In all parts of the regions thus traversed there arise conversations with noted personages. The deepest questions of philosophy and theology are discussed and solved; and the social and moral condition of Italy, with the corruptions of church and state, are depicted with indignation. Fifty-two years after the poet’s death the republic of Florence set apart an annual sum for public lectures to explain the Divine Comedy to the people in one of the churches, and Boccaccio himself was appointed first lecturer.
Doctor Syntax.—The hero of a work entitled The Tour of Dr. Syntax in Search of the Picturesque. Doctor Syntax is a simple-minded, pious, hen-pecked clergyman, but of excellent taste and scholarship, who left home in search of the picturesque. His adventures are told in eight-syllable verse by William Combe.
Dods.—The old landlady in Scott’s novel called St. Ronan’s Well. An excellent character, a mosaic of oddities, all fitting together and forming an admirable whole. She was so good a housewife that a cookery book of great repute bears her name.
Dodson and Fogg.—The lawyers employed by the plaintiff in the famous case of “Bardell vs. Pickwick,” in the Pickwick Papers, by Charles Dickens.
Doeg (dō´eg).—Absalom and Achitophel, Dryden. Doeg was Saul’s herdsman, who had charge of his mules and asses. He told Saul that the priests of Nob had provided David with food; whereupon Saul sent him to put them to death, and eighty-five were ruthlessly massacred.
Dogberry (dog´ber-i) and Verges (ver´gēz).—Two ignorant conceited constables, in Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing.
Dolla Murrey.—A character in Crabbe’s Borough who was devoted to playing cards. She died at the card table.
Dolly Varden (vär´den).—Barnaby Rudge, Dickens. Daughter of Gabriel Varden, locksmith. Dolly dressed in the Watteau style, and was lively, pretty, and bewitching.
Dombey and Son.—A novel by Dickens. Mr. Dombey is a self-sufficient, purse-proud, frigid merchant who feels satisfied there is but one Dombey in the world, and that is himself. When Paul was born, his ambition was attained, his whole heart was in the boy, and the loss of the mother was but a small matter. The boy’s death turned his heart to stone.
Dombey, Florence.—A motherless child, hungering and thirsting to be loved, but regarded with indifference by her father, who thinks that sons alone are worthy of regard.