Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol. 1 | Page 5

to manhood, Perseus accidentally struck the foot of Acrisius with a quoit, and the blow caused his death. This tale is told by Mr. Morris in _The Earthly Paradise_ (April).
ACTAE'ON, a hunter, changed by Diana into a stag. A synonym for a cuckold.
Divulge Page himself for a secure and wilful Act?on [cuckold].
Shakespeare, Merry Wives, etc., act iii. sc. 2 (1596).
ACTE'A, a female slave faithful to Nero in his fall. It was this het?ra who wrapped the dead body in cerements, and saw it decently interred.
This Actea was beautiful. She was seated on the ground; the head of Nero was on her lap, his naked body was stretched on those winding-sheets in which she was about to fold him, to lay him in his grave upon the garden hill.--Ouida, Ariadn��, i. 7.
ACTORS AND ACTRESSES. The last male actor that took a woman's character on the stage was Edward Kynaston, noted for his beauty (1619-1687). The first female actor for hire was Mrs. Saunderson, afterwards Mrs. Betterton, who died in 1712.
AD, AD'ITES (2 syl.). Ad is a tribe descended from Ad, son of Uz, son of Irem, son of Shem, son of Noah. The tribe, at the Confusion of Babel, went and settled on Al-Ahkaf [the Winding Sands], in the province of Hadramant. Shedad was their first king, but in consequence of his pride, both he and all the tribe perished, either from drought or the Sarsar (an icy wind).--Sale's Koran, 1.
Woe, woe, to Irem! Woe to Ad! Death, has gone up into her palaces!.... They fell around me. Thousands fell around. The king and all his people fell; All, all, they perished all.
Southey, Thalaba the Destroyer, i. 41, 45 (1797).
A'DAH, wife of Cain. After Cain had been conducted by Lucifer through the realms of space, he is restored to the home of his wife and child, where all is beauty, gentleness, and love. Full of faith and fervent in gratitude, Adah loves her infant with a sublime maternal affection. She sees him sleeping, and says to Cain--
How lovely he appears! His little cheeks In their pure incarnation, vying with The rose leaves strewn beneath them. And his lips, too, How beautifully parted! No; you shall not Kiss him; at least not now. He will awake soon-- His hour of midday rest is nearly over.
Byron, Cain.
ADAM. In Greek this word is compounded of the four initial letters of the cardinal quarters:
Arktos, [Greek: arktos]. north. Dusis, [Greek: dusis]. west. Anatol��, [Greek: anatolae]. east. Mesembria, [Greek: mesaembria]. south.
The Hebrew word ADM forms the anagram of A [dam], D [avid], M [essiah].
Adam, how made. God created the body of Adam of Salzal, i.e. dry, unbaked clay, and left it forty nights without a soul. The clay was collected by Azrael from the four quarters of the earth, and God, to show His approval of Azrael's choice, constituted him the angel of death.--Rabadan.
Adam, Eve, and the Serpent. After the fall Adam was placed on mount Vassem in the east; Eve was banished to Djidda (now Gedda, on the Arabian coast); and the Serpent was exiled to the coast of Eblehh.
After the lapse of 100 years Adam rejoined Eve on mount Arafaith [place of Remembrance], near Mecca.--D'Ohsson.
Death of Adam. Adam died on Friday, April 7, at the age of 930 years. Michael swathed his body, and Gabriel discharged the funeral rites. The body was buried at Ghar'ul-Kenz [the grotto of treasure], which overlooks Mecca.
His descendants at death amounted to 40,000 souls.--D'Ohsson.
When Noah, entered the ark (the same writer says) he took the body of Adam in a coffin with him, and when he left the ark restored it to the place he had taken it from.
Adam, a bailiff, a jailer.
Not that Adam that kept the paradise, but that Adam that keeps the prison.--Shakespeare, Comedy of Errors, act iv. sc. 3 (1593).
Adam, a faithful retainer in the family of sir Eowland de Boys. At the age of fourscore, he voluntarily accompanied his young master Orlando into exile, and offered to give him his little savings. He has given birth to the phrase, "A Faithful Adam" [_or man-servant].--Shakespeare, As You Like It_ (1598).
ADAM BELL, a northern outlaw, noted for his archery. The name, like those of Clym of the Clough, William of Cloudesly, Robin Hood, and Little John, is synonymous with a good archer.
ADAMASTOR, the Spirit of the Cape, a hideous phantom, of unearthly pallor; "erect his hair uprose of withered red, his lips were black, his teeth blue and disjointed, his beard haggard, his face scarred by lightning, his eyes shot livid fire, his voice roared." The sailors trembled at sight of him, and the fiend demanded how they dared to trespass "where never hero braved his rage before?" He then told them "that every year the shipwrecked should be made to deplore their foolhardiness."--Cam?ens, The Lusiad, v.