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A-bad'don. [Heb., from abad, to be ruined. The Hebrew name of the evil spirit or destroying angel, called Apollyon in Greek. (Rev. ix. 11.) Some of the medieval demonographers regarded him as the chief of the demons of the seventh hierarchy, and as the causer of wars, combustions, and uproars. Klopstock has made use of him in his " Messiah," under the name of Abadonna, representing him as a fallen angel, still bearing traces of his former dignity amid the disfigurements caused by sin. Ab'a-ris. [Gr. "Aẞapis.] A hyperborean priest of Apollo, whose history is entirely mythical. He is said to have been endowed with the gift of prophecy; to have taken no earthly food; and to have ridden through the air on an arrow, the gift of Apollo.

The dart of Abaris, which carried the philosopher wheresoever he desired it, gratifies later enthusiasts in travel as the cap of Fortunatus and the space-compelling boots of the nursery hero [Jack the Giant-killer].

Willmott.

Ab'di-el. [Heb., servant of God.] The name of an angel mentioned by the Jewish Cabalists. He is represented, in Milton's "Paradise Lost," as one of the seraphim, who, when Satan tried to stir up a revolt among the angels subordinate to his authority, alone and boldly withstood his traitorous designs.

So spake the seraph Abdiel, faithful found
Among the faithless; faithful only he;
Among innumerable false, unmoved,
Unshaken, unseduced, unterrified,
His loyalty he kept, his love, his zeal.
Par. Lost, Bk. V

You shall invoke the Muse, and certainly she ought to be propitious to an author, who, in an apostatizing age, adheres with the faith of Abdiel to the ancient form of adoration. Sir W. Scott. Ab-hor'son (-sn). An executioner in Shakespeare's "Measure for Meas

ure.

À'bôu Has'san. The hero of one of the stories in the "Arabian Nights' Entertainments," -a young man of Bagdad, who, by a stratagem of Haroun-Al-Raschid, was twice made to believe himself caliph, and who afterward became in reality the caliph's chief favorite and companion.

Ah! were I caliph for a day, as honest Abou Hassan wished to be, I would scourge me these jugglers out of the commonwealth with rods of scorpions. Sir W. Scott.

Addington [Secretary of the Treasury], on the other hand, was by no means inclined to descend from his high position. He was, indeed, under a delusion much resembling that of Abou Hassan in the Arabian tale. His brain was turned by his short and unreal caliphate. Macaulay.

Abraham - Cupid. An expression occurring in Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" (a. ii., sc. 1), conjectured by Upton to be a mistake for Adam Cupid, and to allude to Adam Bell, the celebrated archer. In Halliwell's opinion, "the conjecture is

1

very plausible, as proper names are frequently abbreviated in early MSS., and it suits the sense and meter.' But Dyce thinks that Abraham is merely a corruption of auburn, and supports his view by citing several passages from old books where the corruption is unquestionable. Mr. R. G. White remarks, in confirmation of Dyce's conjecture, that " Cupid is always represented by the old painters as auburn-haired."

Abraham Newland. See NEWLAND, ABRAHAM.

Ab'sa-lom. A name given by Dryden, in his poem entitled "Absalom and Achitophel," to the Duke of Monmouth, a natural son of Charles II. Like Absalom, the son of David, Monmouth was remarkable for his personal beauty, his popularity, and his undutifulness to his father. Absolute, Captain. A character in Sheridan's comedy of" The Rivals; " distinguished for his gallant, determined spirit, adroit address, and dry humor.

The author will do well to profit by Captain Absolute's advice to his servant, and never tell him more lies than are indispensably necessary. Sir W. Scott. Absolute, Sir An'tho-ny (-to-). A character in Sheridan's comedy of The Rivals;" represented as testy, positive, impatient, and overbearing, but yet of a warm and generous disposition.

"Sir Anthony is an evident copy after Smollett's kind-hearted, high-spirited Matthew Bramble." Hazlitt.

I will no longer avail myself of such weak ministers as you;-I will discard you; — I will unbeget you, as Sir Anthony Absolute Sir W. Scott.

says.

Ab-syr'tus. [Gr. "Αψυρτος.] (Gr. & Rom. Myth.) A brother of Medea, and her companion in her flight from Colchis. Finding that she was nearly overtaken by her father, she killed Absyrtus, and cut his body into pieces, which she scattered along the way, that her father might thus be detained by gathering up the remains of his murdered son. See ARGONAUTS and MEDEA. A-bu'dah. A wealthy merchant of Bagdad who figures in the "Tales of

the Genii," by H. Ridley. He meets with various remarkable adventures in his quest for the talisman of Oromanes, which he is driven to seek by the threats of a little old hag who haunts him nightly, and makes his life miserable. He finds at last that the inestimable talisman is- to obey God and to love his commandments; and he finds also that all his wonderful experiences have been but the baseless fabric of a dream.

Like Abudah, in the Arabian story, he is always looking out for the Fury, and knows that the night will come, and the inevitable hag with it. Thackeray.

And there, too, was Abudah, the merchant, with the terrible little old woman hobbling out of the box in his bedroom. Dickens.

A-ca'di-a. [Fr. Acadie, said to be derived from Shubenacadie, the name of one of the principal rivers of Nova Scotia; in old grants called L'Acadie, and La Cadie.] The original, and now the poetic, name of Nova Scotia, or rather of a tract extending from the fortieth to the forty-sixth degree of north latitude, which was granted, Nov. 8, 1603, to De Monts, by Henry IV. of France. The present province of Nova Scotia extends from lat. 43° 26' to 45° 55' N. In 1621, Acadia was granted by charter to Sir William Alexander, and its name changed to Nova Scotia.

In the numerous disputes between the English and French colonists previous to 1763, this territory changed masters ten or a dozen times, and the boundaries were widened or narrowed according to the respective views of the opposing parties. In 1755, the French inhabitants were seized, forcibly removed, and dispersed among the English colonists on the Atlantic coast. Longfellow has made this event the subject of his poem of "Evangeline."

A-ces'teş. [Gr. 'AKÉOτns.] (Gr. & Rom. Myth.) A son of the Sicilian, river-god Crimisus and of a Trojan woman of the name of Egesta or Segesta. Æneas, on his arrival in Sicily, was hospitably received by him, and, on revisiting the island, celebrated the anniversary of Anchises's death by various games and feats at arms. At a trial of skill in archery, Acestes took part, and dis

charged his arrow into the air with such force that it took fire, and marked out a pathway of flame, until it was wholly consumed and disappeared from sight.

Thy destiny remains untold;
For, like Acestes' shaft of old,
The swift thought kindles as it flies,
And burns to ashes in the skies.

A-chā'tės.

Longfellow.

[Gr. 'Axárns.] (Gr. & Rom. Myth.) A companion and friend of Æneas. His fidelity was so exemplary that "fidus Achates," faithful Achates, became a proverb.

Old enough, perhaps, but scarce wise enough, if he has chosen this fellow for his "fidus Achates." Sir W. Scott.

Ach'e-ron. [Gr. 'Axépwv; as if ó uxea péwv, the stream of woe, or from i privative and xaípew, to rejoice, the joyless stream.] (Gr. & Rom. Myth.) A son of Sol and Terra, changed into a river in hell; sometimes used in a general sense to designate hell itself.

Abhorred Styx, the flood of deadly hate,
Sad Acheron, of sorrow black and deep.
Milton.

A-chillés. [Gr. 'Axiλλevs.] (Gr. & Rom. Myth.) The principal hero of Homer's "Iliad," the son of Peleus, king of the Myrmidons, in Thessaly, and of Thetis, a Nereid. He was distinguished above all the rest of the Greeks in the Trojan war by his strength, beauty, and bravery. At his birth, he was dipped by his mother in the river Styx, and was thus made invulnerable except in the right heel,

or, as some say, the ankles,-by which she held him; but he was at length killed by Paris, or, according to some accounts, by Apollo. See HECTOR.

An unfortunate country [Hanover], if the English would but think; liable to be strangled, at any time, for England's quarrels; the Achilles-heel to invulnerable England. Carlyle. A title

A-chil'les of Germany.

given, on account of his bravery, to Albert, Margrave of Brandenburg and Culmbach (1414-1486), "a tall, fiery, tough old gentleman," says Carlyle, in his day, a very blazing, far-seen character, dim as he has now grown."

A-chit'o-phel. A nickname given to the Earl of Shaftesbury (1621-1683) by his contemporaries, and made use of by Dryden in his poem of "Absalom and Achitophel," a masterly satire, springing from the political commotions of the times, and designed as a defense of Charles II. against the Whig party. There is a striking resemblance between the character and career of Shaftesbury and those of Achitophel, or Ahithophel, the treacherous friend and counselor of David, and the fellow-conspirator of Absalom.

Of this denial and this apology, we shall only say that the first seems very apocryphal, and the second would justify any crime which Machiavel or Achitophel could invent or recommend. Sir W. Scott.

A'cis. [Gr. "AKIS.] (Gr. & Rom. Myth.) A Sicilian shepherd, beloved by the nymph Galatea, and crushed under a huge rock by Polyphemus, the Cyclops, who was jealous of him. His blood gushing forth from under the rock was changed by the nymph into a river, the Acis, or Acinius, at the foot of Mount Etna.

Thus equipped, he would manfully sally forth, with pipe in mouth, to besiege some fair damsel's obdurate heart, not such a pipe, good reader, as that which Acis did sweetly tune in praise of his Galatea, but one of true Delft manufacture, and furnished with a charge of fragrant tobacco. W. Irving.

A-cra'si- (-kra/zhi-). [From Gr. akpaoía, want of self-control or moderation, intemperance, from & privative and Kpúros, strength, power. A witch in Spenser's "Faery Queen," represented as a lovely and charming woman, whose dwelling is the Bower of Bliss, situated on an island floating in a lake or gulf, and adorned with every thing in nature that could delight the senses. Acrasia typifies the vice of Intemperance, and Sir Guyon, who illustrates the opposite virtue, is commissioned by the fairy queen to bring her into subjection, and to destroy her residence. A'cres, Bob (a/kerz). A character in Sheridan's comedy of "The Rivals;" celebrated for his cowardice, and his system of referential or allegorical swearing.

Besides, terror, as Bob Acres says of its counterpart, courage, will come and go; and few people can afford timidity enough for the writer's purpose who is determined on "horrifying" them through three thick volumes. Sir W. Scott.

Ac-tæ'on. [Gr. 'AKTαiwy.] (Gr. & Rom. Myth.) A famous hunter, who, having surprised Diana while she was bathing, was changed by her into a stag, and, in that form, was torn to pieces by his own hounds. He [Byron], as I guess, Had gazed on Nature's naked loveliness, Actoon-like, and now he fled astray With feeble steps o'er the world's wilderness; And his own thoughts, along that rugged way,

Pursued, like raging hounds, their father and their prey. Shelley.

Adam. 1. Formerly a jocular name for a sergeant or bailiff.

Not that Adam that kept the paradise, but that Adam that keeps the prison. Shak.

2. An aged servant to Oliver, in Shakespeare's "As You Like It."

"The serving-man Adam, humbly born and coarsely nurtured, is no insignificant personage in the drama; and we find in the healthy tone of his mind, and in his generous heart, which, under reverses and wrongs, still preserves its charitable trust in his fellows, as well as in his kindly, though frosty, age, a delightful and instructive contrast to the character of Jaques, which could hardly have been accidental." R. G. White.

Adamastor (ăd'a-măs'tor; Port. pron. a-da-mas-tor', 64). The Spirit of the Stormy Cape,-i. e., the Cape of Good Hope, - a hideous phantom described by Camoens, in the fifth canto of the "Lusiad," as appearing by night to the fleet of Vasco da Gama, and predicting the woes which would befall subsequent expeditions to India. Mickle supposes that by Adamastor the genius of Mohammedanism is intended. According to Barreto, he was one of the Giants who made an attack on heaven, and were killed by the gods or buried under various mountains.

Were Adamastor to appear to him [the "gamin" of Paris], he would shout out, "Hallo there, old Bug-a-boo!" V. Hugo, Trans. Adam Kad'mon. In the Cabalistic doctrine, the name given to the first

emanation from the Eternal Fountain. It signifies the First Man, or the first production of divine energy, or the Son of God; and to it the other and inferior emanations are subordinate.

Adam, Master. See MASTER ADAM.

Adams, Parson Abraham. A country curate in Fielding's novel of "Joseph Andrews; distinguished for his goodness of heart, poverty, learning, and ignorance of the world, combined with courage, modesty, and a thousand oddities.

"As to Parson Adams, and his fist, and his good heart, and his Eschylus which he couldn't see to read, and his rejoicing at being delivered from a ride in the carriage with Mr. Peter Pounce, whom he had erroneously complimented on the smallness of his parochial means, let every body rejoice that there has been a man in the world called Henry Fielding to think of such a character, and thousands of good people sprinkled about that world to answer for the truth of it; for had there not been, what would have been its value? He is one of

the simplest, but at the same time manliest of men; is anxious to read a man of the world his sermon on 'vanity;' preaches patience under affliction, and is ready to lose his senses on the death of his little boy; in short, has every virtue under heaven,' except that of superiority to the common failings of humanity, or of being able to resist knocking a rascal down when he insults the innocent. He is very poor; and, agreeably to the notions of refinement in those days, is treated by the rich as if he were little better than a servant himself. Even their stewards think it a condescension to treat him on equal terms." Leigh Hunt.

"The humanity, benevolence, and goodness of heart so conspicuous in Mr. Adams, his unswerving integrity, his zeal in the cause of the oppressed, his unaffected nature, independent of his talent and learning, win our esteem and respect, even while his virtuous simplicity provokes our smiles; and the little predicaments into which he falls, owing to his absence of mind, are such as excite our mirth without a shadow of derision or malevolence." Thomas Roscoe.

As to his [Hugo von Trimberg's] inward man, we can still be sure that he was no mere bookworm, or simple Parson Adams. Carlyle.

Ad'di-son of the North (ad'di-sn). A surname sometimes given to Henry Mackenzie (1745-1831), the Scottish novelist, whose style, like Addison's, is distinguished for its refinement and delicacy.

Addle, or Addled, Parliament. (Eng. Hist.) A name given to the English Parliament which assembled at London, April 5, 1614, and was dissolved on the 7th of the following June. It was so called because it remonstrated with the King on his levying "benevolences," and passed

no acts.

Ad-me'tus. [Gr."Adunτos.] (Gr. & Rom. Myth.) A king of Pheræ, in Thessaly, husband of Alcestis, famous for his misfortunes and piety. Apollo entered his service as a shepherd, having been condemned by Jupiter to become the servant of a mortal for one year as a punishment for slaying the Cyclops. Lowell has made this incident the subject of a short poem entitled, "The Shepherd of King Admetus." See ALCESTIS. Admirable Crichton. See CRICHTON, THE ADMIRABLE. Admirable Doctor. [Lat. Doctor Mirabilis.] A title bestowed upon Roger Bacon (1214-1292), an English monk, who, by the power of his genius and the extent of his learning, raised himself above his time, made many astonishing discoveries in science, and contributed much to the extension of real knowledge. Ad'o-na'is. A poetical name given by Shelley to the poet Keats (1796-| 1821), on whose untimely death he wrote a monody bearing this name for its title. The name was coined by Shelley probably to hint an analogy between Keats's fate and that of Adonis.

A-do'nis. [Gr. "Adwvic.] (Gr. & Rom. Myth.) A beautiful youth, beloved by Venus and Proserpine, who quarreled about the possession of him. The dispute was settled by Jupiter, who decided that he should spend eight months in the upper world with Venus, and four in the lower with Proserpine. Adonis died

of a wound received from a wild boar during the chase, and was turned into an anemone by Venus, who yearly bewailed him on the anniversary of his death. The myths connected with Adonis are of Oriental origin, and his worship was widely spread among the countries bordering on the eastern portion of the Mediterranean. The story of Venus's love for him was made the subject of a long descriptive poem by Shakespeare, and is often alluded to by other poets.

Beds of hyacinths and roses
Where young Adonis oft reposes,
Waxing well of his deep wound
In slumber soft.

Milton.

A-dras'tus. [Gr. "Adpaσros.] (Gr. & Rom. Myth.) A king of Argos, and the institutor of the Nemean games. He was one of the heroes who engaged in the war of the A'dri-a'na (or ad'ri-an'à). "Seven against Thebes."

Wife of Antipholus of Ephesus, in Shakespeare's "Comedy of Errors." Adversity Hume. A nickname given to Joseph Hume (1777-1855), in the time of "Prosperity Robinson," and in contradistinction to him, owing to his constant presages of ruin and disaster to befall the people of Great Britain. See PROSPERITY ROBINSON. 'a-cus. [Gr. 'Alakóç.] (Gr. & Rom. Myth.) A son of Jupiter and Ægina, renowned for his justice and piety. After his death he was made one of the three judges in Hades. E-ġæ'ḍn.

[Gr. 'Atyaiwv.] (Gr. & Rom. Myth.) A huge monster with a hundred arms and fifty heads, who, with his brothers Cottus and Gyges, conquered the Titans by hurling at them three hundred rocks at once. By some he is reckoned as a marine god living under the Egean Sea; Virgil numbers him among the gods who stormed Olympus; and Callimachus, regarding him in the same light, places him under Mount Etna. E-ge on. A merchant of Syracuse, in Shakespeare's" Comedy of Errors." Ageria. See EGERIA.

'gets. [Gr. Aiyevç.] (Gr. & Rom.