That this should have been the Dan who founded the kingdom of Denmark he deemed an idle fancy. King Dans in that country however there have been, and among them was King Dan called Mykelati or the Magnificent, with whom the Bruna Olld, or age of Combustion, ended in the North, and the Hougs Olld or age of barrows began, for he it was who introduced the custom of interment. But he considered it as indeed an honour to the name, that Death should have been called _Δάνος_ by the Macedonians, not as a dialectic or provincial form of _Θάνατος_ but from the Hebrew Dan, which signifies, says Jeremy Taylor, a Judge, as intimating that Judges are appointed to give sentence upon criminals in life and death. Even if we look at the black side of the shield we still find that the D preserves its power: there is Dathan, who with Korah and Abiram went down alive into the pit, and the earth closed upon them; Dalila by whom Sampson was betrayed; Dionysius the acoustical tyrant; Domitian who like a true vice-gerent of Beelzebub tormented flies as well as men; Decius the fiercest of the persecutors; the inhuman Dunstan, and the devilish Dominic, after whom it seems all but an anticlimax to name the _ipsissimus_ Diabolus, the Devil himself. And here let us remark through how many languages the name of the author of evil retains its characteristic initial, _Διάβολος_, Diabolus, Diavolo, Diablo, Diabo, Diable, in Dutch Duival, in Welsh Diawl, and though the Germans write him Teufel, it is because in their coarser articulation the D passes into the cognate sound of T, without offending their obtuser organs of hearing. Even in the appellations given him by familiar or vulgar irreverence, the same pregnant initial prevails, he is the Deuce, and Old Davy and Davy Jones. And it may be noted that in the various systems of false religion to which he hath given birth, the Delta is still a dominant inchoative. Witness Dagon of the Philistines, witness the Daggial of the Mahommedans, and the forgotten root from whence the _Διὸς_ of the Greeks is derived. Why should I mention the Roman Diespiter, the Syrian Dirceto, Delius with his sister Delia, known also as Dictynna and the great Diana of the Ephesians. The Sicyonian Dia, Dione of whom Venus was born, Deiphobe the Cumæan Sybil who conducted Æneas in his descent to the infernal regions. Doris the mother of the Nereids, and Dorus father of the race of Pygmies. Why should I name the Dioscuri, Dice and Dionysus, the Earth, Mother Demeter, the Demiourgos, gloomy Dis, Demogorgon dread and Daphne whom the Gods converted into a Laurel to decorate the brows of Heroes and Poets.