D — Diamond Necklace to Dido (Part 3 of 3)

Diddle (To). To cheat in a small way, as "I diddled him out of ..." Edgar Allan Poe has an article on the art of "Diddling." Rhyming slang is very common. (See Chivy.) Fiddle and diddle rhyme. "Fiddle" is slang for a sharper, and "diddle" is the act of a sharper. The suggestive rhyme was

"Hi diddle diddle!
The cat and the fiddle."

"A certain portion of the human race
Has certainly a taste for being diddled."
Hood: A Black Job, stanza 1.

Diddler (Jeremy). An artful swindler; a clever, seedy vagabond, borrowing money or obtaining credit by his wit and wits. From Kenny's farce called Raising the Wind.

Diderick (See Dietrich .)

Dido It was Porson who said he could rhyme on any subject; and being asked to rhyme upon the three Latin gerunds, gave this couplet -

"When Dido found Æneas would not come,
She mourned in silence, and was Di-do dum(b)."

    In the old Eton Latin grammar the three gerunds are called -di, -do, -dum. In modern school primers they are - dum, -di, -do.
   When Dido saw Æneas needs must go,
   She wept in silence, and was dum(b) Di-do.
   E. C. B.
    Dido was queen of Carthage, who fell in love with Æneas, driven by a storm to her shores. After abiding awhile at Carthage, he was compelled by Mercury to leave the hospitable queen. Dido, in grief, burnt herself to death on a funeral pile. (Virgil from Æneid, i. 494 to iii. 650.)