DES 
Sometimes it is in the power of a poet of genius, by one 
well-chofen epithet, to accomplifh a defcription, and by 
means of a fingle word, to paint a whole {cene to the fancy. 
The following lines of Milton’s Lycidas manifeit this effect 
of an epithet : 
‘| Where were yes nymphs, when the pemonie els deep 
Ciof’d o’er the head of your low’d Lycidas 
For neither were ye playing onthe ftee 
Where your old bards, the: ‘famous ce he, 
Nor on the fhaggy top of Mona ng 
Nor yet where - Dea {preads her wiz a flream.”? 
Horace and Virgil have ee , oucatlonally employed epithets 
with dae beauty and prop 
the whole, the dslxiptive talents of an author may 
be ame diftrutted, when hira laborious and 
turgid, amafling common-place “epithet s, and general ex- 
preflions, to work up a high conception of fome object, | oe 
which, after all, we can form but an indiftinG idea. 
beft defcribers are fimple and concife; they fet before us 
fuch feature n objeét, as, he firft view, firike ar 
warm the fancy; they give us idea hag a ftatuary or a 
painter could lay hold of, and work after them; which is 
one of the ae and moft decifive ae of the real merit 
of Defcriptio 
The ear cienen of a eeroas iscalled a charafer 
For the difference between defcription and imitation ; 3 
fee IMITATION 
DESEADA. See La Desir 
Deszava, Cape, the pda, ae f the ftraits of 
Magellan i in S. America, at the entrance a the South fea. 
-lat 53°. W. long. 74° 40! 
DESE oe a town of Perfia, in the province of Se- 
geftan; 30 miles .E. of Kin 
DESENIK, a ae of Ficagaa ; 10 miles S. of Levens. 
DESENZANO, or Dissenzano, a ee of Italy, in 
the Breffan ; celebrated se its wines 3 15 m of Brefwia, 
DE »or ea wild, un nealvate, uninhabited 
e general for all 
See el or not at all, inhabited. In Scripture, we find 
feveral places 
uch as were rarely fown or crear 5 an a 
thongh they oe :ded no crops of corn or fruit, they n 
thelefs afforded Reape! for the graziers af rere with oa 
tains or rills of water, though more {paringly interfperfed 
than in other places. ‘The wildernefs or defert, which was the 
veral others 
uality. 
Many of thefe deferts eeataned cities and villages, rich and 
well peopled ; and, indeed, almoft every city had fome de- 
fert according to the Scripture idiom, belonging to it for 
at bore neither corn, wine, nor oil, b 
ae raetenete sete. on of nature. 
P> 375.) hath fully fhewn that the Hebrew word 49% 
midbar, which the Grecks retidered Zenjzos, and the Latins de- 
ertum and folitudo, bear no analogy to each other; and that 
the former was od mea to the feeding of flocks, 
_ the cultivated lands were ftyled plains and _ and thofe 
that eal in felis were diitinguifhed by fo 
ou ts, or even names of thatim 
ot the ce of the defert. Pf. ae Jer. ix. 10. Joel.i. 20. 
ne defert or wildernefs, a utely fo called, is that part : 
Arabia on the fouth of the and, wherein the Ifraelite 
sade, x,from the time of chett evacuating Egypt to then 
or ts 
A 
. 
ew 
of the Thebaid, 
whilft. 
€ proper: 
ort. The epee {peaks. 
DES 
entry into the Promifed Land. The defert of Beerfheba was. 
that part of the defert juft mentioned, which bordered on al 
Holy Land, running towards the Mediterranean. he 
fert ve Idumeza is Idumea itfelf, a barren mountainous coun- 
The def Red fe 
wilder nefs 
ae pafied the Red 
in Arabia Petraes, near the city of Paran; and here was the 
habitation of Ufhmael 1 (Gen, xxi There were two 
deferts of Sin; one written with a famech 0. (Exod. xvi.) 
which lay between Elim and mount Sinai,aud another written 
through the land of Gilead, on the frontiers of Arabia De- 
ferta. The defert of Ziph was the place of David’s re-. 
treat from Saul (fee Zire). The defert of Maon (1 Kings, 
xxiii. 24.) lay in Arabia Petreea, at the extremity of Judah. 
and Chryforrhoas. The defert of Egypt (Ezek.xx. 36. eee 
to denote the defert in which the Hebrews fojourned after 
The defert of Judea or Judah was the 
{cene of the preaching of J h tift (Matt. iii. 1 ) 
This contained no lefs than fix cities, befides v Mee Si ; 
Bethaba iddin, Secana e city of Salt, Bee 
that of Paget. The pee “of Tekosh, Bezer, Bozrah, or 
Bofor, Gibeon or Gibea, Horeb, Moab, and others of lefe 
note, were de pica from the cities to which they be- 
longed ; were fo many dry, are = 7 — 
mountainous places like our downs, &c. are 
few or no habitations or bane. ; eines ale Hebrews 
call client by antiphrafis "3", w which properly fignifies. 
there 
human word, or {peech, becaufe there is none heard 
One of the moft oe features of Africa is its immenfe- 
sainalae which per 
may pofiibly c ompriz one-half of it 
of Meee that called “the Defert,” Sahar 
fee. The fandy eae of Arabia have in a period of time 
prefented to the view of the obferver and: to the arrange- 
ments of the geographers objects, highly worthy of atten- 
tion rom Oman to Mecca, the 
is one prodigious defert, interrupted to 
of Hej and Yemen b by Kerjé, containing ae diftri 
and fome fertile {pots and 
The N. W. part of Neged prefents almoft a continued de- 
fert, a prolongation of the other,. with an oafis,. and on the 
oafis of moun 
fia is divided by - eee and deferts, for am account 
of a fee Per 
lefs to enumerate, as neither their names nor fitvation are: 
perfeQly eye: 
Desert Jfland, Mount, 
on the coat of ‘boa iftriG& of Maine, Maffachufetts, con- 
taining about 200 age and divided into two different 
fettlements, about J es apart.’ 
ESER 
TER, in Military coe a perfon of whatever. 
rank, whether commiffioned, or 
entered i into the fervice 
in this- 
Phe defert of Paran was fituated- 
which: 
of Surfa,. 
towns, indicated by Niebuhr.. 
er; and probably feveral others. Per. 
an American ifland, which lies. 
e 
