before meals. These libations were usually of undiluted wine, but they were also sometimes of milk diluted with water, or water flavored with honey. There are many references to these libations by Sophocles, Eschylus, Pliny, and other writers. The libation at meals consisted of pouring a small quantity of liquor from the cup on the groundso much waste being a kind of propitiation, or an act somewhat equivalent to the asking of a blessing. See SACRIFICE.

From these and similar usages in remote times sprung the ceremonial observance or drinking healths, or the uttering of a pious, heroic, or friendly sentiment before quaffing liquor on festive occasions. It has been stated that the practice of saying, or pledging "I pledge you," originated in England in the 10th c., it being then necessary for one to watch over the safety of his companion when the cup was at his lips. But the custom of drinking healths, as just mentioned, is of far higher antiquity, and was derived immediately from the boisterous convivialities of a Scandinavian and Teutonic ancestry (see WALHALLA), if not with equal likelihood from the usages of the early Britons, who were of Celtic origin. A story is told of a feast given by Hengist (5th c.) at his stronghold of Thong-caster, in Lincolnshire, to the British king Vortigern, and of the bewitchment of the royal guest by the charms of Rowena, the young and beautiful daughter of his entertainer. Rowena's address, as she gracefully knelt and presented the winecup to the king, Liever kyning, wass heal, or, "Ďear king, your health," is often quoted as the origin of our still existing expressions, wassail and wassail-cup; though wassail means pledging or health-drinking independently of the saying of Rowena, and certainly was not then uttered for the first time. Wassail is derived from the old AngloSaxon Was hal, "Be in health;" and Was heil and Drinc heil were the usual ancient phrases in quaffing among the English, and synonymous with Here is to you," and I'll pledge you," of later times. The explanation of wassail by an old writer, Robert de Brunne, may be appropriately quoted:

"This is ther custom and her gest
When thei are at the ale or fest,

Ilk man that levis qware him think
Salle say Wosseille, and to him drink.
He that biddis salle say, Wassaile,
The tother salle say again, Drinkaille.
That says Wosseille drinkis of the cop,
Kissand his felaw he gives it up.'

The learned Selden, in a note on the Polyolbion, says: "I see a custom in some parts among us; I mean the yearly was-haile in the country on the vigil of the new year, which I conjecture was a usual ceremony among the Saxons before Hengist, as a note of health-wishing (and so perhaps you might make it wish-heil), which was exprest among other nations in that form of drinking to the health of their mistresses and friends. Bene vos, bene nos, bene te, bene me, bene nostram etiam Stephanium,' in Plautus, and infinite other testimonies of that nature in him, Martial, Ovid, Horace, and such more agreeing nearly with the fashion now used; we calling it a health, as they did also in direct terms. For further particulars concerning wassail and wassail-bowl, we may refer to Brand's Popular Antiquities, edited by Ellis. It is enough here to quote from that authority the following passages: "Milner on an ancient cup (Archæologia, xi. 420), informs us that the introduction of Christianity amongst our ancestors did not at all contribute to the abolition of the practice of wasselling. On the contrary, it began to assume a kind of religious aspect, and the wassel-bowl itself, which in the great monasteries was placed on the abbot's table, at the upper end of the refectory or eating-hall, to be circulated amongst the community at discretion, received the honorable appellation of "poculum charitatis." This, in our universities, is called the gracecup.' The poculum charitatis is well translated by the toast-master of most of the public companies of the city of London by the words a 'loving cup.' After dinner, the master and wardens drink to their visitors, in a loving cup, and bid them all heartily welcome.' The cup [a silver flagon containing warm spiced wine] then circulates round the table, the person who pledges standing up whilst his neighbor drinks to him."

While the drinking of healths is thus of old date, the application of the word "toast" is modern, having had its origin in the practice of putting a piece of toasted bread in a jug of ale, hence called "a toast and tankard." The custom of so using the word is said to have had its rise at Bath, in the reign of Charles II. It happened that on a public day a celebrated beauty of those times was in the cross [or large public] bath, and one of the crowd of her admirers took a glass of the water in which the fair one stood, and drank her health to the company. There was in the place a gay fellow half-tipsy, who offered to jump in, and declared, though he liked not the liquor, he would have the toast. He was opposed in his resolution; yet this whim gave foundation to the present honor which is done to the lady we mention in our liquors, who has ever since been called a toast.-Tatler. Begun in the form of toasting beauties at private parties, toasts were in time given on all sorts of subjects at public festivities, accompanied with rounds of cheers and hurrahs, these noisy demonstrations being now called the honors." The fatigue of announcing these exciting sentiments is so great, that in all well-ordered large assemblies a toast-master is employed. Star.ding behind the chairman, this official, besides proclaiming the toasts, acts as a fugleman to regu

late the clapping of hands and the "hip, hip, hurrahs" of the company. "Toasts, certainly, in this guise look more like a medium for taking an indefinite quantity of wine, than that spontaneous effusion of the heart in honor of some cherished individual, which they originally were. On certain occasions, these signals are hushed, and the convivial glass is taken "in solemn silence.” The effect is certainly rather startling. A convivial glass to the memory of one departed has surely something in it of practical absurdity."-Mrs. Stone's Chronicles of Fashion (1845). The absurdity of the whole toasting system has incurred the reprehension of temperance societies, without any perceptible abatement; but the old custom of drinking healths at private parties is now given up in good society, along with the excesses which were formerly practiced.

Space is not afforded in the present work to do more than glance at the diversity of D. U. in connection with domestic events and social intercourse. There were, as is well known, at one time drinkings on the occasion of births, baptisms, marriages, and even deaths; these last, which included the gloomy festivities of the Lykwake, or wake over the corpse of the deceased, being a relic of a very ancient custom, as was that, at least in Scotland, of drinking the dredgy (dirge) after the funeral solemnities were completed. In whatever manner these, as well as many other D. U., originated, it cannot be doubted that they were long maintained from the force of custom, along with that demand for artificial stimulus provoked by the naturally phlegmatic character of a northern people. For the long nights of a cheerless climate, there seems to have been sought the solacement of those intoxicating agents, in which it would have been fatal to indulge-where they were not needed-under the sunny skies of the south. We believe this is really the philosophy of the subject, if there be any philosophy in it; and it cannot fail to be observed, that just in proportion to an increase in the number of comfortable homes, the cultivation of mental resources, and the spread of a taste for harmless recreations, the more odious of the old convivialities disappear. Latterly, many amusing traditions respecting the drinking habits of a past age in Scotland, where they longest flourished without alteration, have been given in the Memoirs of Lord Cockburn, the Autobiography of the Rev. Dr. Alexander Carlyle; and the Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character, by the Very Rev. Dean Ramsay (1860).

As regards miscellaneous drinking observances at one time common, we can refer but to a few of the more prominent. Perhaps the most offensive of all was that customary among tradesmen of imposing fines to be consumed in liquor. Apprentices, on being introduced to a workshop, paid so much entry-money to be spent in drink, and similar exactions were made from journeymen on entering a new employment. This was called paying their footing. When Benjamin Franklin, on his getting employment in a printing-office in London, refused to comply with this mischievous custom, he experienced, as he tells us, a variety of petty annoyances. Among shipwrights, the penalty of non-payment was flogging with a hand-saw from time to time, and other maltreatment. We refer to Dunlop's Drinking Usages of Great Britain (1839) for many curious details of this kind. Happily, the abolition of these usages has kept pace with the increasing intelligence of the working-classes, and of such outrages little is now heard. Prisoners, on being lodged in jail, as related in the novels of Smollett and others, were obliged to pay garnish for drink to the brotherhood of which they had become members. This pitiless exaction is now totally gone, through the efficacy of modern prison-discipline.

The giving of rails (Lat. vale, farewell) to servants on quitting a gentleman's house, which became so intolerable in the 18th c., as at length to be given up by universal consent, meant, doubtless, a gift to be spent in drink to the health of the donor, and was analogous to the custom of giving a trink-geld in Germany, and a pour boire in France, to servants, drivers of carriages, and others. There were, at one time, numerous drinking usages connected with departures. We need only notice the bonailie (Fr. bon allez), or, as it is sometimes called, a foy (Fr. voie), a festive drinking at the away-going of servants or of persons in a still higher degree, once common in the lowlands of Scotand; also the stirrup-cup, or, as it is called in the Highlands, deoch an dorris, or drink on getting on horseback, and being ready to set off. -For the moral and physical evils connected with D. U., and the means taken to redress them, we refer to the article TEM

PERANCE.

DRIP, the projecting edge of a molding, so channeled as that the rain will drip from it instead of trickling down the wall.-Parker.

DRIPSTONE (Fr. larmier). The D. is a projecting molding or tablet placed over the head of a Gothic doorway or window, for the purpose of throwing off the water, whence it is also known as a water table or weather-molding. Though such was, no doubt, its primitive use, the D. latterly became a mere ornamental appendage, which served to enrich and define the outline of the arch. It does not generally extend lower than the springing of the arch, though this rule is by no means without exceptions. When the tracery extends to a lower level, the external D. usually accompanies it, and Parker mentions that, at the n. doorway of Otham church, Kent, it descends the whole length of the jamb. The D. is not so constant a feature in continental as in English Gothic.

DRISLER, HENRY, LL.D., born 1818; graduated at Columbia College, 1839, and was instructor in the grammar school there for several years; then teacher of Greek and Latin; in 1845 adjunct professor in the same department; in 1857 professor of Latin, and in 1867 of Greek. In 1878, during President Barnard's absence in Europe, he was president pro tem, of the college. He had also for several years assisted Prof. Anthon in editing his classical text-books. Besides many minor contributions to linguistic study, he has edited (1846) Liddell and Scott's translation of Passow's Greek Lexicon, and (1870) an enlargement of Yonge's English-Greek Lexicon.

In 1878 he edited the first of a series of classical texts and commentaries written by a number of eminent classical scholars. In 1882, in conjunction with the English editors, he brought out an enlarged edition of Liddell and Scott's Greek Lexicon, which appeared simultaneously in England and in this country. In 1886 he received from Harvard the honorary degree of LL.D. In 1888, on the resignation of President Barnard, Dr. Drisler acted as president for one year, at the end of which period he was made Dean of the Faculty of Arts. He retired in 1894, and died in 1897.

DRIVER, on shipboard, is the name of a large sail occasionally set upon the mizzenmast with a yard or gaff. A boom, called the driver-boom, extends the lower part of the sail a good way over the stern, like a cutter's mainsail.

DRIVING, FURIOUS. Travelers shall drive on the highway only at a moderate rate of speed, and furious and reckless driving on thronged thoroughfares is an indictable offense at common law, punishable by fines and imprisonment. In the United States the rate of driving in cities is, in the absence of state laws, regulated by the municipalities. The offense has become statutory in England, and a series of acts have been passed, under which prosecutions are now usually brought. See RULE OF THE ROAD. DROGHEDA (Ir. "bridge of the ford "), a well-built municipal burgh and seaport, in a county by itself of 9 sq. m., on the borders of Meath and Louth, on both sides, but chiefly n. of the Boyne, 4 m. from its mouth, and 31 m. n. of Dublin. The Dublin and Belfast railway crosses the Boyne here by a viaduct 95 ft. high. There are linen and cotton manufactures, tanning and brewing works, and an iron foundry. It has a considerable trade, chiefly with Liverpool, 140 m. e.s.e. principally in corn, meal, flour, cattle, provisions, linen, hides, and butter. Great quantities of ale are sent to the colonies. Each census since 1841 shows a falling off in the population. At that date it contained 17,300 inhabitants, while in 1891 the population numbered only 11,812. Till 1885, D. sent one member to parliament. The parts of D. on the opposite sides of the river formed two opposing corporations till 1412, when a sermon by a monk induced them to get a charter of union from Henry I. From the 14th to the 17th century, D. was the chief military station in Leinster. Many parliaments were held in D., and it had the right to coin money. In 1649, Cromwell stormed D. and put 2,000 of the garrison to the sword. Poyning's laws were enacted here. D. surrendered to William III. the day after the battle of the Royne, which was fought in 1690 at Oldbridge, 4 m. w. of Drogheda. One of the four ancient gates of D. still remains, and the ruins of many friaries and monastic institutions. Frequent cattle fairs are held here.

DROGUE AMÈRE (Fr. bitter drug) a celebrated stomachic bitter; of which the basis is creat root, and the other ingredients mastic, frankincense, myrrh, and aloes, all steeped for about a month in brandy, which is then strained and bottled.

DROHOBICZ, a t. of Austria in the province of Galicia, is situated on the Tyszmanika, a tributary of the Dniester, in lat. 49° 25′ n., and long. 23° 30′ east. The town is in general ill-built, but it contains several interesting edifices, including a Basilian monastery, a castle, a high school, and two very handsome churches. D. has extensive saltworks, and supplies large quantities of ozokerit. There are also in the vicinity ironmines and pitch-wells. D. has likewise a good trade in wine, linen, cotton, leather, and groceries. It has, besides, corn and cattle markets. Pop. '90, 17,784.

DROIT D'AUBAINE (Lat. alibi nati). By the old custom of France, the king was entitled, on the death of a foreigner who had taken up his fixed residence there, to claim his movable estate, notwithstanding any testamentary settlement which he might have left. But when a foreigner went to France as a traveler, merchant, or foreign minister without any intention of fixing his residence there, the droit d'aubaine was excluded. The Swiss, Savoyards, Scotch, and Portuguese were exempted. This antiquated piece of injustice was abolished in 1819.

DROITS OF THE ADMIRALTY. Certain rights or perquisites formerly pertaining to the British Admiralty (q. v.) arising from subjects within its jurisdiction, as wrecks, derelicts, and, under certain circumstances, detained or captured ships of the public enemy. These rights now accrue to the national exchequer.

DROITWICH, a municipal borough in Worcestershire, 7 m. n.n.e. of Worcester, in the narrow valley of the small river Salwarp, on the Bristol and Birmingham and West Midland railway, and on a canal connected with the Severn, which admits vessels of 60 tons. It gives its name to a parliamentary division. It has direct communication, also, by means of other canals, with Birmingham and London and the intermediate district. Its chief trade is salt, for which it has been famous from remote times, and which is esteemed the best in Europe. In the middle of the town, rising from a

depth of 200 ft., through beds of new red sandstone and gypsum, are the celebrated wyches, or brine-springs, yielding annually large quantities of salt, part of which is exported to foreign countries. Pop. '91, of the municipal borough, 4,021; of the parliamentary division, 48,700. D. sends one member to parliament. It was the Roman Salinæ. The remains of a villa were found here, with tesselated pavements, etc.

DRÔME, a department of France, on the e. bank of the Rhône, to the s. of the department of Isère. Area, 2,500 sq. miles. Pop. '96, 303,491. In the w. of the department, running from n. to s. along the Rhône, stretches a sandy plain of 5 to 8 m. in breadth, but toward the e. the surface is hilly, a spur of the Alps traversing the eastern boundary, and sending offshoots of about 3,500 ft. in average height westward across almost the entire area of Drome. These heights, whose sides are covered with forests of pine, oak, and beech, afford excellent pasturage in summer and autumn. The general direction of the rivers of D. is westward, toward the Rhône, and the most notable of them are the Drôme, from which the department takes its name, and the Isère. Vines and mulberry, chestnut, walnut, and olive trees are extensively grown. Many of the vineyards are famous, but perhaps the most celebrated is that of L'Heritage, near Tain, on the banks of the Rhône, which yields red and white wines hardly surpassed by any in the world. The vine culture, however, has been greatly retarded by the phylloxera. In the production of mulberry leaves and in silk-worm culture it is one of the leading departments in France. The manufactures consist chiefly of woolen cloth, silk, hosiery, serge, and cotton yarn. The department is traversed by the Lyon and Avignon railway. It is divided into the four arrondissements of Valence, Montélimart, Die, Nyons, with the town of Valence for capital.

DROMEDARY, a name sometimes given, probably at first through mistake, to the Arabian or one-humped camel (camelus dromedarius), but properly belonging to a variety of that species, distinguished by slenderness of limbs and symmetry of form, and by extraordinary fleetness. It has been well described as 'bearing much the same relation. to the ordinary camel as a race-horse or hunter does to a cart-horse." The word drome. dary is derived from the obsolete Greek dremo, to run. The pace of the D. is a trot, which it can maintain without intermission for a prodigious length of time; often at the rate of 9 m. an hour for many hours together; whilst a journey of upwards of 600 m. is performed at a somewhat slower rate in five days. Even its more rapid pace can be maintained for twenty-four hours at a stretch, without sign of weariness and without stopping to bait; and if then it is allowed a little refreshment, of a ball of paste made of barley and powdered dates and a little water or camel's milk, it will resume its journey, and go on with undiminished speed for twenty-four hours more. The jolting to the rider is terrible. The gallop is a pace unsuitable to the D., and at which it very soon fails. Dromedaries are sometimes trained to run races. White dromedaries are par ticularly prized in some parts of the east. See CAMEL.

DROMORE (Druim Mor, Great Ridge), an episcopal city in Ireland, in the co. of Down, on the Lagan, 16 m. s. w. of Belfast. It has linen manufactures. Pop. about 2,500. In the peat-bogs here were found the remains of an elk, the space between the extremities of whose horns measured 10 ft. 3 in. North of D. is a mound or rath, 60 ft. high, with three concentric intrenchments, and great outworks towards the Lagan. The see of D. was founded by St. Colman in the 6th c., but is now united with those of Down and Connor. It has a cathedral in which Jeremy Taylor, who was bishop of D., is buried.

DRONE. See BEE.

DRONE. See BAGPIPE.

DRONTHEIM. See THRONDHJEM.

DROORAJAPATAM, or DooGOORAUZEPATAM, a t. on the Coromandel coast of Hindustan, possesses remarkable facilities for navigation, both maritime and inland. It stands on an inlet, which connects Blackwood harbor with Pulicat lake, the former being the only safe haven on the w. side of the bay of Bengal,

DROPSY (Gr. hydrops, from hydor, water), a class of diseases always of serious import, though not often, perhaps, directly fatal. D. is rather a symptom than a disease; it consists of the effusion of watery fluid from the blood into the skin and subjacent textures, or into the cavities of the body. When the effusion is chiefly in the superficial parts, the D. is called anasarca (ana, upon; sarx, the flesh); when it is in the abdomen, it is termed ascites; when in the chest, hydrothorax. D. most commonly depends on disease of the heart (q.v.) or kidneys (q.v.); in cases of ascites, the liver and spleen are often at fault. The treatment of D. is chiefly by diuretics (q.v.), and other evacuant remedies, which remove the fluid from the textures by unloading the blood or its excess of serum. It is, however, a matter of some difficulty to find the proper remedy in each individual case. In all cases of D., the internal organs should be, if possible, submitted to a strict medical examination, and the treatment regulated accordingly. It cannot be too clearly borne in mind by all that a dropsy is a transudation and not an exudation, and is not a direct product of inflammation, as the latter is. For instance, the fluid which is poured into the cavity of the pleura in pleurisy is not a dropsy, but an exudation of plastic material from the blood, which has the prop

erty of becoming organized into a kind of pseudo-tissue which forms adhesions between the lungs and the sides of the chest. In dropsy, the fluid has no power of organization, although it contains a slight portion of constituents of blood serum. Exudations have

a turbid appearance when they are not colored with the red corpuscles of the blood, but the effused transuded fluid of dropsy is usually quite transparent, although sometimes tinged with the coloring matter of the blood. As a rule, dropsies are caused by obstructions to the return of blood by the veins, and may be general or local. In general dropsy there is an accumulation of watery fluid into the cellular tissue of a part or whole of the body, together with a transudation into one of the serous cavities. Such dropsies are apt to follow diseases of the heart (q.v.). Again, general dropsy may be owing to a morbid condition of the blood in diseases of the kidney (q.v.). It is then called renal dropsy, while that caused by disease of the heart is called cardiac dropsy. Local dropsies, when existing in the cellular tissue, are circumscribed. Thus, anasarca confined to the limbs would be called a local dropsy, whereas when spreading over the whole body it would be called general, although the cellular tissue only is invaded. For the causes of dropsy of the belly, or ascites, see more particularly LIVER, DISEASES OF THE. But ascites, as well as dropsy of other cavities than the peritoneum, may be the result of scarlet fever, which has for one of its sequelæ inflammation of the kidneys. The pressure of a tumor may cause dropsy. Pressure upon the portal vein may be followed by ascites; upon the ascending vena cava, or great vein which carries the blood from the trunk and lower extremities to the heart, anasarca of the trunk and lower extremities. When the pressure is upon one of the iliac veins, anasarca of one of the lower limbs is the consequence. The treatment of dropsy depends upon the condition of the organs or parts of the body where morbid condition is its cause. Renal dropsy, besides general treatment, will require remedies calculated to relieve the renal disease, and a similar remark 'applies to hepatic dropsy. The general treatment for all forms of dropsy includes sometimes the removal of the watery fluid from the serous cavities, and also from the cellular tissue. This is sometimes accomplished by tapping, or paracentesis, when the liquid is drawn from a cavity; when from the abdomen, paracentesis abdominis; when from the chest, P. thoracis; when from the head, P. capitis. The withdrawal of the liquid from the cellular tissue is performed by making numerous small punctures. The therapeutical remedies consist of diaphoretics, diuretics, and cathartics; and although they are often employed with more or less benefit, and sometimes assist in recovery, they frequently fail to give the hoped-for relief. Cathartics, especially those which belong to the class called hydrogogue, often reduce the amount of liquid considerably; but it generally returns, especially in incurable cases, and the patient is made weaker by the operation; and similar objections hold with regard to diuretics; they often relieve for a time, but are perhaps quite as often unsatisfactory. Both remedies in unfavorable cases may be called necessary evils. Diaphoretics may be given with more freedom, although the objection that they promote debility to a certain extent applies to them also. The use of jaborandi, or its alkaloid, which has been recently introduced into practice in this country, is perhaps attended with more benefit than that of any other diaphoretic. (See JABORANDI.)

DROPWORT. See SPIREA and WATER DROPWORT.

DROSERA CEÆ, a natural order of exogenous plants, consisting entirely of herbaceous plants, which generally inhabit marshy places, and are often covered with glands. The leaves are frequently all radical, and they and the flower-stalks are rolled up in bud like the fronds of ferns. There are 5 sepals, 5 petals, 5, 10, 15, or 20 stamens; the fruit a one-celled capsule, with numerous seeds. About 100 species are known, distributed over most parts of the world, many of them plants of very delicate appearance; and many of them, as the species of drosera or SUNDEW, natives of Britain, are remarkable for their glandular hairs, which secrete a viscid fluid, and by means of it often fatally detain flies which alight on them. Rosidula dentata is placed in houses in s. Africa on this account. Venus' fly-trap belongs to this order. See DIONEA. Acrid and stimulant properties prevail in the droseraceæ.

DROSOM ́ETER, an instrument for measuring dew. It is a simple balance in even poise, on one scale of which the dew falls, while the other is protected. The weights on the dry scale indicate the amount of dew on the wet scale.

DROSTE-HÜLSHOFF, ANNETTE ELIZABETH, a distinguished lyric poetess of Germany, b. 10th Jan., 1797, on the estate of Hülshoff, near Münster. Of a delicate constitution, and living in complete seclusion from the world, she nevertheless received an excellent scientific education. In the year 1825, she was first introduced into a wider circle of distinguished men and women at Cologne and Bonn, but in a short time retired again to her maternal estate of Rischhaus, near Münster, where she lived almost exclusively for science, nature, and poetry. She died at a place near lake Constance, 24th May, 1848. While occupying a distinguished place among the literary women of the time, she retained all the characteristic timidity of her sex, avoiding those eccentricities into which many women fall who think they have a mission to regenerate society. Her Gedichte (Poems) appeared at Stuttgart in 1844, and of her posthumous works Das geistliche Jahr nebst einem Anhang religiöser Gedichte at Stuttgart in 1852.