Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol. 1 | Page 8

alone with him I talk of nothing else, and in company I give him frequent hints of it. In a word, all my talk is how vile and bad it is in him to love another better than he loves his wife" (act v. sc. 1).--Shakespeare, Comedy of Errors (1593).
ADRIA'NO DE ARMA'DO (Don), a pompous, fantastical Spaniard, a military braggart in a state of peace, as Parolles (3 syl.) was in war. Boastful but poor; a coiner of words, but very ignorant; solemnly grave, but ridiculously awkward; majestical in gait, but of very low propensities.--Shakespeare, Love's Labour Lost (1594).
(Said to be designed for John Florio, surnamed "The Resolute," a philologist. Holofernes, the pedantic schoolmaster, in the same play, is also meant in ridicule of the same lexicographer.)
You may remember, scarce five years are past Since in your brigantine you sailed to see The Adriatic wedded to our duke.
T. Otway, Venice Preserved, i. 1 (1682).
AD'RIEL, in Dryden's Absalom and Achitophel, the earl of Mulgrave, a royalist.
Sharp-judging Adriel, the Muses' friend; Himself a muse. In sanhedrim's debate True to his prince, but not a slave to state; Whom David's love with honours did adorn, That from his disobedient son were torn.
Part i.
(John Sheffield, earl of Mulgrave (1649-1721) wrote an _Essay on Poetry_.)
ADRIENNE LECOUVREUR, French actress, said to have been poisoned by flowers sent to her by a rival. Died in 1730.
AE'ACUS, king of Oeno'pia, a man of such integrity and piety, that he was made at death one of the three judges of hell. The other two were Minos and Rhadaman'thus.
AEGE'ON a huge monster with 100 arms and 50 heads, who with his brothers, Cottus and Gyg��s, conquered the Titans by hurling at them 300 rocks at once. Homer says men call him "Aege'on," but by the gods he is called Bri'areus (3 syl.).
Bri��reos or Typhon, whom the den By ancient Tarsus held.
--Milton, Paradise Lost, I. 199.
Aege'on, a merchant of Syracuse, in Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors (1593).
AEMYLIA, a lady of high degree, in love with Am'yas, a squire of inferior rank. Going to meet her lover at a trysting-place, she was caught up by a hideous monster, and thrust into his den for future food. Belphoeb�� (3 syl.) slew "the caitiff" and released the maid (canto vii.). Prince Arthur, having slain Corflambo, released Amyas from the durance of Paea'na, Corflambo's daughter, and brought the lovers together "in peace and joyous blis" (canto ix.).--Spencer, Fa?ry Queen, iv. (1596).
AEMIL'IA, wife of Aege'on the Syracusian merchant, and mother of the twins called Antiph'olus. When the boys were shipwrecked, she was parted from them and taken to Ephesus. Here she entered a convent, and rose to be the abbess. Without her knowing it, one of her twins also settled in Ephesus, and rose to be one of its greatest and richest citizens. The other son and her husband ?geon both set foot in Ephesus the same day without the knowledge of each other, and all met together in the duke's court, when the story of their lives was told, and they became again united to each other.--Shakespeare, Comedy of Errors (1593).
AENE'AS, a Trojan prince, the hero of Virgil's epic called Aeneid. He was the son of Anchi'ses and Venus. His first wife was Creu'sa (3 syl.), by whom he had a son named Asca'nius; his second wife was Lavinia, daughter of Latinus king of Italy, by whom he had a posthumous son called Aene'as Sylvius. He succeeded his father-in-law in the kingdom, and the Romans called him their founder.
According to Geoffrey of Monmouth "Brutus," the first king of Britain (from whom the island was called Britain), was a descendant of ?neas.
AENE'ID, the epic poem of Virgil, in twelve books. When Troy was taken by the Greeks and set on fire, Aene'as, with his father, son, and wife, took flight, with the intention of going to Italy, the original birthplace of the family. The wife was lost, and the old father died on the way; but after numerous perils by sea and land, ?neas and his son Asca'nius reached Italy. Here Lat?nus, the reigning king, received the exiles hospitably, and promised his daughter Lavin'ia in marriage to ?neas; but she had been already betrothed by her mother to prince Turnus, son of Daunus, king of Ru'tuli, and Turnus would not forego his claim. Latinus, in this dilemma, said the rivals must settle the dispute by an appeal to arms. Turnus being slain, ?neas married Lavinia, and ere long succeeded his father-in-law on the throne.
Book I. The escape from Troy; ?neas and his son, driven by a tempest on the shores of Carthage, are hospitably entertained by queen Dido.
II. ?neas tells Dido the tale of the wooden horse, the burning of Troy, and his flight with his father, wife, and son. The wife was lost and died.
III. The