king of Egypt, gave to Helen. A drink containing this drug “changed
grief to mirth, melancholy to joyfulness, and hatred to love.” The water
of Ardenne had the opposite effects. Homer mentions this drug nepenthe
in his _Odyssey_. It is also mentioned in Poe’s _Raven_.
=New Atlantis, The.=--An imaginary island in the middle of the Atlantic.
Bacon, in his allegorical fiction, so called, supposes himself wrecked
on this island, where he finds an association for the cultivation of
natural science and the promotion of arts. Called the “New” Atlantis to
distinguish it from Plato’s Atlantis, an imaginary island of fabulous
charms.
=Newcomes, The.=--_Memoirs of a Most Respectable Family_, by William
Makepeace Thackeray. The hero is Clive Newcome, a young artist, son of
Colonel Newcome, and cousin of Ethel Newcome, whom he marries after the
death of his first wife, Rosa Mackenzie. Among the other characters are
Comte de Florac, Charles Honeyman, “J. J.,” Fred Bayham, Lady Kew, Jack
Belsize, Dr. Goodenough, and others.
Colonel Newcome, is “the finest portrait,” says Hannay, “that has been
added to the gallery of English fiction since Sir Walter’s time. The
pathos, at once manly and delicate, with which his ruin and death are
treated, places Thackeray in a high rank in poetic sentiment.”
=Nibelungenlied= (_nē´be-loong-en-lēd_).--An historic poem, generally
called the German _Iliad_. It is the only great national epic that
European writers have produced since antiquity, and belongs to every
country that has been peopled by Germanic tribes, as it includes the
hero traditions of the Franks, the Burgundians and the Goths, with
memorials of the ancient myths carried with them from Asia. The poem is
divided into two parts, and thirty-two lieds, or cantos. The first part
ends with the death of Siegfried, and the second part with the death of
Kriemhild. The death of Siegfried and the revenge of Kriemhild have been
celebrated in popular songs dating back to the lyric chants now a
thousand years old. These are the foundation of the great poem.
=Nicholas Nickleby.=--A novel by Dickens. The mother of the hero,
Nicholas, is a widow fond of talking and of telling long stories with no
connection. She imagined her neighbor, a mildly insane man, was in love
with her because he tossed cabbages and other articles over the garden
wall. She had a habit of introducing in conversation topics wholly
irrelevant to the subject under consideration, and of always declaring,
when anything unanticipated occurred, that she had expected it all
along, and had prophesied to that precise effect on divers (unknown)
occasions. Nicholas Nickleby has to make his own way in the world. He
first goes as usher to Mr. Squeers, schoolmaster at Dotheboys Hall; but
leaves in disgust with the tyranny of Squeers and his wife, especially
to a poor boy named Smike. Smike runs away from the school to follow
Nicholas, and remains his humble follower till death. At Portsmouth,
Nicholas joins the theatrical company of Mr. Crummles, but leaves the
profession for other adventures. He falls in with the Brothers
Cheeryble, who make him their clerk; and in this post he rises to become
a merchant, and finally marries Madeline Bray.
=Nightingale, Ode to a.=--Poem by John Keats, which “was written,” says
Leigh Hunt, “in a house at the foot of Highgate Hill, on the border of
the fields looking toward Hampstead. The poet had then his mortal
illness upon him, and knew it; never was the voice of death sweeter.”
Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
No hungry generations tread thee down;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown;
Perhaps the selfsame song that found a path
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
The same that ofttimes hath
Charm’d magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faëry lands forlorn.
=Notre Dame de Paris.=--A prose romance by Victor Hugo, published in
1831. The scene is laid in Paris at the end of the reign of Louis XI. It
is a vigorous but somber picture of mediæval manners.
=Nourmahal= (_nör-ma-häl´_).--_Lalla Rookh_, Moore. “Light of the
Harem.” She was for a season estranged from the sultan, till he gave a
grand banquet, at which she appeared in disguise as a lute-player and
singer. The sultan was so enchanted with her performance that he
exclaimed, “If Nourmahal had so played and sung, I could forgive her
all;” whereupon the sultana threw off her mask.
=Nucta.=--_Paradise and the Peri_, Moore. The name given to the
miraculous drop which falls from heaven, in Egypt, on St. John’s day,
and is supposed to stop the plague.
=Nun of Nidaros.=--_Tales of a Wayside Inn_, Longfellow. The abbess of
the Drontheim convent, who heard the voice of St. John while she was
kneeling at her midnight devotions.
=Nut-Brown Maid.=--_Reliques_, Percy. The maid who was wooed by the
“banished man.” The “banished man” described to her the hardships she
would have to undergo if she married him; but finding that she
accounted these hardships as nothing compared with his love, he revealed
himself to be an earl’s son, with large hereditary estates in
Westmoreland, and married her.
=O=
=Obermann= (_ō-ber-män´_).--The impersonation of high moral worth
without talent, and the tortures endured by the consciousness of this
defect. This name was given to the hero and imaginary author of a work
of the same name by Etienne Pivert de Senancourt, a French writer.
=Oberon= ([_=o]´be-ron_).--King of the fairies, whose wife was Titania.
Shakespeare introduces both Oberon and Titania in his _Midsummer Night’s
Dream_. He and Titania, his queen, are fabled to have lived in India,
and to have crossed the seas to northern Europe to dance by the light of
the moon.
=Oberon the Fay.=--A humpty dwarf only three feet high, but of angelic
face, lord and king of Mommur.
=Odyssey= (_od´i-si_).--Homer’s epic poem recording the adventures of
Odysseus (Ulysses) in his voyage home from Troy. The poem opens in the
island of Calypso, with a complaint against Neptune and Calypso for
preventing the return of Odysseus to Ithaca. Telemachos, the son of
Odysseus, starts in search of his father, accompanied by Pallas in the
guise of Mentor. He goes to Pylos to consult old Nestor, and is sent by
him to Sparta, where he is told by Menelaus that Odysseus is detained in
the island of Calypso. In the meantime, Odysseus leaves the island, and,
being shipwrecked, is cast on the shore of Phæacia. After twenty years’
absence Odysseus returns to his home. Penelope is tormented by suitors.
To excuse herself, Penelope tells her suitors he only shall be her
husband who can bend Odysseus’ bow. None can do so but the stranger, who
bends it with ease. Odysseus is recognized by his wife, and the false
suitors are all slain, and peace is restored to Ithaca.
=Œdipus= (_ed´i-pus_) =Coloneus= [(_kō-lō-nē´us_); or, _Œdipus at
Colonus_ (_kō-lō´nus_)].--A tragedy of Sophocles, which was not
exhibited till four years after his death, and was said to be the last
he wrote. In it Œdipus, driven from Thebes by Creon, with his daughters,
Antigone and Ismene, seeks asylum with Theseus at Athens, and there
obtains pardon from the gods, and peace.
=Œdipus Tyrannus= (_ti-ran´us_).--A tragedy by Sophocles, of uncertain
date, “placed by the scholiasts, and by most modern critics, at the very
summit of Greek tragic art.”
=Ogier= (_ō-zhyā´_) the Dane.--One of the paladins of the Charlemagne
epoch. Also made the hero of an ancient French romance, and the subject
of a ballad whose story is probably a contribution from the stores of
Norman tradition, Holger, or Olger, Danske, being the national hero of
Denmark. He figures in Ariosto’s _Orlando Furioso_.
=O’Groat.=--A name often alluded to in early English parables or sayings
coming from the legend of _John O’Groat’s House_. This ancient building
was supposed to stand on the most northerly point in Great Britain. John
of Groat and his brothers were originally from Holland. According to
tradition, the house was of an octagonal shape, being one room with
eight windows and eight doors, to admit eight members of the family, the
heads of eight different branches of it, to prevent their quarrels for
precedence at table, which, on a previous occasion, had well-nigh proved
fatal.
=Oldbuck, Jonathan.=--_Antiquary_, Scott. The character whose whimsies
gave name to the novel. He is represented as devoted to the study and
accumulation of old coins, medals, and relics. He is irritable,
sarcastic, and cynical from an early disappointment in love, but full of
humor and a faithful friend.
=Old Curiosity Shop, The.=--A tale by Charles Dickens. An old man,
having run through his fortune, opened a curiosity shop in order to earn
a living and brought up a granddaughter, named Nell [Trent], fourteen
years of age. The child was the darling of the old man, but, deluding
himself with the hope of making a fortune by gaming, he lost everything,
and went forth, with the child, a beggar. Their wanderings and
adventures are recounted till they reach a quiet country village, where
the old clergyman gives them a cottage to live in. Here Nell soon dies,
and the grandfather is found dead upon her grave. The main character,
next to Nell, is that of a lad named Kit [Nubbles], employed in the
curiosity shop, who adored Nell as “an angel.” This boy gets in the
service of Mr. Garland, a genial, benevolent, well-to-do man, in the
suburbs of London; but Quilp hates the lad, and induces Brass, a
solicitor of Bevis Marks, to put a five pound banknote in the boy’s
hat, and then accuse him of theft. Kit is tried, and condemned to
transportation; but, the villainy being exposed by a girl-of-all-work
nicknamed “The Marchioness,” Kit is liberated and restored to his place,
and Quilp drowns himself.
=Old Man of the Sea.=--In the _Arabian Nights_, a monster encountered by
Sindbad the sailor in his fifth voyage. After carrying him upon his
shoulders a long time, Sindbad at last succeeds in intoxicating him, and
effects his escape. The _Old Man of the Sea_ was also made the title of
a humorous and well-known poem by O. W. Holmes.
=Old Mortality=, the best of Scott’s historical novels. Morton is the
best of his young heroes, and serves as an excellent foil to the
fanatical and gloomy Burley. The two classes of actors, _viz._, the
brave and dissolute cavaliers, and the resolute oppressed covenanters,
are drawn in bold relief. The most striking incidents are the terrible
encounter with Burley in his rocky fastness; the dejection and anxiety
of Morton on his return from Holland; and the rural comfort of Cuddie
Headrigg’s cottage on the banks of the Clyde, with its thin blue smoke
among the trees, “showing that the evening meal was being made ready.”
Old Mortality is an itinerant antiquary, whose craze is to clean the
moss from gravestones, and keep their letters and effigies in good
condition.
=Old Red Sandstone.=--One of the most noted of Hugh Miller’s famous
writings on geological subjects. It revealed his discovery of fossils in
a formation which, up to that time, had been deemed almost destitute of
them.
=Oliver.=--_As You Like It_, Shakespeare. Son and heir of Sir Rowland de
Bois, who hated his youngest brother, Orlando, and whom he planned to
murder by indirect methods. Orlando, finding it impossible to live in
his brother’s house, fled to the forest of Arden, where he joined the
society of the banished duke. Oliver pursued him, and as he slept in the
forest a snake and a lioness lurked near to make him their prey. Orlando
chanced to be passing, slew the two monsters, and then found that the
sleeper was his brother Oliver. Oliver’s feelings underwent a change,
and he loved his brother as much as he had before hated him. In the
forest the two brothers met Rosalind and Celia. The former, who was the
daughter of the banished duke, married Orlando; and the latter, who was
the daughter of Frederick, the usurping duke, married Oliver.
=Oliver Twist.=--A novel by Charles Dickens. Thackeray, writing of this
novel, in the character of “Ikey Solomons,” says: “The power of the
writer is so amazing that the reader at once becomes his captive, and
must follow him whithersoever he leads: and to what are we led?
Breathless to watch all the crimes of Fagin, tenderly to deplore the
errors of Nancy, to have for Bill Sikes a kind of pity and admiration,
and an absolute love for the society of the Dodger. All these heroes
stepped from the novel on to the stage; and the whole London public,
from peers to chimney sweeps, were interested about a set of ruffians
whose occupations are thievery, murder, and prostitution.” A remarkable
feature of the work, and one which, on its publication, brought
considerable odium on the writer, was its unsparing exposure of the
poor-law and the workhouse system, which led to its representation on
the stage being forbidden for a time.
=Olivia.=--_Twelfth Night_, Shakespeare. A rich countess, whose love was
sought by Orsino, duke of Illyria; but, having lost her brother, Olivia
lived for a time in entire seclusion, and in no wise reciprocated the
duke’s love. Olivia fell in love with Viola, who was dressed as the
duke’s page, and sent her a ring. Mistaking Sebastian (Viola’s brother)
for Viola, she married him out of hand.
=Ophelia= (_ō-fē´liä_).--_Hamlet_, Shakespeare. Daughter of Polonius,
the chamberlain. Hamlet fell in love with her, but, after his interview
with the Ghost, finds that his plans must lead away from her. During his
real or assumed madness, he treats her with undeserved and angry
rudeness, and afterward, in a fit of inconsiderate rashness, kills her
father, the old Polonius. The terrible shock given to her mind by these
events completely shatters her intellect, and leads to her accidental
death by drowning.
=Organon= (_ôr´ga-non_).--The name given to the first work on logic by
Aristotle. He is said to have created the science of logic. The
_Organon_ has been enlarged and recast by some modern authors,
especially by Mr. John Stuart Mill in his _System of Logic_, into a
structure commensurate with the vast increase of knowledge and extension
of positive method belonging to the present day.
=Origin of Species, The.=--A work by Charles Robert Darwin, in which he
put forward his theory of “natural selection.” It was published in 1859,
and by many is regarded as the most important scientific work of the
nineteenth century.
=Orlando Furioso= (_or-län´dō fö-rē-ō´sō_).--An epic poem in forty-six
cantos, by Ariosto, which occupied his leisure for eleven years, and was
published in 1516. This poem, which celebrates the semi-mythical
achievements of the paladins of Charlemagne in the wars between the
Christians and the Moors, became immediately popular, and has since been
translated into all European languages, and passed through innumerable
editions.
=Ormulum= (_ôr´mū-lum_).--The _Ormulum_ is a collection of metrical
homilies, one for each day of the year; but the single existing copy
gives the homilies for thirty-two days only. There are very few French
words in the poem, but Scandinavian words and constructions abound. The
writer, Orm, or Ormin, belonged to the east of England, and he and his
brother Walter were Augustinian monks. He makes no use of rhyme, but his
verses are smooth and regular.
=Osbaldistone= (_os-bâl´dis-ton_).--_Rob Roy_, Scott. A family name in
the story which tells of nine of the members: (1) the London merchant
and Sir Hildebrand, the heads of two families; (2) the son of the
merchant is Francis; (3) the offspring of the brother are Percival, the
sot; Thorncliffe, the bully; John, the gamekeeper; Richard, the
horse-jockey; Wilfred, the fool; and Rashleigh, the scholar, by far the
worst of all. This last worthy is slain by Rob Roy, and dies cursing his
cousin Frank, whom he had injured.
=O’Shanter.=--See _Tam O’Shanter_.
=Osman= (_os-män´_).--Sultan of the East, conqueror of the Christians, a
magnanimous man. He loved Yara, a young Christian captive. This forms
the subject of a once famous ballad.
=Osrick= (_oz´rik_).--A court fop in Shakespeare’s _Hamlet_. He is made
umpire by Claudius in the combat between Hamlet and Laertes.
=Osseo.=--_Hiawatha_, Longfellow. Son of the Evening Star. When broken
with age, he married Oweenee, one of ten daughters of a northland
hunter. She loved him in spite of his ugliness and decrepitude, because
“all was beautiful within him.” As he was walking with his nine
sisters-in-law and their husbands, he leaped into the hollow of an oak
tree and came out strong and handsome; but Oweenee at the same moment
was changed into a weak old woman. But the love of Osseo was not
weakened. The nine brothers and sisters-in-law were transformed into
birds. Oweenee, recovering her beauty, had a son, whose delight was to
shoot the birds that mocked his father and mother. An Algonquin legend
gave the foundation of the story.
=Othello= (_ō-thel´ō_).--A tragedy by Shakespeare. The chief character
is a Moor of Venice, who marries Desdemona, the daughter of a Venetian
senator, and is led by his ensign, Iago, a consummate villain, to
distrust her fidelity and virtue. Iago hated the Moor both because
Cassio, a Florentine, was preferred to the lieutenancy instead of
himself, and also from a suspicion that the Moor had tampered with his
wife; but he concealed his hatred so well that Othello wholly trusted
him. Iago persuaded Othello that Desdemona intrigued with Cassio, and
urged him on till he murdered his bride.
=Outre-Mer= (_ōōtr-mèr_).--_A Pilgrimage Beyond the Sea._--A series of
prose tales and sketches by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, published in
1835. “The Pays d’Outre-Mer,” says the writer, “is a name by which the
pilgrims and crusaders of old designated the Holy Land. I, too, in a
certain sense, have been a pilgrim of Outre-Mer; for to my youthful
imagination the Old World was a kind of Holy Land, lying afar off beyond
the blue horizon of the ocean. In this, my pilgrimage, I have traversed
France from Normandy to Navarre; smoked my pipe in a Flemish inn;
floated through Holland in a Trekschuit; trimmed my midnight lamp in a
German university; wandered and mused amid the classic scenes of Italy;
and listened to the gay guitar and merry castanet on the borders of the
blue Guadalquivir.”
=P=
=Pacolet= (_pak´ō-let_).--In _Valentine and Orson_, an old romance, a
character who owned an enchanted steed, often alluded to by early
writers. The name of Pacolet was borrowed by Steele for his familiar
spirit in the _Tatler_. The French have a proverb, “It is the horse of
Pacolet;” that is, it is one that goes very fast.
=Page.=--_Merry Wives of Windsor_, Shakespeare. Name of a family of
Windsor, conspicuous in the play. When Sir John Falstaff made love to
Mrs. Page, Page himself assumed the name of Brook. Sir John told the
supposed Brook his whole “course of wooing.”
=Page, Anne.=--Daughter of the above, in love with Fenton. Slender calls
her “the sweet Anne Page.”
=Page, Mrs.=--Wife of Mr. Page, of Windsor. When Sir John Falstaff made
love to her, she joined with Mrs. Ford to dupe him and punish him.
=Palamon.=--(1) A character in _The Knight’s Tale_ in Chaucer’s
_Canterbury Tales_, in love with Emilia, who is also beloved by
Palamon’s friend, Arcite. (2) In Falconer’s poem of _The Shipwreck_, is
in love with the daughter of Albert, the commander of the vessel in
which he sails. (3) In Thomson’s poem of _Autumn_ in _The Seasons_, is a
young man, “the pride of swains,” in love with Lavinia. He is a poetical
representation of Boaz, while Lavinia is intended for Ruth.
=Pangloss= (_pan´glos_), =Doctor.=--(1) A poor pedant, in Colman the
Younger’s comedy of the _Heir at Law_, who has been created an _Artium
Societatis Socius_ (_A. S. S._). He is remarkable for the aptness, if
triteness, of his quotations. (2) An optimist philosopher in Voltaire’s
_Candide_.
=Pantagruelian= (_pan-tag´rö-el-an_) =Law Case.=--_Pantagruel_,
Rabelais. This case, having nonplused all the judges in Paris, was
referred to Lord Pantagruel for decision. After much “statement” the
bench declared, “We have not understood one single circumstances of the
defense.” Then Pantagruel gave sentence, but his judgment was as
unintelligible as the case itself. So, as no one understood a single
sentence of the whole affair, all were perfectly satisfied.
=Paracelsus= (_par-a-sel´sus_).--A dramatic poem by Robert Browning,
published in 1835. It is a work of singular beauty, and is replete with
lofty and solemn thoughts on the fate of genius and the chance and
change of life. The Paracelsus of the poem is a very different person
from the Paracelsus of history--the brilliant and daring quack who
professed to have discovered the philosopher’s stone, but who, by the
introduction of opium among the remedies of the _Pharmacopæia_, in some
wise made amends for his absurd extravagance.
=Paradise and the Peri.=--The second tale in Moore’s poetical romance of
_Lalla Rookh_. The Peri laments her expulsion from heaven, and is told
that she will be readmitted if she will bring to the gate of heaven the
“gift most dear to the Almighty.” After several failures the Peri
offered the “Repentant Tear,” and the gates flew open to receive the
gift.
=Paradise Lost.=--An epic poem by Milton. The poem opens with the
awaking of the rebel angels in hell after their fall from heaven, the
consultation of their chiefs how best to carry on the war with God, and
the resolve of Satan to go forth and tempt newly created man to fall.
Satan reaches Eden, and finds Adam and Eve in their innocence. This is
told in the first four books. The next four books contain the Archangel
Raphael’s story of the war in heaven, the fall of Satan, and the
creation of the world. The last four books describe the temptation and
the fall of man, and tell of the redemption of man by Christ, and the
expulsion from Paradise.
=Paradise Regained.=--An epic by Milton on the redemption of man. In
this poem the author tells of the journey of Christ into the wilderness
after his baptism, and its four books describe the temptation of Christ
by Satan.
=Parallel Lives of Greeks and Romans.=--A celebrated biographical work
by Plutarch, consisting of forty-six comparisons. In spite of all
exceptions on the score of inaccuracy, want of information, or
prejudice, _Plutarch’s Lives_ must remain one of the most valuable
relics of Greek literature, not only because they stand in the place of
many volumes of lost history, but also because they are written with a
graphic and dramatic vivacity such as we find in few biographies,
ancient or modern; because they are replete with reflections which, if
not profound, are always moderate and sensible; and because the author’s
aim throughout is to enforce the highest standard of morality of which a
heathen was capable. As one of his most enthusiastic admirers has said,
“He stands before us as the legate, the ambassador, and the orator on
behalf of those institutions whereby the old-time men were rendered wise
and virtuous.”
=Partington= (_pär´ting-ton_), =Mrs.=--An imaginary old lady whose
laughable sayings have been recorded by an American humorist, B. P.
Shillaber.
=Paul and Virginia.=--A popular romance by Bernardin de St. Pierre.
According to a tradition, or version, Paul and Virginia are brought up
in the belief that they are brother and sister. Don Antonio is sent to
bring her to Spain, and make her his bride. She is taken by force on
board ship, but scarcely has the ship started, when a hurricane dashes
it on the rocks and it is wrecked. Alhambra, a runaway slave, whom Paul
and Virginia had befriended, rescues Virginia, who is brought to shore
and married to Paul. Antonio is drowned.
=Pauline.=--The Lady of Lyons in Bulwer-Lytton’s play of this name. She
was married to Claude Melnotte, a gardener’s son, who pretended to be a
count.
=Paul Pry.=--_Paul Pry_, John Poole. An idle, inquisitive, meddlesome
fellow, who has no occupation of his own, and is forever poking his nose
into other people’s affairs. He always comes in with the apology “I hope
I don’t intrude.”
=Peau de Chagrin= (_pō du shä-grin_), “_The Ass’ Skin._”--A story by
Balzac. The hero becomes possessed of a magical wild ass’ skin, which
yields him the means of gratifying every wish; but for every wish thus
gratified the skin shrank somewhat, and at last vanished, having been
wished entirely away. Life is a _peau d’âne_, for every vital act
diminishes its force, and when all its force is gone, life is spent.
=Peeping Tom of Coventry.=--A tailor of Coventry, the only soul in the
town mean enough to peep at the Lady Godiva as she rode naked through
the streets to relieve the people from oppression.
=Peggotty= (_peg´o-ti_), =Clara.=--The nurse of David Copperfield in
Dickens’ novel of this name. Being very plump, whenever she makes any
exertion some of the buttons on the back of her dress fly off.
=Peggotty, Dan’l.=--Brother of David Copperfield’s nurse. Dan’l was a
Yarmouth fisherman. His nephew, Ham Peggotty, and his brother-in-law’s
child, “little Em’ly,” lived with him.
=Peggotty, Em’ly.=--She was engaged to Ham Peggotty; but being
fascinated with Steerforth she eloped. She was afterward reclaimed, and
emigrated to Australia.
=Peggotty, Ham.=--Represented as the very beau ideal of an uneducated,
simple-minded, honest, and warm-hearted fisherman. He was drowned in his
attempt to rescue Steerforth from the sea.
=Pendennis= (_pen-den´is_), =The History of.=--By William Makepeace
Thackeray. The hero, Arthur Pendennis, reappears in the author’s
_Adventures of Philip_, and is represented as telling the story of _The
Newcomes_.
=Pendennis.=--Name of the hero of a novel by Thackeray, published in
1849 and 1850, the immediate successor of _Vanity Fair_. Literary life
is described in the history of Pen, a hero of no very great worth.
=Pendennis, Laura.=--Sister of Arthur, considered one of the best of
Thackeray’s characters.
=Pendennis, Major.=--A tuft-hunter, who fawns on his patrons for the
sake of wedging himself into their society.
=Penseroso= (_pen-se-rō´sō_), =Il.=--A poem by John Milton, written as a
companion to _L’Allegro_. The latter is composed in the character of a
cheerful, the former in that of a melancholy man, and the whole tone of
each poem is regulated accordingly. The one begins with the dawn, the
other with evening. The one opens with the lark, the other with the
nightingale, and so on.
=Pepys’= (_pēps_, or _pips_, or _pep´is_) =Diary.=--A book by Samuel
Pepys, written in shorthand, and deciphered and published in 1825. It
extends over the nine years from 1660 to 1669, and is the gossipy
chronicle of that gay and profligate time. We have no other book which
gives so lifelike a picture of that extraordinary state of society.
=Peregrine Pickle= (_per´e-grin pik´l_).--The title of a novel by
Smollett. Peregrine Pickle is a savage, ungrateful spendthrift, fond of
practical jokes, and suffering with evil temper the misfortunes brought
on himself by his own willfulness.
=Peter Bell.=--A tale in verse, by Wordsworth. A wandering tinker,
subject of Wordsworth’s poem, whose hard heart was touched by the
fidelity of an ass to its dead master. Shelley wrote a burlesque of this
poem, entitled _Peter Bell the Third_, intended to ridicule the
ludicrous puerility of language and sentiment which Wordsworth often
affected. This burlesque was given the name of the _Third_ because it
followed a parody already published as _Peter the Second_.
=Petruchio= (_pe-trö´chō_, or _ki-ō_).--A gentleman of Verona, in
Shakespeare’s _Taming of the Shrew_. A very honest fellow, who hardly
speaks a word of truth, and succeeds in all his tricks. He acts his
assumed character to the life, with untired animal spirits, and without
a particle of ill-humor.
=Phædo= (_fē´dō_), or =Phædon= (_fe´don_).--An ancient and well known
work by Plato, in which the doctrine of the immortality of the soul is
most fully set forth. It is in the form of a dialogue, which combines,
with the abstract philosophical discussion, a graphic narrative of the
last hours of Socrates, which, for pathos and dignity, is unsurpassed.
=Phédre= (_fā´dr_).--A tragedy by Racine, produced January 1, 1677. It
was founded on the story of Phædra, daughter of Minos, king of Crete,
and wife of Theseus. She conceived a criminal love for Hippolytus, her
stepson, and, being repulsed by him, accused him to her husband of
attempting to dishonor her. Hippolytus was put to death, and Phædra,
wrung with remorse, strangled herself. _Phédre_ was the great part of
Mdlle. Rachel; she first appeared in this character in 1838. It is
unquestionably the most remarkable of Racine’s regular tragedies. By it
the style must stand or fall, and a reader need hardly go farther to
appreciate it. For excellence of construction, artful beauty of verse,
skillful use of the limited means of appeal at the command of the
dramatist, no play can surpass _Phédre_.
=Philip.=--_The Madness of Philip_, Josephine Daskam. A representation
of the unregenerate child--“the child of strong native impulses who has
not yet yielded to the shaping force of education; the child, therefore,
of originality, of vivacity, of humor, and of fascinating power of
invention in the field of mischief.”
=Philippics= (_fi-lip´iks_), =The.=--A group of nine orations of
Demosthenes, directed against Philip of Macedon. The real adversary in
all these famous speeches is not so much the king of Macedon as the
sloth and supineness of the Athenians, and the influence of the peace
party, whether honest or bribed by Philip. They are the first Philippic,
urging the sending of a military force to Thrace, delivered 351 B. C;
three orations in behalf of the city of Olynthus (destroyed by Philip),
delivered in 349-348; the oration _On the Peace_, 346; the second
Philippic, 344; the oration _On the Embassy_, 344; the speech _On the
Chersonese_, 341; and the third Philippic, 341.
The name is also given to a series of fourteen orations of Cicero
against Mark Antony, delivered 44-43 B. C.
=Philtra.=--_Faërie Queene_, Spenser. A lady of large fortune, betrothed
to Bracidas; but, seeing the fortune of Amidas daily increasing, and
that of Bracidas getting smaller, she attached herself to the more
prosperous younger brother.
=Phineas= (_fin´e-as_).--_Uncle Tom’s Cabin_, Mrs. Stowe. The quaker, an
“underground railroad” man who helped the slave family of George and
Eliza to reach Canada, after Eliza had crossed the river on cakes of
floating ice.
=Phyllis= (_fil´is_).--In Vergil’s _Eclogues_, the name of a rustic
maiden. This name, also written Phillis, has been in common use as
meaning any unsophisticated country girl.
=Pickwick= (_pik´wik_), =Mr. Samuel.=--The hero of the _Pickwick
Papers_, by Charles Dickens. He is a simple-minded, benevolent old
gentleman, who wears spectacles and short black gaiters. He founds a
club, and travels with its members over England, each member being under
his guardianship. They meet many laughable adventures.
=Pied Piper of Hameln= (_hä´meln_).--Old German legend. Robert Browning,
in his poem entitled _The Pied Piper_, has given a metrical version. The
legend recounts how a certain musician came into the town of Hameln, in
the country of Brunswick, and offered, for a sum of money, to rid the
town of the rats by which it was infested. Having executed his task, and
the promised reward having been withheld, he in revenge blew again his
pipe, and by its tones drew the children of the town to a cavern in the
side of a hill, which, upon their entrance, closed and shut them in
forever.
=Piers Plowman= (_pērs plou´man_).--A satirical poem of the fourteenth
century. The hero falls asleep, like John Bunyan, on the Malvern hills,
and has different visions, which he describes, and in which he exposes
the corruptions of society, the dissoluteness of the clergy, and the
allurements to sin. The author is supposed to be Robert or William
Langland. No other writings so faithfully reflect the popular feeling
during the great social and religious movements of that century as the
bitterly satirical poem. _The Vision of Piers Plowman_. In its allegory,
the discontent of the commons with the course of affairs in church and
state found a voice.
=Pietro.=--_The Ring and the Book_, Browning. The professed father of
Pompilia, criminally assumed as his child to prevent certain property
from passing to an heir not his own.
=Pilgrim’s Progress.=--A celebrated allegory by Bunyan. It recounts the
adventures of the hero, Christian, from his conversion to his death. He
wanders from the way to Doubting Castle, and is held there by Giant
Despair. His sins are a pack; his Bible is a chart, his minister
Evangelist, his conversion a flight from the City of Destruction, his
struggle with besetting sins a fight with Apollyon, his death a toilsome
passage over a deep stream which flows between him and heaven.
=Pilot, The.=--Title of a sea-story by Cooper, which was called the
“first sea-novel of the English language.” It was published in the year
1823, and soon translated into Italian, German, and French. It is
founded on the adventures of John Paul Jones.
=Pinch, Tom.=--A character in Dickens’ _Martin Chuzzlewit_,
distinguished by his guilelessness, his oddity, and his exhaustless
goodness of heart.
=Pippa= (_pēp´pä_) =Passes.=--A drama, Italian in scene and character,
by Robert Browning. “It is,” says Stedman, “a cluster of four scenes,
with prologue, epilogue, and interludes, half prose, half poetry,
varying with the refinement of the dialogue. Pippa is a delicately pure,
good, blithesome peasant maid. It is New Year’s Day at Ardo. She springs
from bed at sunrise, resolved to enjoy to the full her sole holiday.
Others may be happy throughout the year; haughty Ottima and Sebald, the
lovers on the hill; Jules and Phene, the artist and his bride; Luigi and
his mother; Monsignor, the bishop; but Pippa has only this one day to
enjoy. Now, it so happens that she passes, this day, each of the groups
or persons we have named, at an important crisis in their lives, and
they hear her various carols as she trills them forth in the innocent
gladness of her heart. _Pippa Passes_ is a work of pure art, and has a
wealth of original fancy and romance, apart from its wisdom.” It
appeared in 1842.
=Pistol= (_pis´tol_).--A follower of Falstaff, in Shakespeare’s comedy
of _The Merry Wives of Windsor_, and in the second part of _King Henry
IV_. “A roguing beggar, a cantler, an upright man that liveth by
cozenage.”
=Pocket.=--_Great Expectations_, Dickens. Name of a family prominent in
the story.
=Pocket.=--A real scholar, educated at Harrow, and an honor-man at
Cambridge, but, having married young, he had to take up the calling of
“grinder” and literary fag for a living. Pip was placed in his care.
=Pocket, Herbert.=--Son of Mr. Matthew Pocket, wonderfully hopeful, but
had not the stuff to push his way into wealth.
=Pocket, Mrs.=--Daughter of a city knight, brought up to be an
ornamental nonentity, helpless, shiftless, and useless. She was the
mother of eight children, whom she allowed to “tumble up” as best they
could, under the charge of her maid, Flopson.
=Pocket, Sarah.=--Sister of Matthew Pocket, a little, dry, old woman,
with a small face that might have been made of walnut-shell, and a large
mouth.
=Poor Richard’s Almanac.=--An almanac published by Benjamin Franklin,
1732-1757, noted for its maxims. He made it the medium for teaching
thrift, temperance, order, cleanliness, chastity, forgiveness, and so
on. The maxims or precepts of these almanacs generally end with the
words, “as poor Richard says.”
=Portia= (_pôr´shiä_).--In _The Merchant of Venice_, a rich heiress,
whose hand and fortune hang upon the right choosing between a gold, a
silver, and a leaden casket. She is in love with Bassanio, who, luckily,
chooses well. She appears at the trial of Antonio as a “young doctor of
Rome,” named Balthazar.
=Poyser= (_poi´zer_), =Mrs.=--A character in _Adam Bede_. Some of her
wonderfully shrewd and humorous observations have passed into the
language. Here are some specimens: “It seems as if them as aren’t wanted
here are th’ only folks as aren’t wanted in the other world.” “I’m not
denyin’ the women are foolish; God Almighty made ’em to match the men.”
“It’s hard to tell which is Old Harry when everybody’s got boots on.”
“There’s many a good bit o’ work done with a sad heart.” “It’s poor work
allays settin’ the dead above the livin’. It ’ud be better if folks ’ud
make much on us beforehand, istid o’ beginning when we’re gone.” “Some
folks’ tongues are like the clocks as run on strikin’ not to tell you
the time of day, but because there’s summat wrong in their own inside.”
=Précieuses Ridicules= (_prā-syuz´ ri-di-kul´_), =Les.=--A comedy by
Molière, in ridicule of the _Précieuses_, as they were styled, forming
the coterie of the Hotel de Rambouillet in the seventeenth century. The
_soirées_ held in this hotel were a great improvement on the licentious
assemblies of the period; but many imitators made the thing ridiculous,
because they lacked the same presiding talent and good taste.
The two girls of Molière’s comedy are Madelon and Cathos, the daughter
and niece of Gargibus, a bourgeois. They change their names to Polixène
and Aminte, which they think more genteel, and look on the affectations
of two flunkies as far more _distingués_ than the simple, gentlemanly
manners of their masters. However, they are cured of their folly, and no
harm comes of it.
=Prelude= (_prē´lūd_, or _prel´ūd_), =The=, or _The Growth of a Poet’s
Mind_.--An autobiographical poem, in blank verse, by William Wordsworth.
It was intended as an introduction to “a philosophical poem, containing
views of Man, Nature, and Society; and to be entitled _The Recluse_, as
having for its principal subject the sensations and opinions of a poet
living in retirement.” This poem was to have consisted of three parts,
of which the second only, _The Excursion_, was completed and published.
_The Prelude_ consists of fourteen books: Book one, _Childhood and
Schooltime_; book two, _Schooltime_, continued; book three, _Residence
at Cambridge_; book four, _Summer Vacation_; book five, _Books_; book
six, _Cambridge and the Alps_; book seven, _Residence in London_; book
eight, _Retrospect--Love of Nature Leading to Love of Man_; book nine,
_Residence in France_; book ten, _Residence in France_, continued; book
eleven, _France_, concluded; book twelve, _Imagination and Taste, How
Impaired and Restored_; book thirteen, the same subject continued and
concluded; and book fourteen, _Conclusion_.
=Primrose= (_prim´rōz_), =Rev. Charles.=--_Vicar of Wakefield_,
Goldsmith. A clergyman, rich in heavenly wisdom, but poor indeed in all
worldly knowledge.
=Primrose, Moses.=--Brother of the above, noted for giving in barter a
good horse for a gross of worthless green spectacles with copper rims.
=Primrose, Olivia.=--The eldest daughter of the doctor. Pretty,
enthusiastic, a sort of Hebê in beauty. “She wished for many lovers,”
and eloped with Squire Thorndill.
=Primrose, Sophia.=--The second daughter of Dr. Primrose. She was “soft,
modest, and alluring.”
=Princess:= _a Medley_.--A poem by Alfred Tennyson. “It is,” says
Stedman, “as he entitles it, a medley, constructed of ancient and modern
materials--a show of mediæval pomp and movement, observed through an
atmosphere of latterday thought and emotion. The poet, in his prelude,
anticipates every stricture, and to me the anachronisms and
impossibilities of the story seem not only lawful, but attractive.
Tennyson’s special gift of reducing incongruous details to a common
structure and tone is fully illustrated in a poem made--
“‘To suit with time and place,
A Gothic ruin and a Grecian house,
A talk at college and of ladies’ rights,
A feudal knight in silken masquerade.’
Other works of our poet are greater, but none is so fascinating. Some of
the author’s most delicately musical lines are herein contained. The
tournament scene is the most vehement and rapid passage in the whole
range of Tennyson’s poetry. The songs reach the high water mark of
lyrical compositions. The five melodies--_As Thro’ the Land_, _Sweet and
Low_, _The Splendor Falls_, _Home They Brought_ and _Ask Me No
More_--constitute the finest group of songs produced in our century, and
the third seems to many the most perfect English lyric since the time of
Shakespeare.” The name of the Princess is Ida.
=Priscilla= (_pri-sil´ä_).--_Courtship of Miles Standish_, Longfellow. A
Puritan maiden who is wooed by Captain Standish through the mediation of
his friend, John Alden, who is in love with Priscilla. She prefers John
Alden and marries him after the captain’s supposed death. The captain,
however, appears at the close of the wedding service, and the friends
are reconciled.
=Prometheus= (_prō-mē´thūs_) =Bound.=--A tragedy of Æschylus, of
uncertain date. Prometheus is fabled to have made men of clay, and to
have imparted life to them by means of fire brought from heaven. It was
said that for this he was bound to the rock by order of Zeus, that he
resisted all efforts to subdue his will and purpose, bade defiance to
the father of the gods, and disappeared in an appalling tempest. Mrs.
Browning published a poetical translation in 1833.
=Prospero= (_pros´pe-rō_).--_Tempest_, Shakespeare. Rightful duke of
Milan, deposed by his brother. Drifted on a desert island, he practised
magic, and raised a tempest in which his brother was shipwrecked.
Ultimately Prospero “broke his wand,” and his daughter married the son
of the King of Naples.
=Puff, Mr.=--In Sheridan’s farce _The Critic_, a hack writer, who,
having failed at other occupations, tries criticism for a living, and is
a “professor of the art of puffing.”
=Puss in Boots.=--The subject and title of a well-known nursery tale
derived from a fairy story in the _Nights_ of the Italian author
Straparola, and Charles Perrault’s _Contes des Fées_. The wonderful cat
secures a princess and a fortune for his master, a poor young miller,
whom he passes off as the rich marquis of Carabas.
=Pygmalion= (_pig-mā´li-on_) =and Galatea= (_gal-a-tē´ä_).--A
mythological comedy, by W. S. Gilbert, embodying the fable of the
Athenian sculptor who prayed the gods to put life into the statue of
Galatea which he had fashioned. In the comedy, Galatea evokes the
jealousy of the sculptor’s wife Cynisca; and, after causing great misery
by her very innocence, voluntarily returns to the original stone.
=Pyncheon= (_pin´chon_).--The name of an ancient but decayed family in
Hawthorne’s romance _The House of the Seven Gables_. There are: (1)
Judge Pyncheon, a selfish, cunning, worldly man. (2) His cousin
Clifford, a delicate, sensitive nature, reduced to childishness by long
imprisonment and suffering. (3) Hepzibah, the latter’s sister, an old
maid who devotes herself to the care of Clifford. (4) A second cousin,
Phœbe, a fresh, cheerful young girl, who restores the fallen fortunes of
the family and removes the curse which rested on it.
=Q=
=Quasimodo= (_kwā-si-mō´dō_).--_Notre Dame de Paris_, Hugo. A misshapen
dwarf, one of the prominent characters in the story. He is brought up in
the cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris. One day, he sees Esmeralda, who
had been dancing in the cathedral close, set upon by a mob, and he
conceals her for a time in the church. When, at length, the beautiful
gypsy girl is gibbeted, Quasimodo disappears mysteriously, but a
skeleton corresponding to the deformed figure is found after a time in a
hole under the gibbet.
=Quaver.=--_The Virgin Unmasked_, Fielding. A singing-master, who says,
“if it were not for singing-masters, men and women might as well have
been born dumb.” He courts Lucy by promising to give her
singing-lessons.
=Queen Lab.=--_Arabian Nights._ The queen of magic, ruler over the
enchanted city, in the story of Beder, prince of Persia. She transforms
men into horses, mules, and other animals. Beder marries her, defeats
her plots against him, but is himself turned into an owl for a time.
=Quentin Durward= (_kwen´tin der´wärd_).--A novel by Sir Walter Scott. A
story of French history. The delineations of Louis XI. and Charles the
Bold of Burgundy will stand comparison with any in the whole range of
fiction or history.
=Quickly, Mistress.=--_Merry Wives of Windsor_, Shakespeare. A serving
woman to Dr. Caius, a French physician. She is the go-between of three
suitors for “sweet Anne Page,” and with perfect disinterestedness wishes
all three to succeed.
=Quickly, Mistress Nell.=--Hostess of a tavern in Eastcheap, frequented
by Harry, Prince of Wales, Sir John Falstaff, and all their disreputable
crew.
=Quidnunkis.=--Title and name of hero in a fable found or written by
Gay in 1726. This hero was a monkey which climbed higher than its
neighbors, and fell into a river.
=Quilp= (_kwilp_).--_Old Curiosity Shop_, Dickens. A hideous dwarf,
cunning, malicious, and a perfect master in tormenting. Of hard,
forbidding features, with head and face large enough for a giant, he
lived on Tower hill, collected rents, advanced money to seamen, and kept
a sort of wharf, calling himself a ship-breaker.
=Quintus Fixlein.=--Title of a romance by Jean Paul Richter and the name
of the principal character.
=Quirk, Gammon, and Snap.=--A firm of rascally, scheming, hypocritical
solicitors in Warren’s _Ten Thousand a Year_.
=R=
=Raby, Aurora.=--In Byron’s _Don Juan_. She was a rich, noble English
orphan, “a rose with all its sweetest leaves yet folded.”
=Radigund.=--_Faërie Queene_, Spenser. Queen of the fabled Amazons.
Having been rejected by Bellodant “the Bold,” she revenged herself by
degrading all the men who fell into her power by dressing them like
women, and giving them women’s work.
=Ramayana= [(_rä´-mä´yȧ-nȧ_); _Rāma-ayana_, the goings or doings of
Rama].--One of the two great epics of India, the other being the
Mahabharata. It is ascribed to a poet, Valmiki, and consists at present
of about twenty-four thousand stanzas, divided into seven books. It is
the production of one man, though many parts are later additions, such
as those in which Rama is represented as an incarnation of Vishnu, all
the episodes in the first book, and the whole of the seventh. It was at
first handed down orally, and variously modified in transmission, and
afterward reduced to writing.
=Ramona= (_ra-mō´nä_).--Title of a romance by Helen Hunt Jackson. Ramona
saw the American Indian followed by “civilization” while retreating
slowly but surely toward his own extinction, and had herself a share in
the tragedy. Ramona is considered the great romance of Indian life.
=Random= (_ran´dom_).--_Roderick Random_, Smollett. A young Scotch
scapegrace in quest of fortune. At one time he revels in prosperity,
again he is in utter destitution. He roams at random, in keeping with
his name.
=Rappaccini= (_rap-ä-chē´nē_).--_Mosses from an Old Manse_, Hawthorne. A
doctor in whose garden grew strange plants whose juices and fragrance
were poison. His daughter, nourished on these odors, became poisonous
herself. Her lover found an antidote which she took, but the poison
meant life and the antidote meant death to her.
=Rasselas= (_ras´e-las_).--An imaginary romance by Dr. Johnson.
According to the custom of his country, Abyssinia, Rasselas was confined
in paradise, with the rest of the royal family. This paradise was in the
valley of Amhara, surrounded by high mountains. It had only one
entrance, a cavern concealed by woods, and closed by iron gates. He
escaped with his sister Nekayah and Imlac the poet, and wandered about
to find what condition or rank of life was the most happy. After
investigation, he found no lot without its drawbacks, and resolved to
return to the “Happy Valley.”
=Raud the Strong.=--_Tales of a Wayside Inn_, Henry W. Longfellow. The
viking who worshiped the old gods and lived by fire and sword. King Olaf
went against him, sailing from Drontheim to Salten Fjord.
=Raven, The.=--A poem by Edgar Allan Poe, published in 1845, which has
attained a world-wide popularity. For the author’s account of the mode
of its construction, see _The Philosophy of Composition_, an essay, in
the collected edition of his works. The last verse runs:
And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting,
On the pallid bust of Pallas, just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming,
And the lamplight o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted--Nevermore!
=Ravenswood.=--_Bride of Lammermoor_, Scott. The lord of Ravenswood, an
old Scotch nobleman and a decayed royalist. His son Edgar falls in love
with Lucy Ashton, daughter of Sir William Ashton, Lord-Keeper of
Scotland. The lovers plight their troth, but Lucy is compelled to marry
Frank Hayston, laird of Bucklaw. The bride, in a fit of insanity,
attempts to murder the bridegroom and dies. Bucklaw goes abroad. Colonel
Ashton, seeing Edgar at the funeral of Lucy, appoints a hostile meeting;
and Edgar, on his way to the place appointed, is lost in the quicksands.
A prophecy, noted as a curse, hung over the family and was thus
fulfilled.
=Raymond.=--In _Jerusalem Delivered_, by Tasso. Raymond was known as the
Nestor of the crusaders, slew Aladine, the king of Jerusalem, and
planted the Christian standard upon the tower of David.
=Rebecca.=--_Ivanhoe_, Scott. Daughter of Isaac the Jew, in love with
Ivanhoe.
=Red-cross Knight.=--The Red-cross Knight is St. George, the patron
saint of England, and, in the obvious and general interpretation,
typifies holiness, or the perfection of the spiritual man in religion.
In Spenser’s _Faërie Queene_ the task of slaying a dragon was assigned
to him as the champion of Una.
=Redgauntlet= (_red-gänt´let_).--One of the principal characters in Sir
Walter Scott’s novel of the same name, a political enthusiast and
Jacobite, who scruples at no means of upholding the cause of the
Pretender and finally accompanies him into exile. His race bore a fatal
mark resembling a horseshoe which appeared on the face of Red-gauntlet
as he frowned when angry.
=Red-Riding-Hood.=--This nursery tale is, with slight variations, common
to Sweden, Germany, and France. In Charles Perrault’s _Contes des Fées_
it is called _Le Petit Chaperon Rouge_.
=Religio Medici= (_rē-lij´i-ō med´i-sī_).--A prose work by Sir Thomas
Browne. “_The Religio Medici_,” says the elder Lytton, “is one of the
most beautiful prose poems in the language; its power of diction, its
subtlety and largeness of thought, its exquisite conceits and images,
have no parallel out of the writers of that brilliant age when Poetry
and Prose had not yet divided their domain, and the Lyceum of Philosophy
was watered by the mixing of the wine!”
=Representative Men.=--A work by Emerson which more nearly than any of
his other works, gives expression to his system as a whole. The topics
are: (1) Plato, the Philosopher; (2) Swedenborg, the Mystic; (3)
Montaigne, the Skeptic; (4) Shakespeare, the Poet; (5) Napoleon, the Man
of the World; (6) Goethe, the Writer. The mental portraits sketched
under these six heads give us Emerson himself, so far as he is capable
of being formulated at all.
=Republic, The.=--A work composed by Plato four hundred years before
Christ. _The Republic_ is not, as the title would suggest, a political
work, like the _Politics_ of Aristotle. The principles and government of
an ideal moral organism, of which the rulers shall be types of fully
developed and perfectly educated men, are the real subject. In the
_Republic_ we find the necessity of virtue to the very idea of social
life proved in the first book; then the whole process of a complete
moral and scientific education is set forth. It has been said that the
most complete record of the beliefs or opinions of Plato are found in
this work.
=Reveries of a Bachelor.=--By D. G. Mitchell. The _Reveries_ is a
collection of sketches of life and character, painted in such a
dreamlike, delicate manner as to make the reader lose for the time being
the full consciousness of his surroundings. It has called forth a number
of imitators more or less successful, no one of whom, however, is
comparable to the original.
=Reynard= (_rā´närd_, or _ren´ärd_) =the Fox=.--A beast-epic, so called.
This prose poem is a satire on the state of Germany in the middle ages.
Reynard represents the Church; Isengrin the wolf (his uncle) typifies
the baronial element; and Nodel the lion stands for the regal power. The
plot turns on the struggle for supremacy between Reynard and Isengrin.
Reynard uses all his endeavors to victimize everyone, especially his
uncle Isengrin, and generally succeeds.
=Richelieu= (_rēsh-y-lōō´_), or _The Conspiracy_.--A drama in five acts,
by Edward, Lord Lytton; produced in 1839, the part of the hero being
played by Macready. For some of the incidents the author confesses
himself indebted to the authors of _Cinq Mars_ and _Picciola_. Among the
characters are Baradas, the favorite; De Mauprat, in love with Julie;
Julie de Mortemar herself; Marion de Lorme, mistress of Orleans; Orleans
himself; Louis XIII., and others.
=Rights of Man, The.=--“Being an answer to Mr. Burke’s Attack on the
French Revolution,” by Thomas Paine. This work, which was published in
1791-1792, procured for the writer the distinction of a trial for
sedition, which he escaped by flying to France.
=Rinaldo= (_ri-nal´dō_).--A Christian hero in Tasso’s _Jerusalem
Delivered_. He was the son of Bertoldo and Sophia, and nephew of
Guelpho, but was brought up by Matilda. He was one of Charlemagne’s
paladins, and cousin to Orlando. Having killed Charlemagne’s nephew
Berthelot, he was banished and outlawed. After various adventures and
disasters, he went to the Holy Land, and, on his return, succeeded in
making peace with the emperor.
=Ring and the Book, The.=--A poem by Robert Browning, published in 1869.
It is the story of a tragedy which took place at Rome in 1698. The
versified narrative of the child Pompilia’s sale to Count Guido, of his
cruelty and violence, of her rescue by a young priest, the pursuit, the
lawful separation, the murder by Guido of the girl and her putative
parents, the trial and condemnation of the murderer, and the affirmation
of his sentence by the pope--all this is made to fill out a poem of
twenty-one thousand lines; but these include ten different versions of
the tale, besides the poet’s prelude, in which latter he gives a general
outline of it. The chapters which contain the statements of the priest
lover and Pompilia are full of tragic beauty and emotion. The pope’s
soliloquy, though too prolonged, is a wonderful piece of literary
metempsychosis.
=Rip Van Winkle.=--A tale by Washington Irving, adapted from the old
German legend of Peter Klaus, a goatherd, who drank a miraculous draught
of wine in a dell of the Harz mountains, which brought on sleep from
which he did not wake until twenty years after, when he returned to his
native village to find everything changed, and no one who knew him. In
Irving’s tale the hero is a Dutchman living in America, and the scene is
the Catskill mountains. The story is most picturesquely told, and has
been effectively dramatized, the leading personage being illustrated by
the genius of Jefferson.
=Rivals, The.=--A comedy by Richard Brinsley Sheridan, produced at
Covent Garden, London, in 1775, and described by Hazlitt as “a play of
even more action and incident, but of less wit and satire, than _The
School for Scandal_. It is as good as a novel in the reading, and has
the broadest and most palpable effect upon the stage.”
=Roaring Camp, The Luck of.=--A prose sketch by Francis Bret Harte, an
American poet, in which the softening effects of the presence of a
little child in a camp of ruffians are very touchingly described. It has
been dramatized.
=Rob Roy.=--A romance by Sir Walter Scott which is founded on some
passages in the career of the famous Highlander, Robert MacGregor, who
was popularly called Rob Roy. The nominal hero of _Rob Roy_ is Francis
Osbaldistone; the heroine, Diana Vernon. Among the other characters are
Baillie Nicol Jarvie, “The Dougal Cratur” Andrew Fairservice, Helen
MacGregor, Sir Frederick Vernon, and Rashleigh Osbaldistone. The novel
has been dramatized in a version which still holds the stage in
Scotland. Scott speaks of Rob as “the Robin Hood of Scotland--the dread
of the wealthy, but the friend of the poor, and possessed of many
qualities, both of head and heart, which would have graced a less
equivocal profession than that to which his fate condemned him.”
=Roderick=, or =Roderic= (_rod´er-ik_) =Dhu=.--_Lady of the Lake_,
Scott. An outlaw and chief of a band of Scots who resolved to win back
what had been lost to the Saxons. In connection with Red Murdock he
sought the life of the Saxon Fitz-James.
=Roderigo= (_rod-e-rē´gō_).--In Shakespeare’s _Othello_, a Venetian in
love with Desdemona, who, when the lady eloped with Othello, hated the
“noble Moor.”
=Roland= (_rō´land_).--The hero of one of the most ancient and popular
epics of early French or Frankish literature, and, according to
tradition, the favorite nephew and captain of the Emperor Charlemagne.
Roland is the hero of Théroulde’s _Chanson de Roland_; of Turpin’s
_Chronique_; of Bojardo’s _Orlando Innamorato_; of Ariosto’s _Orlando
Furioso_.
=Romance of the Rose.=--A poetical allegory, begun by Guillaume de
Lorris in the latter part of the thirteenth century, and continued by
Jean Meung in the first half of the fourteenth century. The poet dreams
that Dame Idleness conducts him to the Palace of Pleasure, where he
meets many adventures among the attendant maidens, Youth, Joy, Courtesy,
and others, by whom he is conducted to a bed of roses. He singles out
one, when an arrow from Love’s bow stretches him fainting on the ground.
Fear, Slander, and Jealousy are afterward introduced.
=Romeo.=--In Shakespeare’s tragedy of _Romeo and Juliet_, a son of
Montague, in love with Juliet, the daughter of Capulet, who was the head
of a noble house of Verona, in feudal enmity with the house of Montague.
=Romeo and Juliet.=--A tragedy by William Shakespeare. Romeo, a son of
Montague, in love with Juliet, the daughter of Capulet; but between the
houses of Montague and Capulet there existed a deadly feud. As the
families were irreconcilable, Juliet took a sleeping draught, that she
might get away from her parents and elope with Romeo. Romeo, thinking
her to be dead, killed himself; and when Juliet awoke and found her
lover dead, she also killed herself.
=Romola= (_rom´ō-lä_).--A novel of Italian life and character by George
Eliot. _Romola_ is a marvelously able story of the revival of the taste
and beauty and freedom of Hellenic manners and letters, under Lorenzo
de’ Medici and the scholars of his court, side by side with the revival
of Roman virtue, and more than the ancient austerity and piety, under
the great Dominican Savonarola. This period of history is one which of
all others may well have engrossing interest for George Eliot. Treasures
of learning and discipline, amassed for mankind ages before, for ages
stored and hidden away, see again the sun, are recognized and put to
use. What use they will be put to, with what new and fruitful effects on
the state and the citizen, with what momentary and with what lasting
consequences, this she strives to discover; this she follows through the
public history of Italy during the modern invasion of Charles VIII., and
the events which succeed his invasion, and through the private fortunes
of her admirably chosen group of characters, some of them drawn from
life, all of them true to nature.
=Rosetta= (_rō-zet´tä_) =Stone=.--Found at Rosetta in the delta of the
Nile, contains equivalent inscriptions in hieroglyphics in demotic and
in Greek letters. The meaning of the Greek text being known, the
hieroglyphics could be translated.
=Rowena= (_rō-ē´nä_).--A Saxon princess, ward of Cedric of Rotherwood,
in Sir Walter Scott’s romance of _Ivanhoe_.
=Rumpelstilzchen.=--_Old German Tales._ According to Grimm, this name is
a compound, but the spirit represented is one familiar to all German
children. The original story tells of him as a dwarf who spun straw into
gold for a certain miller’s daughter.
=S=
=Sacripant= (_sak´ri-pant_), =King=.--(1) King of Circassia, and a lover
of Angelica, in Bojordo and Ariosto. (2) A personage in Tassoni’s mock
heroic poem, _Rape of the Bucket_, represented as false, brave, noisy
and hectoring.
=Sagas= (_sä´gas_).--Title of the ancient traditions which form the
substance of the history and mythology of the Scandinavian races. The
language in which they are written is supposed to be the old Icelandic.
In the _Edda_ there are numerous sagas. As our Bible contains the
history of the Jews, religious songs, moral proverbs, and religious
stories, so the _Edda_ contains the history of Norway, religious songs,
a book of proverbs, and numerous stories. The original _Edda_ was
compiled and edited by Sæmund Sigfusson, an Icelandic priest and scald,
in the eleventh century. It contains twenty-eight parts or books, all of
which are in verse. Two hundred years later Snorri Sturleson, of
Iceland, abridged, rearranged, and reduced to prose the _Edda_, and his
work was called _The Younger Edda_. In this we find the famous story
called by the Germans the _Nibelungenlied_. Besides the sagas contained
in the Eddas, there are numerous others, and the whole saga literature
makes over two hundred volumes. Among them are the _Völsunga Saga_,
which is a collection of lays about the early Teutonic heroes. The _Saga
of St. Olaf_ is the history of this Norwegian king. _Frithjof’s Saga_
contains the life and adventures of Frithjof of Iceland. Snorri
Sturleson, at the close of the twelfth century, made the second great
collection of chronicles in verse, called the _Heimskringla Saga_. This
is a most valuable record of the laws, customs and manners of the
ancient Scandinavians.
=Sakuntala.=--A famous drama by Kâlidasa. The daughter of Viswamita and
a water nymph, abandoned by her parents, and brought up by a hermit. One
day, King Dushyanta came to the hermitage, and persuaded Sakuntala to
marry him. In due time a son was born, but Dushyanta left his bride at
the hermitage. When the boy was six years old, his mother took him to
the king, and Dushyanta recognized his wife by a ring which he had given
her. Sakuntala was now publicly proclaimed queen, and the boy (whose
name was Bhârata) became the founder of the glorious race of the
Bhâratas.
=Samson Agonistes= (_sam´son ag-o-nis´tēz_).--A sacred drama by Milton.
Samson, blind and bound, triumphs over his enemies. As in the Bible
story, he grasps two of the supporting pillars, and perishes in the
general ruin.
=Sancho Panza= (_sang´kō pan´zä_).--The esquire and counterpart of Don
Quixote in Cervantes’ famous novel. He has much shrewdness in practical
matters, and a store of proverbial wisdom. He rode upon an ass and was
noted for his proverbs.
=Sartor Resartus= (_sär´tor rē-sär´tus_), (_i. e._, _The Tailor
Patched_).--The title of an old Scottish ballad, being _The Life and
Opinions of Herr Teufelsdröckh, in Three Books_, by Thomas Carlyle. It
may be described as a kind of philosophical romance, in which the author
gives us, in the form of a review of a supposed German work on dress,
and a notice of the writer, his opinions on things in general. The hero,
it has been said, seems to be intended for a portraiture of human nature
as affected by the moral influence to which a cultivated mind would be
exposed by acquaintance with the transcendental philosophy of Fichte.
=Satyrane= (_sat´i-rān_), =Sir=.--_Faërie Queene_, Spenser. A noble
knight who delivered Una from the fauns and satyrs. The meaning seems to
be that Truth, driven from the towns and cities, took refuge in caves
and dens where for a time it lay concealed. At length Sir Satyrane
(Luther) rescues Una from bondage; but no sooner is this the case than
she falls in with Archimago, to show how very difficult it was at the
time of the Reformation to separate Truth from Error.
=Sawyer, Bob.=--_Pickwick Papers_, Dickens. A drinking young doctor who
tries to establish a practice at Bristol, but without success. Sam
Weller calls him “Mr. Sawbones.”
=Scalds=, or =Skalds=.--Court poets and chroniclers of the ancient
Scandinavians. They resided at court, were attached to the royal suite,
and attended the king in all his wars. These bards celebrated in song
the gods, the kings of Norway, and national heroes. Few complete Skaldic
poems have survived, but a multitude of fragments exist.
=Scarlet Letter, The.=--A romance by Nathaniel Hawthorne, published in
1850. The heroine, Hester Prynne, was condemned to wear conspicuously
the letter “A” in scarlet, token of her sin as mother of her child,
Pearl, whose father was not known. She was first exposed in disgrace on
a raised scaffold, then served a term in prison, and afterward gained a
moderate support for herself and child by embroidering. She refused to
reveal the name of the father, although she might then be allowed to lay
aside the letter. He was always near, held an important position, and
lived a life of wearing remorse. After his death Hester Prynne took her
child to another country, but returned to spend her old age in seclusion
and comfort in the same place that had witnessed her punishment. She
always bore herself proudly, but not defiantly, and brought to herself
such love and respect that the scarlet letter became a badge of honor.
Roger Chillingworth, Hester’s husband, appeared as a learned foreign
physician, visited her in prison, but promised not to reveal his
relation to her, and devoted his life to learning her secret. The
characters in the story are intense, and the analysis of motives subtle.
=Scheherazade=, or =Sheherazade= (_she-hē´rä-zād_).--_Arabian Nights._
The fabled relater of the stories in these “Entertainments.”
=Scaramouche= (_skar´a-mouch_).--An Italian character whose traits are
cowardice and boastfulness. He is of Spanish creation, copied into
Italian comedy.
=Schlemihl= (_shlem´el_), =Peter=.--The name of the hero of a little
work by Chamisso, a man who sells his shadow to the devil. The name has
become a byword for any poor, silly, and unfortunate fellow.
=Schneider= (_shnī´der_).--Rip Van Winkle’s dog, in Boucicault’s
dramatization of Irving’s _Rip Van Winkle_. The name of the dog in the
story is “Wolf.”
=School for Scandal, The.=--A comedy by Richard Brinsley Sheridan,
produced at Covent Garden, London, in 1777, and characterized by Hazlitt
as, “if not the most original, perhaps the most finished and faultless
comedy which we have. The scene in which Charles Surface sells all the
old family pictures but his uncle’s, who is the purchaser in disguise,
and that of the discovery of Lady Teazle when the screen falls, are
among the happiest and most highly wrought that comedy, in its wide and
brilliant range, can boast. Besides the art and ingenuity of this play,
there is a genial spirit of frankness and generosity that relieves the
heart as well as clears the lungs. While it strips off the mask of
hypocrisy, it inspires a confidence between man and man.”
=School for Wives= [_L’Ecole des Femmes_ (_lä-kol´ dā fam´_)].--A comedy
by Molière. Arnolph has a crotchet about the proper training of girls to
make good wives, and tries his scheme upon Agnes, whom he adopts from a
peasant’s cottage, and designs in due time to make his wife. He sends
her from early childhood to a convent, where difference of sex and the
conventions of society are wholly ignored. When removed from the
convent, she treats men as if they were schoolgirls, kisses them, plays
with them, and treats them with girlish familiarity. The consequence is,
a young man name Horace falls in love with her, and makes her his wife,
and Arnolph loses his painstaking.
=School of Husbands= [_L’Ecole des Maris_ (_lä-kol´ da mä-re´_)] A
comedy by Molière. Ariste and Sganarelle, two brothers, bring up Léonor
and Isabelle, two orphan sisters, according to their systems for making
them in time their model wives. Sganarelle’s system was to make the
woman dress plainly, live retired, attend to domestic duties, and have
few indulgences. Ariste’s system was to give the woman great liberty,
and trust to her honor. Isabelle, brought up by Sganarelle, deceived him
and married another; but Léonor, brought up by Ariste, made him a fond
and faithful wife.
=Scottish Chiefs, The.=--A romantic story by Jane Porter, published in
1810, and counting among its heroes Robert Bruce and Sir William
Wallace.
=Scourge of God.=--Attila, king of the Huns. A. P. Stanley says the term
was first applied to Attila in the Hungarian _Chronicles_. It is found
in a legend belonging to the eighth or ninth century.
=Scrooge= (_skröj_), =Ebenezer=.--_Christmas Carol_, Dickens. The
prominent character, made partner, executor, and heir of old Jacob
Marley, stockbroker.
=Seasons, The.=--A series of poems by James Thomson, which appeared in
the following order: _Winter_; _Summer_; _Spring_; and _Autumn_; the
whole being republished, with the famous _Hymn_. Horace Walpole said
that he would rather have written the most absurd lines by Lee than _The
Seasons_; but Wordsworth, on the other hand, speaks of it as “a work of
inspiration. Much of it,” he says, “is written from himself, and nobly
from himself.”
=Sebastian= (_se-bas´tian_).--(1) Brother of Viola, in _Twelfth Night_.
They were twins, and so much alike that they could not be distinguished
except by their dress. Sebastian and his sister being shipwrecked,
escaped to Illyria. Here Sebastian was mistaken for his sister (who had
assumed man’s apparel), and was invited by the Countess Olivia to take
shelter in her house from a street broil. Olivia was in love with Viola,
and thinking Sebastian to be the object of her love, married him. (2)
Brother of Alfonso, king of Naples, in _The Tempest_. (3) Father of
Valentine and Alice, in Beaumont and Fletcher’s _Mons. Thomas_.
=Sedley, Mr.=--_Vanity Fair_, Thackeray. A wealthy London stockbroker,
brought to ruin in the money market just prior to the battle of
Waterloo.
=Selith.=--One of the two guardian angels of the Virgin Mary and St.
John the divine, in Klopstock’s _Messiah_.
=Sempronius= (_sem-prō´ni-us_).--In Shakespeare’s _Timon of Athens_, a
flatterer of Timon, who excuses himself from lending Timon money on the
ground that others had been asked first.
=Senena.=--_Madoc_, Southey. A Welsh maiden in love with Caradoc. Under
the assumed name of Mervyn she became the page of the Princess Goervyl,
that she might follow her lover to America, where Madoc colonized
Caer-Madoc. Senena was promised in marriage to another; but when the
wedding day arrived the bride was nowhere to be found.
=Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy.=--By Laurence Sterne,
published in 1768. Sterne describes this work as follows: “It is a
subject which works well, and suits the frame of mind in which I have
been for some time past. I told you my design in it was to teach us to
love the world and our fellow creatures better than we do--so it runs
most upon these gentler passions and affections which add so much to
it.”
=Serena= (_sā-rā´nä_).--_Faërie Queene_, Spenser. Allured into the
fields by the mildness of the weather, to gather wild flowers for a
garland, she was attacked by the Blatant Beast, which carried her off in
its mouth. Her cries attracted to the spot Sir Calidore, who compelled
the beast to drop its prey.
=Sesame.=--In Arabian tales given as the talismanic word which would
open or shut the door leading into the cave of the forty thieves. In
order to open it, the words to be uttered were, “Open, Sesame!” and in
order to close it, “Shut, Sesame!” Sesame is a plant yielding grain
which is sometimes used for food, and from which an oil is expressed.
When Cassim forgot the word, he substituted “Barley,” but without
effect. Sesame has come into general use in connection with any word or
act which will open the way for accomplishment of the thing desired.
=Seven Lamps of Architecture, The.=--A treatise on architecture by
Ruskin, published in 1849. The “seven lamps” are those of Sacrifice,
Truth, Power, Beauty, Life, Memory, and Obedience. They are symbolic
rules for the guidance of the student.
=Sganarelle= (_sgä-nä-rel´_).--The hero of Molière’s comedy _La Mariage
Force_. He is represented as a humorist of about fifty-three, who,
having a mind to marry a fashionable young woman, but feeling a doubt,
consults his friends upon this momentous question. Receiving no
satisfactory counsel, and not much pleased with the proceedings of his
bride elect, he at last determines to give up his engagement, but is
cudgeled into compliance by the brother of his intended.
=Shallow.=--A braggart and absurd country justice in Shakespeare’s
_Merry Wives of Windsor_, and in the second part of _King Henry IV._
=Shandy, Mrs.=--The mother of Tristram Shandy in Sterne’s novel of this
name. She is the ideal of nonentity, a character individual from its
very absence of individuality.
=Shandy, Tristram.=--The nominal hero of Sterne’s _The Life and Opinions
of Tristram Shandy, Gent._
=Shandy, Walter.=--The name of Tristram Shandy’s father in Sterne’s
novel of this name, a man of an active and metaphysical, but at the same
time a whimsical, cast of mind, whom too much and too miscellaneous
learning had brought within a step or two of madness.
=Sharp, Becky.=--A leading character in Thackeray’s _Vanity Fair_, the
daughter of a poor painter, dashing, selfish, unprincipled, and very
clever.
=Shepherd of Salisbury Plain, The.=--The hero and title of a religious
tract by Hannah More. The shepherd is noted for his homely wisdom and
simple piety.
=Shepherd’s Calendar, The.=--Twelve eclogues in various meters, by
Spenser, one for each month. January: Colin Clout (Spenser) bewails that
Rosalind does not return his love. February: Cuddy, a lad, complains of
the cold, and Thenot laments the degeneracy of pastoral life. March:
Willie and Thomalin discourse of love. April: Hobbinol sings a song on
Eliza. May: Palinode exhorts Piers to join the festivities of May, but
Piers replies that good shepherds who seek their own indulgence expose
their flocks to the wolves. June: Hobbinol exhorts Colin to greater
cheerfulness. July: Morrel, a goatherd, invites Thomalin to come with
him to the uplands. August: Perigot and Willie contend in song, and
Cuddy is appointed arbiter. September: Diggon Davie complains to
Hobbinol of clerical abuses. October: On poetry. November: Colin being
asked by Thenot to sing, excuses himself because of his grief for Dido,
but finally sings her elegy. December: Colin again complains that his
heart is desolate. Thenot is an old shepherd bent with age, who tells
Cuddy, the herdsman’s boy, the fable of the oak and the brier, one of
the best-known fables included in the calendar.
=Shepherd’s Pipe.=--Pan, in Greek mythology, was the god of forests,
pastures, and flocks, and the reputed inventor of the shepherd’s flute
or pipe.
=Sheridan’s Ride.=--A lyric by T. B. Read, one of the few things written
during the heat of the Civil war that is likely to survive.
=She Stoops to Conquer.=--A comedy by Oliver Goldsmith, said to have
been founded on an incident which actually occurred to its author. When
Goldsmith was sixteen years of age, a wag residing at Ardagh directed
him, when passing through that village, to Squire Fetherstone’s house as
the village inn. The mistake was not discovered for some time, but all
concerned enjoyed the joke. _She Stoops to Conquer_ is one of the
gayest, pleasantest, and most amusing pieces of English comedy.
=Shingebis.=--In Longfellow’s _Hiawatha_, the diver who challenged the
North Wind and put him to flight in combat.
=Shocky.=--_The Hoosier Schoolmaster_, Edw. Eggleston. The little lad
from the poorhouse who adores the schoolmaster and early warns him of
plans for upsetting his authority. He is also a small poet, not in
rhyming, but in comprehension of things about him and in his way of
looking at life, and he grows to be a helper in the _Church of the Best
Licks_, founded by the schoolmaster.
=Shylock.=--A sordid, avaricious, revengeful Jew, in Shakespeare’s
_Merchant of Venice_.
=Siege Perilous, The.=--The Round Table contained sieges, or seats, in
the names of different knights. One was reserved for him who was
destined to attainment in the quest of the Holy Grail. This seat was
called “perilous” because if anyone sat therein except he for whom it
was reserved, he would “lose himself.” It finally bore the name of Sir
Galahad.
=Siegfried= (_sēg´frēd_).--The hero of various Scandinavian and Teutonic
legends, particularly of the old German epic poem, the _Nibelungenlied_.
He is represented as a young warrior of physical strength and beauty,
and in valor superior to all men of his time. He cannot easily be
identified with any historical personage.
=Sikes, Bill.=--A brutal thief and housebreaker in Dickens’ novel
_Oliver Twist_. He murders his mistress, Nancy, and, in trying to lower
himself by a rope from the roof of a building where he had taken refuge
from the crowd, he falls, and is choked in a noose of his own making.
Sikes had an ill-conditioned, savage dog, the beast-image of his master,
which he kicked and loved, ill-treated and fondled.
=Silas Marner= (_mär´ner_).--A novel by George Eliot, published in 1861.
This novel is one of the authoress’ most beautiful stories, the most
poetical of them all--the tale of Silas Marner, who deems himself
deserted and rejected utterly of God and man, and to whom, in his
deepest misery, in place of lost gold, a little foundling girl is sent.
This tale is the most hopeful of all her books. The contemplation of the
renewal of enterprise and energy, which comes with little children, and
of the promise with which each new generation gilds the crown of honor
for its sires, is pleasant and grateful to her. She writes upon her
title page the lines of Wordsworth:
A child, more than all other gifts
That earth can offer to declining man,
Brings hope with it and forward-looking thoughts.
The weaver of Raveloe and Eppie are creations after Wordsworth’s own
heart.
=Silken Thread.=--_Gulliver’s Travels._ In the kingdom of Lilliput, the
three great prizes of honor are “fine silk threads six inches long, one
blue, another red, and a third green.” The thread is girt about the
loins, and no ribbon of the Legion of Honor, or of the Knight of the
Garter, is worn more worthily or more proudly.
=Sindbad= (_sind´bad_) =the Sailor.=--A character in the _Arabian
Nights_, in which is related the story of his strange voyages and
wonderful adventures.
=Sinon.=--In Vergil’s _Æneid_ the cunning Greek who, by a false tale,
induced the Trojans to drag the wooden horse into Troy.
=Sir Roger de Coverley= (_kuv´er-li_).--In Addison’s _The Spectator_.
The prototype of this famous character was Sir John Pakington, a
hypothetical baronet of Coverley or Cowley, near Oxford.
=Skeleton in Armor, The.=--A lyric by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,
suggested to him while riding on the seashore at Newport. A year or two
previous a skeleton had been dug up at Fall River, clad in broken and
corroded armor; and the idea occurred to him of connecting it with the
Round Tower at Newport, generally known hitherto as the Old Windmill,
though now claimed by the Danes as a work of their early ancestors.
=Sketch-Book, The.=--A series of short tales, sketches, and essays,
published by Washington Irving in 1820. They are chiefly descriptive of
English manners and scenery, and have often been reprinted.
=Skylark, Ode to the.=--By Percy Bysshe Shelley, written in 1820. “In
sweetness,” says Leigh Hunt, “and not even there in passages, the _Ode
to the Skylark_ is inferior only to Coleridge--in rapturous passion to
no man. It is like the bird it sings--enchanting, profuse, continuous,
and alone; small, but filling the heavens.”
Hail to thee, blithe spirit!
Bird thou never wert,
That, from heaven, or near it,
Pourest thy full heart
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.
=Slick, Sam.=--The hero of various humorous narratives, by Haliburton,
illustrating and exaggerating the peculiarities of the Yankee character
and dialect.
=Slop, Dr.=--The name of a choleric and uncharitable physician in
Sterne’s _Tristram Shandy, Gent._
=Slough of Despond.=--_Pilgrim’s Progress_, Bunyan. A deep bog, which
Christian had to pass on his way to the Wicket Gate.
=Sly, Christopher.=--_Taming of the Shrew_, Shakespeare. A keeper of
bears and a tinker and a sad drinker, son of a peddler.
=Sofronia= (_sof-rō´ni-ä_).--A young Christian of Jerusalem, the heroine
of an episode in Tasso’s _Jerusalem Delivered_. She and her lover,
Olinda, are condemned to death by Aladine, king of Jerusalem. The king
finally, at the solicitation of Clorinda, spares them and they are
married.
=Sohrab= (_sö-hrâb´_) =and Rustum.=--An episode, or narrative in verse,
by Matthew Arnold. The story is told in prose in Sir John Malcolm’s
_History of Persia_. “The powerful conception of the relation between
the two chieftains, and the slaying of the son by the father, are,” says
Stedman, “tragical and heroic. The descriptive passage at the close
beginning--
But the majestic river floated on,
for diction and breadth of tone would do honor to any living poet.”
=Song of Roland.=--An ancient song recounting the deeds of Roland, the
renowned nephew of Charlemagne, slain in the pass of Roncesvalles. At
the battle of Hastings, Taillefer advanced on horseback before the
invading army, and gave the signal for onset by singing this famous
song.
=Spanker, Lady Gay.=--In _London Assurance_, by Boucicault, is a woman
of great spirit, devoted to the chase.
=Speed.=--An inveterate punster and the clownish servant of Valentine,
one of the two “gentlemen” in Shakespeare’s _The Two Gentlemen of
Verona_.
=Spenlow= (_spen´lō_).--_Lavinia_ and _Clarissa_, in Dickens’ _David
Copperfield_, two spinster aunts of Dora Spenlow, with whom she lived at
the death of her father.
=Squeers.=--Name of a family prominent in Dickens’ _Nicholas Nickleby_.
Wackford Squeers, master of Dotheboys Hall, in Yorkshire, is a vulgar,
conceited, ignorant schoolmaster, overbearing and mean. He steals the
boys’ pocket money, clothes his son in their best suits, half starves
them, and teaches them next to nothing. Ultimately he is transported for
theft. Mrs. Squeers, a raw-boned, harsh, heartless virago, with no
womanly feeling for the boys put under her charge. Miss Fanny Squeers,
daughter of the schoolmaster. Miss Fanny falls in love with Nicholas
Nickleby, but later hates him because he is insensible to the soft
impeachment. Master Wackford Squeers, over-bearing, self-willed and
passionate.
=Squire of Dames.=--A personage introduced by Spenser in the _Faërie
Queene_, and whose curious adventures are there recorded. The expression
is sometimes applied to a person devoted to the fair sex.
=Steerforth= (_stēr´fōrth_), =James.=--_David Copperfield_, Dickens. The
young man who led little Em’ly astray. When tired of his toy, he
proposed to her to marry his valet. Steerforth, being shipwrecked off
the coast of Yarmouth, Ham Peggotty tried to rescue him, but both were
drowned.
=Stentor= (_sten´tor_).--A Grecian herald in the Trojan war whom Homer
describes as great-hearted, brazen-voiced Stentor, accustomed to shout
as loud as fifty other men.
=Stephano= (_stef´a-nō_).--(1) In Tasso’s _Jerusalem Delivered_, earl of
Carnuti, the leader of four hundred men in the allied Christian army. He
was noted for his military prowess and wise counsel; (2) a drunken
butler in Shakespeare’s _The Tempest_; (3) servant to Portia in
Shakespeare’s _Merchant of Venice_.
=Stiggins, Rev. Mr.=--A red-nosed, hypocritical “shepherd,” or Methodist
parson, in Dickens’ _Pickwick Papers_, with a great appetite for
pineapple rum. He is the spiritual adviser of Mrs. Weller, and lectures
on temperance.
=Strephon= (_stref´on_).--The shepherd in Sir Philip Sidney’s _Arcadia_,
who makes love to the beautiful Urania. It is a stock name for a lover,
Chloe being usually the corresponding lady.
=Strongback.=--One of the seven attendants of Fortunio, in D’Aulnoy’s
_Fairy Tales_. He could never be overweighted, and could fell a forest
in a few hours without fatigue.
=Summer, St. Martin’s.=--The fine weather which generally occurs in
October and November; referred to in _Henry VI._
=T=
=Tabard= (_tab´ārd_), =The.=--Is the inn, in High Street, Southwark,
London, from which Chaucer makes his pilgrims start on their journey to
Canterbury. It took its name from its sign--a tabard.
=Tale of Two Cities, A.=--A novel, by Charles Dickens, originally
produced in _All the Year Round_ for 1859, and afterward republished in
complete form. The author says he first conceived the main idea of the
story when acting, with his children and friends, in Wilkie Collins’
drama of _The Frozen Deep_. His narrative is drawn from the scenes of
the French revolution of 1789; and it was one of Dickens’ hopes, he
says, to add something to the popular and picturesque means of
understanding that terrible time; “though no one,” he continues, “can
hope to add anything to the philosophy of Carlyle’s wonderful book.”
=Tales of a Wayside Inn.=--Name given by Longfellow to a collection of
short poems arranged by himself and collected together much in the same
form as Chaucer’s _Canterbury Tales_. These “tales” were mostly gathered
from old literature and translated into Longfellow’s own verses--only
one, _The Birds of Killingworth_, being said to be entirely original.
Seven narratives are represented: the Landlord, the Student, the Spanish
Cavalier, the Jew, the Sicilian, the Musician, and the Theologian. Four
colonial tales are included in the work: _Paul Revere’s Ride_,
_Elizabeth_, _Lady Wentworth_, and _The Rhyme of Sir Christopher_.
=Taming of the Shrew, The.=--A comedy by Shakespeare. The incident of
Vincentio’s personation by the pedant was borrowed by Shakespeare from
George Gascoigne’s _Supposes_. The chief characters are Petruchio and
his wife Katharine, the shrew.
=Tam O’Shanter.=--The title of a poem by Burns, and the name of its
hero, a farmer, who, riding home very late and very drunk from Ayr, in a
stormy night, had to pass by the kirk of Alloway, a place reputed to be
a favorite haunt of the devil and his friends and emissaries. On
approaching the kirk, he perceived a light gleaming through the windows;
but, having got courageously drunk, he ventured on till he could look
into the edifice, when he saw a dance of witches. His presence became
known, and in an instant all was dark; and Tam, recollecting himself,
turned and spurred his horse to the top of her speed, chased by the
whole fiendish crew. It is a current belief that witches, or any evil
spirits, have no power to follow a poor wight any farther than the
middle of the next running stream. Fortunately for Tam, the River Doon
was near, and he escaped, while the witches held only the tail of his
mare Maggie. It has been said of _Tam O’Shanter_ that in no other poem
of the same length can there be found so much brilliant description,
pathos, and quaint humor, nor such a combination of the terrific and the
ludicrous.
=Tancred= (_tang´kred_).--In Tasso’s _Jerusalem Delivered_, was the
greatest of all the Christian warriors, except Rinaldo.
=Tartufe=, or =Tartuffe= (_tār-tūf´_).--One of Molière’s best known
comedies. Tartuffe is a religious hypocrite and impostor, who uses
“religion” as the means of gaining money, covering deceit, and promoting
self-indulgence. He is taken up by one Orgon, a man of property, who
promises him his daughter in marriage; but, his true character being
exposed, he is not only turned out of the house, but is lodged in jail
for felony.
Isaac Bickerstaff adapted Molière’s comedy to the English stage, under
the title of _The Hypocrite_. Tartuffe he calls “Dr. Cantwell,” and
Orgon “Sir John Lambert.” It is thought that “Tartuffe” is a caricature
of Père la Chaise, the confessor of Louis XIV., who was very fond of
truffles (French, _truffes_), and that this suggested the name to the
dramatist.
=Task, The.=--A poem by William Cowper. “_The Task_,” says Southey, “was
at once descriptive, moral, and satirical. The descriptive parts
everywhere bore evidence of a thoughtful mind and a gentle spirit, as
well as of an observant eye; and the moral sentiment which pervaded them
gave a charm in which descriptive poetry is often found wanting. The
best didactic poems, when compared with _The Task_, are like formal
gardens in comparison with woodland scenery.” “_The Task_,” says
Hazlitt, “has fewer blemishes than _The Seasons_; but it has not the
same capital excellence, the ‘unsought grace’ of poetry, the power of
moving and infusing the warmth of the author’s mind into that of the
reader.”
=Teazle= (_tē´zl_), =Lady.=--The heroine of Sheridan’s comedy _The
School for Scandal_, and the wife of Sir Peter Teazle, an old gentleman
who marries late in life. She is represented as being “a lively and
innocent, though imprudent, country girl, transplanted into the midst of
all that can bewilder and endanger her, but with enough of purity about
her to keep the blight of the world from settling upon her.”
=Teazle, Sir Peter.=--A character in Sheridan’s play _The School for
Scandal_, husband of Lady Teazle.
=Télémaque= (_tā-lā-mȧk´_), =Les Aventures de:= “_Adventures of
Telemachus_”.--A romance by Fenelon, published in 1699. It is founded on
the legendary history of Telemachus, and is one of the classics of
French literature. Though the beautiful fiction of _Telemachus_, which
has much in common with, and was doubtless suggested to Fenelon by the
_Argenis_, be rather an epic poem in prose than a romance, it seems to
have led the way to several political romances, or, at least, to have
nourished a state for this species of composition.
=Tell, William.=--Title of a drama by Schiller. The hero is chief of the
confederates of the forest cantons of Switzerland, and son-in-law of
Walter Fürst. Having refused to salute the Austrian cap which Gessler,
the Austrian governor, had set up in the market-place of Altdorf, he was
condemned to shoot an apple from the head of his own son. He succeeded
in this perilous task, but, letting fall a concealed arrow, was asked by
Gessler with what object he had secreted it. “To kill thee, tyrant,” he
replied, “if I had failed.” The governor now ordered him to be carried
in chains across the Lake Lucerne to Küssnacht Castle, “there to be
devoured alive by reptiles”; but, a violent storm having arisen on the
lake, he was unchained, that he might take the helm. Gessler was on
board; and, when the vessel neared the castle, Tell leaped ashore, gave
the boat a push into the lake, and shot the governor. After this he
liberated his country from the Austrian yoke.
=Tempest, The.=--One of Shakespeare’s fairy plays. The story runs:
Prospero, duke of Milan, was dethroned by his brother Antonio, and left
on the open sea with his three-year-old daughter Miranda, in “a rotten
carcass of a boat.” In this they were carried to an enchanted island,
uninhabited except by a hideous creature, Caliban, the son of a witch.
Prospero was a powerful enchanter, and soon had not only Caliban, but
all the spirits of the region under his control, including Ariel, chief
of the spirits of the air. Years afterward Antonio, Alfonso, Sebastian
and other friends of the usurper came near the island. Prospero, by his
magic, raises a storm which casts their ship on the shore and the whole
party are spellbound and brought to Prospero. Plots and counterplots
follow, bringing in Caliban and clowns; but all are made ridiculous and
are defeated by Prospero and Ariel.
=Tessa= (_tes´ä_).--In George Eliot’s novel of _Romola_ is the peasant
girl who is deceived into marriage with Tito Melema.
=Thangbrand.=--_Tales of a Wayside Inn_, Henry W. Longfellow. King
Olaf’s drunken priest, “short of stature, large of limb,” who was sent
to Iceland, found the people poring over their books, and sailed backed
to Norway to say to Olaf “little hope is there of these Iceland men.”
=Theagenes= (_thē-aj´e-nēz_)= and Chariclea= (_kar-i-klē´ä_).--The chief
characters in a Greek love story, by Heliodorus, bishop of Trikka,
fourth century. A charming fiction, largely borrowed from by subsequent
novelists, and especially by Mdlle. de Scudéri, Tasso, Guarini, and
D’Urfé.
=Thekla.=--The daughter of Wallenstein in Schiller’s drama of this name.
She is an invention of the poet.
=Theodorus.=--The name of a physician, in Rabelais’ romance of
_Gargantua_. At the request of Ponocrates, Gargantua’s tutor, he
undertook to cure the latter of his vicious manner of living, and
accordingly “purged him canonically with Anticyrian hellebore,” by which
medicine he cleared out all the perverse habits of his brain, so that he
became a man of honor, sense, courage, and piety.
=Theresa=, or =Teresa= (_te-rē´sä_, or _tā-rā´sä_).--Daughter of the
count palatine of Padolia, beloved by Mazeppa, in Byron’s _Mazeppa_.
=Thersites= (_ther-sī´tēz_).--A scurrilous Grecian chief, loquacious,
loud and coarse, in the _Iliad_. His chief delight was to inveigh
against the kings of Greece. He squinted, halted, and on his tapering
head grew a few white patches of starveling down.
=Thopas, Sir.=--In the _Canterbury Tales_, a capital sportsman, archer,
wrestler, and runner, who resolved to marry no one but an “elf queen,”
and accordingly started for Faëryland. Story left unfinished.
=Thorberg Skafting.=--_Tales of a Wayside Inn_, Henry W. Longfellow. The
master-builder ordered by King Olaf to build a ship twice as long and
twice as large as the _Dragon_, built by Raud the Strong, which was
stranded.
=Three Musketeers= [_Trois Mousquetaires_ (_trwä mös-ke-tar´_),
_Les_].--A novel by Alexander Dumas _père_, published in 1844. The scene
is laid in the time of Richelieu. The three musketeers are Athos,
Porthos, and Aramis, but D’Artagnan is the principal character. He is a
young Gascon of an adventurous yet practical nature, with a genius for
intrigue, who goes up to Paris to seek his fortune with an old horse, a
box of miraculous salve given to him by his mother, and his father’s
counsels. His career is one of hairbreadth escapes (with death, in the
end, on the field of battle) in the society of the three musketeers.
=Thyestean Banquet.=--Referred to in Milton’s _Paradise Lost_. A
cannibal feast. Thyestes was given his own two sons to eat at a banquet
served up to him by his brother Atreus.
=Thyrsis= (_ther´sis_).--A herdsman introduced in the _Idylls_ of
Theocritos, and in Vergil’s _Eclogues_.
Hard by, a cottage chimney smokes
From betwixt two aged oaks,
Where Corydon and Thyrsis, met,
Are at their savory dinner set.
Milton, _L’Allegro_.
=Timias.=--King Arthur’s squire in Spenser’s _Faërie Queene_. He went
after the “wicked foster,” from whom Florimel fled, and the “foster”
with his two brothers, falling on him, were all slain.
=Tobey, Uncle.=--A character in Sterne’s _Tristram Shandy_. A captain
who was wounded at the siege of Namur, and was obliged to retire from
the service. He is the impersonation of kindness, benevolence, and
simple-heartedness; his courage is undoubted, and his gallantry
delightful for its innocence and modesty.
=Tommy Atkins.=--_Barrack-Room Ballads_, Kipling. The name is here used
in its general meaning, a British soldier. The name came from the little
pocket ledgers served out, at one time, to all British soldiers. In
these manuals were to be entered the name, the age, the date of
enlistment, etc. The war office sent with each little book a form for
filling it in, and the hypothetical name selected was _Tommy Atkins_.
The books were instantly so called, and it did not require many days to
transfer the name from the book to the soldier.
=Tom Sawyer, Adventures of.=--By Mark Twain. An “elastic” youth whose
performances delight both old and young readers. Queer enterprises,
influenced by the old superstitions among slaves and children in the
Western states give reliable pictures of boy-life in the middle of the
nineteenth century.
=Topsy.=--_Uncle Tom’s Cabin_, Mrs. Stowe. A young slave-girl, who never
knew whether she had either father or mother, and being asked by Miss
Ophelia St. Clare how she supposed she came into the world, replied, “I
’spects I growed.”
=Touchstone= (_tuch´stōn_).--A clown in Shakespeare’s _As You Like It_.
His seven degrees of the lie are: (1) The retort courteous, (2) the quip
modest, (3) the reply churlish, (4) the reproof valiant, (5) the
countercheck quarrelsome, (6) the lie circumstantial, (7) the lie
direct.
=Townley Mysteries.=--Certain religious dramas; so called because the
MS. containing them belonged to P. Townley. These dramas are supposed to
have been acted at Widkirk abbey, in Yorkshire.
=Tranio= (_trā´ni-ō_).--In Shakespeare’s _Taming of the Shrew_, one of
the servants of Lucentio, the gentleman who marries Bianca, sister of
Katharina “the Paduan shrew.”
=Triads.=--Three subjects, more or less connected, formed into one
continuous poem or subject; thus the “Creation, Redemption, and
Resurrection” would form a triad.
=Trim, Corporal.=--Uncle Toby’s attendant, in Sterne’s novel, _The Life
and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gent._, distinguished for his fidelity
and affection, his respectfulness, and his volubility.
=Tristram= (_tris´tram_), =Sir.=--One of the most celebrated heroes of
mediæval romance. His adventures form an episode in the history of
Arthur’s court, and are related by Thomas the Rhymer, as well as by many
romancists.
=Tubal= (_tū´bal_).--A wealthy Jew, the friend of Shylock, in
Shakespeare’s _The Merchant of Venice_.
=Tuck, Friar.=--_Ivanhoe_, Scott. The father-confessor of Robin Hood and
connected with Fountain’s Abbey. He is represented as a clerical
Falstaff, very fat and self-indulgent, very humorous, and somewhat
coarse. His dress was a russet habit of the Franciscan order. He was
sometimes girt with a rope of rushes. Friar Tuck also appears in the
“morris dance” on Mayday.
=Turveydrop.=--_Bleak House_, Dickens. A conceited dancing-master, who
imposes on the world by his majestic appearance and elaborate toilette.
He is represented as living upon the earnings of his son, who has a most
slavish reverence for him as a perfect “master of deportment.”
=Tutivillus= (_tū-ti-vil´us_).--In Langland’s _Visions of Piers
Plowman_, the demon who collects all the fragments of words omitted,
mutilated, or mispronounced by priests in the performance of religious
services, and stores them up in that “bottomless” pit which is “paved
with good intentions.”
=Tweedledum and Tweedledee.=--The prince of Wales was the leader of the
Handel party, supported by Pope and Dr. Arbuthnot; and the duke of
Marlborough led the Bononcinists, and was supported by most of the
nobility.
=Twelfth Night.=--A drama by Shakespeare. The story is said to have come
from a novelette written early in the sixteenth century. A brother and
sister, twins, are shipwrecked. Viola, dressed like her brother, becomes
page to the duke Orsino. The duke was in love with Olivia, and, as the
lady looked coldly on his suit, he sent Viola to advance it; but the
willful Olivia, instead of melting toward the duke, fell in love with
his beautiful page. Sebastian, the twin-brother of Viola, was attacked
in a street brawl before Olivia, and, thinking him to be the page, she
invited him in. The result was the marriage of Sebastian to Olivia, and
of the duke to Viola.
=Twice-Told Tales.=--A collection of tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne, some
of which had been already published in the _Token_, and other
periodicals. They are mystical and, though in prose form, are the work
of a poet. The tales are nearly all American in subject, but are treated
from the spiritual rather than the practical side.
=Two Gentlemen of Verona= (_vā-rō´nä_).--A drama by Shakespeare, the
story of which is taken from the Diana of Montemayor (sixteenth
century). The plot resembles that of _Twelfth Night_, as Julia,
disguised as a page, is a prominent figure.
=U=
=Uarda= (_ö-är´dä_).--A novel by Ebers, published in 1877. The scene is
laid chiefly in Egypt at the time of the reign of Rameses II.
=Ubaldo.=--_Jerusalem Delivered_, Tasso. One of the older crusaders, who
had visited many regions. He and Charles the Dane went to bring back
Rinaldo from the enchanted castle.
=Ubeda.=--_Don Quixote_, Cervantes. A noted artist who one day painted a
picture, but was obliged to write under it, “This is a cock,” in order
that the spectator might know what was intended to be represented.
=Thule= (_thū´lē_).--“_Ultima Thule._” The extremity of the world; the
most northern point known to the ancient Romans. Pliny and others say it
is Iceland.
=Una= _(ū´nä_).--_Faërie Queene_, Spenser. The personification of truth.
She goes, leading a lamb and riding on a white ass, to the court of
Gloriana, to crave that one of her knights might undertake to slay the
dragon which kept her father and mother prisoners. The adventure is
accorded to the Red Cross Knight. Being driven by a storm into Wandering
Wood, a vision is sent to the knight which causes him to leave Una, and
she goes in search of him. In her wanderings a lion becomes her
attendant. After many adventures, she finds St. George, “the Red Cross
Knight,” but he is severely wounded. Una takes him to the House of
Holiness, where he is carefully nursed, and then leads him to Eden.
=Uncle Tom’s Cabin.=--A work of fiction by Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe.
It had an enormous sale, and at once made the author famous. As a
picture of slave life as it once obtained in the Southern states of
America it is certainly unsurpassed. The scenes described in it are so
terrible that Mrs. Stowe deemed it advisable to publish in 1853 a _Key_
to the work, showing the large extent to which it is founded upon fact.
The hero is, of course, Uncle Tom.
Uncle Tom was an old negro slave of unaffected piety, and most faithful
in the discharge of all his duties. His master, a humane man, becomes
embarrassed in his affairs, and sells him to a slave-dealer. After
passing through various hands, and suffering intolerable cruelties, he
dies. The figure next in interest is Legree, the brutal slave-owner.
Everyone, also, will remember Eva and Topsy.
=Urganda= (_ör-gän´dä_).--In the romance of _Amadis de Gaul_, a powerful
fairy sometimes appearing in all the terrors of an evil enchantress.
=Uriel= (_ū´ri-el_), or =Israfil=.--In the _Koran_, the angel who is to
sound the resurrection trumpet. Longfellow, in _The Golden Legend_,
calls him “the minister of Mars,” and says that he inspires man with
“fortitude to bear the brunt and suffering of life.”
=Uther= (_ū´ther_).--Son of Constans, one of the fabulous or legendary
kings of Britain, and the father of Arthur.
=Utopia= (_ū-tö´pi-ä_).--The name of an imaginary island described in
the celebrated work of Sir Thomas More, in which was found the utmost
perfection in laws, politics, and social arrangements. More’s romance
obtained a wide popularity, and the epithet _Utopian_ has since been
applied to schemes for the improvement of society which are deemed not
practicable.
=Uzziel.=--In _Paradise Lost_, the next in command to Gabriel. The word
means “God’s strength.”
=V=
=Valentine= (_val´en-tīn_).--(1) One of the heroes in the old romance of
_Valentine and Orson_. (2) One of the _Two Gentlemen of Verona_, by
Shakespeare. (3) A gentleman attending on the duke in Shakespeare’s
_Twelfth Night_. (4) One of the characters in Goethe’s _Faust_. He is a
brother of Margaret.
=Valerian= (_va-lē´ri-an_).--_Canterbury Tales_, Chaucer. The husband of
St. Cecilia. Cecilia told him she was beloved by an angel, who
constantly visited her; and Valerian requested to see this visitant.
Cecilia replied that he could do so if he went to Pope Urban to be
baptized. This he did, and on returning home the angel gave him a crown
of lilies, and to Cecilia a crown of roses, both from the garden of
paradise.
=Valley of Humiliation.=--_Pilgrim’s Progress_, Bunyan. The place where
Christian encountered Apollyon, just before he came to the “Valley of
the Shadow of Death.”
=Vanity Fair.=--A novel without a hero, by Thackeray. “There are scenes
of all sorts,” says the author in his preface to the work, “some
dreadful combats, some grand and lofty horse-riding, some scenes of high
life and some of very middling indeed, some love making for the
sentimental, and some light comic business; the whole accompanied by
appropriate scenery, and brilliantly illuminated by the author’s own
candle.”
=Vathek= (_vath´ek_).--By Beckford. Originally written in French. “It
was composed,” says the author, “at twenty-two years of age. It took me
three days and two nights of hard labor. I never took off my clothes the
whole time.” The description of the Hall of Eblis, which is often
quoted, was taken, it appears, from the old hall at Fonthill, Beckford’s
residence, probably the largest in any private house in England. “It was
from that hall I worked, magnifying and coloring it with Eastern
character. All the female characters were portraits drawn from the
domestic establishment of old Fonthill, their good or evil qualities
ideally exaggerated to suit my purpose.” _Vathek_ was translated into
English, it is not known by whom, immediately on its appearance. “It was
one of the tales,” says Byron, “I had a very early admiration of. For
correctness of costume, beauty of description, and power of imagination,
it far surpasses all European imitations, and bears such marks of
originality that those who have visited the East will find some
difficulty in believing it to be more than a translation.”
=Veck, Toby.=--_The Chimes_, Dickens. A ticket-porter who went on
errands and bore the nickname Trotty. One New Year’s eve he had a
nightmare and fancied he had mounted to the steeple of a neighboring
church, and that goblins issued out of the bells. He was roused from his
sleep by the sound of the bells ringing in the new year.
=Veiled Prophet.=--_Lalla Rookh_, Moore. He assumed to be a god, and
maintained that he had been Adam, Noah, and other representative men.
Having lost an eye, and being otherwise disfigured in battle, he wore a
veil to conceal his face, but his followers said it was done to screen
his dazzling brightness.
=Vernon, Di=, or =Diana=.--_Rob Roy_, Scott. The heroine of the story, a
high-born girl of great beauty and talents. She is an enthusiastic
adherent to a persecuted religion and an exiled king.
=Vicar of Wakefield.=--A novel by Goldsmith. The hero is Dr. Primrose, a
simple-minded, pious clergyman, with six children. He begins life with a
good fortune, a handsome house, and wealthy friends, but is reduced to
poverty without any fault of his own, and, being reduced like Job, like
Job he is restored.
=Vincentio= (_vin-sen´shiō_).--The duke of Vienna in Shakespeare’s
_Measure for Measure_. He commits his scepter to Angelo, under the
pretext of being called to take an urgent and distant journey, and by
exchanging the royal purple for a monk’s hood, observes incognito the
condition of his people.
=Vincy= (_vin´si_), =Rosamond.=--One of the principal female characters
in George Eliot’s novel _Middlemarch_.
=Viola.= (_vi´ō-lä_)--_Twelfth Night_, Shakespeare. A sister of
Sebastian. They were twins, and so much alike that they could be
distinguished only by their dress. When they were shipwrecked Viola was
brought to shore by the captain, but her brother was left to shift for
himself. Being in a strange land, Viola dressed as a page, and, under
the name of Cesario, entered the service of Orsino, duke of Illyria. The
duke greatly liked his beautiful page, and, when he discovered her true
sex, married her.
=Violenta.=--_All’s Well That Ends Well_, Shakespeare. A character in
the play who enters upon the scene only once, and then she neither
speaks nor is spoken to. The name has been used to designate any young
lady nonentity; one who contributes nothing to the amusement or
conversation of a party.
=Virgilia= (_ver-jil´i-ä_).--In Shakespeare’s _Coriolanus_, was the wife
of Coriolanus, and Volumnia his mother; but historically Volumnia was
his wife and Veturia his mother.
=Virginia= (_ver-jin´i-ä_).--A young Roman plebeian of great beauty,
decoyed by Appius Claudius, one of the decemvirs, and claimed as his
slave. Her father, Virginius, being told of it, hastened to the forum,
and arrived at the moment when Virginia was about to be delivered up to
Appius. He seized a butcher’s knife, stabbed his daughter to the heart,
rushed from the forum, and raised a revolt. This has been the subject of
a host of tragedies. It is one of Lord Macauley’s lays (1842), supposed
to be sung in the forum on the day when Sextus and Licinius were elected
tribunes for the fifth time.
=Vivian= (_viv´i-an_), or =Viviane=, or =Vivien=.--In the Arthurian
cycle of romance, an enchantress, the mistress of Merlin. She brought up
Lancelot in her palace, which was situated in the midst of a magical
lake; hence her name “the Lady of the Lake.”
=Volpone= (_vol-pō´ne_), or the _Fox_.--A comedy by Ben Jonson, written
in 1605. Hazlitt calls it his best play; prolix and improbable, but
intense and powerful. It seems formed on the model of Plautus in unity
of plot and interest. The principal character is represented as a
wealthy sensualist, who tests the character of his friends and kinsmen
by a variety of strategems, obtains from them a large addition to his
riches by the success of his impostures, and finally falls under the
vengeance of the law. “_Volpone_,” says Campbell, “is not, like the
common misers of comedy, a mere money-loving dotard, a hard, shriveled
old mummy, with no other spice than his avarice to preserve him--he is a
happy villain, a jolly misanthrope, a little god in his own selfishness;
and Mosca is his priest and prophet. Vigorous and healthy, though past
the prime of life, he hugs himself in his harsh humor, his successful
knavery and imposture, his sensuality and his wealth, with an unhallowed
relish of selfish existence.”
=W=
=Wallenstein= (_väl´len-stīn_).--A trilogy by Schiller, comprising
_Wallenstein’s Lager_, _Die Piccolomini_, and _Wallenstein’s Tod_.
Schiller conceives his hero in these dramas as the type of the practical
realist, serious, solitary, and reserved.
=Wandering Jew, The=--(F. _Le Juif Errant_).--A novel by Eugene Sue. The
chief character is an imaginary person in a legend connected with the
history of Christ’s passion. As the Savior was on the way to the place
of execution, overcome with the weight of the cross, he wished to rest
on a stone before the house of a Jew, who drove him away with curses.
Driven by fear and remorse, he has since wandered, according to the
command of the Lord, from place to place, and has never yet been able to
find a grave.
=War and Peace.=--An historical novel by Tolstoi, published 1865-1868.
The scene is laid in the time of the Czar Alexander I., and the novel is
a picture of Russian society during the Russo-French wars.
=Waverley= (_wā´ver-li_) =Novels.=--General name given to Scott’s
historical novels.
=Wayside Inn, Tales of a.=--Poems in various meters by Henry Wadsworth
Longfellow. The first series includes a Prelude (_The Wayside Inn_), the
Landlord’s Tale (_Paul Revere’s Ride_), the Student’s Tale (_The Falcon
of Ser Federigo_), the Spanish Jew’s Tale (_The Legend of Rabbi Ben
Levi_), the Sicilian’s Tale (_King Robert of Sicily_), the Musician’s
Tale (_The Saga of King Olaf_), the Theologian’s Tale (_Torquemada_),
the Poet’s Tale (_The Birds of Killingworth_), several Interludes, and
Finale.
=Weller= (_wel´er_), =Sam.=--In Dickens’ celebrated _Pickwick Papers_. A
servant to Mr. Pickwick, to whom he becomes devotedly attached. Rather
than leave his master when he is sent to the Fleet, Sam Weller gets his
father to arrest him for debt. He is an inimitable compound of wit,
simplicity, quaint humor, and fidelity. Tony Weller, father of Sam; a
coachman of the old school, who drives between London and Dorking. On
the coachbox he is a king, elsewhere a mere London “cabby.” He marries a
widow, and his constant advice to his son is, “Sam, beware of the
vidders.”
=Westward Ho!=--A novel by Charles Kingsley, the scene of which is laid
in “the spacious times of great Elizabeth,” when the safety of England
was threatened by the Spanish armada. Several historical personages
figure in the story, such as Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Richard Grenville,
Admiral Hawkins, and Sir Francis Drake; and the narrative carries the
reader from Bideford to London, and from thence to Ireland, to the
Spanish main, and the South American continent, back again to Bideford
and Plymouth, whence the hero, Amyas Leigh, sails to take part in the
famous sea-fight.
=Wild= (_wīld_), =Jonathan.=--A cool, calculating, heartless villain,
with the voice of a Stentor, hero of Defoe’s romance of the same name.
=Wilford.=--(1) In Knowles’ _The Hunchback_, supposed to be earl of
Rochdale. (2) In Knowles’ _The Beggar of Bethnal Green_, the truant son
of Lord Woodville, who fell in love with Bess, the daughter of the
“blind beggar of Bethnal Green.”
=Wilhelm Meister= (_vil´helm mīs´ter_).--Title of a philosophic novel by
Goethe. The object is to show that man, despite his errors and
shortcomings, is led by a guiding hand, and reaches some higher aim at
last. This is considered to be the first true German novel.
=Wimble= (_wim´bl_), =Will.=--A member of the fictitious _Spectator
Club_, said to be intended as a portrait of a Mr. Thomas Morecroft, a
gentleman of simple habits and good nature.
=Winter’s Tale, The.=--A play by Shakespeare. Leontês, King of Sicily,
invites his friend Polixenês to visit him, becomes jealous, and commands
Camillo to poison him. Camillo warns Polixenês, and flees with him to
Bohemia. Leontês casts his queen, Hermionê, into prison, where she gives
birth to a daughter. Hermoinê is reported dead and the child is brought
up by a shepherd, who calls it Perdita. Florizel sees Perdita and falls
in love with her; but Polixenês, his father, tells her that she and the
shepherd shall be put to death if she encourages the suit. Florizel and
Perdita flee to Sicily, and being introduced to Leontês, it is soon
discovered that Perdita is his lost daughter. Polixenês tracks his son
to Sicily, and consents to the union. The party are invited to inspect a
statue of Hermoinê, and the statue turns out to be the living queen.
=Worldly-Wiseman, Mr.=--One of the characters in Bunyan’s _Pilgrim’s
Progress_, who converses with Christian by the way, and endeavors to
deter him from proceeding on his journey.
=Wrayburn= (_rā´bern_) =Eugene.=--_Our Mutual Friend_, Dickens.
Barrister-at-law; an indolent, moody, whimsical young man, who loves
Lizzie Hexam. After he is nearly killed by Bradley Headstone, he reforms
and marries Lizzie, who saved his life.
=Y=
=Yahoo= (_yȧ-hö´_).--A name given by Swift, in his satirical romance of
_Gulliver’s Travels_, to one of a race of brutes having the form and all
the vices of man. The Yahoos are represented as being subject to the
Houyhnhnms, or horses endowed with reason.
=Yorick= (_yor´ik_).--(1) The King of Denmark’s jester, mentioned in
Shakespeare’s _Hamlet_. Hamlet picks up his skull in the churchyard and
apostrophizes it. (2) A humorous and careless parson in Sterne’s
_Tristram Shandy_.
=Z=
=Zadig.=--The title of a novel by Voltaire. Zadig is a wealthy young
Babylonian, and the object of the novel is to show that the events of
life are beyond human control.
=Zanoni= (_za-nō´ni_).--Hero of a novel, so-called, by Lord Lytton.
Zanoni is supposed to possess the power of communicating with spirits,
prolonging life, and producing gold, silver, and precious stones.
=Zara= (_zä´rä_; French, _zaire_), a tragedy by Voltaire. Zara is the
daughter of Lusignan d’Outremer, king of Jerusalem and brother of
Nerestan. For twenty years Lusignan and his two children were captives
at the court of the sultan Osman. The latter loves Zara, and was jealous
of Nerestan, of whose relationship he was ignorant, and stabbed her to
the heart. Nerestan being brought before the sultan, told him he had
slain his sister. Osman then stabbed himself out of remorse.
=Zenobia= (_ze-nō´bi-ä_).--_Blithedale Romance_, Hawthorne. A
strong-minded woman, beautiful and intelligent, who was interested in
playing out the pastoral of the life at Brook Farm. She is represented
as disappointed in love, and at last she drowned herself.
=Zephon.=--A “strong and subtle spirit” in Milton’s _Paradise Lost_,
whom Gabriel dispatched with Ithuriel to find Satan.
=Zillah.=--One of Southey’s characters, beloved by Hamuel, a brutish
sot. Zillah rejected his suit, and Hamuel vowed vengeance. Accordingly,
he gave out that Zillah had intercourse with the devil, and she was
condemned to be burnt alive. God averted the flames, which consumed
Hamuel; but Zillah stood unharmed, and the stake to which she was bound
threw forth white roses, “the first ever seen on earth since paradise
was lost.”
=Zimri= (_zim´ri_).--In Dryden’s _Absalom and Achitophel_, is intended
for George Villiers, duke of Buckingham, who had satirized Dryden in
_The Rehearsal_ as Bayes.
=Zophiel= (_zō´fi-el_).--In Milton’s _Paradise Lost_, an angelic scout.
=Zuleika= (_zū-lē´kä_).--The heroine in Byron’s poem of _The Bride of
Abydos_, in love with Selim:
“Fair, as the first that fell of womankind...
Soft, as the memory of buried love;
Pure, as the prayer which childhood wafts above:
Such was Zuleika--such around her shone
The nameless charms unmark’d by her alone:
The light of love, the purity of grace,
The mind, the music breathing from her face,
The heart whose softness harmonized the whole--
And, oh! that eye was in itself a soul!”
[Illustration: This beautiful Roman temple, said to have been erected by
Agrippa in 27 B. C, was dedicated to all the gods of Greece and Rome. It
is lighted by a single aperture in the center of its magnificent dome.
(See illustration on next page.)]