DRY-ROT DUBLIN. 



739 



Drjden he found it of brick, and left it of marble. 

 In Ills hands it lost the harshness which distinguishes 

 the writings of Donne and of Cowley, and nearly ap- 

 proached the harmonious numbers, the flowing ver- 

 sification of Pope. In Alexander's Feast, he at 

 once raised the Ode to its highest elevation, denuded 

 it of the cerements in which his predecessors had 

 bound it, and, in langnage simple and harmonious, 

 conveys ideas of the most lofty and striking descrip- 

 tion. The power of his satire is unrivalled. While 

 the lesser poets of the day were encumbering it with 

 foul invective, he struck out a new path in the art. 

 His fine and delicate raillery cut deep, when the 

 coarse weapons of his rivals would not penetrate the 

 surface. Of his powers as a tragic poet, his Don 

 Sebastian affords the best example. His comedies 

 are unfortunately stained by the license of the age : 

 they possess, in general, a certain heaviness of cha- 

 racter, a continuous flow of wit was not to be looked 

 for from one who wrote rather for subsistence than 

 from any peculiar taste for this species of composi- 

 tion. Indeed, he himself complained that he was 

 "forced upon composing comedies, to gratify the 

 taste of the age, while the bent of his genius was 

 otherwise directed." 



Of recent editions of Dryden's works, we may re- 

 fer to the prose works, by Malone (1800, 4 vols. 8vo); 

 his poetical works, edited by Todd, with notes by 

 Warton (1812, 4 vols. 8vo) ; and the whole of his 

 works, by Sir Walter Scott (1818, 18 vols. 8vo). 



DRY-ROT ; a term or name applied to a rapid 

 decay of any vegetable matter, when it has the ap- 

 pearance A of being tolerably dry, but, in general, is 

 applied only to timber when in that state, and is so 

 named hi contradistinction to the common mode of 

 decay, by being exposed to the alternate states of 

 wet and dry. There are a great number of causes 

 for this species of decay : some are quite simple, 

 others are very complicated ; yet, whatever may be 

 the original cause, simple or compound, the effects 

 are the same, namely, to render the timber useless, 

 by destroying its elasticity and toughness, rendering 

 it insufficient to resist any considerable pressure, 

 and, indeed, for any of the useful purposes to which 

 timber is applied. When timber is in a tolerably dry 

 state, any means which will absorb or extract its 

 oxygen from the other component parts, will leave it 

 in the state commonly called dry rotten. Moist, 

 warm situations, with little or no current of air, are 

 the most likely to generate this evil. The effluvia 

 from timber in such a state of decay will rapidly 

 carry its effects to the circumjacent timber, however 

 dry it may appear ; and any sort of timber will be, 

 in a very little time, rendered quite useless. When 

 timber is exposed to any considerable degree of 

 moisture and heat, fungi of various shapes and tex- 

 ture, according to the species of timber, and other 

 causes, will appear upon it; and although tliis fungous 

 matter be really an effect of the dry-rot, yet it is 

 as truly a cause of the same evil. There are no 

 means of restoring rotten timber to a sound state, 

 and the dry-rot can only be cured, as it is called, by 

 removing the decayed and affected parts, clearing 

 away all the fungi, and destroying its vegetating 

 principle, with which the hard materials, such as 

 bricks or stone, may have been impregnated. For 

 this purpose, a strong solution of iron, copper, or 

 zinc, is used with advantage. This, with the admis- 

 sion of a large quantity of air, is very advantageous. 

 Many persons have written on the subject ; and the 

 nostrums proposed are as numerous as their authors. 

 But no means of checking the evil can be dependet 

 upon, except that of removing the corrupted and con- 

 tagious matter, and admitting a free circulation ol 

 air. Much also may be done by cutting timber it 



winter, and properly seasoning it, by steeping it in 

 water for some time, and then thoroughly drying it 

 before it is used in building. 



DSHAMY ; a Persian poet. See Jami. 

 DSHING1S KHAN. See Gengis Khan. 

 DUAL, in grammar ; that number which is used, 

 in some languages, to designate two things, whilst 

 another number (the plural) exists to express many. 

 The dual, in some languages, is a firmly established 

 grammatical form, as in the Attic dialect ; in other 

 languages, it is used only in certain cases, with cer- 

 tain words, or only fault traces of it are to be recog- 

 nised. The Sanscrit has a dual number. Of modern 

 languages which have a literature, Arabic is the only 

 idiom which has retained it. That copious language 

 has a dual, to designate two things ; a particular 

 plural form, to express from three to nine objects ; 

 the plural, for several of any number whatever ; and 

 the plural-plural, formed from the plural (though 

 only in some words), to designate ten or any larger 

 or indefinite number. Even for substantives which 

 express a number of things, as a species of animals 

 or plants, the Arabians have a characteristical singu- 

 lar, of which also a plural may be made. See Sil- 

 vestre de Sacy's Grammaire Arabe, torn, i., pp. 702, 

 704, 710. In the American languages, traces of the 

 dual are very often met with, from Greenland to 

 Araucania. See William Von Humboldt's Discourse 

 Ueber den Dualis, read in the academy of sciences at 

 Berlin, April 26, .1827, printed at Berlin, 1828 ; a 

 treatise which does not pretend to exhaust the sub- 

 ject, but will assist a scholar in making further in- 

 vestigations. 



DUALISM ; DUALIST. 1. Dualism is the phi- 

 losophical exposition of the nature of things by the 

 adoption of two dissimilar primitive principles, not 

 derived from each other : such, for instance, are the 

 ideal and the real, or the material and the thinking 

 substance. Dualism may be either dogmatical, or 

 critical, or sceptical. In a stricter sense, dualism is 

 confined to (a) the adoption of two fundamental 

 beings, a good and an evil one, as is done in the 

 Oriental religions ; (K), to the adoption of two different 

 principles in man, viz., a spiritual and a corporeal 

 principle : this is called the psychological dualism. 

 He who embraces this view is called a dualist. Op- 

 posed to the system of dualism is monism, which is 

 either idealism or realism, spiritualism or materialism. 

 2. In theology, dualism is the doctrine of those who 

 maintain that only certain elected persons are capable 

 of admission to eternal happiness, and that all the 

 rest will be subjected to eternal condemnation. 



DUBLIN, the metropolis of Ireland; is situated in 

 the province of Leinster and county of Dublin, within 

 a mile of the bay of that name, which is of a circular 

 form, and about six miles in diameter, and into which 

 the river Liffey runs, after dividing the city, through 

 which its course is nearly west to east, into equal 

 parts. Though spacious, this bay is neither commod- 

 ious nor safe, particularly in winter. Its defects are, 

 in part, remedied by a magnificent wall of stone, 

 which runs out into the bay the distance of 8564 yards, 

 and is terminated by a light-house. On the opposite 

 side of the harbour is another light-house, together 

 with a pier and harbour ; and, lately, a pier has been 

 begun at Dunleary, a village on the south side of the 

 bay, and two and a half miles within its mouth. 

 From the point of Ringsend, where the Liffey enters 

 the bay, it is embanked on either side with a noble 

 wall of freestone, forming a range of beautiful and 

 spacious quays through the whole city. The river is 

 crossed in its course through the city by seven stone 

 bridges. Dublin is, besides, nearly insulated by two 

 canals, which give great advantages for inland com- 

 munication. The houses, with the exception of the 

 3 A 2 



