One thinks the soul is air; another, fire; And to her essence each doth give a part. purpose. Goodwin. Works, vol. v. part i. fol. 19. And therefore the determination of councils pertains to all, and is handled by all, not in diffusion but in representation. Taylor. Polemical Discourses. Episcopacy Asserted. The divine benignity is much more diffusive than the light, the air, the most communicable element in the world, and filleth every thing according to its measure and capacity of reception. Hale. Contemplation, vol. i. p. 254. Of Humility. The truth and spirit of religion comes in a narrow compass, though the effect and operation thereof are large and diffusive. Id. A Discourse of Religion, vol. i. p. 459. And then, what is so much larger than the particulars diffusively taken is sure very unlikely to be the summ of them. Hammond. Works, vol. ii. part iv. fol. 71. Of Metropoles, &c. He [Horeman] was one of the most generall schollars of his age as may appear by the diffusiveness of his learning, and books written in all faculties. Fuller. Worthies. Wiltshire. One of my designs, I had in making this experiment, being to examine a conjecture I had made about the great diffusedness of the noctilucal matter. Boyle. Works, vol. iv. p. 482. Experiments discovering a strange B DIFFUSE. But when the star, day's harbinger, arose, Cowper. Homer. Iliad, book xxiii. Mr. Warburton's text, as well as all others, read, "she would infect to the north-star;" and it is the diffusedness, or extent of her infection which is here described. Edwards. The Canons of Criticism, canon 22. A sentiment, which, expressed diffusely, will barely be admitted to be just, expressed concisely, will be admired as spirited. Blair. Lecture 18. vol. ii. Of a beautiful and magnificent diffusiveness, Cicero is, beyond doubt, the most illustrious instance that can be given. Id. Ib. If I were to choose, I should clearly give the preference to the style resembling winter snow, that is, to the full and diffusive; in short, to that pomp of eloquence, which seems all heavenly and divine. Melmoth. Pliny, to Cornelius Tacitus. Grand reservoirs of public happiness, Through secret streams diffusively they bless. Young. Love of Fame, sat. 6. DIG, Dician. A. Saxonibus est Fossam foDIGGER, dere: (Lye.) i. e. to dig a ditch.-SomDIGGING. ner; To make a trench, ditch, dike or To dig, as now used, is to raise, turn or throw up, or turn over the earth, sc. with a spade or other tool. Dijkers and delvers diggeden up þe balkes. Piers Plouhman. Vision, p. 134. And he answered vii. lambes shalte thou take of my hande, that it maye be a wytaesse vnto me, yt I haue dygged this well. Bible, Anno 1551. Genesis, ch. xxi. And trees far under earth, (by daily digging found.) Drayton. Poly-olbion, song 28. Metalls elsewhere are digged, as out of the bowells of the earth, so out of the bowells of the land; I mean so far from any conveyance by water, that the expence of the portage swallows much of the profits thereof. Fuller. Worthies. Wales, Generall. But the rarest invention is the supplying the miners with fresh aire, which is performed by two men's blowing wind by a paire of bellows on the outside of the adit, into a pipe of lead, daily lengthened as the mine is made longer, whereby the candle in the mine is daily kept burning, and the diggers recruited constantly with a sufficiency of breath. This invention was the master-piece of Sir Francis Bacon, Id. Ib. A rav'nous vulture in his open side, On that principle, the wedge-like snout of a swine, with its tough cartilage at the end, and little sunk eyes, and the whole make of the head, so well adapted to its offices of digging and rooting, would be extremely beautiful. Burke. On the Sublime and Beautiful. DI'GAMY, て Gr. dauía, a second marriage; DIGAMIST. from di-ja-civ, to marry twice or a second time. Fr. digame. Digamy and Bigamy were formerly used indiscriminately. See BIGAMY. Therefore it must probably signifie her that is departed by divorce, and then that which followeth of the digamist will also concur with it, to interpret his sense to this purpose. Hammond. Works, vol. iii. fol. 693. Annotations, 1 Epistle to Timothy, ch. iii. Then for the other interpretation, that here the digamist, or he that hath had two wives successively one after another, should be made incapable of holy orders, or be under some reproach for so doing, &c. Id. Ib. fol. 693. And for the ordinary digamy, the marrying a second after the decease of the former, that that should be so reproachfull and blameable in any, as to render one incapable of holy orders (which they are capable of, which have been guilty of some faults) this is not imaginable neither. Id. Ib. vol. i. fol. 597. Of Divorces. DIG. DIGAMMA. DIGAM M A. DIGAMMA, Gr. ĉis qáμμa, a figurd. The Double Gamma, so named from its form, F. One Gamma set upon another. While tow'ring o'er your alphabet, like Saul, From the same root we have a word for the wild goat of the mountains, from its climbing upwards; also for the leaf of a tree, from its superiour situation; whence, from the for digamma prefixed, we have the Latin folium. Horne. Works, vol. i. p. 436. Letter on the Use of the Hebrew Language. The DIGAMMA, DIGAMMOS, or DIGAMMON, was the sixth letter of the ancient Pelasgic or Grecian Alphabet. Its form and power have given rise to great discussion among scholars. The Phoenician or Samaritan letters appear to have been originally exactly the same with those of the Pelasgians in form, order, power, and name. Aleph or Alpha, Beth or Beta, Gimel or Gamma, Daleth or Delta, He, VAU. That this last name was given to the Digamma by the Greeks we know from Priscian, (de Litt. ;) and that it occupied the sixth place in the Alphabet we may also conclude from the fact that it is still found in ancient documents for the number 6. In the Codex Beza, we find the character used for this number, to denote the Ammonian section in the margin. This explains the paradoxical introduction of the character 5, by which this number is usually expressed in MSS., and which is, in reality, only a corruption of the more ancient form. As the subject is one on which conjectures have been almost boundless, we think we shall best consult the interests of knowledge by setting down such information on this point as antiquity has left us. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, (Antiq. Rom. lib. i. cap. 20,) speaking of the aboriginal inhabitants of Italy, says "To the Pelasgians they gave lands in the neighbourhood of the sacred lake, the greater part of which were marshy, (won,) which are still called Velia, (Ovéλia,) after the ancient form of the language; for it was the general custom of the ancient Greeks to prefix to words beginning with a vowel the syllable ov written in a single letter. This letter resembled a г, with two cross lines joining one straight one, as Feλévy, Fáva, Foîkos, Farijp, and many similar." DI Mr. Payne Knight is of opinion that the Digamma GAMMA. fell into general disuse about the time of the Persian war. But long after this letter had become obsolete with the other nations of Greece, it was retained among the Eolians; and therefore we frequently find it mentioned in ancient writers under the title of "the Eolian Digamma." It had, however, long since ceased to be used even among them in the time of Dionysius; and Priscian mentions as a curiosity an inscription on a tripod at Constantinople which he had himself seen, and which ran thus: AHMOOO FON AAFOKOFON. It became therefore an object of interest with anti- ment, wherein the Digamma should appear: and in the ONEY TOMB OFMANDPIASKAITOSÓEras This, Montfaucon reads....oa ev tŵ XiOų eiμì åvôpias 8 αὐτῇ λίθε εἰμὶ ἀνδριὰς καὶ τὸ σφέλας. TARF |||||||| OI ANEOENTOIAIFITONKOPINOOOEN. In all these inscriptions, the Digamma resembles The most important inscription, however, for illustrating the use of the Digamma is one which was brought from Elis by Sir William Gell, in 1813. It is a brazen tablet, and relates to a treaty between the Eleans and Evæans, entered into, as Mr. Payne Knight conjectures, about the XLth Olympiad. It has the advantage of being the most ancient inscription ever From all this unexceptionable testimony we derive a Dionysius of Halicarnassus, as we have already seen, attributes to the Digamma the force of the Greek ov: and that the Greek ou corresponds nearly, though not entirely, with the Roman V, whether vowel or consonant, is obvious from the manner in which the two nations respectively wrote the names of each other. Thus the Romans rendered 'AptoτóẞOYλos by Aristoblus; and the Greeks, Virgilius and Varro by OYıpriAtos and OYappwv yet that the Greeks had no letter precisely corresponding to the Latin V, may be inferred from the words Νόμας, Σύλλα, Βιργίλιος, Βαῤῥων, by which they also expressed the Roman names, Numa, Sulla, Virgilius, Varro. Ov, therefore, is rather to be considered an approximation to the Latin V, than the sound itself; and the nearest which Dionysius could employ to express the sound in question. Knowing, therefore, that the sound of the Roman V did not exist in the Greek language in the time of Dionysius; that the Digamma was also lost; that the place which he calls Ovelia was actually written in Latin Velia; and that this name originally had the Digamma; it seems difficult to come to any other conclusion than that the Digamma was no other in power than the Latin V. We shall see how far this opinion is supported by ancient testimony. The authority of the learned and laborious Varro, far more important than that of Dionysius, comes first to be noticed, who observes, (de Ling. Lat.) " Tempus secundum Ver, quod tum virere incipiunt virgulta, et vertere se tempus anni; nisi quod Iones dicunt BHP." That the Ionians did not write BHP, we know from their works; and indeed Varro's statement only implies that this was the Ionian pronunciaton. B therefore appears to be used by Varro as an approximation to the Eolic Digamma, as it is used by the Greeks themselves as an approximation to the Latin V. Suetonius (Claud. xlv.) and Tacitus (Annal. xi. xiv.) inform us, that the Emperor DI GAMMA. DI Claudius added three letters to the Roman alphabet, GAMMA. and wrote a Treatise on their necessity. Such an authority as Claudius would be of little value, had we not the opinion of Quinctilian, that the Eolic Digamma, which was one of these, was by no means an useless addition. In the inscriptions of that Emperor the Digamma makes its appearance inverted, as in the words AMPLIAIT, TERMINA¡ITQ, and uniformly for V. The advantage of this introduction appears to have been the distinction of the consonant and vowel V, which hitherto had been expressed by the same letter. The Digamma of Claudius was discontinued after his death. Marius Victorinus (de Litteris) expressly declares that the Eolian Digamma was pronounced similarly to the Latin V; and Priscian is very copious on the subject, (lib. i. Cap. de Litteris.) consonant in Latin (says the latter author) had always the force of the Eolic F, and therefore it takes the same name Vau, formed from its sound, as Varro and Didymus testify, who show that this was its appellation." "So true is it that the Eolic Digamma is represented by our V, that we find Astyages writing Οἰόμενος Γέλεναν ἑλικώπιδα· and we also say, At Venus haud animo nequicquam exterrita mater." si prior sit V, sequatur illa (littera I) "V In addition to this evidence, Papirian and Adamantius Martyrius, as cited by Cassiodorus, (de Orthographia, iv. v.) and Donatus, and Sergius his commentator, all ascribe to the Digamma the power of the Roman V. Strong as appears to be this body of testimony, Bishop Marsh, in his Hora Pelasgica, contends that the Digamma was not pronounced like the V, but like the F of the Roman alphabet. For this hypothesis the learned Prelate is unable to allege any ancient evidence except a passage of Priscian, who, as has been already seen, has himself vindicated the contrary opinion. In the beginning of the Chapter de Numero litterarum apud veteres, the Grammarian observes, "the Æolic Digamma, among the early Latins had the power of the Greek . P with the aspirate expresses nearly the same sound which F now has; as we find even among the early Greeks ПH for . In writing Greek words we retain the ancient orthography, as Orpheus, Phaethon; but in Latin words F was afterwards employed for P and H, as Fama, Filius, Facio; but instead of the Digamma, V consonant, because that letter appeared to bear an affinity of sound to the Digamma." This testimony is certainly explicit and positive; but even this admits that the Latin V, although not the same with the Digamma, was used as its substitute, and will bear no comparison with the early evidence of Varro. The argument of Bishop Marsh will not admit of abridgement, nor have we the means of stating it at length from what has been said, however, it will be evident, that, although highly learned and ingenious, DI it is purely conjectural and analogical, and has no positive support, except what is afforded it by the GAMMA. single, equivocal, and even self-contradictory testimony of Priscian. More fortunate, however, is the learned Prelate when contending against Dawes and res aupi Aavior, who would express the Digamma by the English W. There is no evidence whatever that either the Digamma or the Latin V was thus pronounced. It is quite enough to picture to our minds the honey-tongued Nestor beginning an oration: ὦ πόποι, ἢ δὴ παῖσι WeWoίκοτες αγορέψεσθε. Mr. Payne Knight, however, has defended the theory of Dawes with great ingenuity, in his Prolegomena in Homerum, wherein he contends, from the testimony of Terentianus concerning the Latin V, that the Eolic Digamma was not remarkably melodious. We will now endeavour to ascertain somewhat of the purposes which the Digamma served in the early |