Men's prejudices, I was sensible, could only be lessened by degrees; and I was firmly of opinion that no change ought ever to be made in quiet times, till the utility of the change was generally acknowledged. Bishop Watson. Without hinting the abolition of the order, [1] strongly insisted on the propriety of obliging them to keep exercises in the schools, as the other candidates Id. for degrees did. How numerous were the instances in which juries found a compassionate verdict, in direct contradiction to the plain facts clearly established before them, we do not know; but that these evils must all have existed to a considerable degree, no man can doubt. Sir Samuel Romilly. DEGREE, in universities, denotes a quality conferred on the students or members thereof, as a testimony of their proficiency in the arts or sciences, and entitling them to certain privileges. DEGREE OF LATITUDE. See LATITUDE. DEGREE OF LONGITUDE. See LONGITUDE. DEHORT, v. a. Lat. dehortor; of de and hortor; Gr. opw, wprat, to incite. To dissuade. One severely dehorted all his followers from prostituting mathematical principles unto common apprehension or practice. Wilkins. The apostles vehemently dehort us from unbelief. Ward. The author of this epistle, and the rest of the apostles, do every where vehemently and earnestly dehort from unbelief: did they never read these dehortations? Id. on Infidelity. DEJANIRA, in fabulous history, daughter of Oeneus, king of Ætolia, and wife of Hercules. The centaur Nessus, endeavouring to ravish her, was slain by Hercules with a poisoned arrow. Nessus, when dying, gave his bloody shirt to Dejanira; assuring her that it was a sovereign remedy to cure her husband, if he proved unfaithful. Some time after, Dejanira, suspecting his fidelity, sent him the shirt, which he put on, and was seized with the most excruciating torments. Being unable to support his pains, he retired to Mount Oeta, and erecting a pile of wood set fire to it, and threw himself into the flames; upon which Dejanira killed herself in despair. DE'ICIDE, n. s. From Lat. deus and cado A barbarism of Prior's, meant, we suppose to express the death of Christ as being both God and man. Fully believing that such he was, we cannot think that a sober theology will warrant this term. Explaining how Perfection suffered pain, Almighty languished, and Eternal died; How by her patient victor Death was slain, And earth profaned, yet blessed with deicide! Prior. DEJECT', v. a. & adj. DEJECT'EDLY, adv. DEJECTEDNESS, n. s. DEJECTION, DEJECTURE. Old Fr. dejecter; Lat. dejicere, from de, and >jacio, to cast. To cast or throw down; depress; debase: hence to afflict in any way; to mar with grief. The adjective signifies cast down; depressed; low in spirits and manner: dejecture, that which is thrown down in a particular way. No man in that passion doth look strongly, but dejectedly: and that repulsion from the eyes diverteth the spirits, and gives heat more to the ears, and the Bacon. parts by them. I am of ladies most deject and wretched, That sucked the honey of his music vows. A disease opposite to spissitude too great fluidity, the symptoms of which are excess of animal secretions; as of perspiration, sweat, urine, liquid dejectures, leanness, weakness, and thirst Id. tion; and even hope itself is swallowed up Deserted and astonished, he sinks into utter dejecin despair. Rogers. She was dejected; she learned an humbler language, and seemed, if she did not trust in God, at least to have renounced her confidence in herself. Cowper. Private Correspondence. Or fondly gay, with unambitious guile, Attempt no prize but favouring Beauty's smile; Or bear dejected to the lonely grove The soft despair of unprevailing love. Sheridan News have I none that I can deign to write, Save that it rained prodigiously last night. Couper. Private Correspondence, DEINTEGRATE, v. a. Lat. from de and legro. To take from the whole; to spoil; to diminish. DEIPHON, in fabulous history, a brother of Triptolemus, and son of Celeus and Metanira. When Ceres travelled over the world, she stopped at his father's court, and undertook to nurse him and bring him up. To reward the hospitality of Celeus, the goddess, to make his son immortal, every evening placed him on burning coals, to purify him from his mortal particles. The uncommon growth of Deiphon astonished Metanira, who wished to see what Ceres did to make him so vigorous. She was frightened to see her son on burning coals; and her shrieks disturbing the mysterious operations of the goddess, Deiphon perished in the flames. DEISCAL, or DEISHEAL, in the ancient British customs, a ceremony originally used in the druidical worship. The temples of the ancient Britons were all circular; and the druids in performing the public offices of their religion, never neglected to make three turns round the altar, from east to west, accompanied by all the worshippers. This was called the deischal, from deas, the right hand, and sul, the sun. DE'ISM, n. s. DE'IST, n. s. DEISTICAL, adj. Fr. deisme; from Lat. deus, God. See DEITY. Strictly, a belief in God, or one God; but generally applied to those who, professing such a belief, reject Revelation. See the following article. In the second epistle of St. Peter, certain deists, as they seem to have been, have laughed at the prophecy of the day of judgment. Burnet. Deism, or the principles of natural worship, are only the faint remnants or dying flames of revealed religion in the posterity of Noah. Dryden. Weakness does not fal. only to the share of Christian writers, but to some who have taken the pen in and to support the deistical or anti-christian scheme of our days. Watts. DEISM may properly be used to denote natural religion, as comprehending those truths which have a real foundation in reason and nature; and in this sense it is so far from being opposite to Christianity, that it is one great In this sense some of the deistical writers have design of the gospel to illustrate and enforce it. affected to use it. But deism popularly signifies that system of religion and morals which is supposed to be derived, by the mere force of reason, from the contemplation of the works of nature, and which rejects revelation. In the article REVELATION, we shall present the reader with a complete view of the entire argument on this momentous subject. DEITY, n. s. Fr. deité; Span. and Port. dietad; Arm. dei, from Lat. deitas, deus; Gr. Ator, God. Applied also to fabulous gods, and the supposed qualities of a divinity. They on their former journey forward pass, With pains far passing that long wandering Greek, That for his love refused deity. Spenser. Some things he doth as God, because his deity alone is the spring from which they flow; some things as man, because they issue from his mere human nature; some things jointly as both God and man, because both natures concur as principles thereunto. worm, wherein we may not see the footsteps of a deity? Bp. Hall. Contemplations. Will you suffer a temple, how poorly built soever, but yet a temple of your deity, to be razed? Sidney In his eye And nostril beautiful disdain, and might, DELACAPEDE (Bernard Germain Stephen Laville, count), a French naturalist, of noble family, was born at Agen, December 16th, 1756. He was originally destined for the army, and entered while a youth into the Bavarian service. But his love of science soon procured him the post of keeper of the cabinets in the Jardin du Roi at Paris, for which he abandoned the army, and which he held to the period of the revolution. He composed, as a continuation of the great work of Buffon, the Natural History of Oviparous Quadrupeds and Serpents. He much improved the royal cabinet; and in 1798 published the Natural History of Fishes, 5 vols., 4to. But the events of the revolution now distracted his attention. He became a member of the department of Paris, and in 1791 one of the deputies of that city. He was successively secretary and president of the National Assembly; and was one of the very few conspicuous men who steered in safety through the public storms. He was chosen one of the first members of the National Institute, and on the 20th of January, 1796, carried up an address from a deputation of that body to the council of five hundred, declaring its hatred of royalty. Buonaparte nominated him in 1799 a member of the Conservative Senate; in 1801 he was president of that body, in 1803 grand chancellor of the legion of honor, and in 1804 senator of Paris. He had frequent intercourse with the emperor, to whom he manifested much attachment; but in January, 1814, when the power of his master was tottering, he assumed a new tone, and at the head of the senate recommended peace. At the restoration of the Bourbons, he returned to his studies. His lectures at the Garden of Plants were numerously attended. He published several tracts, and contributed to the Annales du Museum d'Histoire Naturelle, and other periodical works. His History of Cetaceous Animals, which appeared in 1804, was his last work of importance. He died of the small-pox, October 6th, 1825, and his funeral was attended by several peers of France, members of the Institute, &c. DELACERATION, n. s. From Lat. delacero. A tearing in pieces. DELACRYMATION, n.s. Lat. delacrymatio. A falling down of the humors; the waterishness of the eyes, or a weeping much. DELACTATION, n. s. Lat. delactatio. A weaning from the breast. DELAMERE FOREST, a forest of England, in Cheshire, north of Chester, near the Weever; abounding with wood on its hills, fine pasture in its valleys, and fish in its waters. DELANY (Patrick), a learned divine, and ingenious author, was born in Ireland about 1686. He received his education at Trinity College, Dublin, which he entered in the character of a sizer, and afterwards became a fellow. Under the patronage of lord Carteret he obtained preferment in the church; and in 1732 published in London a work entitled Revelation Examined with Candor. In 1738 he published his Reflections upon Polygamy; and, not long after, the Life of David, King of Israel, a work display.. ing much ingenuity and labour. In 1743 he married a second wife, the widow of a Cornish gentleman, and the following year obtained the deanery of Downe. In 1754 he published Observations on Lord Orrery's Remarks on the Life and Writings of Swift, in which there are many curious anecdotes of the latter. Dr. Delany continued writing for the public till a short time before his death; and his Sermons on Social Duties are still in estimation He died at Bath in 1768. DELA'PSED, adj. Lat. delapsus, with physicians. Bearing or falling down. It is used in speaking of the womb, and the like. DELATE,' v. a. Lat. delatus, defero. To DELA'TION, n. s. carry, convey, or spread. DELA'TOR, n. s. Applied both literally, and to the carrying intelligence, or an accusation. A delator is an accuser; an informer. Try exactly the time wherein sound is delated. No sooner was that small colony, wherewith the depopulated earth was to be replanted, come forth of the ark, but we meet with Cham, a delator to his own father, inviting his brethren to that execrable spectacle of their parent's nakedness. Government of the Tongue. What were these harpies but flatterers, delators, and inexpleably covetous? Sandys's Travels. DELATIN, a market town of Austrian Gallicia, in the circle of Stanislawow. Near this town are extensive quarries of alum slate. It is twenty-four miles from Stanislawow. DĚLAVAL (Edward Hussey), a chemist and natural philosopher, F. R.S. of London and Gottingen, was a brother of lord Delaval, and died at his house in Parliament-place, Westminster, August 14th, 1814, aged eighty-five. He particularly directed his studies to the chemistry of optics, on which he published many excellent papers in the Philosophical Transactions. He was the author of An Experimental Enquiry into the Cause of the Changes of Colors in Opaque and Colored Bodies, with an Historical Preface relative to the Parts of Philosophy therein examined, and to the several Arts and Manufactures dependent on them, 1777, 4to.; a work which was translated into French and Italian. DELAWAR, a town of Virginia, in King William's county, situated on the peninsula formed by the confluence of the Pamunky and Mattapony. Twenty miles north by west of Williamsburg. DELAWARE, one of the United States of North America, situated between 38° 29′ 30′′, and 39° 54′ N. lat., and between 75° and 75° 48′ W. long. being in length ninety miles, and mn breadth twenty-five, contains 1700 square miles, or 1,088,000 acres. It is bounded on the north by Pennsylvania, on the south and west by Maryland, and on the east by Delaware Bay and the Atlantlc Ocean. It is divided into three counties, Newcastle, Kent, and Sussex; of which the chief towns are Wilmington, Dover, and Georgetown. The state of Delaware, the upper parts of the county of Newcastle excepted, is generally low and level. Large quantities of stagnant water, at particular seasons of the year, overspreading a great portion of the land, render it equally unfit for the purposes of agriculture, and injurious to health. The spine, or highest ridge of the peninsula, runs through the state of Delaware, inclining to the eastern, or Delaware side. In Sussex, Kent, and part of the county of Newcastle, there is a remarkable chain of swamps, from which the waters descend on each side, passing on the east to the Delaware, and on the west to the Chesapeake. Many of the shrubs and plants, growing in these swamps, are similar to those found on the highest mountains. Delaware is chiefly an agricultural state. It includes a very fertile tract of country; and scarcely any part of the United States is better adapted to the different purposes of agriculture, or in which a greater variety of the most useful productions can be conveniently and plentifully reared. The soil along the Delaware River, and from eight to ten miles into the interior country, is generally a rich clay, producing large timber. From thence to the swamps above-mentioned, the soil is light, sandy, and of an inferior quality. The surface of the country is very favorable for cultivation. The heights of Christiana are lofty and commanding; some of the hills of Brandywine are rough and stony; but descending from these, and a few others, the lower country is so little diversified as almost to form one extended plain. In the county of Newcastle the soil consists of a strong clay; in Kent there is a considerable mixture of sand; and in Sussex the quantity of sand altogether predominates. Wheat is the staple of this state. It grows here in such perfection, as not only to be particularly songht by the manufacturers of flour throughout the Union, but also to be distinguished and preferred, for its superior qualities, in foreign It possesses an uncommon softness and whiteness, very favorable to the manufacturers of superfine flour, and in other respects far exceeds the hard and flinty grains raised in general on the higher lands. This state also produces plentiful crops of Indian corn, barley, rye, oats, flax, buck-wheat, and potatoes. It abounds too in natural and artificial meadows. Hemp, cotton, and silk, if properly attended to, thrive well. markets. The county of Essex exports very large quantities of lumber, obtained from a swamp, called the Indian River, or Cypress Swamp, lying partly within this state, and partly in the state of Maryland. This morass extends six miles from east to west, and nearly twelve from north to south, including an area of nearly 50,000 acres of land. The whole is a high and level basin, very wet, though undoubtedly the highest. land between the sea and the bay, whence the Pokomoke descends on the one side, and Indian River and St. Martin's on the other. It contains a great variety of plants, trees, wild beasts, birds, and reptiles. Few minerals are found in this state, except iron; but large quantities of bog iron ore, fit for casting, are obtained in Sussex county, among the branches of Nanticoke River. The coast of this state is indented with a large number of creeks, or small rivers, which generally have a short course, soft banks, and numerous shoals; and are skirted with very extensive marshes. In the southern and western parts spring the head waters of Pocomoke, Wicomico, Nanticoke, Choptank, Chester, Sassafras, and Bohemia rivers, all falling into the Chesapeake; some of them are navigable twenty or thirty miles into the country, for vessels of fifty or sixty tons. In the beginning of the seventeenth century, the Dutch, under the pretended purchase made by Henry Hudson, took possession of the lands on both sides the river Delaware, and as early as 1623 built a fort at a place since called Gloucester. In 1627, by the influence of William Useling, a respectable merchant in Sweden, a colony of Swedes and Finns came over, furnished with all the necessaries for beginning a new settlement, and landed at Cape Henlopen; at which time the Dutch had wholly quitted the country. The latter however returned in 1630, and built a fort at Lewistown, called by them Hoarkill. The year following, the Swedes built a fort near Wilmington, which they called Christian, or Christiana. Here also they laid out a small town, which was afterwards demolished by the Dutch. The same year they erected a fort higher up the river, upon Tenecum Island, which they called New Gottenburgh, and about the same time built forts at Chester, Elsingburgh, and other places. In 1655 the Dutch, under the command of Peter Stuyvesant, arrived in Delaware River, from New York, then called New Amsterdam, in seven vessels, with 600 or 700 men. They dispossessed the Swedes of their forts on the river, and sent the officers and principal inhabitants prisoners to Holland. The rest submitted to the conquerors, and remained in the country. On the 1st of October, 1664, Sir Robert Carr obtained the submission of the Swedes on the Delaware. Four years after, colonel Nicholls, governor of New York, with his council, on the 21st of April, appointed six persons to assist captain Carr in the government of the country. In 1672 the town of Newcastle was incorporated by the state of New York, to be governed by a bailiff and six assistants. They were to have a free trade, without being obliged to make entry at New York, as had formerly been the practice. Wampum was at this time the principal currency of the country, In 1674 Charles II., by a second patent, dated 29th of June, granted to his brother, the duke of York, all that country called by the Dutch New Netherlands, of which the three counties of Newcastle, Kent, and Sussex were a part. In 1683 the duke of York sold to William Penn the town of Newcastle, with the whole of the DELAWARE, a river of the United States, which rises at two principal heads in the state of New York. It runs towards the south, and in its course forms the boundary line between Pennsylvania, New York, and Jersey; a few miles below Philadelphia it separates the state of Delaware from Jersey, and afterwards loses itself in Delaware Bay. The bay and river are navigable for 155 miles from the sea, up to the great or lower falls at Trenton. A seventy-four gun ship may ascend to Philadelphia; and sloops thirty-five miles further. DELAWARE BAY, a large bay or arm of the sea, between the Delaware and New Jersey states, and formed by the mouth of the Delaware river, and several other small ones. The bay is about sixty miles long, and thirty miles across in the centre. It opens into the Atlantic northwest and south-east, between Cape Henlopen on the right and Cape May on the left, and its mouth is twenty-one miles broad. DELAWARE COUNTY, in Pennsylvania, is southwest of Philadelphia county, on Delaware River. It is about twenty-one miles in length, and fifteen in breadth, containing 115,200 acres, and subdivided into nineteen townships; the chief of which is Chester. The number of inhabitants is 9,483. The lands bordering on the Delaware are low, and afford excellent meadows and pas 23 per cent. turage; and are guarded from inundations by mounds of earth or dykes. Great numbers of cattle are brought here from the western parts of Virginia and North Carolina, to be fattened for supplying the Philadelphia market. DELAWARE COUNTY, a county in the state of New York, on the head waters of Delaware River, taken from Otsego county. It is bounded on the north by Otsego county, east by Schoharie and Green counties, south by Ulster and Sullivan counties, and west by the state of Pennsylvania, by Broome county, and a small part of Chenango county. Its greatest length is fiftyfour miles, its greatest breadth thirty-five; the area 1425 square miles, or 912,000 acres ; between 41° 51′ and 42° 1' north lat. It is of a broken and diversified surface, containing rugged and lofty mountains, with low plains and rich valleys. It sends two members to the house of assembly. DELAWARES, a nation of North American Indians, formerly numerous and powerful, and who possessed part of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York. This name was given them by the Europeans; for they call themselves Lennilenape, that is, Indian men; or Woapanachky which signifies a people living towards the rising sun. They are now, however, much reduced in number. |