ultimate corruption and decay Among Diderot's imaginative productions the first place must be given to "Le Neveu de Rameau." Carlyle pronounces this tale by far the finest of all his compositions, and says that "it resembles Don Quixote rather; of somewhat similar stature, yet of complexion altogether different; through the one looks a sunny Elysium, through the other a sulphurous Erebus; both hold of the infinite." Within certain limits, when he felt no obligation upon him to write gradually and scientifically, Diderot's style was that of good extemporaneous talking. It is significant of his taste that he was a great admirer of Richardson, upon whom he wrote a glowing eulogy; and although in his ambitious efforts he was declamatory and obscure, his best passages in their clearness of expression possess an artistic charm. "He has written fine passages," says Marmontel in his memoirs, "but he never knew how to make a book." In personal disposition he was not without kindly generosity, although irritable and suspicious; and is described by one of his biographers as possessing "more of softness than of true affection, sometimes with the malice and rage of a child, but on the whole an inexhaustible fund of goodnatured simplicity." After such fashion, then—with ready pen in a world no ready pen can well describe, more enthusiastic about a sentiment than reverent before a virtue; impulsive, irritable, and wilful, but not without a certain simpleheartedness; coarse and self-indulgent, but not without artistic grace, and capable of being victimized by the needy; of large endowments and clear vision, but confined within a circle of social and materialistic habits of thought and action, which rendered the great world only like a narrow room with closed windows, shutting out any glimpses into immensity, and a few poor candles for stars and wild wits for saints—Diderot studied and wrote, not without lively gaiety, but representing powers and impulses which, dwelling within less mercurial natures, proved torches of destruction.
Diderot did not grow rich by his labours, and in his old age proposed to sell his library. Catherine of Russia hearing of his need purchased the library, but appointed Diderot himself its librarian, and paid down fifty years' salary in advance. Charmed with the liberality of the empress, Diderot went to St. Petersburg to pay his respects in person, and on his return to Paris found himself provided with splendid apartments. He enjoyed his new lodgings, which were his first escape from a garret, only twelve days. He was quite conscious that his end was approaching. The evening before his death he conversed with his friends upon philosophy, and the various means of obtaining it. "The first step towards philosophy," said Diderot, "is incredulity." The next day, 30th July, 1784, Diderot died without a struggle. His last literary production was a life of Seneca. A collection of his chief works was published by Naigeou, 15 vols. 8vo, 1798, reprinted, 22 vols., 1821. The "Mémoirs, Correspondence, et Œuvrages inédits de Diderot" were published in 1831, 4 vols. 8vo. In English literature he has formed the subject of one of Carlyle's noblest and profoundest essays.—L. L. P.
DIDIUS, Julianus, Emperor of Rome for little more than two months, a.d. 193, belonged to a noble family, and had performed his part with some credit in high offices of state at home and in the provinces. He was living at Rome in the fifty-seventh year of his age, when Pertinax was assassinated by the praetorian guards; and, being incited by his friends to become a candidate for the supreme power, he repaired to the prætorian camp, where Sulpicianus, the father-in-law of the murdered emperor, was bargaining with the soldiers for the succession, and secured by a larger offer the vacant dignity. The armed band which then conducted him into the city, obtained his recognition from the senate; but neither force nor suasion could repress the discontent of the people, who insulted the new sovereign wherever he appeared in public, and clamoured for Pescennius Niger, the consul, then commanding in Syria. Septimius Severus, however, who was at the head of the army in Pannonia, within a fortnight's rapid march of Rome, proved a more formidable rival. Hailed by his troops as emperor, he hastened homewards, and had crossed the Apennines before Julianus could adopt measures to oppose his progress. The whole hope of the latter rested upon the prætorians, to whom he owed his elevation, and whose attachment he now sought to confirm by additional bribes. But they had no relish for a conflict with the hardy troops from Pannonia. The easy terms of submission proffered to them by Severus, with the view of preventing bloodshed, were accepted; and he quietly assumed the sovereignty, his unhappy predecessor having been put to death by order of the senate.—W. B.
DIDOT, Firmin, the late head of the great printing and publishing concern of Firmin Didot Brothers, was born in 1764. The first of the family, François Didot, kept a bookshop in Paris in the early part of the last century, which, according to the custom of the times—not yet altogether exploded—bore the good sign of the Bible d'or. He left eleven children, of whom François Ambrose Didot, born 1730, was destined to found the reputation of the house. He it was who published that celebrated collection of the classics called the Dauphin edition. Firmin Didot, with his brother Pierre, following the example of old François Ambrose who lived to 1804, so raised the reputation of the concern that the great Franklin, once a printer himself, sent his grandson to take lessons from them. To Firmin is due the credit of having invented the stereotype. Leaving the care of business to his sons Ambrose Firmin and Hyacinth—the one born in 1790, the other in 1794—he in 1829 entered public political life as member for Nogent le Rotrou, enlisting in the ranks of the doctrinaires, under their renowned chief Royer Collard. He was also a man of distinguished literary ability. His son Ambrose, like himself, brought to the execution of his business the mind of an accomplished thinker, for he visited the East, and could boast of discoveries made on the plains of Troy. It is not to be wondered at that men so justly proud of their calling, should have succeeded in raising it to the rank of a liberal profession. Before publishing the "Thesaurus Græco-Linguæ," M. Didot corresponded with the learned men of all countries, in order as regarded correctness of text, as well as beauty of type, to arrive at perfection; and the same principle has been pursued with respect to works in different other languages. Firmin died in 1836. The business is now carried on by Paul and Alfred Didot.—J. F. C.
* DIDRON, Adolphe Napoleon, antiquarian, born at Hautvilliers, Marne, 1806, has devoted his life to mediæval christian art, visiting Gothic churches and monuments, and collecting materials for the proper treatment of this delightful subject. To him was due, not only the establishment of an archæological library in Paris, but a factory for the erection of those "storied panes" which form so beautiful a part of ancient church decoration. His published voluminous lectures and historical writings are worthy the attention of archæologists.—J. F. C.
DIDYMUS, said to have been the son of a dealer in salt fish, was a celebrated Alexandrian grammarian of the time of Cicero and Augustus. He is distinguished from other grammarians of the same name by the surname Χαλκέντερος, which he is said to have received on account of his assiduous application to study. He was also nicknamed Βιβλιόλαθας, because, from the multitude of his writings, he frequently forgot what he had formerly stated, and contradicted himself. Contradictions of this kind are likely to be most numerous in the works of a compiler, which Didymus in a great measure was. He was a follower of the school of Aristarchus, and taught Apion, Heracleides, Ponticus, and other eminent men of the time. The whole number of the works of Didymus is stated by Athenæus to have been three thousand five hundred, and by Seneca four thousand. But in this calculation single books or rolls must have been reckoned as separate works, or we are driven necessarily to the conclusion that many of them were exceedingly trifling. The fruit of his prodigious literary activity has all perished; all, at least, save what the old scholiasts have taken by way of quotation from his commentaries on the Greek poets and tragedians. What now passes under the name of the minor scholia on Homer, was at one time considered one of his separate works; but it is now believed to have been taken from the several works which he wrote upon the great Greek poet. These were probably the most interesting and valuable of all his productions, as the criticism and interpretation of the Homeric poems occupied him above any other of his literary labours. In one of them he entered into the detail of the criticisms of Aristarchus, and revised and corrected the text which the latter had established. His pursuits, however, were not bounded by his Homeric criticism. He produced commentaries on many of the classical poets and prose writers of Greece. The best part of our scholia on Pindar is derived from the commentary of Didymus, and it is the same with regard to that on Sophocles. He commented also on Aristophanes, Euripides, Ion, Phrynichus, Cratinus, Menander, and on the best of the
