Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 7.djvu/277

Rh weakness, the strength of the joint is ligamentous, as in the sterno-clavicular and superior radio-ulnar articulations. In such joints the bones must be kept in accurate position and at rest for a lengthened period ; if movement is allowed soon after the accident the bone will again slip out of its place.  DISMAL SWAMP, the name given to two extensive stretches of morass on the eastern seaboard of North America. The larger of the two, distinguished as the Great Dismal, lies in the peninsula between the James River on the north and Albemarle Sound on the south, and thus belongs partly to Virginia and partly to North Carolina. Its length from north to south is about 40 miles and its breadth about 25. The greater part of the area is covered with a thick stratum of spongy vegetable soil, without any mixture of earthy particles, which at once supports and is augmented by a luxuriant growth of aquatic plants, brushwood, and timber. The prevailing trees are cypress, juniper, and white cedar, and on the higher ridges oak and beech. By a curious arrangement, minutely described by Sir Charles Lyell in his Travels in North America, the surface of the swamp is actually higher, in some parts by as much as 12 feet, than that of the surrounding country ; so that, except on the western side, where it receives a few small streams, the waters flow outwards. The centre is occupied by Drurnmond s Lake, an oval basin about 6 miles long and 3 wide, with perpendicular banks and an extreme depth of 15 feet; the water is clear and abounds with fish. The swamp has long furnished large supplies of timber, much of which has been obtained by excavation from the peaty soil in which it was preserved. The transit is facilitated by means of canals, of which the two most important are the Dismal Swamp Canal, uniting the western branch of Elizabeth river with the Pasquotank, and the Chesapeake and Albemarle Canal, connecting the eastern branch of Elizabeth river with Currituck Sound. The former is flanked by a stage road, which terminates in the south at Elizabeth City, and in the north at Norfolk. Two lines of railway pass through the outskirts of the Virginian portion of the swamp.

The Little Dismal is of much less importance. It lies in North Carolina, in the peninsula between Albemarle Sound and Pamlico Sound ; and in the days when slavery was still legal, it was a noted harbour of runaway negroes.  DISPENSATION is a term used by the canonists to signify an act of jurisdiction by which the rigour of the general law is relaxed in a particular case. Regarded from this point of view a dispensation is considered by the canonists not to be an exception to, but a complement of, the law, and it is granted with discretion in cases where the law would otherwise work injustice. “Fuit dispensatio inventa, ut esset pars distributivæ justitiæ.” The exercise of this jurisdiction in the earlier days of the Christian church was vested in respect of minor matters in the bishops, and in more important matters in the provincial councils ; but by degrees this latter jurisdiction came to be exercised by the patriarchs exclusively, and ultimately, in the case of the Western Church, by the Pope alone, who, at the time of the Reformation of the Anglican Church, had acquired for the Holy See supreme authority in all the more important matters of dispensation. It was one object of the Parliament of England, by the statute concerning Peter Pence and Dispensations &quot; (25 Henry VIII. c. 21), to divest the Pope of the exercise of any powers of dispensation within the realm of England, by forbidding the king and his subjects to sue to the Pope or to the Holy See for any dispensation. The Parliament further vested the power of granting dispensations, such as had been hitherto obtained from the see of Rome, in the arehiepiscopal see of Canterbury—subject, however, to the limitation that they should bo only granted for such causes as were not contrary or repugnant to Holy Scripture or to the laws of the realm, and for this purpose the archbishop of Canterbury was empowered to constitute a sufficient commissary, and a clerk who should write and register all such dispensations. The representative of the clerk so appointed by the archbishop is the registrar of the office of faculties, over which the master of the faculties presides, as the archbishop‘s commissary. The matters for which dispensations were accustomed to be granted from the office of faculties, in the reign of Henry VIII., have almost all become obsolete, or have been withdrawn from the cognizance of the master of the faculties ; and the special authority of his court in the present day consists in the grant of special licences for marriages, which are valid in both the provinces of Canterbury and of York, and the right of granting which has been preserved to the archbishop of Canterbury in all subsequent marriage Acts. These special licences are simply dispensations for the solemnization of marriage at other times and in other places than those to which marriage is restricted by the Anglican canons or by the statute law of the realm.  D’ISRAELI, (–), was born at Enfield in . He belonged to a Jewish family which, having been driven by the Inquisition from Spain, towards, settled as merchants at Venice, and assumed the name which has become famous. In his father, then only about eighteen years of age, removed to England, where, before passing the prime of life, he amassed a competent fortune, and retired from business. Both he and his wife gradually dropped connection with their co-religionists, with whom their son never appears to have associated himself. The strongly marked characteristics which determined D'Israeli's career were displayed to a singular degree even in his boyhood. He spent his time over books, and in long day-dreams, and evinced the strongest distaste for business and all the more bustling pursuits of life. These idiosyncracies met with no sympathy from either of his parents, whose ambitious plans for his future career they threatened to disappoint. At length, when he was about fourteen, in the hope of changing the bent of his mind, his father sent him to school at Amsterdam, where he remained four or five years. Here in the principal's library, and under the principal's influence, he studied Bayle and Voltaire, and became an ardent disciple of Rousseau. Here also he wrote a long poem against commerce, which he produced as an exposition of his opinions when, on his return to England, his father divulged his intention of placing him in a commercial house at Bordeaux. Against such a destiny his mind strongly revolted; and, in this extremity, it was natural that he should eagerly seek the sympathy and counsel of a literary friend. He carried his poem, with a letter earnestly appealing for advice and assistance, to Samuel Johnson; but when, full of eager hope, he called again a week after to receive an answer, the packet was returned unopened—the grand old censor was on his death bed. He also addressed a letter to DrVicesimus Knox, in a tone of the loftiest sentiment, displaying all his literary aspirations, his earnestness and simplicity of heart, and his utter lack of all the qualities of &quot; that despicable thing &quot; (as he called him) &quot; a mere man of the world,&quot; and begging to be received into the scholar's family, that he might enjoy the benefit of his learning and experience. How this application was answered we do not know. The evident firmness of his resolve, however, was not without effect. His parents gave up their purpose for a time. He was sent to travel in France, and allowed to occupy himself as he wished; and he had the happiness of spending some months in Paris, in the society of literary 