attracted immense audiences. By this means he was able to benefit many public institutions and private individuals, to whose benefit the proceeds were applied. Dickens was equally gifted as an author, an actor, and a public lecturer; he was born with these talents and exhibited them from childhood. As an amateur actor he was well known all over England. His first appearance in public in this character was in 1846, at St. Jamrs' theatre, in association with a number of other gentlemen, when the Elder Brother was acted for the benefit of Miss Kelly. During the years 1851 and 1852 he also, with others, acted a play, written for the purpose by Lord Edward Lytton Bulwer Lytton, not alone in London, but in many principal towns in the provinces, to obtain a fund for the foundation of a guild of literature and art.
A separation having taken place between Dickens and his publishers, Messrs. Bradbury & Evans, the "Household Words," their joint property, was discontinued in 1859, or appeared under the different name of "All the Year Round." In this new publication he commenced a story, called "A Tale of Two Cities," which was succeeded by "Great Expectations," "The Uncommercial Traveller," and "Our Mutual Friend." Only three numbers of his last work, "The Mystery of Edwin Drood," had appeared when he was seized with paralysis, of which he died on the 9th of June, 1870.—M. H.
DICKENSON or DICKINSON, Edmund, an English physician, was born in 1624, and died in 1707. He studied at Oxford, and at a very early age conceived the plan of a book which he afterwards published in 1655, under the title of "Delphi Phaenicizantes." It was reprinted at Frankfort in 1699. The theory contained in this book is sufficiently absurd; it is that the origin of the Grecian mythology is to be found in Old Testament history. The Python slain by Apollo, is, according to Dickenson, Og, king of Bashan, who was overthrown by Joshua. Our author, however, notwithstanding this craze which continued with him till his death, was eminently successful as a medical practitioner. Coming up to London he had the good fortune to cure the earl of Arlington of a dangerous malady, and was in consequence appointed physician-in-ordinary to Charles II. After the Revolution he retired from the court, and gave himself up in his retreat to the prosecution of his favourite theories. At the age of seventy-eight he published a work, in which he attempted to prove that the writings of Moses contained the true principles of cosmogony. It was reprinted in Holland in 1703, and produced a great sensation among the alchemists. Dickenson was the author of several other books now forgotten, particularly one on the Grecian games.—R. M., A.
DICKINSON, John, an American statesman and eminent political writer, born in Maryland in December, 1732. He studied law first at Philadelphia, and afterwards at the Temple inn, London. He began practice in Philadelphia, where he was very successful, and soon became a member of the legislature. In the discussion between the colonies and the mother country which preceded the revolution, he took an active share, being perhaps the ablest and most prominent writer on the American side of the question. He possessed a large fortune, and his position on the eve of the revolution was an influential and conservative one. Though firm in his attitude of resistance, he did not go along with such active patriots as John Adams and Franklin in their advocacy of extreme measures, but always advised a cautious and conciliatory policy. His first elaborate publication, "The late Regulations respecting the British Colonies on the continent of America considered," was printed in Philadelphia in 1765. In the same year, as a delegate from Pennsylvania, he attended the American congress held at New York, usually known as "the stamp act congress," and wrote the firm but moderate "Declaration of the Rights and Grievances of the Colonies," which was adopted by that body. His "Address to the Committee of Correspondence in Barbadoes," printed in 1766, is a temperate but manly defence of the American cause. But by for his most important work appeared the next year—the celebrated "Farmer's Letters to the inhabitants of the British Colonies," which Dr. Franklin reprinted in London, with a preface, in 1768, and which were soon translated into French, and published at Paris. The appearance of these letters formed an epoch in the controversy; they did more than any other single work to unite and confirm the Americans in their opposition to the policy of the ministry, and to make friends to their cause in Europe. In 1774 Mr. Dickinson published an "Essay on the constitutional power of Great Britain over the Colonies in America," originally prepared as a body of instructions from their constituents to the members of the Pennsylvania assembly. Being a delegate to the American congress of that year, he wrote the petition to the king, address to the inhabitants of Canada, and several others of the papers emanating from that body, which were much admired for their grave and dignified character. In the congress of 1775 he wrote the declaration of the united colonies, but afterwards opposed the declaration of independence, thinking that the time had not arrived for a total rupture, though he had accepted the command of a regiment raised in Philadelphia immediately after the battle of Lexington. This lost him his popularity for a time, and he did not return to congress for two years. But during this interval he marched with his regiment to meet the British in the field; and, after resigning his commission, served once again as a volunteer in the ranks. Thus attesting his patriotism, he was restored to congress in 1779, and wrote the address to the states, adopted by that body in May of that year. In 1781 he was chosen president of Delaware by a unanimous vote; and the following year he was elected to the corresponding office in Pennsylvania, which he filled till the return of Dr. Franklin in 1785. He was a member of the convention which formed the federal constitution in 1787, and took a prominent share in its debates; and he also published an excellent series of letters, the next year, under the signature of Fabius, to promote the adoption of the constitution. The same signature he used again in 1797, when he published some letters to advocate friendly feelings towards France, thinking the Revolution in that country was at an end. He was then living at Wilmington in Delaware, where he superintended the collective edition of his political writings, which was published in two vols. 8vo in 1801. During his retirement he lived in elegant style, dividing his time between his books, his guests, and the offices of benevolence. Thin and delicate in appearance, with handsome features, his conversation and manners were peculiarly attractive. He died at Wilmington, Delaware, February 14, 1808, aged seventy-five.—F. B.
DICKINSON, Jonathan, an eminent American theologian, first president of Princeton college, was born in Hatfield, Mass., April 22, 1688, graduated at Yale college in 1706, and was soon settled as a presbyterian clergyman in Elizabethtown, New Jersey, where he continued till his death, October 7, 1747. The theological publications of Dr. Dickinson were numerous and important, and his activity was great. In the discussion about revivals, which deeply interested the church just before the middle of the last century, he took sides with Edwards the metaphysician and Whitefield, asserting the genuineness of the work, and publishing a pamphlet in defence of it. "It may be doubted whether, with the single exception of the elder Edwards, Calvinism has ever found an abler or more efficient champion in this country than Jonathan Dickinson;" and it is reported that Dr. John Erskine of Edinburgh said of him, that "the British isles had produced no such writers on divinity in the eighteenth century as Dickinson and Edwards." His principal works have been published since his death in a collected edition. An octavo volume of them was published at Edinburgh in 1793.—F B.
DICKSON, David, an eminent Scotch divine, was born in 1583, and was educated at the university of Glasgow, his native city, where he took the degree of A.M., and became one of the regents or professors of philosophy. He was ordained minister of Irvine in 1608, and soon became a most zealous supporter of presbyterian principles, and opponent of episcopalian innovations. His opposition to the articles of Perth exposed him to the censure of the archbishop of Glasgow, who deprived him of his benefice, and banished him to Turriff, but ultimately permitted him to return to his parish. In 1639 Mr. Dickson became chaplain of the earl of Loudon's regiment, raised to resist the arbitrary measures of Charles I. and of Laud. In the following year he was appointed professor of divinity in the university of Glasgow, and in 1650 he was removed to Edinburgh, where he occupied a similar office, which he continued to hold until the Restoration, when he was ejected for refusing to take the oath of supremacy. The overthrow of the ecclesiastical establishment to which he was attached, preyed upon his mind and destroyed his health; and he died in 1663. Mr. Dickson was the author of several commentaries and theological treatises. He was an eloquent preacher, and a learned divine, as well as a man of fearless courage and inflexible integrity.—J. T.
