Character Sketches of Romance Volume I Part 108

_Drama (Father of the French)_, Etienne, Jodell (1532-1573).

_Father of the Greek Drama_, Thespis (B.C. sixth century).

_Father of the Spanish Drama_, Lopez de Vega (1562-1635).

DRAP, one of Queen Mab's maids of honor.--Drayton, _Nymphidia_.

DRA'PIER'S LETTERS, a series of letters written by Dean Swift, and signed "M.D. Drapier," advising the Irish not to take the copper money coined by William Wood, to whom George I. had given a patent. These letters (1724) stamped out this infamous job and caused the patent to be cancelled. The patent was obtained by the d.u.c.h.ess of Kendall (mistress of the king), who was to share the profits.

Can we the Drapier then forget?

Is not our nation in his debt?

'Twas he that writ the "Drapier's Letters."

Dean Swift, _Verses on his own death_.

DRAWCAN'SIR, a bragging, bl.u.s.tering bully, who took part in a battle, and killed every one on both sides, "sparing neither friend nor foe."--George Villiers, duke of Buckingham, _The Rehearsal_ (1671).

Juan, who was a little superficial, And not in literature a great Drawcansir.

Byron, _Don Juan_, xi. 51 (1824).

At length my enemy appeared, and I went forward some yards like a Drawcansir, but found myself seized with a panic as Paris was when he presented himself to fight with Menelaus.--Lesage, _Gil Blas_, vii.

(1735).

DREAM AUTHORSHIP. Coleridge says that he wrote his _Kubla Khan_ from his recollection of a dream.

[Ill.u.s.tration] Condillac (says Cabanis) concluded in his dreams the reasonings left incomplete at bed-time.

_Dreams_. The Indians believe all dreams to be revelations, sometimes made by the familiar genius, and sometimes by the "inner or divine soul." An Indian, having dreamt that his finger was cut off, had it really cut off the next day.--Charlevoix, _Journal of a Voyage to North America_.

DREAM'ER (_The Immortal_), John Bunyan, whose _Pilgrim's Progress_ is said by him to be a dream (1628-1688).

[Ill.u.s.tration] The pretense of a dream was one of the most common devices of mediaeval romance, as, for example, the _Romance of the Rose_ and _Piers Plowman_, both in the fourteenth century.

DREARY (_Wat_), _alias_ BROWN WILL, one of Macheath's gang of thieves.

He is described by Peachum as "an irregular dog, with an underhand way of disposing of his goods" (act i.1).--Gay, _The Beggar's Opera_ (1727).

DREW (_Timothy_). A half-witted cobbler who, learning that a tailor had advertised for "frogs," catches a bagful and carries them to him, demanding one dollar a hundred. The testy tailor imagining himself the victim of a hoax, throws his shears at his head, and Timothy, in revenge empties the bag of bull-frogs upon the clean floor of Buckram's shop. Next day Timothy's sign was disfigured to read--_Shoes Mended and Frogs Caught. By Timothy Drew._--_The Frog Catcher_, Henry J. Finn, American Comic Annual 1831.

DRINK used by actors, orators, etc.

BRAHAM, bottled porter.

CATLEY (_Miss_), linseed tea and madeira.

COOKE (_G. F._), everything drinkable.

EMERY, brandy-and-water (cold).

GLADSTONE (_W. E._), an egg beaten up in sherry.

HENDERSON, gum arabic and sherry.

INCLEDON, madeira.

JORDAN (_Mrs._), calves'-foot jelly dissolved in warm sherry.

KEAN (_Edmund_), beef-tea for breakfast, cold brandy.

LEWIS, mulled wine (with oysters).

OXBERRY, tea.

SMITH (_William_), coffee.

WOOD (_Mrs._), draught porter.

[Ill.u.s.tration] J Kemble took opium.

_Drink_. "_I drink the air_," says Ariel, meaning "I will fly with great speed."

In _Henry IV_. we have "devour the way," meaning the same thing.

DRI'VER, clerk to Mr. Pleydell, advocate.

Edinburgh.--Sir W. Scott, _Guy Mannering_ (time, George II.).

DRIVER OF EUROPE. The duc de Choiseul, minister of Louis XV., was so called by the empress of Russia, because he had spies all over Europe, and ruled by them all the political cabals.

DRO'GIO, probably Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. A Venetian voyager named Antonio Zeno (fourteenth century) so called a country which he discovered. It was said to lie south-west of Estotiland (_Labrador_), but neither Estotiland nor Drogio are recognized by modern geographers, and both are supposed to be wholly, or in a great measure, hypothetical.

DRO'MIO _(The Brothers_), two brothers, twins, so much alike that even their nearest friends and masters knew not one from the other. They were the servants of two masters, also twins and the exact facsimiles of each other. The masters were Antiph'olus of Ephesus and Antipholus of Syracuse.--Shakespeare, _Comedy of Errors_ (1593).

(_The Comedy of Errors_ is borrowed from the _Menoechmi_ of Plautus).

DRONSDAUGHTER (_Tronda_), the old serving-woman of the Yellowleys.--Sir W. Scott, _The Pirate_ (time, William III.).

DROP SERENE (_Gutta Serena_). It was once thought that this sort of blindness was an incurable extinction of vision by a transparent watery humor distilling on the optic nerve. It caused total blindness, but made no visible change in the eye. It is now known that this sort of blindness arises from obstruction in the capillary nerve-vessels, and in some cases at least is curable. Milton, speaking of his own blindness, expresses a doubt whether it arose from the _Gutta Serena_ or the _suffusion of a cataract_.

So thick a 'drop serene' hath quenched their orbs, Or dim 'suffusion' veiled.

Milton, _Paradise Lost_, iii. 25 (1665).

DROOD (_Edwin_), hero of Charles d.i.c.kens' unfinished novel of that name.

DRUDGEIT (_Peter_), clerk to Lord Bladderskate.--Sir W. Scott, _Redgauntlet_ (time, George III.).

DRUGGER (_Abel_), a seller of tobacco; artless and gullible in the extreme. He was building a new house, and came to Subtle "the alchemist" to know on which side to set the shop door, how to dispose the shelves so as to ensure most luck, on what days he might trust his customers, and when it would be unlucky for him so to do.--Ben Jonson, _The Alchemist_ (1610).

Thomas Weston was "Abel Drugger" himself [1727-1776], but David Garrick was fond of the part also [1716-1779].--C. Dibdin, _History of the Stage_.