DUNS, SCOTUS JOHANNES (1265?-1308?). —Schoolman. The dates of his birth and death and the place of his birth are alike doubtful. He may have been at Oxf., is said to have been a regent or prof. at Paris, and was a Franciscan. He was a man of extraordinary learning, and received the sobriquet of Doctor Subtilis. Among his many works on logic and theology are a philosophic grammar, and a work on metaphysics, De Rerum Principio (of the beginning of things). His great opponent was Thomas Aquinas, and schoolmen of the day were divided into Scotists and Thomists, or realists and nominalists.
D'URFEY, THOMAS (1653-1723). —Dramatist and song-writer, was a well-known man-about-town, a companion of Charles II., and lived on to the reign of George I. His plays are now forgotten, and he is best known in connection with a collection of songs entitled, Pills to Purge Melancholy. Addison describes him as a "diverting companion," and "a cheerful, honest, good-natured man." His writings are nevertheless extremely gross. His plays include Siege of Memphis (1676), Madame Fickle (1677), Virtuous Wife (1680), and The Campaigners (1698).
DWIGHT, TIMOTHY (1752-1817). —Theologian and poet, b. at Northampton, Mass., was a grandson of Jonathan Edwards, became a Congregationalist minister, Prof. of Divinity, and latterly Pres. of Yale. His works include, besides theological treatises and sermons, the following poems, America (1772), The Conquest of Canaan (1785), and The Triumph of Infidelity, a satire, admired in their day, but now unreadable.
DYCE, ALEXANDER (1798-1869). —Scholar and critic, s. of Lieut.-General Alexander D., was b. in Edin., and ed. there and at Oxf. He took orders, and for a short time served in two country curacies. Then, leaving the Church and settling in London, he betook himself to his life-work of ed. the English dramatists. His first work, Specimens of British Poetesses, appeared in 1825; and thereafter at various intervals ed. of Collins's Poems, and the dramatic works of Peele, Middleton, Beaumont and Fletcher, Marlowe, Greene, Webster, and others. His great ed. of Shakespeare in 9 vols. appeared in 1857. He also ed. various works for the Camden Society, and pub. Table Talk of Samuel Rogers. All D.'s work is marked by varied and accurate learning, minute research, and solid judgment.
DYER, SIR EDWARD (1545?-1607). —Poet, b. at Sharpham Park, Somerset, and ed. at Oxf., was introduced to the Court by the Earl of Leicester, and sent on a mission to Denmark, 1589. He was in 1596 made Chancellor of the Order of the Garter, and knighted. In his own day he had a reputation for his elegies among such judges as Sidney and Puttenham. For a long time there was doubt as to what poems were to be attributed to him, but about a dozen pieces have now been apparently identified as his. The best known is that on contentment beginning, "My mind to me a kingdom is."