Character Sketches of Romance Volume I Part 2

Woe, woe, to Irem! Woe to Ad!

Death, has gone up into her palaces!....

They fell around me. Thousands fell around.

The king and all his people fell; All, all, they perished all.

Southey, _Thalaba the Destroyer_, i. 41, 45 (1797).

A'DAH, wife of Cain. After Cain had been conducted by Lucifer through the realms of s.p.a.ce, he is restored to the home of his wife and child, where all is beauty, gentleness, and love. Full of faith and fervent in grat.i.tude, Adah loves her infant with a sublime maternal affection.

She sees him sleeping, and says to Cain--

How lovely he appears! His little cheeks In their pure incarnation, vying with The rose leaves strewn beneath them.

And his lips, too, How beautifully parted! No; you shall not Kiss him; at least not now. He will awake soon-- His hour of midday rest is nearly over.

Byron, _Cain_.

ADAM. In _Greek_ this word is compounded of the four initial letters of the cardinal quarters:

Arktos, [Greek: _arktos_]. north.

Dusis, [Greek: _dusis_]. west.

Anatole, [Greek: _anatolae_]. east.

Mesembria, [Greek: _mesaembria_]. south.

The _Hebrew_ word ADM forms the anagram of A [dam], D [avid], M [essiah].

_Adam, how made_. G.o.d created the body of Adam of _Salzal_, _i.e._ dry, unbaked clay, and left it forty nights without a soul. The clay was collected by Azrael from the four quarters of the earth, and G.o.d, to show His approval of Azrael's choice, const.i.tuted him the angel of death.--Rabadan.

_Adam, Eve, and the Serpent_. After the fall _Adam_ was placed on mount Va.s.sem in the east; _Eve_ was banished to Djidda (now Gedda, on the Arabian coast); and the _Serpent_ was exiled to the coast of Eblehh.

After the lapse of 100 years Adam rejoined Eve on mount Arafaith [_place of Remembrance_], near Mecca.--D'Ohsson.

_Death of Adam_. Adam died on Friday, April 7, at the age of 930 years. Michael swathed his body, and Gabriel discharged the funeral rites. The body was buried at Ghar'ul-Kenz [_the grotto of treasure_], which overlooks Mecca.

His descendants at death amounted to 40,000 souls.--D'Ohsson.

When Noah, entered the ark (the same writer says) he took the body of Adam in a coffin with him, and when he left the ark restored it to the place he had taken it from.

_Adam_, a bailiff, a jailer.

Not that Adam that kept the paradise, but that Adam that keeps the prison.--Shakespeare, _Comedy of Errors_, act iv. sc. 3 (1593).

_Adam_, a faithful retainer in the family of sir Eowland de Boys. At the age of fourscore, he voluntarily accompanied his young master Orlando into exile, and offered to give him his little savings.

He has given birth to the phrase, "A Faithful Adam" [_or man-servant_].--Shakespeare, _As You Like It_ (1598).

ADAM BELL, a northern outlaw, noted for his archery. The name, like those of Clym of the Clough, William of Cloudesly, Robin Hood, and Little John, is synonymous with a good archer.

ADAMASTOR, the Spirit of the Cape, a hideous phantom, of unearthly pallor; "erect his hair uprose of withered red, his lips were black, his teeth blue and disjointed, his beard haggard, his face scarred by lightning, his eyes shot livid fire, his voice roared." The sailors trembled at sight of him, and the fiend demanded how they dared to trespa.s.s "where never hero braved his rage before?" He then told them "that every year the shipwrecked should be made to deplore their foolhardiness."--Camoens, _The Lusiad_, v. (1569).

ADAM'IDA, a planet on which reside the unborn spirits of saints, martyrs, and believers. U'riel, the angel of the sun, was ordered at the crucifixion to interpose this planet between the sun and the earth, so as to produce a total eclipse.

Adamida, in obedience to the divine command, flew amidst overwhelming storms, rushing clouds, falling mountains, and swelling seas. Uriel stood on the pole of the star, but so lost in deep contemplation on Golgotha, that he heard not the wild uproar. On coming to the region of the sun, Adamida slackened her course, and advancing before the sun, covered its face and intercepted all its rays.--Klopstock, _The Messiah_, viii. (1771).

ADAMS _(John)_, one of the mutineers of the _Bounty_ (1790), who settled in Tahiti. In 1814 he was discovered as the patriarch of a colony, brought up with a high sense of religion and strict regard to morals. In 1839 the colony was voluntarily placed under the protection of the British Government.

_Adams (Parson)_, the beau-ideal of a simple-minded, benevolent, but eccentric country clergyman, of unswerving integrity, solid learning, and genuine piety; bold as a lion in the cause of truth, but modest as a girl in all personal matters; wholly ignorant of the world, being "_in_ it but not _of_ of it."--Fielding, _Joseph Andrews_ (1742).

His learning, his simplicity, his evangelical purity of mind are so admirably mingled with pedantry, absence of mind, and the habit of athletic ... exercise ... that he may be safely termed one of the richest productions of the muse of fiction. Like Don Quixote, parson Adams is beaten a little too much and too often, but the cudgel lights upon his shoulders ... without the slightest stain to his reputation.--Sir W. Scott.

AD'DISON OF THE NORTH, Henry Mackenzie, author of _The Man of Feeling_ (1745-1831).

ADELAIDE, daughter of the count of Narbonne, in love with Theodore.

She is killed by her father in mistake for another.--Robt. Jephson, _Count of Narbonne_ (1782).

ADELAIDE FISHER, daughter-in-law of Grandpa and Grandma Fisher in Sallie Pratt McLean Greene's _Cape Cod Folks_. She has a sweet voice and an edged temper, and it would seem from certain cynical remarks of her own, and Grandma's "Thar, daughter, I wouldn't mind!" has a history she does not care to reveal (1881).

ADELAIDE YATES, the wife of Steve Yates and mother of Little Moses in Charles Egbert Craddock's _In the "Stranger People's" Country_. Her husband has been seized and detained by the "moonshiners" in the mountains, and the impression is that he has wilfully deserted her.

She cannot discredit it, but "She's goin' ter stay thar in her cabin an' wait fur him," said Mrs. Pettengill. "Sorter seems de-stressin', I do declar'. A purty, young, good, r'ligious 'oman a-settin' herself ter spen' a empty life a-waitin' fur Steve Yates ter k.u.m back!"

(1890.)

ADELINE _(Lady)_, the wife of lord Henry Amun'deville (4 _syl_.), a highly educated aristocratic lady, with all the virtues and weaknesses of the upper ten. After the parliamentary sessions this n.o.ble pair filled their house with guests, amongst which were the d.u.c.h.ess of Fitz-Fulke, the duke of D----, Aurora Raby, and don Juan, "the Russian envoy." The tale not being finished, no key to these names is given.

(For the lady's character, see xiv. 54-56.)--Byron, _Don Juan_, xiii.

to the end.

AD'EMAR or ADEMA'RO, archbishop of Poggio, an ecclesiastical warrior in Ta.s.so's _Jerusalem Delivered_.--See _Dictionary of Phrase and Fable_.

ADIC'IA, wife of the soldan, who incites him to distress the kingdom of Mercilla. When Mercilla sends her amba.s.sador, Samient, to negotiate peace, Adicia, in violation of international law, thrusts her Samient out of doors like a dog, and sets two knights upon her. Sir Artegal comes to her rescue, attacks the two knights, and knocks one of them from his saddle with such force that he breaks his neck. After the discomfiture of the soldan, Adicia rushes forth with a knife to stab Samient, but, being intercepted by sir Artegal, is changed into a tigress.--Spenser, _Faery Queen_, v. 8 (1596).

[Ill.u.s.tration] The "soldan" is king Philip II. of Spain; "Mercilla" is queen Elizabeth; "Adicia" is Injustice personified, or the bigotry of popery; and "Samient" the amba.s.sadors of Holland, who went to Philip for redress of grievances, and were most iniquitously detained by him as prisoners.

AD'ICUS, Unrighteousness personified in canto vii. of _The Purple Island_ (1633), by Phineas Fletcher. He has eight sons and daughters, viz., Ec'thros _(hatred)_, Eris _(variance)_, a daughter, Zelos _(emulation)_, Thumos _(wrath)_, Erith'ius _(strife)_, Dichos'tasis _(sedition)_, Envy, and Phon'os _(murder)_; all fully described by the poet. (Greek, _adikos_, "an unjust man.")

ADIE OF AIKENSHAW, a neighbor of the Glendinnings.--Sir W. Scott, _The Monastery_ (time, Elizabeth).

ADME'TUS, a king of Thessaly, husband of Alcestis. Apollo, being condemned by Jupiter to serve a mortal for twelve months for slaying a Cyclops, entered the service of Admetus. James R. Lowell has a poem on the subject, called _The Shepherd of King Admetus_ (1819-1891).

AD'MIRABLE _(The)_: (1) Aben-Ezra, a Spanish rabbin, born at Tole'do (1119-1174). (2) James Crichton _(Kry-ton)_, the Scotchman (1551-1573). (3) Roger Bacon, called "The Admirable Doctor"

(1214-1292).

ADOLF, bishop of Cologne, was devoured by mice or rats in 1112. (See HATTO.)

AD'ONA, a seraph, the tutelar spirit of James, the "first martyr of the twelve."--Klopstock, _The Messiah_, iii. (1748).

ADONAI, the mysterious spirit of pure mind, love, and beauty that inspires _Zanoni_, in Bulwer's novel of that name.

ADONAIS, t.i.tle of Percy Bysshe Sh.e.l.ley's elegy upon John Keats, written in 1821.

A'DONBEC EL HAKIM, the physician, a disguise a.s.sumed by Saladin, who visits sir Kenneth's sick squire, and cures him of a fever.--Sir W.

Scott, _The Talisman_ (time, Richard I.).

ADO'NIS, a beautiful youth, beloved by Venus and Proser'pina, who quarrelled about the possession of him. Jupiter, to settle the dispute, decided that the boy should spend six months with Venus in the upper world and six with Proserpina in the lower. Adonis was gored to death by a wild boar in a hunt.