung, composed, and performed him- 

 self, and, by tliis means, succeeded in amusing the 

 public for twenty years. His patriotic songs were 

 very popular, and his sea songs are still the favour- 

 ites of the British navy. Their favourable influence 

 on the lower classes obtained him a pension of 200 

 from government. Improvidence, however, kept 

 him constantly poor. He died in 1814. His son, 

 Charles Dibdin, has composed and written many 

 small pieces and occasional songs. His second son, 

 Thomas Dibdin, is likewise a fruitful writer of thea- 

 trical and occasional pieces. 



DICE ; cubical pieces of bone or ivory, marked 

 with dots on each of their six faces, from one to six, 

 according to the number of faces. Sharpers have 

 several ways of falsifying dice : 1. By sticking a 

 hog's bristle in them so as to make them run high or 

 low, as they please ; 2. by drilling and loading them 

 with quicksilver, which cheat is found out by holding 

 them gently by two diagonal corners; for, if false, 

 the heavy sides will turn always down ; 3. by filing 



and rounding them. But all these ways full far short 

 of the art of the dice-makers, some of whom are so 

 dexterous this way, that sharping gamesters will give 

 any money for their assistance. 



Dice are very old. The Roman word tessera is 

 derived from the Greek riaripif, Ionic for rirrafit, 

 four ; because it is, on every side, square. Numer- 

 ous passages in the ancient writers, ami very many 

 representations in marble or paintings, show how 

 frequent dice-playing was among them. Different 

 from the tessera, which were precisely like our dice, 

 were the to/i.(which means, originally, the pastern 

 bone of a beast Greek, a<rrfayaXf). These were 

 almost of a cubic form, and had numbers only on 

 four sides, lengthwise. Three tessera and four tali 

 were often used together ; and the game with dice was 

 properly called alea, though alea afterwards came to 

 signify any game at hazard, and aleator, a gambler. 

 Dice-playing, and all games of chance, were prohi- 

 bited by several laws of the Romans, except in De- 

 cember, yet the laws were not strictly observed. 



DICHMONT, the name of a hill in the parish of 

 Cambuslang, Lanarkshire, which is celebrated by Mr 

 John Struthers, in his finely descriptive and didactic 

 poem, entitled " Dichmont." It is elevated about 

 700 feet above the level of the sea, and commands a 

 magnificent view of the vale of Clyde. 



DICKINSON, JOHN, an American writer, was 

 born in Maryland, in December, 1732, and educated 

 in Delaware, to which province his parents removed 

 soon after his birth. He read law in Philadelphia, 

 and resided three years in the Temple, London. Af- 

 ter his return to America, he practised law with suc- 

 cess in Philadelphia. He was soon elected to the 

 legislature of Pennsylvania, in which his superior 

 qualifications as a speaker and a man of business gave 

 him considerable influence. The attempts ot the 

 mother country upon the liberties of the colonies 

 early awakened his attention. His first elaborate 

 publication against the new policy of the British 

 cabinet was printed at Philadelphia, in 1765, and en- 

 titled, The late Regulations respecting the British 

 Colonies on the Continent of America considered. In 

 that year he was deputed by Pennsylvania, to attend 

 the first congress, held at New York, and prepared 

 the draft of the bold resolutions of that congress. In 

 1766, he published a spirited address on the same 

 questions, to a committee of correspondence in Bar- 

 badoes. He next issued hi Philadelphia, in 1767, 

 his celebrated Farmer's Letters to the Inhabitants of 

 the British Colonies a production which had a great 

 influence in enlightening the American people on the 

 subject of their rights, and preparing them for resist- 

 ance. They were reprinted in London, with a pre- 

 face by Dr Franklin, and published in French, at 

 Paris. In 1774, Mr Dickinson wrote the resolves 

 of the committee of Pennsylvania, and their instruc- 

 tions to their representatives. These instructions 

 formed a profound and extensive essay on the consti- 

 tutional power of Great Britain over the colonies in 

 America, and in that shape they were published by 

 the committee. While in congress, he wrote the 

 Address to the Inhabitants of Quebec ; the first peti- 

 tion to the King ; the Address to the Annies ; the 

 second petition to the King, and the Address to the 

 several States ; all among the ablest state papers of 

 the time. As an orator, he liad few superiors in that 

 body. He penned the famous Declaration of the 

 United Colonies of North America (July 6, 1775) ; 

 but he opposed the declaration of independence, be- 

 lieving that compromise was still practicable, and 

 that his countrymen were not yet ripe for a complete 

 separation from Great Britain. This rendered him 

 for a time so unpopular, that he withdrew from the 

 public councils, and did not recover his seat in con- 



