38 
DON 
To the great dons of wit, 
Phoebus gives them full privilege alone 
To damn all others and cry up their own. Drydeji,. 
To DON, v. a. [To do on.'] To put on ; to invert with ; 
the contrary to doff. Obfolete. —What! fhould I don. this 
robe, and trouble you ! Shakefpeare. 
The purple morning left her crimfon bed. 
And dolin’d her robes of pure vermilion hue. Fairfax. 
DON, or the Tanais, a river of Ruflia, which rifes 
near Epiphan, in the government of Tula, and runs into 
the fea of Azoph by two mouths, a little to the weft of 
Azoph, after a courfe of about 800 miles. 
DON, a river of England, in Yorkfltire, which runs 
into the Aire near Snaith. 
DON, a river of Scotland, which rifes in the weft p.qrt 
of the county of Aberdeen, and, crofting the county, runs 
into the fea a little below Old Aberdeen. 
DON CHRISTOPHER’S COVE, on the nortl) cpaft 
of the iftand of Jamaica. Lat. 18. 5S. N. lop. 77. 1. W. 
Greenwich. It gave fhelter to the difcoverer of Ame¬ 
rica during a violent ftorm in 1503; and is the fcife of 
the ancient town of Sevilla de Nueva. 
DON MARTIN MAYORGA, the name given by 
the Spaniards to a duller of iflands in the South Sea, 
difcovered on the 27th of February, 1781, by F. A. Mart- 
relle, a celebrated pilot of that nation. In this archipe¬ 
lago Maurelle found a fafe harbour, to which he gave 
the name of El Refugio; and which he places in fouth 
lat. i8°. 36'. and weft Ion. 177 0 . 47'. 43" of Greenwich. 
DON AGH ADE'E, a lea-port of Ireland, in the county 
of Down, iituated on the eaft coaft, at the entrance of the 
north channel, where packets are eftablilhed for the pup- 
pofe of carrying the mails and paftengers to Port Patrick, 
in Scotland, a diftance not quite feven leagues : fifteen 
miles eaft of Belfaft. Lat. 54. 37. N. Ion. 5. 23. W. 
Greenwich. 
DONA'I, a province of Cochin-china, which forms 
the whole fouthern diftridl of that kingdom. 
DONAIEC'Z, a river of Poland, which runs into the 
Viftula twenty-five miles below Cracow. 
DO'NARY, f. [ donarium , Lat.] A thing given to fa- 
cred ufes. 
DONATEL'LO, or Donato, one of the principal re¬ 
vivers of fculpture in Italy, born of poor parents at Flo¬ 
rence in 1383. He was patronized by a citizen named 
Martelli, who fent him to learn defign under Lorenzo de 
Bicci. Such was his application, that he acquired the 
principles which made him an excellent fculptor, and 
alfo a mafter of perfpedive and architecture. He at¬ 
tracted the notice of that eminent citizen, the great Cof- 
mo de Medici, who employed him on a tomb for pope 
John XXIII. and in other works, public and private. 
Some of his molt efteemed works in Florence, which ftill 
remain, are his group of Judith and Holofernes in bronze, 
his Annunciation, his St. George, and St. Mark, and his 
Zuccone. His St. Mark has the traditional honour of 
having been addrefied by Michael Angelo, with “ Marco, 
perchc non miparli?” “ Mark, why do you not fpeak to 
me.” He died in 146 6, at the age of eighty-three, and 
was buried, by his own directions, in the church of St. 
Lorenzo, adjoining to the fepulchre of Cofmo, that, “ as 
his foul had alw;ays .been with him when living, their 
bocjips might be near each other when dead.” He had a 
brother, named Simon, who adopted his manner, and ob¬ 
tained reputation. 
DON AM I A, f. [fo named by Forfter from Vitaliano 
D.onatiof Padua, profelfor of botany at Turin. He tra¬ 
velled into Egypt and Arabia, and died in his journey.] 
In botany, a genus of the clafs triandria, order trigynia. 
The generic characters are—Calyx : perianthium three¬ 
leaved 5 leaflets avvl-fhaped, fhort, remote. Corolla: 
petals eight to ten, linear-oblong, twice as long qs the ca¬ 
lyx., fpreading. Stamina: filaments three, awl-fliapedj 
DON 
the length of the calyx ; anther* fubylobular, twirr.- 
Piltillum: germ inferior; ftyles three, filiform, a little 
longer than the ftamens .; ftigmas bluntifh.— Fffential Cha- 
raEler. Calyx, three-leaved; petals nine, twice as long 
as the calyx, linear-oblong; anthertc fubglobular, tvyin. 
Donatia fafcjc.ularis, or congregated donatia; a fingle 
fpecies, is a fimple undivided plant, a finger’s length, 
W'ith imbricate leaves. It differs front polycarpon in itS' 
habit, and having about nine petals to the corolla. See. 
Avicennia. 
DONA'TIO CAUSA MORTIS,/, in law, a death¬ 
bed difpofitipn of property, fo called when a perfon iit 
his laft ficknefs, apprehending his diflolution near, de¬ 
livers, or caufes to be delivered, to another the poflefiion 
of any per.fopal goods, (under which have been included 
bonds, and bills drawn by the dcceafed upon his banker,) 
to keep in cafe of his deceafe. This gift, if the donor 
dies, needs not the aflent of his executor; yet it fhall 
not prevail againft creditors; and is accompanied with 
this implied trull, that, if the donor lives, the property 
thereof fhall revert to himfelf, being only given in con¬ 
templation of death, or mortis caufd. 1 P. Wms. 404. zV/z. 
431. IVardv. Tumor. This latter cafe collects all the' 
law on the fubjedt of donations caufd mortis ; and parti¬ 
cularly confiders what fhall be a fufiicient delivery of 
different kinds of property to give effedl to fuch dona¬ 
tions. There may be a donatio caufd mortis of bonds, 
bank-notes, and bills, payable to barer-, but not of other 
promiffory notes or bills of exchange,, thefe being chofe§ 
in aClion which do not pafs by delivery. 
DONA'TION,/ [ donatio, Lat.] The adt of giving 
any thing; the adl of bellowing.—After don at ion there is 
an abfolute change and alienation made of the property 
of the thing given : which being fo alienated, a man has 
no more to do with it than with a thing bought with an¬ 
other’s money. South. —The grant by which any thing is 
given or conferred : 
The kingdoms of the world to thee were giv’n. 
Permitted rather, and by thee ufurp’d ; 
Other donation none thou canft produce. Milton. 
DO'NATISTS, / Ancient fchifmatics in Africa, fo 
denominated from their leader Donatus. They had their 
origin in 31 j, when, in the room of Menfurius, who died 
in that year on his return to Rome, Caecilian was elected 
bifhop of Carthage, and confecrated without the concur¬ 
rence of the Numidian bifhops, by thofe of Africa alone ; 
whom the people refufed to acknowledge, and to whom 
they oppofed Majorinus; who, accordingly, was ordained 
by Donatus, bifhop of Cafae Nigra?. They were condemn¬ 
ed, in a council held at Rome, two years after their fepa- 
ration ; and afterwards in another at Arles, the year fol¬ 
lowing; and again at Milan, before Conftantine the Great;, 
in 3x6, who deprived them of their churches, and fent 
their feditious bifhops into banifliment,. and punifhed 
fame of them with death. Their caufe was efpoufed by 
another Donatus, called the groat , the principal bifhop 
of that fedt, who, with numbers of his followers, was 
exiled by order of Conftans. Many of them were punifh¬ 
ed with great feverity. However, after the acceflion of 
Julian to the throne, in 362, they were permitted to re¬ 
turn, and reftored to their former liberty. Gratian next 
publifhed feveral edicts againft them ; and, in 377, de¬ 
prived them of their churches, and prohibited all their 
affemblies. Their decline was alfo precipitated by the 
zealous oppofition of St. Auguftin, and by the violent 
meafures which were purfued againft them by order of 
the emperor Honorius. 
DO'NATIVE, f. [donatif Fr. from donatus, Lat.] A 
gift; a lqrgefs ; a prefent; a dole of money diftributed. 
—The Roman emperor’s cuftom was, at certain folemn 
times, to beftow on his foldiers a donative ; which donative 
they received wearing garlands upon their heads. Hooker. 
DO'NATIVE,/. in law, a benefice merely given and 
difpofed 
