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

violation of international law, thrusts her
Samient out of doors like a dog, and sets two knights upon her. Sir
Artegal comes to her rescue, attacks the two knights, and knocks one of
them from his saddle with such force that he breaks his neck. After the
discomfiture of the soldan, Adicia rushes forth with a knife to stab
Samient, but, being intercepted by sir Artegal, is changed into a
tigress.--Spenser, Faery Queen, v. 8 (1596).
[Illustration] The "soldan" is king Philip II. of Spain; "Mercilla" is
queen Elizabeth; "Adicia" is Injustice personified, or the bigotry of
popery; and "Samient" the ambassadors of Holland, who went to Philip
for redress of grievances, and were most iniquitously detained by him

as prisoners.
AD'ICUS, Unrighteousness personified in canto vii. of _The Purple
Island_ (1633), by Phineas Fletcher. He has eight sons and daughters,
viz., Ec'thros (hatred), Eris (variance), a daughter, Zelos (emulation),
Thumos (wrath), Erith'ius (strife), Dichos'tasis (sedition), Envy, and
Phon'os (murder); all fully described by the poet. (Greek, adikos, "an
unjust man.")
ADIE OF AIKENSHAW, a neighbor of the Glendinnings.--Sir W.
Scott, _The Monastery_ (time, Elizabeth).
ADME'TUS, a king of Thessaly, husband of Alcestis. Apollo, being
condemned by Jupiter to serve a mortal for twelve months for slaying a
Cyclops, entered the service of Admetus. James R. Lowell 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.