Chapter I: The Anglo-Saxon Period, 449-1066 (7)

=Précieuses Ridicules= (_prā-syuz´ ri-di-kul´_), =Les.=--A comedy by Molière, in ridicule of the _Précieuses_, as they were styled, forming the coterie of the Hotel de Rambouillet in the seventeenth century. The _soirées_ held in this hotel were a great improvement on the licentious assemblies of the period; but many imitators made the thing ridiculous, because they lacked the same presiding talent and good taste.

The two girls of Molière’s comedy are Madelon and Cathos, the daughter and niece of Gargibus, a bourgeois. They change their names to Polixène and Aminte, which they think more genteel, and look on the affectations of two flunkies as far more _distingués_ than the simple, gentlemanly manners of their masters. However, they are cured of their folly, and no harm comes of it.

=Prelude= (_prē´lūd_, or _prel´ūd_), =The=, or _The Growth of a Poet’s Mind_.--An autobiographical poem, in blank verse, by William Wordsworth. It was intended as an introduction to “a philosophical poem, containing views of Man, Nature, and Society; and to be entitled _The Recluse_, as having for its principal subject the sensations and opinions of a poet living in retirement.” This poem was to have consisted of three parts, of which the second only, _The Excursion_, was completed and published. _The Prelude_ consists of fourteen books: Book one, _Childhood and Schooltime_; book two, _Schooltime_, continued; book three, _Residence at Cambridge_; book four, _Summer Vacation_; book five, _Books_; book six, _Cambridge and the Alps_; book seven, _Residence in London_; book eight, _Retrospect--Love of Nature Leading to Love of Man_; book nine, _Residence in France_; book ten, _Residence in France_, continued; book eleven, _France_, concluded; book twelve, _Imagination and Taste, How Impaired and Restored_; book thirteen, the same subject continued and concluded; and book fourteen, _Conclusion_.

=Primrose= (_prim´rōz_), =Rev. Charles.=--_Vicar of Wakefield_, Goldsmith. A clergyman, rich in heavenly wisdom, but poor indeed in all worldly knowledge.

=Primrose, Moses.=--Brother of the above, noted for giving in barter a good horse for a gross of worthless green spectacles with copper rims.

=Primrose, Olivia.=--The eldest daughter of the doctor. Pretty, enthusiastic, a sort of Hebê in beauty. “She wished for many lovers,” and eloped with Squire Thorndill.

=Primrose, Sophia.=--The second daughter of Dr. Primrose. She was “soft, modest, and alluring.”

=Princess:= _a Medley_.--A poem by Alfred Tennyson. “It is,” says Stedman, “as he entitles it, a medley, constructed of ancient and modern materials--a show of mediæval pomp and movement, observed through an atmosphere of latterday thought and emotion. The poet, in his prelude, anticipates every stricture, and to me the anachronisms and impossibilities of the story seem not only lawful, but attractive. Tennyson’s special gift of reducing incongruous details to a common structure and tone is fully illustrated in a poem made--

“‘To suit with time and place,
A Gothic ruin and a Grecian house,
A talk at college and of ladies’ rights,
A feudal knight in silken masquerade.’

Other works of our poet are greater, but none is so fascinating. Some of the author’s most delicately musical lines are herein contained. The tournament scene is the most vehement and rapid passage in the whole range of Tennyson’s poetry. The songs reach the high water mark of lyrical compositions. The five melodies--_As Thro’ the Land_, _Sweet and Low_, _The Splendor Falls_, _Home They Brought_ and _Ask Me No More_--constitute the finest group of songs produced in our century, and the third seems to many the most perfect English lyric since the time of Shakespeare.” The name of the Princess is Ida.

=Priscilla= (_pri-sil´ä_).--_Courtship of Miles Standish_, Longfellow. A Puritan maiden who is wooed by Captain Standish through the mediation of his friend, John Alden, who is in love with Priscilla. She prefers John Alden and marries him after the captain’s supposed death. The captain, however, appears at the close of the wedding service, and the friends are reconciled.

=Prometheus= (_prō-mē´thūs_) =Bound.=--A tragedy of Æschylus, of uncertain date. Prometheus is fabled to have made men of clay, and to have imparted life to them by means of fire brought from heaven. It was said that for this he was bound to the rock by order of Zeus, that he resisted all efforts to subdue his will and purpose, bade defiance to the father of the gods, and disappeared in an appalling tempest. Mrs. Browning published a poetical translation in 1833.

=Prospero= (_pros´pe-rō_).--_Tempest_, Shakespeare. Rightful duke of Milan, deposed by his brother. Drifted on a desert island, he practised magic, and raised a tempest in which his brother was shipwrecked. Ultimately Prospero “broke his wand,” and his daughter married the son of the King of Naples.

=Puff, Mr.=--In Sheridan’s farce _The Critic_, a hack writer, who, having failed at other occupations, tries criticism for a living, and is a “professor of the art of puffing.”

=Puss in Boots.=--The subject and title of a well-known nursery tale derived from a fairy story in the _Nights_ of the Italian author Straparola, and Charles Perrault’s _Contes des Fées_. The wonderful cat secures a princess and a fortune for his master, a poor young miller, whom he passes off as the rich marquis of Carabas.

=Pygmalion= (_pig-mā´li-on_) =and Galatea= (_gal-a-tē´ä_).--A mythological comedy, by W. S. Gilbert, embodying the fable of the Athenian sculptor who prayed the gods to put life into the statue of Galatea which he had fashioned. In the comedy, Galatea evokes the jealousy of the sculptor’s wife Cynisca; and, after causing great misery by her very innocence, voluntarily returns to the original stone.

=Pyncheon= (_pin´chon_).--The name of an ancient but decayed family in Hawthorne’s romance _The House of the Seven Gables_. There are: (1) Judge Pyncheon, a selfish, cunning, worldly man. (2) His cousin Clifford, a delicate, sensitive nature, reduced to childishness by long imprisonment and suffering. (3) Hepzibah, the latter’s sister, an old maid who devotes herself to the care of Clifford. (4) A second cousin, Phœbe, a fresh, cheerful young girl, who restores the fallen fortunes of the family and removes the curse which rested on it.

=Q=

=Quasimodo= (_kwā-si-mō´dō_).--_Notre Dame de Paris_, Hugo. A misshapen dwarf, one of the prominent characters in the story. He is brought up in the cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris. One day, he sees Esmeralda, who had been dancing in the cathedral close, set upon by a mob, and he conceals her for a time in the church. When, at length, the beautiful gypsy girl is gibbeted, Quasimodo disappears mysteriously, but a skeleton corresponding to the deformed figure is found after a time in a hole under the gibbet.

=Quaver.=--_The Virgin Unmasked_, Fielding. A singing-master, who says, “if it were not for singing-masters, men and women might as well have been born dumb.” He courts Lucy by promising to give her singing-lessons.

=Queen Lab.=--_Arabian Nights._ The queen of magic, ruler over the enchanted city, in the story of Beder, prince of Persia. She transforms men into horses, mules, and other animals. Beder marries her, defeats her plots against him, but is himself turned into an owl for a time.

=Quentin Durward= (_kwen´tin der´wärd_).--A novel by Sir Walter Scott. A story of French history. The delineations of Louis XI. and Charles the Bold of Burgundy will stand comparison with any in the whole range of fiction or history.

=Quickly, Mistress.=--_Merry Wives of Windsor_, Shakespeare. A serving woman to Dr. Caius, a French physician. She is the go-between of three suitors for “sweet Anne Page,” and with perfect disinterestedness wishes all three to succeed.

=Quickly, Mistress Nell.=--Hostess of a tavern in Eastcheap, frequented by Harry, Prince of Wales, Sir John Falstaff, and all their disreputable crew.

=Quidnunkis.=--Title and name of hero in a fable found or written by Gay in 1726. This hero was a monkey which climbed higher than its neighbors, and fell into a river.

=Quilp= (_kwilp_).--_Old Curiosity Shop_, Dickens. A hideous dwarf, cunning, malicious, and a perfect master in tormenting. Of hard, forbidding features, with head and face large enough for a giant, he lived on Tower hill, collected rents, advanced money to seamen, and kept a sort of wharf, calling himself a ship-breaker.

=Quintus Fixlein.=--Title of a romance by Jean Paul Richter and the name of the principal character.

=Quirk, Gammon, and Snap.=--A firm of rascally, scheming, hypocritical solicitors in Warren’s _Ten Thousand a Year_.

=R=

=Raby, Aurora.=--In Byron’s _Don Juan_. She was a rich, noble English orphan, “a rose with all its sweetest leaves yet folded.”

=Radigund.=--_Faërie Queene_, Spenser. Queen of the fabled Amazons. Having been rejected by Bellodant “the Bold,” she revenged herself by degrading all the men who fell into her power by dressing them like women, and giving them women’s work.

=Ramayana= [(_rä´-mä´yȧ-nȧ_); _Rāma-ayana_, the goings or doings of Rama].--One of the two great epics of India, the other being the Mahabharata. It is ascribed to a poet, Valmiki, and consists at present of about twenty-four thousand stanzas, divided into seven books. It is the production of one man, though many parts are later additions, such as those in which Rama is represented as an incarnation of Vishnu, all the episodes in the first book, and the whole of the seventh. It was at first handed down orally, and variously modified in transmission, and afterward reduced to writing.

=Ramona= (_ra-mō´nä_).--Title of a romance by Helen Hunt Jackson. Ramona saw the American Indian followed by “civilization” while retreating slowly but surely toward his own extinction, and had herself a share in the tragedy. Ramona is considered the great romance of Indian life.

=Random= (_ran´dom_).--_Roderick Random_, Smollett. A young Scotch scapegrace in quest of fortune. At one time he revels in prosperity, again he is in utter destitution. He roams at random, in keeping with his name.

=Rappaccini= (_rap-ä-chē´nē_).--_Mosses from an Old Manse_, Hawthorne. A doctor in whose garden grew strange plants whose juices and fragrance were poison. His daughter, nourished on these odors, became poisonous herself. Her lover found an antidote which she took, but the poison meant life and the antidote meant death to her.

=Rasselas= (_ras´e-las_).--An imaginary romance by Dr. Johnson. According to the custom of his country, Abyssinia, Rasselas was confined in paradise, with the rest of the royal family. This paradise was in the valley of Amhara, surrounded by high mountains. It had only one entrance, a cavern concealed by woods, and closed by iron gates. He escaped with his sister Nekayah and Imlac the poet, and wandered about to find what condition or rank of life was the most happy. After investigation, he found no lot without its drawbacks, and resolved to return to the “Happy Valley.”

=Raud the Strong.=--_Tales of a Wayside Inn_, Henry W. Longfellow. The viking who worshiped the old gods and lived by fire and sword. King Olaf went against him, sailing from Drontheim to Salten Fjord.

=Raven, The.=--A poem by Edgar Allan Poe, published in 1845, which has attained a world-wide popularity. For the author’s account of the mode of its construction, see _The Philosophy of Composition_, an essay, in the collected edition of his works. The last verse runs:

And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting,
On the pallid bust of Pallas, just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming,
And the lamplight o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted--Nevermore!

=Ravenswood.=--_Bride of Lammermoor_, Scott. The lord of Ravenswood, an old Scotch nobleman and a decayed royalist. His son Edgar falls in love with Lucy Ashton, daughter of Sir William Ashton, Lord-Keeper of Scotland. The lovers plight their troth, but Lucy is compelled to marry Frank Hayston, laird of Bucklaw. The bride, in a fit of insanity, attempts to murder the bridegroom and dies. Bucklaw goes abroad. Colonel Ashton, seeing Edgar at the funeral of Lucy, appoints a hostile meeting; and Edgar, on his way to the place appointed, is lost in the quicksands. A prophecy, noted as a curse, hung over the family and was thus fulfilled.

=Raymond.=--In _Jerusalem Delivered_, by Tasso. Raymond was known as the Nestor of the crusaders, slew Aladine, the king of Jerusalem, and planted the Christian standard upon the tower of David.

=Rebecca.=--_Ivanhoe_, Scott. Daughter of Isaac the Jew, in love with Ivanhoe.

=Red-cross Knight.=--The Red-cross Knight is St. George, the patron saint of England, and, in the obvious and general interpretation, typifies holiness, or the perfection of the spiritual man in religion. In Spenser’s _Faërie Queene_ the task of slaying a dragon was assigned to him as the champion of Una.

=Redgauntlet= (_red-gänt´let_).--One of the principal characters in Sir Walter Scott’s novel of the same name, a political enthusiast and Jacobite, who scruples at no means of upholding the cause of the Pretender and finally accompanies him into exile. His race bore a fatal mark resembling a horseshoe which appeared on the face of Red-gauntlet as he frowned when angry.

=Red-Riding-Hood.=--This nursery tale is, with slight variations, common to Sweden, Germany, and France. In Charles Perrault’s _Contes des Fées_ it is called _Le Petit Chaperon Rouge_.

=Religio Medici= (_rē-lij´i-ō med´i-sī_).--A prose work by Sir Thomas Browne. “_The Religio Medici_,” says the elder Lytton, “is one of the most beautiful prose poems in the language; its power of diction, its subtlety and largeness of thought, its exquisite conceits and images, have no parallel out of the writers of that brilliant age when Poetry and Prose had not yet divided their domain, and the Lyceum of Philosophy was watered by the mixing of the wine!”

=Representative Men.=--A work by Emerson which more nearly than any of his other works, gives expression to his system as a whole. The topics are: (1) Plato, the Philosopher; (2) Swedenborg, the Mystic; (3) Montaigne, the Skeptic; (4) Shakespeare, the Poet; (5) Napoleon, the Man of the World; (6) Goethe, the Writer. The mental portraits sketched under these six heads give us Emerson himself, so far as he is capable of being formulated at all.

=Republic, The.=--A work composed by Plato four hundred years before Christ. _The Republic_ is not, as the title would suggest, a political work, like the _Politics_ of Aristotle. The principles and government of an ideal moral organism, of which the rulers shall be types of fully developed and perfectly educated men, are the real subject. In the _Republic_ we find the necessity of virtue to the very idea of social life proved in the first book; then the whole process of a complete moral and scientific education is set forth. It has been said that the most complete record of the beliefs or opinions of Plato are found in this work.

=Reveries of a Bachelor.=--By D. G. Mitchell. The _Reveries_ is a collection of sketches of life and character, painted in such a dreamlike, delicate manner as to make the reader lose for the time being the full consciousness of his surroundings. It has called forth a number of imitators more or less successful, no one of whom, however, is comparable to the original.

=Reynard= (_rā´närd_, or _ren´ärd_) =the Fox=.--A beast-epic, so called. This prose poem is a satire on the state of Germany in the middle ages. Reynard represents the Church; Isengrin the wolf (his uncle) typifies the baronial element; and Nodel the lion stands for the regal power. The plot turns on the struggle for supremacy between Reynard and Isengrin. Reynard uses all his endeavors to victimize everyone, especially his uncle Isengrin, and generally succeeds.

=Richelieu= (_rēsh-y-lōō´_), or _The Conspiracy_.--A drama in five acts, by Edward, Lord Lytton; produced in 1839, the part of the hero being played by Macready. For some of the incidents the author confesses himself indebted to the authors of _Cinq Mars_ and _Picciola_. Among the characters are Baradas, the favorite; De Mauprat, in love with Julie; Julie de Mortemar herself; Marion de Lorme, mistress of Orleans; Orleans himself; Louis XIII., and others.

=Rights of Man, The.=--“Being an answer to Mr. Burke’s Attack on the French Revolution,” by Thomas Paine. This work, which was published in 1791-1792, procured for the writer the distinction of a trial for sedition, which he escaped by flying to France.

=Rinaldo= (_ri-nal´dō_).--A Christian hero in Tasso’s _Jerusalem Delivered_. He was the son of Bertoldo and Sophia, and nephew of Guelpho, but was brought up by Matilda. He was one of Charlemagne’s paladins, and cousin to Orlando. Having killed Charlemagne’s nephew Berthelot, he was banished and outlawed. After various adventures and disasters, he went to the Holy Land, and, on his return, succeeded in making peace with the emperor.

=Ring and the Book, The.=--A poem by Robert Browning, published in 1869. It is the story of a tragedy which took place at Rome in 1698. The versified narrative of the child Pompilia’s sale to Count Guido, of his cruelty and violence, of her rescue by a young priest, the pursuit, the lawful separation, the murder by Guido of the girl and her putative parents, the trial and condemnation of the murderer, and the affirmation of his sentence by the pope--all this is made to fill out a poem of twenty-one thousand lines; but these include ten different versions of the tale, besides the poet’s prelude, in which latter he gives a general outline of it. The chapters which contain the statements of the priest lover and Pompilia are full of tragic beauty and emotion. The pope’s soliloquy, though too prolonged, is a wonderful piece of literary metempsychosis.

=Rip Van Winkle.=--A tale by Washington Irving, adapted from the old German legend of Peter Klaus, a goatherd, who drank a miraculous draught of wine in a dell of the Harz mountains, which brought on sleep from which he did not wake until twenty years after, when he returned to his native village to find everything changed, and no one who knew him. In Irving’s tale the hero is a Dutchman living in America, and the scene is the Catskill mountains. The story is most picturesquely told, and has been effectively dramatized, the leading personage being illustrated by the genius of Jefferson.

=Rivals, The.=--A comedy by Richard Brinsley Sheridan, produced at Covent Garden, London, in 1775, and described by Hazlitt as “a play of even more action and incident, but of less wit and satire, than _The School for Scandal_. It is as good as a novel in the reading, and has the broadest and most palpable effect upon the stage.”

=Roaring Camp, The Luck of.=--A prose sketch by Francis Bret Harte, an American poet, in which the softening effects of the presence of a little child in a camp of ruffians are very touchingly described. It has been dramatized.

=Rob Roy.=--A romance by Sir Walter Scott which is founded on some passages in the career of the famous Highlander, Robert MacGregor, who was popularly called Rob Roy. The nominal hero of _Rob Roy_ is Francis Osbaldistone; the heroine, Diana Vernon. Among the other characters are Baillie Nicol Jarvie, “The Dougal Cratur” Andrew Fairservice, Helen MacGregor, Sir Frederick Vernon, and Rashleigh Osbaldistone. The novel has been dramatized in a version which still holds the stage in Scotland. Scott speaks of Rob as “the Robin Hood of Scotland--the dread of the wealthy, but the friend of the poor, and possessed of many qualities, both of head and heart, which would have graced a less equivocal profession than that to which his fate condemned him.”

=Roderick=, or =Roderic= (_rod´er-ik_) =Dhu=.--_Lady of the Lake_, Scott. An outlaw and chief of a band of Scots who resolved to win back what had been lost to the Saxons. In connection with Red Murdock he sought the life of the Saxon Fitz-James.

=Roderigo= (_rod-e-rē´gō_).--In Shakespeare’s _Othello_, a Venetian in love with Desdemona, who, when the lady eloped with Othello, hated the “noble Moor.”

=Roland= (_rō´land_).--The hero of one of the most ancient and popular epics of early French or Frankish literature, and, according to tradition, the favorite nephew and captain of the Emperor Charlemagne. Roland is the hero of Théroulde’s _Chanson de Roland_; of Turpin’s _Chronique_; of Bojardo’s _Orlando Innamorato_; of Ariosto’s _Orlando Furioso_.

=Romance of the Rose.=--A poetical allegory, begun by Guillaume de Lorris in the latter part of the thirteenth century, and continued by Jean Meung in the first half of the fourteenth century. The poet dreams that Dame Idleness conducts him to the Palace of Pleasure, where he meets many adventures among the attendant maidens, Youth, Joy, Courtesy, and others, by whom he is conducted to a bed of roses. He singles out one, when an arrow from Love’s bow stretches him fainting on the ground. Fear, Slander, and Jealousy are afterward introduced.

=Romeo.=--In Shakespeare’s tragedy of _Romeo and Juliet_, a son of Montague, in love with Juliet, the daughter of Capulet, who was the head of a noble house of Verona, in feudal enmity with the house of Montague.

=Romeo and Juliet.=--A tragedy by William Shakespeare. Romeo, a son of Montague, in love with Juliet, the daughter of Capulet; but between the houses of Montague and Capulet there existed a deadly feud. As the families were irreconcilable, Juliet took a sleeping draught, that she might get away from her parents and elope with Romeo. Romeo, thinking her to be dead, killed himself; and when Juliet awoke and found her lover dead, she also killed herself.

=Romola= (_rom´ō-lä_).--A novel of Italian life and character by George Eliot. _Romola_ is a marvelously able story of the revival of the taste and beauty and freedom of Hellenic manners and letters, under Lorenzo de’ Medici and the scholars of his court, side by side with the revival of Roman virtue, and more than the ancient austerity and piety, under the great Dominican Savonarola. This period of history is one which of all others may well have engrossing interest for George Eliot. Treasures of learning and discipline, amassed for mankind ages before, for ages stored and hidden away, see again the sun, are recognized and put to use. What use they will be put to, with what new and fruitful effects on the state and the citizen, with what momentary and with what lasting consequences, this she strives to discover; this she follows through the public history of Italy during the modern invasion of Charles VIII., and the events which succeed his invasion, and through the private fortunes of her admirably chosen group of characters, some of them drawn from life, all of them true to nature.

=Rosetta= (_rō-zet´tä_) =Stone=.--Found at Rosetta in the delta of the Nile, contains equivalent inscriptions in hieroglyphics in demotic and in Greek letters. The meaning of the Greek text being known, the hieroglyphics could be translated.

=Rowena= (_rō-ē´nä_).--A Saxon princess, ward of Cedric of Rotherwood, in Sir Walter Scott’s romance of _Ivanhoe_.

=Rumpelstilzchen.=--_Old German Tales._ According to Grimm, this name is a compound, but the spirit represented is one familiar to all German children. The original story tells of him as a dwarf who spun straw into gold for a certain miller’s daughter.

=S=

=Sacripant= (_sak´ri-pant_), =King=.--(1) King of Circassia, and a lover of Angelica, in Bojordo and Ariosto. (2) A personage in Tassoni’s mock heroic poem, _Rape of the Bucket_, represented as false, brave, noisy and hectoring.

=Sagas= (_sä´gas_).--Title of the ancient traditions which form the substance of the history and mythology of the Scandinavian races. The language in which they are written is supposed to be the old Icelandic. In the _Edda_ there are numerous sagas. As our Bible contains the history of the Jews, religious songs, moral proverbs, and religious stories, so the _Edda_ contains the history of Norway, religious songs, a book of proverbs, and numerous stories. The original _Edda_ was compiled and edited by Sæmund Sigfusson, an Icelandic priest and scald, in the eleventh century. It contains twenty-eight parts or books, all of which are in verse. Two hundred years later Snorri Sturleson, of Iceland, abridged, rearranged, and reduced to prose the _Edda_, and his work was called _The Younger Edda_. In this we find the famous story called by the Germans the _Nibelungenlied_. Besides the sagas contained in the Eddas, there are numerous others, and the whole saga literature makes over two hundred volumes. Among them are the _Völsunga Saga_, which is a collection of lays about the early Teutonic heroes. The _Saga of St. Olaf_ is the history of this Norwegian king. _Frithjof’s Saga_ contains the life and adventures of Frithjof of Iceland. Snorri Sturleson, at the close of the twelfth century, made the second great collection of chronicles in verse, called the _Heimskringla Saga_. This is a most valuable record of the laws, customs and manners of the ancient Scandinavians.

=Sakuntala.=--A famous drama by Kâlidasa. The daughter of Viswamita and a water nymph, abandoned by her parents, and brought up by a hermit. One day, King Dushyanta came to the hermitage, and persuaded Sakuntala to marry him. In due time a son was born, but Dushyanta left his bride at the hermitage. When the boy was six years old, his mother took him to the king, and Dushyanta recognized his wife by a ring which he had given her. Sakuntala was now publicly proclaimed queen, and the boy (whose name was Bhârata) became the founder of the glorious race of the Bhâratas.

=Samson Agonistes= (_sam´son ag-o-nis´tēz_).--A sacred drama by Milton. Samson, blind and bound, triumphs over his enemies. As in the Bible story, he grasps two of the supporting pillars, and perishes in the general ruin.

=Sancho Panza= (_sang´kō pan´zä_).--The esquire and counterpart of Don Quixote in Cervantes’ famous novel. He has much shrewdness in practical matters, and a store of proverbial wisdom. He rode upon an ass and was noted for his proverbs.

=Sartor Resartus= (_sär´tor rē-sär´tus_), (_i. e._, _The Tailor Patched_).--The title of an old Scottish ballad, being _The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdröckh, in Three Books_, by Thomas Carlyle. It may be described as a kind of philosophical romance, in which the author gives us, in the form of a review of a supposed German work on dress, and a notice of the writer, his opinions on things in general. The hero, it has been said, seems to be intended for a portraiture of human nature as affected by the moral influence to which a cultivated mind would be exposed by acquaintance with the transcendental philosophy of Fichte.

=Satyrane= (_sat´i-rān_), =Sir=.--_Faërie Queene_, Spenser. A noble knight who delivered Una from the fauns and satyrs. The meaning seems to be that Truth, driven from the towns and cities, took refuge in caves and dens where for a time it lay concealed. At length Sir Satyrane (Luther) rescues Una from bondage; but no sooner is this the case than she falls in with Archimago, to show how very difficult it was at the time of the Reformation to separate Truth from Error.

=Sawyer, Bob.=--_Pickwick Papers_, Dickens. A drinking young doctor who tries to establish a practice at Bristol, but without success. Sam Weller calls him “Mr. Sawbones.”

=Scalds=, or =Skalds=.--Court poets and chroniclers of the ancient Scandinavians. They resided at court, were attached to the royal suite, and attended the king in all his wars. These bards celebrated in song the gods, the kings of Norway, and national heroes. Few complete Skaldic poems have survived, but a multitude of fragments exist.

=Scarlet Letter, The.=--A romance by Nathaniel Hawthorne, published in 1850. The heroine, Hester Prynne, was condemned to wear conspicuously the letter “A” in scarlet, token of her sin as mother of her child, Pearl, whose father was not known. She was first exposed in disgrace on a raised scaffold, then served a term in prison, and afterward gained a moderate support for herself and child by embroidering. She refused to reveal the name of the father, although she might then be allowed to lay aside the letter. He was always near, held an important position, and lived a life of wearing remorse. After his death Hester Prynne took her child to another country, but returned to spend her old age in seclusion and comfort in the same place that had witnessed her punishment. She always bore herself proudly, but not defiantly, and brought to herself such love and respect that the scarlet letter became a badge of honor. Roger Chillingworth, Hester’s husband, appeared as a learned foreign physician, visited her in prison, but promised not to reveal his relation to her, and devoted his life to learning her secret. The characters in the story are intense, and the analysis of motives subtle.

=Scheherazade=, or =Sheherazade= (_she-hē´rä-zād_).--_Arabian Nights._ The fabled relater of the stories in these “Entertainments.”

=Scaramouche= (_skar´a-mouch_).--An Italian character whose traits are cowardice and boastfulness. He is of Spanish creation, copied into Italian comedy.

=Schlemihl= (_shlem´el_), =Peter=.--The name of the hero of a little work by Chamisso, a man who sells his shadow to the devil. The name has become a byword for any poor, silly, and unfortunate fellow.

=Schneider= (_shnī´der_).--Rip Van Winkle’s dog, in Boucicault’s dramatization of Irving’s _Rip Van Winkle_. The name of the dog in the story is “Wolf.”

=School for Scandal, The.=--A comedy by Richard Brinsley Sheridan, produced at Covent Garden, London, in 1777, and characterized by Hazlitt as, “if not the most original, perhaps the most finished and faultless comedy which we have. The scene in which Charles Surface sells all the old family pictures but his uncle’s, who is the purchaser in disguise, and that of the discovery of Lady Teazle when the screen falls, are among the happiest and most highly wrought that comedy, in its wide and brilliant range, can boast. Besides the art and ingenuity of this play, there is a genial spirit of frankness and generosity that relieves the heart as well as clears the lungs. While it strips off the mask of hypocrisy, it inspires a confidence between man and man.”

=School for Wives= [_L’Ecole des Femmes_ (_lä-kol´ dā fam´_)].--A comedy by Molière. Arnolph has a crotchet about the proper training of girls to make good wives, and tries his scheme upon Agnes, whom he adopts from a peasant’s cottage, and designs in due time to make his wife. He sends her from early childhood to a convent, where difference of sex and the conventions of society are wholly ignored. When removed from the convent, she treats men as if they were schoolgirls, kisses them, plays with them, and treats them with girlish familiarity. The consequence is, a young man name Horace falls in love with her, and makes her his wife, and Arnolph loses his painstaking.

=School of Husbands= [_L’Ecole des Maris_ (_lä-kol´ da mä-re´_)] A comedy by Molière. Ariste and Sganarelle, two brothers, bring up Léonor and Isabelle, two orphan sisters, according to their systems for making them in time their model wives. Sganarelle’s system was to make the woman dress plainly, live retired, attend to domestic duties, and have few indulgences. Ariste’s system was to give the woman great liberty, and trust to her honor. Isabelle, brought up by Sganarelle, deceived him and married another; but Léonor, brought up by Ariste, made him a fond and faithful wife.

=Scottish Chiefs, The.=--A romantic story by Jane Porter, published in 1810, and counting among its heroes Robert Bruce and Sir William Wallace.

=Scourge of God.=--Attila, king of the Huns. A. P. Stanley says the term was first applied to Attila in the Hungarian _Chronicles_. It is found in a legend belonging to the eighth or ninth century.

=Scrooge= (_skröj_), =Ebenezer=.--_Christmas Carol_, Dickens. The prominent character, made partner, executor, and heir of old Jacob Marley, stockbroker.

=Seasons, The.=--A series of poems by James Thomson, which appeared in the following order: _Winter_; _Summer_; _Spring_; and _Autumn_; the whole being republished, with the famous _Hymn_. Horace Walpole said that he would rather have written the most absurd lines by Lee than _The Seasons_; but Wordsworth, on the other hand, speaks of it as “a work of inspiration. Much of it,” he says, “is written from himself, and nobly from himself.”

=Sebastian= (_se-bas´tian_).--(1) Brother of Viola, in _Twelfth Night_. They were twins, and so much alike that they could not be distinguished except by their dress. Sebastian and his sister being shipwrecked, escaped to Illyria. Here Sebastian was mistaken for his sister (who had assumed man’s apparel), and was invited by the Countess Olivia to take shelter in her house from a street broil. Olivia was in love with Viola, and thinking Sebastian to be the object of her love, married him. (2) Brother of Alfonso, king of Naples, in _The Tempest_. (3) Father of Valentine and Alice, in Beaumont and Fletcher’s _Mons. Thomas_.

=Sedley, Mr.=--_Vanity Fair_, Thackeray. A wealthy London stockbroker, brought to ruin in the money market just prior to the battle of Waterloo.

=Selith.=--One of the two guardian angels of the Virgin Mary and St. John the divine, in Klopstock’s _Messiah_.

=Sempronius= (_sem-prō´ni-us_).--In Shakespeare’s _Timon of Athens_, a flatterer of Timon, who excuses himself from lending Timon money on the ground that others had been asked first.

=Senena.=--_Madoc_, Southey. A Welsh maiden in love with Caradoc. Under the assumed name of Mervyn she became the page of the Princess Goervyl, that she might follow her lover to America, where Madoc colonized Caer-Madoc. Senena was promised in marriage to another; but when the wedding day arrived the bride was nowhere to be found.

=Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy.=--By Laurence Sterne, published in 1768. Sterne describes this work as follows: “It is a subject which works well, and suits the frame of mind in which I have been for some time past. I told you my design in it was to teach us to love the world and our fellow creatures better than we do--so it runs most upon these gentler passions and affections which add so much to it.”

=Serena= (_sā-rā´nä_).--_Faërie Queene_, Spenser. Allured into the fields by the mildness of the weather, to gather wild flowers for a garland, she was attacked by the Blatant Beast, which carried her off in its mouth. Her cries attracted to the spot Sir Calidore, who compelled the beast to drop its prey.

=Sesame.=--In Arabian tales given as the talismanic word which would open or shut the door leading into the cave of the forty thieves. In order to open it, the words to be uttered were, “Open, Sesame!” and in order to close it, “Shut, Sesame!” Sesame is a plant yielding grain which is sometimes used for food, and from which an oil is expressed. When Cassim forgot the word, he substituted “Barley,” but without effect. Sesame has come into general use in connection with any word or act which will open the way for accomplishment of the thing desired.

=Seven Lamps of Architecture, The.=--A treatise on architecture by Ruskin, published in 1849. The “seven lamps” are those of Sacrifice, Truth, Power, Beauty, Life, Memory, and Obedience. They are symbolic rules for the guidance of the student.

=Sganarelle= (_sgä-nä-rel´_).--The hero of Molière’s comedy _La Mariage Force_. He is represented as a humorist of about fifty-three, who, having a mind to marry a fashionable young woman, but feeling a doubt, consults his friends upon this momentous question. Receiving no satisfactory counsel, and not much pleased with the proceedings of his bride elect, he at last determines to give up his engagement, but is cudgeled into compliance by the brother of his intended.

=Shallow.=--A braggart and absurd country justice in Shakespeare’s _Merry Wives of Windsor_, and in the second part of _King Henry IV._

=Shandy, Mrs.=--The mother of Tristram Shandy in Sterne’s novel of this name. She is the ideal of nonentity, a character individual from its very absence of individuality.

=Shandy, Tristram.=--The nominal hero of Sterne’s _The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gent._

=Shandy, Walter.=--The name of Tristram Shandy’s father in Sterne’s novel of this name, a man of an active and metaphysical, but at the same time a whimsical, cast of mind, whom too much and too miscellaneous learning had brought within a step or two of madness.

=Sharp, Becky.=--A leading character in Thackeray’s _Vanity Fair_, the daughter of a poor painter, dashing, selfish, unprincipled, and very clever.

=Shepherd of Salisbury Plain, The.=--The hero and title of a religious tract by Hannah More. The shepherd is noted for his homely wisdom and simple piety.

=Shepherd’s Calendar, The.=--Twelve eclogues in various meters, by Spenser, one for each month. January: Colin Clout (Spenser) bewails that Rosalind does not return his love. February: Cuddy, a lad, complains of the cold, and Thenot laments the degeneracy of pastoral life. March: Willie and Thomalin discourse of love. April: Hobbinol sings a song on Eliza. May: Palinode exhorts Piers to join the festivities of May, but Piers replies that good shepherds who seek their own indulgence expose their flocks to the wolves. June: Hobbinol exhorts Colin to greater cheerfulness. July: Morrel, a goatherd, invites Thomalin to come with him to the uplands. August: Perigot and Willie contend in song, and Cuddy is appointed arbiter. September: Diggon Davie complains to Hobbinol of clerical abuses. October: On poetry. November: Colin being asked by Thenot to sing, excuses himself because of his grief for Dido, but finally sings her elegy. December: Colin again complains that his heart is desolate. Thenot is an old shepherd bent with age, who tells Cuddy, the herdsman’s boy, the fable of the oak and the brier, one of the best-known fables included in the calendar.

=Shepherd’s Pipe.=--Pan, in Greek mythology, was the god of forests, pastures, and flocks, and the reputed inventor of the shepherd’s flute or pipe.

=Sheridan’s Ride.=--A lyric by T. B. Read, one of the few things written during the heat of the Civil war that is likely to survive.

=She Stoops to Conquer.=--A comedy by Oliver Goldsmith, said to have been founded on an incident which actually occurred to its author. When Goldsmith was sixteen years of age, a wag residing at Ardagh directed him, when passing through that village, to Squire Fetherstone’s house as the village inn. The mistake was not discovered for some time, but all concerned enjoyed the joke. _She Stoops to Conquer_ is one of the gayest, pleasantest, and most amusing pieces of English comedy.

=Shingebis.=--In Longfellow’s _Hiawatha_, the diver who challenged the North Wind and put him to flight in combat.

=Shocky.=--_The Hoosier Schoolmaster_, Edw. Eggleston. The little lad from the poorhouse who adores the schoolmaster and early warns him of plans for upsetting his authority. He is also a small poet, not in rhyming, but in comprehension of things about him and in his way of looking at life, and he grows to be a helper in the _Church of the Best Licks_, founded by the schoolmaster.

=Shylock.=--A sordid, avaricious, revengeful Jew, in Shakespeare’s _Merchant of Venice_.

=Siege Perilous, The.=--The Round Table contained sieges, or seats, in the names of different knights. One was reserved for him who was destined to attainment in the quest of the Holy Grail. This seat was called “perilous” because if anyone sat therein except he for whom it was reserved, he would “lose himself.” It finally bore the name of Sir Galahad.

=Siegfried= (_sēg´frēd_).--The hero of various Scandinavian and Teutonic legends, particularly of the old German epic poem, the _Nibelungenlied_. He is represented as a young warrior of physical strength and beauty, and in valor superior to all men of his time. He cannot easily be identified with any historical personage.

=Sikes, Bill.=--A brutal thief and housebreaker in Dickens’ novel _Oliver Twist_. He murders his mistress, Nancy, and, in trying to lower himself by a rope from the roof of a building where he had taken refuge from the crowd, he falls, and is choked in a noose of his own making. Sikes had an ill-conditioned, savage dog, the beast-image of his master, which he kicked and loved, ill-treated and fondled.

=Silas Marner= (_mär´ner_).--A novel by George Eliot, published in 1861. This novel is one of the authoress’ most beautiful stories, the most poetical of them all--the tale of Silas Marner, who deems himself deserted and rejected utterly of God and man, and to whom, in his deepest misery, in place of lost gold, a little foundling girl is sent. This tale is the most hopeful of all her books. The contemplation of the renewal of enterprise and energy, which comes with little children, and of the promise with which each new generation gilds the crown of honor for its sires, is pleasant and grateful to her. She writes upon her title page the lines of Wordsworth:

A child, more than all other gifts
That earth can offer to declining man,
Brings hope with it and forward-looking thoughts.

The weaver of Raveloe and Eppie are creations after Wordsworth’s own heart.

=Silken Thread.=--_Gulliver’s Travels._ In the kingdom of Lilliput, the three great prizes of honor are “fine silk threads six inches long, one blue, another red, and a third green.” The thread is girt about the loins, and no ribbon of the Legion of Honor, or of the Knight of the Garter, is worn more worthily or more proudly.

=Sindbad= (_sind´bad_) =the Sailor.=--A character in the _Arabian Nights_, in which is related the story of his strange voyages and wonderful adventures.

=Sinon.=--In Vergil’s _Æneid_ the cunning Greek who, by a false tale, induced the Trojans to drag the wooden horse into Troy.

=Sir Roger de Coverley= (_kuv´er-li_).--In Addison’s _The Spectator_. The prototype of this famous character was Sir John Pakington, a hypothetical baronet of Coverley or Cowley, near Oxford.

=Skeleton in Armor, The.=--A lyric by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, suggested to him while riding on the seashore at Newport. A year or two previous a skeleton had been dug up at Fall River, clad in broken and corroded armor; and the idea occurred to him of connecting it with the Round Tower at Newport, generally known hitherto as the Old Windmill, though now claimed by the Danes as a work of their early ancestors.

=Sketch-Book, The.=--A series of short tales, sketches, and essays, published by Washington Irving in 1820. They are chiefly descriptive of English manners and scenery, and have often been reprinted.

=Skylark, Ode to the.=--By Percy Bysshe Shelley, written in 1820. “In sweetness,” says Leigh Hunt, “and not even there in passages, the _Ode to the Skylark_ is inferior only to Coleridge--in rapturous passion to no man. It is like the bird it sings--enchanting, profuse, continuous, and alone; small, but filling the heavens.”

Hail to thee, blithe spirit!
Bird thou never wert,
That, from heaven, or near it,
Pourest thy full heart
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.

=Slick, Sam.=--The hero of various humorous narratives, by Haliburton, illustrating and exaggerating the peculiarities of the Yankee character and dialect.

=Slop, Dr.=--The name of a choleric and uncharitable physician in Sterne’s _Tristram Shandy, Gent._

=Slough of Despond.=--_Pilgrim’s Progress_, Bunyan. A deep bog, which Christian had to pass on his way to the Wicket Gate.

=Sly, Christopher.=--_Taming of the Shrew_, Shakespeare. A keeper of bears and a tinker and a sad drinker, son of a peddler.

=Sofronia= (_sof-rō´ni-ä_).--A young Christian of Jerusalem, the heroine of an episode in Tasso’s _Jerusalem Delivered_. She and her lover, Olinda, are condemned to death by Aladine, king of Jerusalem. The king finally, at the solicitation of Clorinda, spares them and they are married.

=Sohrab= (_sö-hrâb´_) =and Rustum.=--An episode, or narrative in verse, by Matthew Arnold. The story is told in prose in Sir John Malcolm’s _History of Persia_. “The powerful conception of the relation between the two chieftains, and the slaying of the son by the father, are,” says Stedman, “tragical and heroic. The descriptive passage at the close beginning--

But the majestic river floated on,

for diction and breadth of tone would do honor to any living poet.”

=Song of Roland.=--An ancient song recounting the deeds of Roland, the renowned nephew of Charlemagne, slain in the pass of Roncesvalles. At the battle of Hastings, Taillefer advanced on horseback before the invading army, and gave the signal for onset by singing this famous song.

=Spanker, Lady Gay.=--In _London Assurance_, by Boucicault, is a woman of great spirit, devoted to the chase.

=Speed.=--An inveterate punster and the clownish servant of Valentine, one of the two “gentlemen” in Shakespeare’s _The Two Gentlemen of Verona_.

=Spenlow= (_spen´lō_).--_Lavinia_ and _Clarissa_, in Dickens’ _David Copperfield_, two spinster aunts of Dora Spenlow, with whom she lived at the death of her father.

=Squeers.=--Name of a family prominent in Dickens’ _Nicholas Nickleby_. Wackford Squeers, master of Dotheboys Hall, in Yorkshire, is a vulgar, conceited, ignorant schoolmaster, overbearing and mean. He steals the boys’ pocket money, clothes his son in their best suits, half starves them, and teaches them next to nothing. Ultimately he is transported for theft. Mrs. Squeers, a raw-boned, harsh, heartless virago, with no womanly feeling for the boys put under her charge. Miss Fanny Squeers, daughter of the schoolmaster. Miss Fanny falls in love with Nicholas Nickleby, but later hates him because he is insensible to the soft impeachment. Master Wackford Squeers, over-bearing, self-willed and passionate.

=Squire of Dames.=--A personage introduced by Spenser in the _Faërie Queene_, and whose curious adventures are there recorded. The expression is sometimes applied to a person devoted to the fair sex.

=Steerforth= (_stēr´fōrth_), =James.=--_David Copperfield_, Dickens. The young man who led little Em’ly astray. When tired of his toy, he proposed to her to marry his valet. Steerforth, being shipwrecked off the coast of Yarmouth, Ham Peggotty tried to rescue him, but both were drowned.

=Stentor= (_sten´tor_).--A Grecian herald in the Trojan war whom Homer describes as great-hearted, brazen-voiced Stentor, accustomed to shout as loud as fifty other men.

=Stephano= (_stef´a-nō_).--(1) In Tasso’s _Jerusalem Delivered_, earl of Carnuti, the leader of four hundred men in the allied Christian army. He was noted for his military prowess and wise counsel; (2) a drunken butler in Shakespeare’s _The Tempest_; (3) servant to Portia in Shakespeare’s _Merchant of Venice_.

=Stiggins, Rev. Mr.=--A red-nosed, hypocritical “shepherd,” or Methodist parson, in Dickens’ _Pickwick Papers_, with a great appetite for pineapple rum. He is the spiritual adviser of Mrs. Weller, and lectures on temperance.

=Strephon= (_stref´on_).--The shepherd in Sir Philip Sidney’s _Arcadia_, who makes love to the beautiful Urania. It is a stock name for a lover, Chloe being usually the corresponding lady.

=Strongback.=--One of the seven attendants of Fortunio, in D’Aulnoy’s _Fairy Tales_. He could never be overweighted, and could fell a forest in a few hours without fatigue.

=Summer, St. Martin’s.=--The fine weather which generally occurs in October and November; referred to in _Henry VI._

=T=

=Tabard= (_tab´ārd_), =The.=--Is the inn, in High Street, Southwark, London, from which Chaucer makes his pilgrims start on their journey to Canterbury. It took its name from its sign--a tabard.

=Tale of Two Cities, A.=--A novel, by Charles Dickens, originally produced in _All the Year Round_ for 1859, and afterward republished in complete form. The author says he first conceived the main idea of the story when acting, with his children and friends, in Wilkie Collins’ drama of _The Frozen Deep_. His narrative is drawn from the scenes of the French revolution of 1789; and it was one of Dickens’ hopes, he says, to add something to the popular and picturesque means of understanding that terrible time; “though no one,” he continues, “can hope to add anything to the philosophy of Carlyle’s wonderful book.”

=Tales of a Wayside Inn.=--Name given by Longfellow to a collection of short poems arranged by himself and collected together much in the same form as Chaucer’s _Canterbury Tales_. These “tales” were mostly gathered from old literature and translated into Longfellow’s own verses--only one, _The Birds of Killingworth_, being said to be entirely original. Seven narratives are represented: the Landlord, the Student, the Spanish Cavalier, the Jew, the Sicilian, the Musician, and the Theologian. Four colonial tales are included in the work: _Paul Revere’s Ride_, _Elizabeth_, _Lady Wentworth_, and _The Rhyme of Sir Christopher_.

=Taming of the Shrew, The.=--A comedy by Shakespeare. The incident of Vincentio’s personation by the pedant was borrowed by Shakespeare from George Gascoigne’s _Supposes_. The chief characters are Petruchio and his wife Katharine, the shrew.

=Tam O’Shanter.=--The title of a poem by Burns, and the name of its hero, a farmer, who, riding home very late and very drunk from Ayr, in a stormy night, had to pass by the kirk of Alloway, a place reputed to be a favorite haunt of the devil and his friends and emissaries. On approaching the kirk, he perceived a light gleaming through the windows; but, having got courageously drunk, he ventured on till he could look into the edifice, when he saw a dance of witches. His presence became known, and in an instant all was dark; and Tam, recollecting himself, turned and spurred his horse to the top of her speed, chased by the whole fiendish crew. It is a current belief that witches, or any evil spirits, have no power to follow a poor wight any farther than the middle of the next running stream. Fortunately for Tam, the River Doon was near, and he escaped, while the witches held only the tail of his mare Maggie. It has been said of _Tam O’Shanter_ that in no other poem of the same length can there be found so much brilliant description, pathos, and quaint humor, nor such a combination of the terrific and the ludicrous.

=Tancred= (_tang´kred_).--In Tasso’s _Jerusalem Delivered_, was the greatest of all the Christian warriors, except Rinaldo.

=Tartufe=, or =Tartuffe= (_tār-tūf´_).--One of Molière’s best known comedies. Tartuffe is a religious hypocrite and impostor, who uses “religion” as the means of gaining money, covering deceit, and promoting self-indulgence. He is taken up by one Orgon, a man of property, who promises him his daughter in marriage; but, his true character being exposed, he is not only turned out of the house, but is lodged in jail for felony.

Isaac Bickerstaff adapted Molière’s comedy to the English stage, under the title of _The Hypocrite_. Tartuffe he calls “Dr. Cantwell,” and Orgon “Sir John Lambert.” It is thought that “Tartuffe” is a caricature of Père la Chaise, the confessor of Louis XIV., who was very fond of truffles (French, _truffes_), and that this suggested the name to the dramatist.

=Task, The.=--A poem by William Cowper. “_The Task_,” says Southey, “was at once descriptive, moral, and satirical. The descriptive parts everywhere bore evidence of a thoughtful mind and a gentle spirit, as well as of an observant eye; and the moral sentiment which pervaded them gave a charm in which descriptive poetry is often found wanting. The best didactic poems, when compared with _The Task_, are like formal gardens in comparison with woodland scenery.” “_The Task_,” says Hazlitt, “has fewer blemishes than _The Seasons_; but it has not the same capital excellence, the ‘unsought grace’ of poetry, the power of moving and infusing the warmth of the author’s mind into that of the reader.”

=Teazle= (_tē´zl_), =Lady.=--The heroine of Sheridan’s comedy _The School for Scandal_, and the wife of Sir Peter Teazle, an old gentleman who marries late in life. She is represented as being “a lively and innocent, though imprudent, country girl, transplanted into the midst of all that can bewilder and endanger her, but with enough of purity about her to keep the blight of the world from settling upon her.”

=Teazle, Sir Peter.=--A character in Sheridan’s play _The School for Scandal_, husband of Lady Teazle.

=Télémaque= (_tā-lā-mȧk´_), =Les Aventures de:= “_Adventures of Telemachus_”.--A romance by Fenelon, published in 1699. It is founded on the legendary history of Telemachus, and is one of the classics of French literature. Though the beautiful fiction of _Telemachus_, which has much in common with, and was doubtless suggested to Fenelon by the _Argenis_, be rather an epic poem in prose than a romance, it seems to have led the way to several political romances, or, at least, to have nourished a state for this species of composition.

=Tell, William.=--Title of a drama by Schiller. The hero is chief of the confederates of the forest cantons of Switzerland, and son-in-law of Walter Fürst. Having refused to salute the Austrian cap which Gessler, the Austrian governor, had set up in the market-place of Altdorf, he was condemned to shoot an apple from the head of his own son. He succeeded in this perilous task, but, letting fall a concealed arrow, was asked by Gessler with what object he had secreted it. “To kill thee, tyrant,” he replied, “if I had failed.” The governor now ordered him to be carried in chains across the Lake Lucerne to Küssnacht Castle, “there to be devoured alive by reptiles”; but, a violent storm having arisen on the lake, he was unchained, that he might take the helm. Gessler was on board; and, when the vessel neared the castle, Tell leaped ashore, gave the boat a push into the lake, and shot the governor. After this he liberated his country from the Austrian yoke.

=Tempest, The.=--One of Shakespeare’s fairy plays. The story runs: Prospero, duke of Milan, was dethroned by his brother Antonio, and left on the open sea with his three-year-old daughter Miranda, in “a rotten carcass of a boat.” In this they were carried to an enchanted island, uninhabited except by a hideous creature, Caliban, the son of a witch. Prospero was a powerful enchanter, and soon had not only Caliban, but all the spirits of the region under his control, including Ariel, chief of the spirits of the air. Years afterward Antonio, Alfonso, Sebastian and other friends of the usurper came near the island. Prospero, by his magic, raises a storm which casts their ship on the shore and the whole party are spellbound and brought to Prospero. Plots and counterplots follow, bringing in Caliban and clowns; but all are made ridiculous and are defeated by Prospero and Ariel.

=Tessa= (_tes´ä_).--In George Eliot’s novel of _Romola_ is the peasant girl who is deceived into marriage with Tito Melema.