Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol. 1 | Page 7

has a poem on the subject, called The Shepherd of King Admetus (1819-1891).
AD'MIRABLE (The): (1) Aben-Ezra, a Spanish rabbin, born at Tole'do (1119-1174). (2) James Crichton (Kry-ton), the Scotchman (1551-1573). (3) Roger Bacon, called "The Admirable Doctor" (1214-1292).
ADOLF, bishop of Cologne, was devoured by mice or rats in 1112. (See HATTO.)
AD'ONA, a seraph, the tutelar spirit of James, the "first martyr of the twelve."--Klopstock, The Messiah, iii. (1748).
ADONAI, the mysterious spirit of pure mind, love, and beauty that inspires Zanoni, in Bulwer's novel of that name.
ADONAIS, title of Percy Bysshe Shelley's elegy upon John Keats, written in 1821.
A'DONBEC EL HAKIM, the physician, a disguise assumed by Saladin, who visits sir Kenneth's sick squire, and cures him of a fever.--Sir W. Scott, The Talisman (time, Richard I.).
ADO'NIS, a beautiful youth, beloved by Venus and Proser'pina, who quarrelled about the possession of him. Jupiter, to settle the dispute, decided that the boy should spend six months with Venus in the upper world and six with Proserpina in the lower. Adonis was gored to death by a wild boar in a hunt.
Shakespeare has a poem called Venus and Adonis. Shelley calls his elegy on the poet Keats Adona'is, under the idea that the untimely death of Keats resembled that of Adonis.
(Adonis is an allegory of the sun, which is six months north of the horizon, and six months south. Thammuz is the same as Adonis, and so is Osiris).
ADONIRAM PENN, the obstinate and well-to-do farmer in Mary E. Wilkins's Revolt of "Mother". He persists in building a new barn which the cattle do not need instead of the much-needed dwelling for his family. In his absence, "Mother," who was wont to "stand before her husband in the humble fashion of a Scripture woman," moves household and furniture into the commodious barn.
"Adoniram was like a fortress whose walls had no active resistance, and went down the instant the right besieging tools were used" (1890).
AD'ORAM, a seraph, who had charge of James the son of Alphe'us.--Klopstock, The Messiah, iii. (1748).
ADOSINDA, daughter of the Gothic governor of Auria, in Spain. The Moors having slaughtered her parents, husband, and child, preserved her alive for the captain of Alcahman's regiment. She went to his tent without the least resistance, but implored the captain to give her one night to mourn the death of those so near and dear to her. To this he complied, but during sleep she murdered him with his own scymitar. Roderick, disguised as a monk, helped her to bury the dead bodies of her house, and then she vowed to live for only one object, vengeance. In the great battle, when the Moors were overthrown, she it was who gave the word of attack, "Victory and Vengeance!"--Southey, _Roderick, etc._, iii. (1814).
ADRAM'ELECH (ch=k), one of the fallen angels. Milton makes him overthrown by U'riel and Raphael (Paradise Lost, vi. 365). According to Scripture, he was one of the idols of Sepharvaim, and Shalmane'ser introduced his worship into Samaria. [The word means "the mighty magnificent king."]
The Sepharvites burnt their children in the fire to Adramelech.--2 Kings xvii. 31.
Klopstock introduces him into The Messiah, and represents him as surpassing Satan in malice and guile, ambition and mischief. He is made to hate every one, even Satan, of whose rank he is jealous, and whom he hoped to overthrow, that by putting an end to his servitude he might become the supreme god of all the created worlds. At the crucifixion he and Satan are both driven back to hell by Obad'don, the angel of death.
ADRASTE' (2 syl.), a French gentleman, who inveigles a Greek slave named Isidore from don P��dre. His plan is this: He gets introduced as a portrait-painter, and thus imparts to Isidore his love, and obtains her consent to elope with him. He then sends his slave Za?de (_2 syl_.) to don P��dre, to crave protection for ill treatment, and P��dre promises to befriend her. At this moment Adraste appears, and demands that Za?de be given up to him to punish as he thinks proper. P��dre intercedes; Adraste seems to relent; and P��dre calls for Za?de. Out comes Isidore instead, with Za?de's veil. "There," says P��dre, "take her and use her well." "I will do so," says the Frenchman, and leads off the Greek slave.--Moli��re, Le Sicilien, ou L'Amour Peintre (1667).
ADRIAN'A, a wealthy Ephesian lady, who marries Antiph'olus, twin-brother of Antipholus of Syracuse. The abbess Aemilia is her mother-in-law, but she knows it not; and one day when she accuses her husband of infidelity, she says to the abbess, if he is unfaithful it is not from want of remonstrance, "for it is the one subject of our conversation. In bed I will not let him sleep for speaking of it; at table I will not let him eat for speaking of it; when