Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 7.djvu/217

Rh  1em  DIES, (1755-1822), was born at Hanover, and learned the rudiments of art in his native place. For one year he studied in the academy of Diisseldorf, and then he started at the age of twenty with thirty ducats in his pocket for Rome. There he established his domicile, and lived a frugal life till 1796. Copying pictures, chiefly by Salvator Rosa, for a livelihood, his taste led him to draw and paint from nature in Tivoli, Albano, and other picturesque places in the vicinity of Rome. Naples, the birthplace of his favourite master, he visited more than once for the same reasons. In this way he became a bold executant in water colours and in oil, though he failed to acquire any originality of his own. Lord Bristol, who encouraged him as a copyist, predicted that he would be a second Salvator Rosa. But Dies was not of the wood which makes original artists. Besides other disqualifications, he had necessities which forced him to give up the great career of an independent painter. David, then composing his Horatii at Rome, wished to take him to Paris. But Dies had reasons for riot accepting the offer. He was courting a young Roman whom he subsequently married. Meanwhile he had made the acquaintance of Volpato, for whom he executed numerous drawings, and this no doubt suggested the plan, which he afterwards carried out, of publishing, in partner ship with Median, Reinhardt, and Frauenholz, the series of plates known as the Collection de vues pittoresques de I ltalie, published in 72 sheets at Nuremberg in 1799. With so many irons in the fire Dies naturally lost the power of concentration. Other causes combined to affect his talent. In 1787 he swallowed by mistake three- quarters of an ounce of sugar of lead. His recovery from this poison was slow and incomplete. His return to Germany was hastened by it. He had hoped that the air of his native country would improve his health. He settled at Vienna, and lived there in the old way on the produce of his brush as a landscape painter, and on that of his pencil or graver as a draughtsman and etcher. But instead of getting better as he had hoped, his condition became worse, and he even lost the use of one of his hands. En this condition he turned from painting to music, and spent his leisure hours in the pleasures of authorship. He did not long burvive, dying at Vienna in 1822, after long years of chronic suffering. From two pictures now in the Belvedere gallery, and from numerous engraved drawings from the neighbourhood of Tivoli, we gather that Dies was never destined to rise above a respectable mediocrity. He followed Salvator Rosa s example in imitating the manner of Claude Lorraine. But Salvator adapted the style of Claude, whilst Dies did no more than copy it.  DIEST, a town and fortress of Belgium, in the province of Brabant, and the arrondissement of Lb wen, is situated on the Demer, 28 miles E. by N. of Brussels. The manu factured are hats, leather, stockings, beer, and spirits It waa taken from the French by Marlborough in 1705 and recaptured the same year. The fortifications, which replace the old ramparts and walls, were commenced in 1837, and finished in 1853. The population in 18G6 was 7561.  DIET. The origin of the Diet is to be sought in the al, which was a common of the. From the we find all leading questions first discussed by the s and then referred to the  of the  or, in which every  had a voice. The earliest Diets of the or were  in which the  deliberated with his subjects on the common interests of the. Originally all members were bound by their  to be present, and if absent they not only ed their  but were liable to. Thus the Diet was a, not a,. As by degrees the of the  turned into independent s, the Diet became nothing more than a  of s. The, instead of  in person, was  by a  called principal, and the s sent s, the  of  being no longer personal, but attached to certain  or s. At first the was, in theory at least, elected by universal ; a  was chosen by the chief men, and their  approved by the people. Thus we read that at the of  50,000, and at that of  60,000 persons were present. In time this custom of the  grew into an established, which, under the name of prætaxation, was arrogated by the chief s of. Thus the chief function of the Diet, the choice of an, became the prerogative of a few of its most powerful members, who claimed the not only of  but of. Thus in  of  was, and  of  chosen in his stead. The of the electors and the forms and rules of  were defined and settled by the famous instrument of  known as the ,. The Diet consisted of three bodies, who met and d in separate s,—(1)the electoral college, (2)the princes of the empire spiritual and temporal, (3) the free imperial cities.

1.In a of, we find the of  an  vested in the electoral college of seven. These consisted of three s—the s of, , and ,—and four secular s—the  of , the   of the , the  of , and the  of. The former sat as recognized heads of the. The latter would naturally have been the s of, , , and ; but when was united with the  its  was transferred to ; that of  was, on the accession of  (who by his  was incapacitated from ), delegated to , and by it retained; and probably that of  was for similar reason ed (see Dunham, Germanic Empire, i. 216).

2.The s of the had in all other respects, save that of an, the same s as the s or electors. They consisted of the of, 20 s, 4 s, and 2 , and of 44 temporal s, though this number was afterwards largely augmented. Of these several, such as the of, and the s of  and , were in rank and power more than equals of the electors.