The Project Gutenberg eBook ofEncyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Dyer, Sir Edward" to "Echidna"This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Dyer, Sir Edward" to "Echidna"Author: VariousRelease date: January 8, 2011 [eBook #34878]Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Marius Masi, Don Kretz and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA, 11TH EDITION, "DYER, SIR EDWARD" TO "ECHIDNA" ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Dyer, Sir Edward" to "Echidna"Author: VariousRelease date: January 8, 2011 [eBook #34878]Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Marius Masi, Don Kretz and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
Title: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Dyer, Sir Edward" to "Echidna"
Author: Various
Author: Various
Release date: January 8, 2011 [eBook #34878]
Language: English
Credits: Produced by Marius Masi, Don Kretz and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA, 11TH EDITION, "DYER, SIR EDWARD" TO "ECHIDNA" ***
Articles in This Slice
DYER, SIR EDWARD(d. 1607), English courtier and poet, son of Sir Thomas Dyer, Kt., was born at Sharpham Park, Somersetshire. He was educated, according to Anthony à Wood, either at Balliol College or at Broadgates Hall, Oxford. He left the university without taking a degree, and after some time spent abroad appeared at Queen Elizabeth’s court. His first patron was the earl of Leicester, who seems to have thought of putting him forward as a rival to Sir Christopher Hatton in the queen’s favour. He is mentioned by Gabriel Harvey with Sidney as one of the ornaments of the court. Sidney in his will desired that his books should be divided between Fulke Greville (Lord Brooke) and Dyer. He was employed by Elizabeth on a mission (1584) to the Low Countries, and in 1589 was sent to Denmark. In a commission to inquire into manors unjustly alienated from the crown in the west country he did not altogether please the queen, but he received a grant of some forfeited lands in Somerset in 1588. He was knighted and made chancellor of the order of the Garter in 1596. William Oldys says of him that he “would not stoop to fawn,†and some of his verses seem to show that the exigencies of life at court oppressed him. He was buried at St Saviour’s, Southwark, on the 11th of May 1607. Wood says that many esteemed him to be a Rosicrucian, and that he was a firm believer in alchemy. He had a great reputation as a poet among his contemporaries, but very little of his work has survived. Puttenham in theArte of English Poesiespeaks of “Maister Edward Dyar, for Elegie most sweete, solempne, and of high conceit.†One of the poems universally accepted as his is “My Mynde to me a kingdome is.†Among the poems inEngland’s Helicon(1600), signed S.E.D., and included in Dr A.B. Grosart’s collection of Dyer’s works (Miscellanies of the Fuller Worthies Library, vol. iv., 1876) is the charming pastoral “My Phillis hath the morninge sunne,†but this comes from thePhillisof Thomas Lodge. Grosart also prints a prose tract entitledThe Prayse of Nothing(1585). TheSixe Idilliafrom Theocritus, reckoned by J.P. Collier among Dyer’s works, were dedicated to, not written by, him.
DYER, JOHN(c.1700-1758), British poet, the son of a solicitor, was born in 1699 or 1700 at Aberglasney, in Carmarthenshire. He was sent to Westminster school and was destined for the law, but on his father’s death he began to study painting. He wandered about South Wales, sketching and occasionally painting portraits. In 1726 his first poem,Grongar Hill, appeared in a miscellany published by Richard Savage, the poet. It was an irregular ode in the so-called Pindaric style, but Dyer entirely rewrote it into a loose measure of four cadences, and printed it separately in 1727. It had an immediate and brilliant success.Grongar Hill, as it now stands, is a short poem of only 150 lines, describing in language of much freshness and picturesque charm the view from a hill overlooking the poet’s native vale of Towy. A visit to Italy bore fruit inThe Ruins of Rome(1740), a descriptive piece in about 600 lines of Miltonic blank verse. He was ordained priest in 1741, and held successively the livings of Calthorp in Leicestershire, Belchford (1751), Coningsby (1752), and Kirby-on-Bane (1756), the last three being Lincolnshire parishes. He married, in 1741, a Miss Ensor, said to be descended from the brother of Shakespeare. In 1757 he published his longest work, the didactic blank-verse epic ofThe Fleece, in four books, discoursing of the tending of sheep, of the shearing and preparation of the wool, of weaving, and of trade in woollen manufactures. The town took no interest in it, and Dodsley facetiously prophesied that “Mr Dyer would be buried in woollen.†He died at Coningsby of consumption, on the 15th of December 1758.
Hispoemswere collected by Dodsley in 1770, and by Mr Edward Thomas in 1903 for theWelsh Library, vol. iv.
Hispoemswere collected by Dodsley in 1770, and by Mr Edward Thomas in 1903 for theWelsh Library, vol. iv.
DYER, THOMAS HENRY(1804-1888), English historical and antiquarian writer, was born in London on the 4th of May 1804. He was originally intended for a business career, and for some time acted as clerk in a West India house; but finding his services no longer required after the passing of the Negro Emancipation Act, he decided to devote himself to literature. In 1850 he published theLife of Calvin, a conscientious and on the whole impartial work, though the character of Calvin is somewhat harshly drawn, and his influence in the religious world generally is insufficiently appreciated. Dyer’s first historical work was theHistory of Modern Europe(1861-1864; 3rd ed. revised and continued to the end of the 19th century, by A. Hassall, 1901), a meritorious compilation and storehouse of facts, but not very readable. TheHistory of the City of Rome(1865) down to the end of the middle ages was followed by theHistory of the Kings of Rome(1868), which, upholding against the German school the general credibility of the account of early Roman history, given in Livy and other classical authors, was violently attacked by J.R. Seeley and theSaturday Review, as showing ignorance of the comparative method. More favourable opinions of the work were expressed by others, but it is generally agreed that the author’s scholarship is defective and that his views are far too conservative.Roma Regalis(1872) andA Plea for Livy(1873) were written in reply to his critics. Dyer frequently visited Greece and Italy, and his topographical works are probably his best; amongst these mention may be made ofPompeii, its History, Buildings and Antiquities(1867, new ed. in Bohn’sIllustrated Library), andAncient Athens, its History, Topography and Remains(1873). His last publication wasOn Imitative Art(1882). He died at Bath on the 30th of January 1888.
DYMOKE,the name of an English family holding the office of king’s champion. The functions of the champion were to ride into Westminster Hall at the coronation banquet, and challenge all comers to impugn the king’s title (seeChampion). The earliest record of the ceremony at the coronation of an English king dates from the accession of Richard II. On this occasion the champion was Sir John Dymoke (d. 1381), who held the manor of Scrivelsby, Lincolnshire, in right of his wife Margaret, granddaughter of Joan Ludlow, who was the daughter and co-heiress of Philip Marmion, last Baron Marmion. The Marmions claimed descent from the lords of Fontenay, hereditary champions of the dukes of Normandy, and held the castle of Tamworth, Leicestershire, and the manor of Scrivelsby, Lincolnshire. The right to the championship was disputed with the Dymoke family by Sir Baldwin de Freville, lord of Tamworth, who was descended from an elder daughter of Philip Marmion. The court of claims eventually decided in favour of the owners of Scrivelsby on the ground that Scrivelsby was held in grand serjeanty, that is, that its tenure was dependent on rendering a special service, in this case the championship.
Sir Thomas Dymoke (1428?-1471) joined a Lancastrian rising in 1469, and, with his brother-in-law Richard, Lord Willoughby and Welles, was beheaded in 1471 by order of Edward IV. after he had been induced to leave sanctuary on a promise of personal safety. The estates were restored to his son Sir Robert Dymoke (d. 1546), champion at the coronations of Richard III., Henry VII. and Henry VIII., who distinguished himself at the siege of Tournai and became treasurer of the kingdom. His descendants acted as champions at successive coronations. Lewis Dymoke (d. 1820) put in an unsuccessful claim before the House of Lords for the barony of Marmion. His nephew Henry (1801-1865) was champion at the coronation of George IV. He was accompanied on that occasion by the duke of Wellington and Lord Howard of Effingham. Henry Dymoke was created a baronet; he was succeeded by his brother John, rector of Scrivelsby (1804-1873), whose son Henry Lionel died withoutissue in 1875, when the baronetcy became extinct, the estate passing to a collateral branch of the family. After the coronation of George IV. the ceremony was allowed to lapse, but at the coronation of King Edward VII. H.S. Dymoke bore the standard of England in Westminster Abbey.
DYNAMICS(from Gr.δÏναμις, strength), the name of a branch of the science of Mechanics (q.v.). The term was at one time restricted to the treatment of motion as affected by force, being thus opposed to Statics, which investigated equilibrium or conditions of rest. In more recent times the word has been applied comprehensively to the action of force on bodies either at rest or in motion, thus including “dynamics†(now termed kinetics) in the restricted sense and “statics.â€
Analytical Dynamics.—The fundamental principles of dynamics, and their application to special problems, are explained in the articlesMechanicsandMotion, Laws of, where brief indications are also given of the more general methods of investigating the properties of a dynamical system, independently of the accidents of its particular constitution, which were inaugurated by J.L. Lagrange. These methods, in addition to the unity and breadth which they have introduced into the treatment of pure dynamics, have a peculiar interest in relation to modern physical speculation, which finds itself confronted in various directions with the problem of explaining on dynamical principles the properties of systems whose ultimate mechanism can at present only be vaguely conjectured. In determining the properties of such systems the methods of analytical geometry and of the infinitesimal calculus (or, more generally, of mathematical analysis) are necessarily employed; for this reason the subject has been named Analytical Dynamics. The following article is devoted to an outline of such portions of general dynamical theory as seem to be most important from the physical point of view.