812 
I> I E 
by 1 uft or dntnkennefs ? Was Sappho a common profti- 
tute ? and other things which ought to be forgotten if 
they were known.” ( Epifi . 88.) Didymus was, however, 
a critic, and ventured to cenfure the ftyle of Cicero. 
There are frill extant in his name certain fcholia upon 
the Odyfley. Some proverbs likewife remain under his 
name, joined to thole of Tharraeus. But it appears 
that there were other writers of the name, alfo gram¬ 
marians. 
DI'DYMUS, of Alexandria, and prefident of the ce¬ 
lebrated catechetical fchool in that city, flourifhed in the 
fourth century. He has been called by feveral ancient 
ecclefiaftical writers a wonderful man, not only on ac¬ 
count of his extenfive literature, but of the peculiar 
difadvantages under which he was obliged to profecute 
his fhidies. He had the misfortune to lofe his fight in 
the fourth or fifth year of his age. Notwithftanding this 
circumftance, fo admirable were his natural abilities, and 
fo vigorous and intenfe his application, that he became 
perfedl in molt branches of knowledge. Belides gram¬ 
mar and rhetoric, he underltood logic, philofophy, mu- 
fic, and even geometry and aftronomv, and the molt ab- 
(trufe problems in mathematics. He was alfo intimately 
acquainted with the facred writings of the Old and New 
Teltaments, on which he wrote leveral commentaries ; 
and fo well converfant in controverfial theology and ec¬ 
clefiaftical hiftory, that he was fixed upon as the molt 
proper perfon of his time to fill the chair of the famous 
Alexandrian fchool. The duties of that office he dif- 
charged with eminent reputation, which occafioned his 
being followed by a vaft number of difciples, among the 
mod: celebrated of whom were St. Jerome, Ruffinus, 
Palladius, and Ifidore. The firft of thefe eminent cha- 
radters pronounced him the moft learned man of his age ; 
and Palladius affirms, that he furpafled all the ancients 
in knowledge. But his inftrudtions were not only recom¬ 
mended by iiis pre-eminence in learning and knowledge, 
but by the agreeable mannjer in which they were deli¬ 
vered, the moderation and amiablenefs of his temper, 
and livelinefs of his wit. He was the author of various 
learned works, none of which have reached our day, ex¬ 
cept the following: A Treatife on the Holy Spirit, tran- 
flated into Latin by St. Jerome ; Breves queedam Enarra- 
tioncs in Epijlolas Canonicas, to be met with in the fourth 
volume of the Bibliotheca Patrum-, a confiderable fragment 
of A Book againft the Manicheans, which is given, in the 
original Greek, in father Combefi’s Audi. Nov. Bibl. Pat. 
and, Notes and Obfervations upon the A6ts of the Apof- 
tles, tranferibed by M. J. C. Wolff, from a manufeript 
Greek chain, at the univerfity of Oxford, and inferted in 
his Anecdota Grac. vol. i. He was a ftrenuous advocate 
for the peculiar fentiments of Origen, and wrote a Com¬ 
mentary on his Books of Principles; on which account 
he was condemned in the fifth general council, and by 
pope Martin V. in the fifth feftion of the Lateran coun¬ 
cil. It is not certain when he died, but he was living in 
392, when St. Jerome drew up his catalogue of eccle¬ 
fiaftical authors, and was then in the eighty-fourth year 
of his age. 
DIDYNA'MIA, f. [£»?, twice, and hovci^c, power.] 
In botany, the name of the fourteenth clafs in Linnatus’s 
Artificial Syftem, comprehending thole plants which 
have hermaphrodite flowers, with four ftamens in two 
pairs, of different lengths; the outer pair longer, the 
middle pair Ihorter and converging. Thefe flowers have 
■onepiftil; and the corolla is irregular. It is a natural 
clafs, containing the labiati and perfonati of Tournefort, 
and the monopetali irregu lares of Rivinus. See Botany. 
To DIE, v. a. [beag, Sax. a colour.] To tinge ; to 
colour ; to ftain : 
So much of death her thoughts 
Had entertain’d, as died her cheeks with pale. Milton. 
All white, a virgin faint file fought the Ikies; 
For marriage, though it Lullies not, it dies. Dryden. 
D I E 
DIE, y; Colour; timflure; ftain; hue acquired.—It 
is furpriling to fee the images of the mind damped upon 
the afpeft ; to fee the cheeks take the die of the paftions, 
and appear in all the colours of thought. Collier. 
Darknefs we fee emerges into light, 
And Alining funs defeend to fable night: 
Ev’n heav’n itfelf receives another die. 
When wearied animals in flumbers lie 
Of midnight eafe ; another, when the grey 
Of morn preludes the fplendour of the day. Dryden. 
To DIE, v. a. [beabian, Sax.] To lofe life; to ex¬ 
pire ; to pafs into another ftate of exiftence : 
O let me live my own, and die fo too! 
To live and. die is all I have to do. Denham. 
To peri fit by violence or difeafe.—The dira ferved to 
confirm him in his firft opinion, that it was his deftiny t© 
die in the enfuing combat. Dryden. 
Die then, my friend ! what boots it to deplore ? 
The great, the good Patroclus is no more 1 
He, far thy better, was foredoom’d to die-, 
And thou, doft thou, bewail mortality. Pope. 
It has 1 by before an inftrument of death.—Their young 
men (hall die by the fword ; their fons and daughters (hall 
die by famine. Jferem. — Of, before a difeafe. — They often 
come into the world clear, and with the appearance of 
found bodies; which, notwithftanding, have been infedl- 
ed with difeafe, and have died of\X.. Wijhnan. — For, com¬ 
monly before a privative, and of, before a pofitive, caufe: 
thefe prepofitions are not always truly diftinguilhed.— 
Hipparchus being paffionately fond of his own wife, who 
was enamoured of Bathyllus, leaped and died of his fall. 
Addifon. 
At firft (lie ftartles, then (he (lands amaz’d; 
At laft with terror (he from thence doth fly, 
And loaths the wat’ry glafs wherein (lie gaz’d. 
And ftuins it dill, altho’yor third (he die. Dryden. 
To be punifhed with death. — If I die for it, as no lefs is 
threatened me, the king my old mafter muft be relieved, 
Shakefpeare. —To be loft; to perifli; to come to nothing.—- 
Whatever pleafure any man may take in fpreading whif- 
pers, he will find greater fatisfadlion by letting th£ fecret 
die within his own bread. Spcttator. —To fink ; to faint.—■ 
His heart died within him, and he became as a (lone. 
1 Samuel. —[In theology. ] To perifli everlaftingly.—'So 
long as God (hall live, fo long lhall the damned die. 
Hakewill. —To languifh with pleafure or tendernefs : 
To founds of heav’nly harps (lie dies away, 
And melts in vilions of eternal day. Pope. 
To vanifti. — The fmaller ftains and blemiflies may die 
away and difappear, amidft the brightnefs that furrounds 
them ; but a blot of a deeper nature cafts a (hade on all 
the other beauties, and darkens the whole character. 
Addifon .— [In the ftyle of lovers.] To languifh with af- 
fedlion.—The young men acknowledged, in love-letters, 
that they died for Rebecca. Tatler .— To wither, as a ve¬ 
getable.—Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground, 
and die, it abideth alone ; but if it die it bringeth forth 
much fruit. John. —To grow vapid, as liquor. 
DIE ,f. plur. dice-. [ cle, Fr. dis, Welfh.] A fmall cube, 
marked on its faces with numbers, from one to fix, which 
gamefters throw in play. — Keep a gamefter from the dice, 
and a good ftudent from his book, and it is wonderful. 
Shakefpeare. 
I have fet my life upon a call, 
And I will (land the hazard of the die. Richard III. 
Hazard; chance : 
So both to battle fierce arranged are ; 
In which his harder fortune was to fall 
Under my (pear : fuch is the die of war. Spenfer. 
Any cubic body.—Young creatures have learned fpelling 
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