e most formidable opposition, so formidable that all his
fellow-workers were ready to yield, and were only held to their task by
his indomitable resolution and unquenchable ardour. "A deist in his
earlier writings," says SCHWEGLER, "the drift of his subsequent
writings amounts to the belief that all is God. At first a believer in
the immateriality and immortality of the soul, he peremptorily declares
at last that only the race endures, that individuals pass, and that
immortality is nothing but life in the remembrance of posterity; he was
kept back, however, from the materialism his doctrines issued in by his
moral earnestness"; that Diderot was at heart no sceptic is evident, as
Dr. Stirling suggests, from his "indignation at the _darkness_, the
miserable _ignorance_ of those around him, and his resolution to dispel
it" (1713-1784).

DIDIUS, JULIANUS, a Roman emperor who in 193 purchased the imperial
purple from the praetorian guards, and was after two months murdered by
the soldiers when Severus was approaching the city.

DIDO, the daughter of Belus, king of Tyre, and the sister of
Pygmalion, who, having succeeded to the throne on the death of his
father, put Sichaeus, her husband, to death for the sake of his wealth,
whereupon she secretly took ship, sailed away from the city with the
treasure, accompanied by a body of disaffected citizens, and founded
Carthage, having picked up by the way 80 virgins from Cyprus to make
wives for her male attendants; a neighbouring chief made suit for her
hand, encouraged by her subjects, upon which, being bound by an oath of
eternal fidelity to Sichaeus, she erected a funeral pile and stabbed
herself in presence of her subjects; Virgil makes her ascend the funeral
pile out of grief for the departure of AEneas, of whom she was
passionately in love.

DIDOT, the name of a French family of paper-makers, printers, and
publishers, of which the most celebrated is Ambroise Firmin, born in
Paris, a learned Hellenist (1790-1876).

DIDYMUS (twin), a surname of St. Thomas; also the name of a
grammarian of Alexandria, a contemporary of Cicero, and who wrote
commentaries on Homer.

DIEBITSCH, COUNT, a Russian general, born in Silesia;
commander-in-chief in 1829 of the Russian army against Turkey, over the
forces of which he gained a victory in the Balkans; commissioned to
suppress a Polish insurrection, he was baffled in his efforts, and fell a
victim to cholera in 1831.

DIEFF