Page:Imperialdictiona02eadi Brandeis.pdf/129

DIT was born in 976, and died in 1018 or 1019. He was educated at the conventual school of Quedlinburg, and rose to be bishop of Mersburg in 1018. He was appointed by Henry II. He wrote a Latin chronicle in seven books, containing the history of the German emperors Henry I., Otho I., II., III., and Henry II. It was published under the care of Reiner Reineccius at Frankfort in 1580. Considerable extracts from it are given in the Script. Rerum Franciscarum of D. Bouquet.—R. M., A.  DITTON,, an English mathematician, born in 1675, and died in 1715. His father was a small proprietor in Wiltshire. The son, in opposition to the nonconformist wishes of the father, entered the English church, and for several years exercised his clerical functions at Tunbridge, till his health gave way. Yielding to the advice of his mathematical friends, Norris and Whiston, he resolved to pursue a similar career. He engaged the patronage of Newton, and through him was appointed to the mathematical mastership at Christ's hospital. His death is said to have been caused by chagrin, at finding that a plan for determining the longitude at sea had, on trial, entirely failed, though approved of by Newton and devised in concert with Whiston. He contributed various papers to the Philosophical Transactions, and published treatises on the laws of motion, fluxions, algebra, and perspective. He is less known as a theologian, though he published several religious works.—W. L. M.  DIVINI,, an Italian optician, was born at San-Severino about 1620; it is not known when he died. Having applied himself early to the making of optical instruments, he at length attained great excellence in his peculiar department. Divini and Campini were the first who brought to anything like perfection the art of grinding telescopic glasses. The telescopes of the former, in particular, were of so superior a description that they were eagerly sought after by astronomers in every country of Europe. He was, however, soon surpassed by Huygens, who brought the telescope to such perfection as enabled him to discern the ring of Saturn. Divini, who became jealous of his rival, controverted the truth of his discovery in a treatise which he published at Rome, entitled "Brevis annotatio in systema Saturninum." Montucla, however, is of opinion that this work is from the pen of a French jesuit of the name of Fabri. Divini had commenced the work in Italian, having but an imperfect acquaintance with the Latin language, but afterwards, it is said, intrusted its execution in the latter tongue to the jesuit father. Huygens immediately put forth a reply, which was met by a rejoinder from Divini in 1661.—R. M., A.  DIVINO,. See.  DIVITIACUS, a prince of the Edui in the time of Cæsar's Gallic wars. He acknowledged the supremacy and sought the friendship of Rome, visiting the imperial city to invite its succour against the German confederacy in which Ariovistus distinguished himself. His heart, however, always beat true to his kindred, and others besides his brother Dumnorix profited by the respect in which Cæsar held him.—W. B.  DIXON,, an English navigator of last century, is said to have been originally an officer in the navy, and is known to have accompanied Captain Cook in the third of his voyages. Among the other results of these was a stimulus given to the fur trade with the north-west coast of America, and in 1795 the King George's Sound company was formed in London to promote and profit by that traffic. Two ships were despatched by the company in the autumn of the year to the north-west coast of America—one of them, the Queen Charlotte, being commanded by Captain Dixon; the other, the King George, by Captain Portlock, who also had been a companion of Cook's. In the course of this voyage Dixon minutely explored a great portion of the coast of Oregon, circumnavigating and naming (if he did not discover) Queen Charlotte's Island. Leaving England in the August of 1785, he returned in the June of 1788, having disposed of his American cargo very advantageously in China. The following year, 1789, appeared a quarto account of his voyage round the world, bearing on the title-page the name of Dixon, and generally referred to as his composition. In reality, however, he was only the editor of the work, contributing valuable charts, appendices, &c. Its main contents are letters descriptive of the voyage, written by Mr. William Beresford, the supercargo of the Queen Charlotte. Captain Dixon engaged shortly afterwards in a war of pamphlets with a contemporary navigator, Meares, and published in 1791 a "Navigator's Assistant." He died about the beginning of the present century.—F. E.  * DIXON,, author and journalist, born in 1821, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, has worked his way up from a humble social position to the editorship of the Athenæum. Coming to London in 1846, he attracted the notice of Douglas Jerrold, and was employed on the weekly newspaper founded about that period by the celebrated humourist. Mr. Dixon also formed a connection with the Daily News, among the more notable of his contributions to which were two series of papers, one on "The Literature of the Lower Orders," the other on "London Prisons;" the latter being afterwards republished in a collective form. Becoming one of the staff of the Athenæum, he was in 1853, on the withdrawal of Mr. T. K. Hervey, appointed its editor, a post which he still holds. It is by a series of popular biographies that Mr. Dixon is best known to the general public. His lives of John Howard, William Penn, and Robert Blake have met with considerable acceptance, and gone through several editions. As the champion of William Penn, he has had the honour of tilting at Lord Macaulay.—F. E.  DJAMI MOULLA, , a Persian poet and grammarian, was born in 1414 at Djam in Khorassan. His father was an admirer of that peculiar philosophy which is known as the theological system of the Sophis. Young Djami Moulla devoted himself chiefly to the study of the same theology at Ispahan, where he became an attached disciple and intimate friend of Abou-Saïd. Some able treatises on the Sophis, which he published, procured him the honour of being introduced to Hassein Mirza. He was also honoured with the special notice of Mahomed II., and afterwards of Bajazet II. The pulpit eloquence of Djami had obtained for him the appointment of open-air preacher. For ten years he thundered from the lofty portico of the blue and gold mosque at Herat against the opponents of the Sophis, and excited the surprise and admiration of the fastidious Persian divines, by the purity of both his Arabic and Persian style and accent. He wrote and preached, during the ten years of his appointment, a large number of sermons on the decay of virtue and the vices of the followers of lust. He was himself a model of sanctity and chastity; and in the words of Bajazet, "he was the shepherd and chief of the immaculate." Bossuet, whose immense erudition in Arabic and Persian laws and customs, rendered him the most competent judge of the merits of Djami's celebrated work, "The Breath of the Holy Persons," frequently asserts that the perusal of "The Lives of the six hundred and nineteen Male and thirty-four Female Sophis," written by Djami, made him more than a match for the protestant anti-celibacy partisans, Luther, Calvin, &c. Djami's work, known as "The Seven Splendours," includes seven poems, besides the Straight Line, a political work; the Golden Chain; a Gift to Free Men; the Pious Man's Rosary; on Patience, Beauty, and Truth; the Book of Alexander's Wisdom; Selman and Absel, a love tale; Yousouff and Zoleikha. His "Diwans," an erotic poem, is in high estimation. The Italian translation by Chabert, accompanying this work, is a collection of letters full of that bombastic enflure, which makes the Persian and Arabic writers quite unintelligible. Djami's Arabic grammar, printed at Constantinople and Calcutta in 1820, is the most practical of all Semitic grammars, being the only one which exhibits Arabic derivatives. So is "The Linear and Verbal" of the same author, published in Gladwin's Persian Moonshee, London, 1811; this being an esteemed Persian and Arabic homonymy and synonymy. At the bibliotheque imperiale in Paris there exists a collection of manuscripts called "Djami's Kouliet," or totality of Djami's works. The general library at Calcutta boasts also a magnificent "Kouliet;" but both Paris and Calcutta are in the wrong, for a doubt arises in regard to the accuracy of the number of Djami's works, which are said by Gladwin to be ninety-nine, and by De Hammer only forty-five.—Ch. T. <section end="129H" /> <section begin="129Zcontin" />DJÉLAL,, a celebrated Persian saint and lyrical poet, was born at Balkh in 1195; died in 1271. His family was ancient and noble, his father, Mohammed Boha Eddin, being grandson to the celebrated Khalif Aboubekr; his mother a scion of the royal family of Khorassan. Young Djélal was educated at the celebrated grammar-school of Balkh, under the tuition of his own father. He soon came under the notice of several eminent scholars, who encouraged him to open a school of his own. Finding that his theological views were misrepresented to his injury at the court of the Sultan Mohammed Kharism Shah, he left Balkh for Mecca, whence he went to Konia, where he took <section end="129Zcontin" />