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v, ith angels. 'I'he death of these two chiefs did not stop the pro-gress of their opinions: a disciple of Mohammed Ben Ismael,named Hamzah Ben Ahmud, propagated them with indefatigablezeal iu Egypt, in Palestine, and along the coast of Syria , as tar asSidon and Berytus. His proselytes being persecuted by the sectin power, they took refuge in the mountains of Lebanon , wherethey were better able to defend themselves; at least it is certain,that, shortly after this era, we find them established there, andforming an independent society. 'I'he difference of their opinionsdisposes them to be enemies; but the urgent interest of their com-mon safety forces them to allow mutual toleration, and they havealways appeared united, and have jointly opposed, at differenttimes, the Crusaders, the sultans of Aleppo, the Mamelukes , andthe Ottomans. The conquest of Syr. a by the latter, made nochange in their situation. Selim I , on his return Irom Egypt, me-ditating no less than the conquest of Europe , disdained to wastehis lime before the rocks of Lebanon. Soliman II . his successor,incessantly engaged in important wars, either with the knights otRhodes, the Persians, the kingdom of Yemen, the Hungarians ,the Germans, or the emperor Charles V. had no time to think ofthe Druzes . Emboldened by this inattention, and not contentwith their independence, they frequently descended from theirmountains to pillage the Turks. The pachas in vain attempted torepel their inroads; their troops were invariably routed or re-pulsed. And it was not till 158S, that Amurath III. wearied withthe complaints made to him, resolved, at all event-, to reducethese rebels, and had the good fortune to succeed. His general,Ibrahim Pacha, marched from Cairo, and attacked the Druzes and^Maronites, with so much address and vigour as to force them intotheir strong holds in the mountains. Dissention took place amongtheir chiefs, of which he availed himself to exact a contribution olupwards of one million of piasters, and to impose a tribute whichhas continued to the present time. The opinions of Mohammedben Ismael may be regarded as the substance of the religion of theDruses . They practise neither circumcision, nor prayers, norfasting; they observe neither festivals nor prohibitions. Theydrink wine, eat pork, and allow marriage between brothers andsisters, though not between fathers and children. From this wemay conclude, that the Druses have properly no religion ; butone class of them must he excepted, whose religious customs arevery peculiar. Those who compose it arc to the rest of the na-tion what the initiated were to the profane ; they assume the nameofOkkals, which means spiritualists, and bestow on the vulgarthe epithet of Djahel or ignorant; they have various degrees ofinitiation, the highest orders of which require celibacy. Theseare distinguishable by the white turban they affect to wear, as asymbol of their purity ; and so proud are they of this supposedpurity, that they think themselves sullied by even touching a pro-fane person. If such eat out of their plate, or drink of their cup,they break them; and hence the custom so general in this countryof using vases with a sort of cock, which may be drank out ofwithout touching them with the lips.

DRUSIUS, John, a Protestant writer of great learning, born atOudenarde in Flandeis, in 1555. lie was designed for the studyof divinity ; but his falher being outlawed, and deprived of Insestate, they both retired to England, where the son soon became pro-fessor of the oriental languages at Oxford: hut upon the pacifica-tion of Ghent, they relumed to their own country, where Drusius was also appointed professor of the oriental languages. Fromthence he removed to Friesland, where he was admitted Hebrew professor in the university of Franeker ; the functions of which hedischarged with great honour till l.is death m 1616. His worksshew him to have been well skilled in He; row ; and the states-ge-neral employed him m 1600 to write notes on the most difficultpassages in theOldTestament, with a pension of 400 florins a-ye.ir:but being frequently disturbed in this undertaking, it was not pub-lished till after his’death. lie held very great correspondence!with ‘.he learned: lor besides letters in Hebrew , Greek, and other !languages, there were found 2300 Latin letters among his papers.

Drusius, John, the son of the prece 'lug, was a prodigy oflearning. He was horn at Franeker m 1588; began to learn La-tin and Hebrew at five years old ; at :cven explained the HebrewPsalter so exactly, that lie astonished a Jewish teacher ;.l Leyden ;at nine he could read the Hebrew without points, and add themwhere wanted, He spoke Latin as readily as his native tongue,and cpuld make himself understood in English , At twelve, he

w-rote in Hebrew extempore, in verse and prose, like the Jews .At seventeen he made a speech in Latin to king Janies I. in themidst of his court, and was admired by all present. He was en-dued with a lively genius, a strong memory, a solid judgement,an agreeable temper, and an indefatigable ardour for study ; andwas also extremely pious. He died of the stone in 1609, aged 21,at the house of Dr. W. Thomas, dean of Chichester, w ho gavehim a considerable salary, lie left several works; manv lettersand verses in Hebrew; Notes on Solomon's Proverbs , Ac. anddigested into alphabetical order Elias Levita ’s Non.chelator : towhich he added the Greek words, and had begun some transla-tions.

DRUYN, DREVIN PETRI, or GRAND DKEVIN, atown of Africa on the Ivory coast . Lon. 4. 5. \V. Eat. 5. N.

DRYADE3, or DRYADS, in the heathen mythology, a sortof deities, who, the ancients liefeved, inhabited groves ami woods.They differed from the Uamadrvade.t; these latter being attachedto some particular tree, with which they were born, and withwhich the\ died ; w hereas the Dry ails w ere goddesses of trees andwoods in general. See II amadkyades.

DRYANDKIA, iu botany, a genus of the dioecia monadel-pliia class and order natural oderTricoccre. Calyx two-leaved;corolla five-pelaled; or, calyx live-leaved, resembling a corolla,surrounded by a two or three-leaved calycle ; stamina nine; fmitthree or lour grained. There is but one species, viz. D. cor-*data.

DRYAS, in botany, a genus of the polygynia order, and ico-sandria das?: natural order Senticosa 1 . Calyx Irom live to tencleft; petals from live to eight; seeds hairy, tailed, It has twospecies.

D KYI) EN, John, one of the most eminent English poets ofthe seventeenth century, descended of a genteel family in Hunt-ingdonshire , born in that county ai Oldwinkle, 1631, and edu-cated at Westminster school under Dr. Busby, from whence hewas elected to Trinity college , Cambridge, m 1650. He pro-ceeded to the degree of M.A. and in 1657 removed to London ,where he wrote, the year following, an elegy on the death ofCromwell; and at the Restoration lie complimented the kingby a poem, entitled Astrea Kcdux. In 1666 he married ladyElizabeth Howard, dauglit r of the earl of ; crk.diire. On theestablishment of the Royal Society , lie was chosen one of the firstmembers. In 1662 appeared his first play, called The Wild Gal-lant; Soon after the fire of London he engaged with the king’stheatre tor an annual stipend, on condition ol lumishing a certainmi rber of plays in each year. On the death of sir William Dave-nant he was nominated poet laoreat; and about the same time heobtained the place of historiographer royal, with a salary of 200/. ayear, and a butt of wine. His eminence us a dramatic writer ex-posed him to the envy of several rival wits; the doke of Bucking-ham held him up to ridicule in the character ot Bays in The Re-hearsal : and the earl of Rochester being offended at some thingsin an Essay on Satire , written jointly Oy our poet and lord Mul-grave, caused the tormer to he cudgelled by some hired ruffiansas he came home from a coffee-house. At the accession of JamesII . Dryden turned Raman Catholic, and, like most converts, en-deavoured to defend his new faith at the e.xpeme of the old one.,in a poem, called The Hind and Panther, whit h was admirablyanswered by Prior and Montague in The Country Mouse and theCitv Mouse. At the Revolution lie lost his posts, and was suc-ceeded by Shadwell, whom Dryden satirised under die name ofMac Fleeknoe. Mr. Dryden’s circunist..mes had never beenallluent; but now being deprived of this little support, he foundhimself induced to the necessity of writing for mere bread. Fromthis period, therefore, he was engaged in works of labour as wellas genius, viz. in translating the works i f others; and to this ne-cessity our nation stands indebted for some of the best translationsextant. In the year he lost the laurel, he published the life of St.Francis Xavier from the French . In 1693, came out a lianslalimiof Juvenal and Persius ; in the first of which he had a considerablehand, and of the latter the entire execution. In l6y5, was pub-lished his prose version of Fresnoy’s Art oi Painting ; and the year1697 gave the world that Iran ITon of Virgil 's woiks entire,which still does, and perhaps ever will, stand foremost among theattempts made on that author. The pet'te pieces of this eminentwriter, such as prologues, epilogues, epitaphs, elegies, song-, Ac.are too numerous to specify litre, and too much dispersed tu di-

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