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

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 Pèdre. 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 Zaïde (_2 syl_.) to
don Pèdre, to crave protection for ill treatment, and Pèdre promises to
befriend her. At this moment Adraste appears, and demands that Zaïde
be given up to him to punish as he thinks proper. Pèdre intercedes;
Adraste seems to relent; and Pèdre calls for Zaïde. Out comes Isidore
instead, with Zaïde's veil. "There," says Pèdre, "take her and use her
well." "I will do so," says the Frenchman, and leads off the Greek
slave.--Molière, 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 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 Gygês, 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.).
Briáreos 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.
Belphoebê (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, Faëry 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 Ægeon 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,