Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol. 1 | Page 4

ACES'TES (3 syl.). In a trial of skill, Acestes, the Sicilian, discharged
his arrow with such force that it took fire from the friction of the
air.--The Æneid, Bk. V.
Like Acestes' shaft of old, The swift thought kindles as it flies.
Longfellow, To a Child.
ACHATES [A-ka'-teze], called by Virgil "fidus Achates." The name
has become a synonym for a bosom friend, a crony, but is generally
used laughingly.--The Æneid.
He, like Achates, faithful to the tomb.

Byron, Don Juan, i. 159.
ACHER'IA, the fox, went partnership with a bear in a bowl of: milk.
Before the bear arrived, the fox skimmed off the cream and drank the
milk; then, filling the bowl with mud, replaced the cream atop. Says the
fox, "Here is the bowl; one shall have the cream, and the other all the
rest: choose, friend, which you like." The bear told the fox to take the
cream, and thus bruin had only the mud.--A Basque Tale.
A similar tale occurs in Campbell's _Popular Tales of the West
Highlands_ (iii. 98), called "The Keg of Butter." The wolf chooses the
bottom when "oats" were the object of choice, and the top when
"potatoes" were the sowing.
Rabelais tells the same tale about a farmer and the devil. Each was to
have on alternate years what grew under and over the soil. The farmer
sowed turnips and carrots when the under-soil produce came to his lot,
and barley or wheat when his turn was the over-soil produce.
ACHILLE GRANDISSIME, "A rather poor specimen of the
Grandissime type, deficient in stature, but not in stage manner."--The
Grandissimes, by George W. Cable (1880).
ACHIL'LES (3 syl.), the hero of the allied Greek army in the siege of
Troy, and king of the Myr'midons.--See _Dictionary of Phrase and
Fable_.
The English Achilles, John Talbot, first earl of Shrewsbury
(1373-1453).
The duke of Wellington is so called sometimes, and is represented by a
statue of Achilles of gigantic size in Hyde Park, London, close to
Apsley House (1769-1852).
The Achilles of Germany, Albert, elector of Brandenburg (1414-1486).
Achilles of Rome, Sicin'ius Denta'tus (put to death B.C. 450).

ACHIT'OPHEL, "Him who drew Achitophel," Dryden, author of the
famous political satire of Absalom and Achitophel. "David" is Charles
II.; his rebellious son "Absalom" is the king's natural son, the handsome
but rebellious James duke of Monmouth; and "Achitophel," the
traitorous counsellor, is the earl of Shaftesbury, "for close designs and
crooked counsels fit."
Can sneer at him who drew Achitophel.
Byron, Don Juan, iii. 100.
There is a portrait of the first earl of Shaftesbury (Dryden's
"Achitophel") as lord chancellor of England, clad in ash-colored robes,
because he had never been called to the bar.--E. Yates, Celebrities,
xviii.
A'CIS, a Sicilian shepherd, loved by the nymph Galate'a. The monster
Polypheme (3 syl.), a Cyclops, was his rival, and crushed him under a
huge rock. The blood of Acis was changed into a river of the same
name at the foot of mount Etna.
Not such a pipe, good reader, as that which Acis did sweetly tune in
praise of his Galatea, but one of true Delft manufacture.--W. Irving
(1783-1859).
ACK'LAND (Sir Thomas), a royalist.--Sir W. Scott, Woodstock (time,
the Commonwealth).
AC'OE (3 syl.), "hearing," in the New Testament sense (Rom. x. 17),
"Faith cometh by hearing." The nurse of Fido [faith]. Her daughter is
Meditation. (Greek,[Illustration], "hearing.")
With him [Faith] his nurse went, careful Acoë, Whose hands first from
his mother's womb did take him, And ever since have fostered tenderly.
Phin. Fletcher, The Purple Island, ix. (1633).
ACRAS'IA, Intemperance personified. Spenser says she is an
enchantress living in the "Bower of Bliss," in "Wandering Island." She

had the power of transforming her lovers into monstrous shapes; but sir
Guyon (temperance), having caught her in a net and bound her, broke
down her bower and burnt it to ashes.--Faëry Queen, ii. 12 (1590).
ACRA'TES (3 syl.), Incontinence personified in The Purple Island, by
Phineas Fletcher. He had two sons (twins) by Caro, viz., Methos
(drunkenness) and Gluttony, both fully described in canto vii. (Greek,
akrates, "incontinent.")
Acra'tes (3 syl.), Incontinence personified in The Faëry Queen, by
Spenser. He is the father of Cymoch'lês and Pyroch'lês.--Bk. ii. 4
(1590).
ACRES (Bob), a country gentleman, the rival of ensign Beverley, alias
captain Absolute, for the hand and heart of Lydia Languish, the heiress.
He tries to ape the man of fashion, gets himself up as a loud swell, and
uses "sentimental oaths," i. e. oaths bearing on the subject. Thus if
duels are spoken of he says, _ods triggers and flints; if clothes, ods
frogs and tambours; if music, ods minnums_ [minims] and crotchets; if
ladies, ods blushes and blooms. This he learnt from a militia officer,
who told him the ancients swore by Jove, Bacchus, Mars, Venus,