Character Sketches of Romance Volume I Part 95

Zeuxis, the painter, died of laughter at sight of a hag which he had just depicted.

DEATH RIDE (_The_), the charge of the Light Brigade at Balaklava, October 25, 1854. In this action 600 English hors.e.m.e.n, under the earl of Cardigan, charged a Russian force of 5,000 calvary and six batallions of infantry. They galloped through the battery of thirty guns, cutting down the artillerymen, and through the calvary, but then discovered the batallions and cut their way back again. Of the 670 who advanced to this daring charge, not 200 returned. This reckless exploit was the result of some misunderstanding in an order from the commander-in-chief. Tennyson has a poem on the subject called _The Charge of the Light Brigade_.

For chivalrous devotion and daring, "the Death Ride" of the Light Brigade will not easily be paralleled.--Sir Edw. Creasy, _The Fifteen Decisive Battles_ (preface).

DEB'ON, one of the companions of Brute. According to British fable, Devonshire is a corruption of "Debon's-share", or the share of the country a.s.signed to Debon.

DEBORAH DEBb.i.t.c.h, governante at Lady Peveril's--Sir W. Scott, _Peveril of the the Peak_ (time, Charles II.).

DEBORAH WOODHOUSE. The practical sister of the spinster pair who cherish (respectively) a secret attachment for Mr. Dermer. Miss Deborah is an admirable cook, and an affectionate aunt and considers that in religion a woman ought to think just as her husband does.--Margaret Deland, _John Ward, Preacher_ (1888).

DECEM SCRIPTORES, a collection of ten ancient chronicles on English history, edited by Twysden and John Selden. The names of the chroniclers are Simeon of Durham, John of Hexham, Richard of Hexham, Ailred of Rieval, Ralph De Diceto, John Brompton of Jorval, Gervase of Canterbury, Thomas Stubbs, William Thorn of Canterbury, and Henry Knighton of Leicester.

DECEMBER. A mother laments in the

"Darkest of all Decembers Ever her life has known,"

the death of two sons, one of whom fell in battle, while the other perished at sea.

"Ah, faint heart! in thy anguish What is there left to thee?

Only the sea intoning Only the wainscot-mouse Only the wild wind moaning Over the lonely house!"

Thomas Bailey Aldrich, _Poems_, (1882).

DE'CIUS, friend of Antin'ous (4 _syl_.).--Beaumont and Fletcher, _Laws of Candy_ (1647).

DEDLOCK _(Sir Leicester), bart_., who has a general opinion that the world might get on without hills, but would be "totally done up"

without Dedlocks. He loves Lady Dedlock, and believes in her implicity. Sir Leicester is honorable and truthful, but intensely prejudiced, immovably obstinate, and proud as "county" can make a man; but his pride has a most dreadful fall when the guilt of Lady Dedlock becomes known.

_Lady Dedlock_, wife of Sir Leicester, beautiful, cold, and apparently heartless; but she is weighed down with this terrible secret, that before marriage she had had a daughter by Captain Hawdon. This daughter's name is Esther [Summerson] the heroine of the novel.

_Volumnia Dedlock_, cousin of Sir Leicester. A "young" lady of 60, given to rouge, pearl-powder, and cosmetics. She has a habit of prying into the concerns of others.--C. d.i.c.kens, _Bleak House_ (1853).

DEE'S SPEC'ULUM, a mirror, which Dr. John Dee a.s.serted was brought to him by the angels Raphael and Gabriel. At the death of the doctor it pa.s.sed into the possession of the Earl of Peterborough, at Drayton; then to Lady Betty Grermaine, by whom it was given to John, last duke of Argyll. The duke's grandson (Lord Frederic Campbell) gave it to Horace Walpole; and in 1842 it was sold, at the dispersion of the curiosities of Strawberry Hill, and bought by Mr. Smythe Pigott.

At the sale of Mr. Pigott's library, in 1853, it pa.s.sed into the possession of the late Lord Londesborough. A writer in _Notes and Queries_ (p. 376, November 7, 1874) says, it "has now been for many years in the British Museum," where he saw it "some eighteen years ago."

This magic speculum is a flat _polished mineral, like cannel coal_, of a circular form, fitted with a handle.

DEERSLAYER (_The_), the t.i.tle of a novel by J.F. Cooper, and the nickname of its hero, Natty or Nathaniel b.u.mppo. He is a model uncivilized man, honorable, truthful, and brave, pure of heart and without reproach.

DEERFIELD. The particulars of the captivity of the Williams family of Deerfield, (Ma.s.s.), are told by John Williams, the head of the household. The Indians entered the town before dawn Feb. 29, 1703, broke into the house, murdered two children and a servant and carried the rest into the wilderness. Mrs. Williams being weak from a recent illness, was killed on the journey.--John Williams, _The Redeemed Captive Returning to Zion_ (1707).

DEFARGE (_Mons._), keeper of a wine shop in the Faubourg St. Antoine, in Paris. He is a bull-necked, good-humored, but implacable-looking man.

_Mde. Defarge_, his wife, a dangerous woman, with great force of character; everlastingly knitting.

Mde. Defarge had a watchful eye that seldom seemed to look at anything.--C. d.i.c.kens, _A Tale of Two Cities_, i. 5 (1859).

DEFENDER OF THE FAITH, the t.i.tle first given to Henry VIII, by Pope Leo X., for a volume against Luther, in defence of pardons, the papacy, and the seven sacraments. The original volume is in the Vatican, and contains this inscription in the king's handwriting; _Anglorum rex Henricus, Leoni X. mitt.i.t hoc opus et fidei testem et amicitiae_; whereupon the pope (in the twelfth year of his reign) conferred upon Henry, by bull, the t.i.tle "Fidei Defensor," and commanded all Christians so to address him. The original bull was preserved by Sir Robert Cotton, and is signed by the pope, four bishop-cardinals, fifteen priest-cardinals, and eight deacon-cardinals. A complete copy of the bull, with its seals and signatures, may be seen in Selden's _t.i.tles of Honor_, v. 53-57 (1672).

DEFOE writes _The History of the Plague of London_ as if he had been a personal spectator, but he was only three years old at the the time (1663-1731).

DEGGIAL, antichrist. The Mohammedan writers say he has but one eye and one eyebrow, and on his forehead is written CAFER ("infidel")

Chilled with terror, we concluded that the Deggial, with his exterminating angels, had sent forth their plagues on the earth.--W.

Beckford, _Vathek_ (1784).

DEIRD'RI, an ancient Irish story similar to the _Dar-Thula_ of Ossian.

Conor, king of Ulster, puts to death by treachery the three sons of Usnach. This leads to the desolating war against Ulster, which terminates in the total destruction of Eman. This is one of the three tragic stories of the Irish, which are: (1) The death of the children of Touran (regarding Tuatha de Danans); (2) the death of the children of Lear or Lir, turned into swans by Aoife; (3) the death of the children of Usnach (a "Milesian" story).

DEK'ABRIST, a Decembrist, from _Dekaber_, the Russian for December.

It denotes those persons who suffered death or captivity for the part they took in the military conspiracy which broke out in St. Petersburg in December, 1825, on the accession of Czar Nicholas to the throne.

DELA'DA, the tooth of Buddah, preserved in the Malegawa temple at Kandy. The natives guard it with the greatest jealousy, from a belief that whoever possesses it acquires the right to govern Ceylon. When the English (in 1815) obtained possession of this palladium, the natives submitted without resistance.

DELASERRE (_Captain Philip_), a friend of Harry Bertram.--Sir W.

Scott, _Guy Mannering_ (time, George II.).

DE'LIA, Diana; so called from the island Delos, where she was born.

Similarly, Apollo was called _Delius_. Milton says that Eve, e'en

Delia's self, In gait surpa.s.sed and G.o.ddess-like deport, Though not as she with bow and quiver armed.

_Paradise Lost_, ix. 338, etc. (1665).

_Delia_, any female sweetheart. She is one of the shepherdesses in Virgil's _Eclogues_. Tibullus, the Roman poet, calls his lady-love "Delia," but what her real name was is not certain.

_Delia_, the lady-love of James Hammond's elegies, was Miss Dashwood, who died in 1779. She rejected his suit, and died unmarried. In one of the elegies the poet imagines himself married to her, and that they were living happily together till death, when pitying maids would tell of their wondrous loves.

DELIAN KING (_The_). Apollo or the sun is so called in the Orphic hymn,

Oft as the Delian king with Sirius holds The central heavens.

Akenside, _Hymn to the Naiads_ (1767).

DELIGHT OF MANKIND (_The_), t.i.tus the Roman emperor, A.D.40, (79-81).

t.i.tus indeed gave one short evening gleam, More cordial felt, as in the midst it spread Of storm and horror: "The Delight of Men."

Thomson, _Liberty_, in. (1725).

DELLA CRUSCA SCHOOL, originally applied in 1582 to a society in Florence, established to purify the national language and sift from it all its impurities; but applied in England to a brotherhood of poets (at the close of the last century) under the leadership of Mrs.

Piozzi. This school was conspicuous for affectation and high-flown panegyrics on each other. It was stamped out by Gifford, in _The Baviad_, in 1794, and _The Moeviad_, in 1796. Robert Merry, who signed himself _Della Crusca_, James Cobb, a farce-writer, James Boswell (biographer of Dr. Johnson), O'Keefe, Morton, Reynolds, Holcroft, Sheridan, Colman the younger, Mrs. H. Cowley, and Mrs. Robinson were its best exponents.

DEL'PHINE, (2 _syl._), the heroine and t.i.tle of a novel by Mde. de Stael. Delphine is a charming character, who has a faithless lover, and dies of a broken heart. This novel, like _Corinne_, was written during her banishment from France by Napoleon I., when she travelled in Switzerland and Italy. It is generally thought that "Delphine" was meant for the auth.o.r.ess herself (1802).

DELPHINE CLa.s.sICS (_The_), a set of Latin cla.s.sics edited in France for the use of the grand dauphin (son of Louis XIV.). Huet was chief editor, a.s.sisted by Montausier and Bossuet. They had thirty-nine scholars working under them. The indexes of these cla.s.sics are very valuable.