Character Sketches of Romance Volume I Part 4

AESCULA'PIUS, in Greek, ASKLE'PIOS, the G.o.d of healing.

What says my aesculapius? my Galen?...

Ha! is he dead?

Shakespeare, _Merry Wives of Windsor_, act ii.

sc. 3 (1601).

AE'SON, the father of Jason. He was restored to youth by Medea, who infused into his veins the juice of certain herbs.

In such a night, Medea gather'd the enchanted herbs That did renew old Aeson.

Shakespeare, _Merchant of Venice_, act v. sc. I (before 1598).

aeSOP, the fabulist, said to be humpbacked; hence, "an aesop" means a humpbacked man. The young son of Henry VI. calls his uncle Richard of Gloster "aesop."--3 _Henry VI_. act v. sc. 5.

_Aesop of Arabia_, Lokman; and Na.s.ser (fifth century).

_Aesop of England_, John Gay (1688-1732).

_Aesop of France_, Jean de la Fontaine (1621-1695).

_Aesop of Germany_, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729-1781).

_Aesop of India_, Bidpay or Pilpay (third century B.C.).

AFER, the south-west wind; Notus, the full south.

Notus and Afer, black with thundrous clouds. Milton, _Paradise Lost_, x. 702 (1665).

AFRICAN MAGICIAN (_The_), pretended to Aladdin to be his uncle, and sent the lad to fetch the "wonderful lamp" from an underground cavern.

As Aladdin refused to hand it to the magician, he shut him in the cavern and left him there. Aladdin contrived to get out by virtue of a magic ring, and learning the secret of the lamp, became immensely rich, built a superb palace, and married the sultan's daughter.

Several years after, the African resolved to make himself master of the lamp, and accordingly walked up and down before the palace, crying incessantly, "Who will change old lamps for new!" Aladdin being on a hunting excursion, his wife sent a eunuch to exchange the "wonderful lamp" for a new one; and forthwith the magician commanded "the slaves of the lamp" to transport the palace and all it contained into Africa.

Aladdin caused him to be poisoned in a draught of wine.--_Arabian Nights_ ("Aladdin or The Wonderful Lamp").

AF'RIT OR AFREET, a kind of Medusa or Lamia, the most terrible and cruel of all the orders of the deevs.--_Herbelot_, 66.

From the hundred chimneys of the village, Like the Afreet in the Arabian story [_Introduct.

Tale_],

Smoky columns tower aloft into the air of amber.

Longfellow, _The Golden Milestone_.

AGAG, in Dryden's satire of _Absalom and Achit'ophel_, is sir Edmondbury G.o.dfrey, the magistrate, who was found murdered in a ditch near Primrose Hill. Dr. Oates, in the same satire, is called "Corah."

Corah might for Agag's murder call, In terms as coa.r.s.e as Samuel used to Saul.

Part i.

AGAMEMNON, king of the Argives and commander-in-chief of the allied Greeks in the siege of Troy. Introduced by Shakespeare in his _Troilus and Cres'sida_.

_Vixere fortes ante Agamem'nona_, "There were brave men before Agamemnon;" we are not to suppose that there were no great and good men in former times. A similar proverb is, "There are hills beyond Pentland and fields beyond Forth."

AGANDECCA, daughter of Starno king of Lochlin [_Scandinavia_], promised in marriage to Fingal king of Morven [_north-west of Scotland_]. The maid told Fingal to beware of her father, who had set an ambush to kill him. Fingal, being thus forewarned, slew the men in ambush; and Starno, in rage, murdered his daughter, who was buried by Fingal in Ardven [_Argyll_].

The daughter of the snow overheard, and left the hall of her secret sigh. She came in all her beauty, like the moon from the cloud of the east.

Loveliness was around her as light. Her step was like the music of songs. She saw the youth, and loved him. He was the stolen sigh of her soul. Her blue eyes rolled in secret on him, and she blessed the chief of Morven.--_Ossian_ ("Fingal,"

iii.)

AGANIP'PE (4 syl.), fountain of the Muses, at the foot of mount Helicon, in Boeo'tia.

From Helicon's harmonious springs A thousand rills their mazy progress take.

Gray, _Progress of Poetry_.

AG'APE (3 syl.) the fay. She had three sons at a birth, Primond, Diamond, and Triamond. Being anxious to know the future lot of her sons, she went to the abyss of Demogorgon, to consult the "Three Fatal Sisters." Clotho showed her the threads, which "were thin as those spun by a spider." She begged the fates to lengthen the life-threads, but they said this could not be; they consented, however, to this agreement--

When ye shred with fatal knife His line which is the eldest of the three, Eftsoon his life may pa.s.s into the next: And when the next shall likewise ended be, That both their lives may likewise be annext Unto the third, that his may so be trebly wext.

Spenser, _Faery Queen_, iv. 2 (1590).

AGAPI'DA _(Fray Antonio_), the imaginary chronicler of _The Conquest of Granada_, written by Washington Irving (1829).

AGAST'YA (3 _syl._), a dwarf who drank the sea dry. As he was walking one day with Vishnoo, the insolent ocean asked the G.o.d who the pigmy was that strutted by his side. Vishnoo replied it was the patriarch Agastya, who was going to restore earth to its true balance. Ocean, in contempt, spat its spray in the pigmy's face, and the sage, in revenge of this affront, drank the waters of the ocean, leaving the bed quite dry.--Maurice.

AG'ATHA, daughter of Cuno, and the betrothed of Max, in Weber's opera of _Der Freischutz._--See _Dictionary of Phrase and Fable._

AGATH'OCLES (4 _syl_.) tyrant of Sicily. He was the son of a potter, and raised himself from the ranks to become general of the army.

He reduced all Sicily under his power. When he attacked the Carthaginians, he burnt his ships that his soldiers might feel a.s.sured they must either conquer or die. Agathocles died of poison administered by his grandson (B.C. 361-289).

Voltaire has a tragedy called _Agathocle_, and Caroline Pichler has an excellent German novel ent.i.tled _Agathocles_.

AGATHON, the hero and t.i.tle of a philosophic romance, by C. M. Wieland (1733-1813). This is considered the best of his novels, though some prefer his _Don Sylvia de Rosalva_.

AGDISTES, the name given by Spenser to our individual consciousness or self. Personified in the being who presided over the Acrasian "bowre of blis."

That is our selfe, whom though we do not see Yet each doth in himselfe it well perceive to bee.

Therefore a G.o.d him sage Antiquity Did wisely make, and good Agdistes call--

Spenser, _Faerie Queene_, ii. 12.

AGDISTIS, a genius of human form, uniting the two senses and born of an accidental union between Jupiter and Tellus. The story of Agdistis and Atys is apparently a myth of the generative powers of nature.

AGED (_The_), so Wemmick's father is called. He lived in "the castle at Walworth." Wemmick at "the castle" and Wemmick in business are two "different beings."

Wemmick's house was a little wooden cottage, in the midst of plots of garden, and the top of it was cut out and painted like a battery mounted with guns.... It was the smallest of houses, with queer Gothic windows (by far the greater part of them sham), and a Gothic door, almost too small to get in at.... On Sundays he ran up a real flag.... The bridge was a plank, and it crossed a chasm about four feet wide and two deep.... At nine o'clock every night "the gun fired," the gun being mounted in a separate fortress made of lattice-work. It was protected from the weather by a tarpaulin ... umbrella.-- C. d.i.c.kens, _Great Expectations_, xxv. (1860).

AG'ELASTES (_Michael_), the cynic philosopher.--Sir W. Scott, _Count Robert of Paris_ (time, Rufus).