considered it as indeed an honour to the name, that Death should have been called Aávoç by the Macedonians, not as a dialectic or provincial form of Oávaroç but from the Hebrew Dan, which signifies, says Jeremy Taylor, a Judge, as intimating that Judges are appointed to give sentence upon criminals in life and death.

Even if we look at the black side of the shield we still find that the D preserves its power: there is Dathan, who with Korah and Abiram went down alive into the pit, and the earth closed upon them; Dalila by whom Sampson was betrayed; Dionysius the acoustical tyrant; Domitian who like a true vicegerent of Beelzebub tormented flies as well as men; Decius the fiercest of the persecutors; the inhuman Dunstan, and the devilish Dominic, after whom it seems all but an anticlimax to name the ipsissimus Diabolus, the Devil himself. And here let us remark through how many languages the name of the author of evil retains its characteristic initial, Acáßodos, Diabolus, Diavolo, Diablo, Diabo, Diable, in Dutch Duival, in Welsh Diawl, and though the

Germans write him Teufel, it is because in their coarser articulation the D passes into the cognate sound of T, without offending their obtuser organs of hearing. Even in the appellations given him by familiar or vulgar irreverence, the same pregnant initial prevails, he is the Deuce, and Old Davy and Davy Jones. And it may be noted that in the various systems of false religion to which he hath given birth, the Delta is still a dominant inchoative. Witness Dagon of the Philistines, witness the Daggial of the Mahommedans, and the forgotten root from whence the Atos of the Greeks is derived. Why should I mention the Roman Diespiter, the Syrian Dirceto, Delius with his sister Delia, known also as Dictynna and the great Diana of the Ephesians. The Sicyonian Dia, Dione of whom Venus was born, Deiphobe the Cumaan Sybil who conducted Æneas in his descent to the infernal regions. Doris the mother of the Nereids, and Dorus father of the race of Pygmies. Why should I name the Dioscuri, Dice and Dionysus, the Earth, Mother Demeter, the Demiour

gos, gloomy Dis, Demogorgon dread and Daphne whom the Gods converted into a Laurel to decorate the brows of Heroes and Poets.

Truly he would say it may be called a dynamic letter; and not without mystery did the Hebrews call it Daleth, the door, as though it were the door of speech. Then its form! how full of mysteries! The wise Egyptians represented it by three stars disposed in a triangle: it was their hieroglyphic of the Deity. In Greek it is the Delta.

A

In this form were the stupendous Pyramids built, when the sage Egyptians are thought to have emblematised the soul of man, which the divine Plato supposed to be of this shape. This is the mysterious triangle, which the Pythagoreans called Pallas, because they said it sprang from the brain of Jupiter, and Tritogeneia, because if three right lines were drawn from its angles to meet in the centre, a triple birth of triangles was produced, each equal to the other.

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pass reverently the diviner mysteries which have been illustrated from hence, and may perhaps be typified herein. Nor will I do more than touch upon the mechanical powers which we derive from a knowledge of the properties of the figures, and upon the science of Trigonometry. In its Roman and more familiar form, the Letter hath also sublime resemblances or prototypes. The Rainbow resting upon the earth describes its form. Yea, the Sky and the Earth represent a grand and immeasurable D; for when you stand upon a boundless plain, the space behind you and before in infinite longitude is the straight line, and the circle of the firmament which bends from infinite altitude to meet it, forms the bow.

For himself, he said, it was a never failing

source of satisfaction when he reflected how richly his own destiny was endowed with Ds. The D was the star of his ascendant. There was in the accident of his life, and he desired it to be understood as using the word accident in its scholastic acceptations, a concatenation, a concentration. Yea he might venture to call it a constellation of Ds. Dove he was born; Daniel he was baptized; Daniel was the name of his father; Dinah of his mother, Deborah of his wife; Doctor was his title, Doncaster his dwelling place; in the year of his marriage, which next to that of his birth was the most important of his life, D was the Dominical letter; and in the amorous and pastoral strains wherein he had made his passion known in the magazines, he had called himself Damon and his mistress Delia.