He’s the first-begotten of Beelzebub, with a face as terrible as Demogorgon.—­Dryden, The Spanish Fryar, v. 2 (1680).

DEMON.  Increase Mather tells a long and circumstantial story of The Demon at William Morse His House, time of visitation being 1679.  “The true story of these strange disturbances is as yet not certainly known,” he says.  “Some (as has been hinted), did suspect Morse’s wife to be guilty of witchcraft.”—­Increase Mather, An Essay for the Eecording of Illustrious Providences (1681).  DEMOPH’OON (4 syl.) was brought up by Demeter, who anointed him with ambrosia and plunged him every night into the fire.  One day, his mother, out of curiosity, watched the proceeding, and was horror-struck; whereupon Demeter told her that her foolish curiosity had robbed her son of immortal youth.

[Illustration] This story is also told of Isis.—­Plutarch, De Isid. et Osirid., xvi. 357.

[Illustration] A similar story is told of Achilles.  His mother Thet’is was taking similar precautions to render him immortal, when his father Pe’leus (2 syl.) interfered.—­Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautic Exp., iv. 866.

DEMOS’THENES OF THE PULPIT.  Dr. Thomas Rennell, dean of Westminster, was so called by William Pitt (1753-1840).

DENDIN (Peter), an old man, who had settled more disputes than all the magistrates of Poitiers, though he was no judge.  His plan was to wait till the litigants were thoroughly sick of their contention, and longed to end their disputes; then he would interpose, and his judgment could not fail to be acceptable.

Tenot Dendin, son of the above, but, unlike the father, he always tried to crush quarrels in the bud; consequently, he never succeeded in settling a single dispute submitted to his judgment.—­Rabelais, Pantagruel, in. 41 (1545).

(Racine has introduced the same name into his comedy called Les Plaideurs (1669), and Lafontaine in his Fables 1668).

DENNET (Father), an old peasant at the Lists of St. George.—­Sir W. Scott, Ivanhoe (time, Richard I.).

DENNIS the hangman, one of the ringleaders of the “No Popery Riots;” the other two were Hugh, servant of the Maypole inn, and the half-witted Barnaby Rudge.  Dennis was cheerful enough when he “turned off” others, but when he himself ascended the gibbet he showed a most grovelling and craven spirit.—­C.  Dickens, Barnaby Rudge (1841).

Dennis (John), “the best abused man in English literature.”  Swift lampooned him; Pope assailed him in the Essay on Criticism; and finally he was “damned to everlasting fame” in the Dunciad.  He is called “Zo’ilus” (1657-1733).

DENNISON (Jenny), attendant on Miss Edith Bellenden.  She marries Cuddie Headrigg.—­Sir W. Scott, Old Mortality (time, Charles II.).

DERMER (Mr.), a little bachelor lawyer, whose face has “a pinched, wistful look” under the curls of his brown wig.  He lives in a dreary house, with a testy housekeeper, and a timid little nephew-ward, and spends many of his lonely hours in trying to decide if he loves Miss Deborah Woodhouse the utilitarian, or aesthetic Miss Ruth.  On his death-bed, he gives an old daguerreotype of himself to Miss Ruth.