THE TENNYSON DICTIONARY (continued 2)
Reading edition
The festival, which concluded their labours, included horse-racing, foot-races, backsword-play, and other old English games, and prizes were distributed to the successful competitors. The ceremony was suspended in 1780, only, however, to be renewed with great pomp in 1857. Appended is a copy of the hand-bills announcing the ceremony for the years 1776 and 1857; from The Scouring of the White Horse, by Hughes.
White Horse Hill, Berks, 1776.
‘The scowering and cleansing of the White Horse is fixed for Monday the 27th day of May; on which day a Silver Cup will be run for near White Horse Hill, by any horse, etc., that never run for anything, carrying 11 stone, the best of 3 two-mile heats, to start at ten o’clock.
‘Between the heats will be run for by Poneys, a Saddle, Bridle and Whip; the best of 3 two-mile heats, the winner of 2 heats will be entitled to the Saddle, the second best the Bridle, and the third the Whip.
‘The same time a Thill harness will be run for by Cart-horses, etc., in their harness and bells, the carters to ride in smock frocks without saddles, crossing and jostling, but no whipping allowed.
‘A flitch of Bacon to be run for by asses.
‘A good Hat to be run for by men in sacks, every man to bring his own sack.
‘A Waistcoat, 10s. 6d. value, to be given to the person who shall take a bullet out of a tub of flour with his mouth in the shortest time.
‘A Cheese to be run for down the White Horse Manger.
‘Smocks to be run for by ladies, the second best of each prize to be entitled to a Silk Hat.
‘Cudgel-playing for a gold-laced Hat and a pair of buckskin Breeches, and Wrestling for a pair of silver Buckles and a pair of pumps.
‘The horses to be on the White Horse Hill by nine o’clock.
‘No less than four horses, etc. or asses to start for any of the above prizes.’
Pastime.
To be held on the occasion of the Scouring of the White Horse, September 17 and 18, 1857.
At a meeting held at the Craven Arms, Uffington, on the 20th day of August, 1857, the following resolutions (amongst others) were passed unanimously:—
First. That a pastime be held on the White Horse Hill, on Thursday and Friday, the 17th and 18th of September, in accordance with the old custom at the time of ‘The Scouring of the Horse.’
2dly. That E. Martin Atkins, Esq., of Kingston Lisle, be appointed Treasurer.
3dly. That prizes be awarded for the following games and sports, That is to say—
Backsword Play. ⎰ ⎱ Old gamesters, £8
Young gamesters, £4
Wrestling. ⎰ ⎱ Old gamesters, £5
Young gamesters, £4
A jingling match.
Foot races.
Hurdle races.
Race of cart-horses in Thill harness (for a new set of harness).
Donkey race (for a flitch of bacon).
Climbing pole (for a leg of mutton).
Races down ‘the Manger’ (for cheeses).
A pig will be turned out on the down, to be the prize of the man who catches him (under certain regulations); and further prizes will be awarded for other games and sports as the funds will allow.
4thly. That no person be allowed to put up or use a stall or booth on the ground, without the previous sanction of Mr. Spackman, of Bridgecombe Farm [the occupier], who is hereby authorized to make terms with any person wishing to put up a stall or booth.
Signed, E. Martin Atkins, Chairman.
The White Horse was the emblem of Hengist, and represented Odin, the war-god of the Teutonic Tribes.
Geraint and Enid.
BESS.
The wife of a farmer, a native of the north of England.
Owd Roä.
BESS.
Servant girl to an old spinster, who named her cats after her former admirers.
Spinster’s Sweet-Arts.
BESSY MARRIS.
A person of rather doubtful character. She accused an old farmer of being the father of her child. In order to deal fairly he decided to look after Bessy and her child.
I done moy duty boy ’um as I ’a done boy the lond.
Northern Farmer, Old Style.
BETHLEHEM.
Not least art thou, little Bethlehem In Judah, for in thee the Lord was born; See Matthew ii. v.
Sir John Oldcastle, Lord Cobham.
BEVERLEY (John).
Carmelite: doctor and professor of divinity at Oxford; canon of St. John’s Church, Beverley; burnt to death, 1414.
Burnt—good Sir Roger Acton, my dear friend! Burnt too, my faithful preacher, Beverley!
Sir John Oldcastle, Lord Cobham.
BIDEFORD.
A town on the north coast of Devonshire, and in the time of Elizabeth a port of some importance. It was the birthplace of sir Richard Grenville (q.v.), commander of The Revenge; and we may assume the greater part of his crew belonged to this place:
But Sir Richard bore in hand all his sick men from the land Very carefully and slow, Men of Bideford in Devon.
Here Kingsley wrote part of his Westward Ho!
The Revenge.
BILLY.
Name of a horse.
Village Wife.
BILLY-ROUGH-UN.
Name of a horse.
Village Wife.
BINDWEED-BELL.
= the convolvulus, a genus of plants so-called from their twining or binding, with showy bell-like flowers.
The Brook.
BIRCH.
A tree of several species.
Prologue to General Hamley.
BIRK.
= Birch.
A Dirge; Progress of Spring.
BISCAY.
A bay between the west coast of France and the north coast of Spain. Navigation is much impeded by the heavy seas produced by the north-west winds.
Enoch Arden.
BITHYNIA.
A country in the north-west of Asia Minor, its inhabitants being of Thracian origin. In the seventh and sixth centuries B.C. it was part of the kingdom of Lydia, and afterwards became a part of the Persian empire under Cyrus. During the decline of the Persian empire it became an independent kingdom under a dynasty of native princes, which lasted until 74 B.C., when Nicomedes III bequeathed it after his death to the Romans and it became a province of the empire.
The Cup.
BLAISE (Saint).
Bishop of Sebaste, Cappadocia, suffered martyrdom, 316. In 1070 a chapel in the north transept of Canterbury Cathedral was dedicated to St. Blaise which stood intact until 1379, when, in the course of rebuilding the nave the chapel was done away with. The staircase and passage leading to it is however preserved in the existing wall.
To the crypt? no—no, To the chapel of St. Blaise beneath the roof!
Becket.
BLACK.
An inland sea bounded by Russia, Asia Minor and European Turkey, Bulgaria and Roumania.
Maud.
BLACK BESS.
Name of a horse.
The Brook.
BLACKBIRD.
A species of thrush, a well-known singing bird.
The Blackbird; Audley Court; Early Spring.
BLACKCAP.
A small European bird, so-called from its black crown.
Progress of Spring.
BLACKTHORN.
A dark-coloured thorn; the sloe.
May Queen.
BLANCHE.
Lady Blanche, mother of Melissa, and a widow. She was a woman of narrow and jealous disposition. Was engaged by the princess Ida in the college founded by the princess for women. She regarded the institution as a means for ignoble self-aggrandisement, and was willing to desert it when she conceived that her end might be more effectively secured elsewhere. Envious, self-centred, treacherous, she lacked even the redeeming feature of love for her child or respect for the memory of her dead husband.
The Princess.
BLESSED ISLES.
Row to the blessed Isles! the blessed Isles! Sinnatus!
Name given to the Canary Islands off the coast of north-west Africa.
The Cup.
BLEYS.
The historian of Arthur’s court. Malory tells us how Merlin, after Arthur’s great battle against the kings, ‘he took leave of Arthur and of the two kings, for to go and see his master Bleise that dwelt in Northumberland. Merlin gave Bleise an account of the fight, and so Bleise wrote the battle, word by word, as Merlin told him.... All the battles that was done in Arthur’s days Merlin did his master Bleise do write.’
and one Is Merlin’s master (so they call him) Bleys, Who taught him magic; but the scholar ran Before the master, and so far, that Bleys Laid magic by, and sat him down and wrote All things and whatsoever Merlin did In one great annal-book, where after-years Will learn the secret of our Arthur’s birth.’
Coming of Arthur.
BLIND FATE.
Tho’ Sin too oft, when smitten by Thy rod, Rail at ‘Blind Fate’ with many a vain ‘Alas!’
Has reference to a man who, for his evil deeds, and his violation of the Divine Law, is overtaken by God’s judgments, but refuses to see in them anything more than the operation of ‘Blind Fate.’
Doubt and Prayer.
BLUEBELL.
A plant which bears blue bell-shaped flowers.
A Dirge; Adeline; Last Tournament; Becket; Promise of May.
BLUEBOTTLE.
A plant which grows in grain fields, so called from its blue bottle-shaped flowers.
Promise of May.
BOÄDICEA.
Queen of the Iceni in Britain who inhabited Norfolk and Suffolk. Being treated with indignity by the Romans, she—during the absence of the Roman governor in Anglesey—assembled an army, captured and burnt the Roman colonies of London, Colchester, and Verulam and slew 70,000 Romans. Upon his return Suetonius Paulinus attacked and defeated her and in despair she poisoned herself, A.D. 61. This victory secured the Roman dominion in Britain. Cowper makes her the subject of one of his poems.
She, with all a monarch’s pride, Felt them in her bosom glow, Rushed to battle, fought and died, Dying, hurled them at the foe. Cowper: Boadicea, 37–40.
Boädicea.
BOANERGES.
A declamatory parson, who consigns to perdition all except his own followers.
Our Boanerges with his threats of doom, And loud-lung’d Antibabylonianisms.
Sea Dreams.
BOAR.
= the wild boar.
Coming of Arthur; Gareth and Lynette; The Foresters.
BOAZ.
A brass pillar, signifying strength, at the entrance to Solomon’s Temple. 1 Kings vii. 21.
I have built the Lord a house—sing, Asaph! clash The cymbal, Heman! blow the trumpet, priest! Fall, cloud, and fill the house—lo! my two pillars Jachin and Boaz!—
Harold.
BOBOLI.
At Florence too what golden hours, In those long galleries, were ours; What drives about the fresh Cascinè, Or walks in Boboli’s ducal bowers.
Giardino di Boboli, a garden behind the Pitti Palace, Florence. The walks, bordered with evergreens, attract crowds of pleasure-seekers.
The Daisy.
BOGGLE.
= a ghost.
Northern Farmer, Old Style.
BOLEYN.
Second queen of Henry VIII, and mother of Elizabeth. After a three years’ residence at the French court became maid-of-honour to queen Catherine; attracted the admiration of Henry, and the king having instituted proceedings with a view of his divorce from Catherine of Aragon married her secretly on January 3, 1533; charged with adultery and conspiracy she was condemned to death and beheaded on Tower Hill, 1536 (1507–1536).
Queen Mary.
BOLINGBROKE (Harry).
See Harry Bolingbroke.
BONNER (Edmund).
Bishop of London. Chaplain to cardinal Wolsey 1539; appeared before the pope at Marseilles in 1533 to appeal for the excommunication of Henry VIII; appointed to the living of East Dereham, 1534; bishop of Hereford and ambassador to the French court, 1538. In 1540 he was made bishop of London; and was appointed ambassador to the emperor, 1542; fell into disgrace under Edward VI, who imprisoned him in Fleet; reprimanded for neglecting to enforce use of the new prayer book, and imprisoned at Marshalsea, 1540–53; deprived of his bishoprick; restored on the accession of Mary, 1553; refused to take the oath of supremacy under Elizabeth and was again imprisoned in the Marshalsea where he died (1500–1569).
Queen Mary.
BONNY DOON.
where the waters marry—crost, Whistling a random bar of Bonny Doon,
Air or tune to which the song of The Banks o’ Doon is sung. The song is by Robert Burns, and begins:
Ye banks and braes o’ bonnie Doon, How can ye bloom sae fresh and fair,
Doon is the name of a river in Ayrshire.
The Brook.
BOOR-TREE.
= Elder-tree.
Tomorrow.
BORS.
A Knight of the Round Table, called sir Bors de Ganis, brother of sir Lionel and nephew of sir Lancelot. He was ‘a square-set man and honest;’ and represented those who have sinned and effectually repented. When sir Bors went to the castle of Corbin and saw Galahad, the son of Lancelot and Elaine, he ‘wept for joy, and he prayed to God it might prove as good a knight as his father was,’ and forthwith the Holy Grail appeared unto him:
And so came in a white dove, and she bare a little censer of gold in her mouth, and there was all manner of meats and drinks, and a maiden bare that Sancgreal, and she said openly, Wit you well Sir Bors that this child is Galahad, that shall sit in the siege perilous, and achieve the Sancgreal, and he shall be much better than ever was Sir Launcelot du Lake, that is his own father. And then they kneeled down and made their devotions.... And then the dove took her flight, and the maiden vanished with the Sancgreal as she came.
Malory: Morte d’Arthur, Book XI. chap. iv.
Sir Bors accompanied sir Galahad and sir Percivale in the quest of the Holy Grail, and was present when it appeared. After the death of Galahad, sir Bors departed with sir Lancelot from Cardiff and sailed to Benwick, and was crowned king of all king Claudus’ lands.
Holy Grail.
BOS.
when the long wave broke All down the thundering shores of Bude and Bos,
Represents the rocky coast of Cornwall. Bos, now called Boscastle, is a village near Tintagil Head.
Guinevere.
BOSHAM.
A seaport in Sussex. It was for some time the residence of king Harold, and the place from which he started on his journey to Normandy. In the church is the tomb of Bosham, secretary to Thomas Becket. King Canute built a castle here, and his daughter lies buried in the church.
Harold; Becket.
BOUNTEOUS ISLE.
See Maeldune.
BOURNE (Gilbert).
Son of Philip Bourne and brother of sir John Bourne, Secretary of State in the time of Mary. In 1531 we find him Fellow of All Souls’ College, Oxford, and ten years’ later was made prebendary of Worcester and of St. Paul’s. In the meantime he had become chaplain to bishop Bonner, and was in 1553 sent to preach at Paul’s Cross; and denouncing Edward VI for having imprisoned Bonner in the Marshalsea, the crowd became so exasperated that a dagger was hurled at him, and had it not been for the interference of Courtenay, earl of Devon, would have undoubtedly paid for his rashness with his life.
Son Courtenay, wilt thou see the holy father Murdered before thy face? up, son, and save him! They love thee, and thou canst not come to harm.
In 1553 he was created bishop of Bath and Wells, and soon afterwards was made president of Wales, but in the reign of Elizabeth was deprived (1559) for refusing to take the oath of supremacy, and was committed to the Tower; afterwards being committed to ‘free custody.’ He died at Silverton, Devonshire, 1569.
Queen Mary.
BOVADILLA (Francisco de).
An official of the royal household of Ferdinand and Isabella; appointed Commissioner to investigate the state of affairs that existed in the island of Hispaniola under the vice-regency of Christopher Columbus. Armed with authority to take complete possession of the island he sailed from Spain in July 1500, and entered the harbour of San Domingo on August 23 of the same year. Landing on the following day he demanded from James Columbus—brother of the navigator, who was left in command during Christopher’s absence in Vega Real—the release of all the prisoners in the fortress, and upon James refusing took the fortress by storm. He then occupied Columbus’ house and seized all his public and private papers. Hearing of Bovadilla’s arrival, Columbus set out for San Domingo, and upon his arrival was—with his brothers James and Bartholomew—arrested, placed in chains and sent home to Spain, Bovadilla remaining in command of the island. He however failed to reduce the colony to order, and in 1501 was superseded by Nicholas de Ovando. Upon the latter’s arrival in the island, Bovadilla embarked for Spain, but encountering a hurricane immediately upon leaving the shore was shipwrecked and consequently lost his life.
Columbus.
BOX.
A tree or shrub remarkable for the hardness and smoothness of its wood.
A Spirit haunts.
BRAMBLE.
A prickly shrub.
Holy Grail; Pelleas and Ettarre.
BRANDAGORAS.
King of Latangor, subdued by king Arthur, fighting on behalf of Leodogran, king of Cameliard.
Coming of Arthur.
BRASTIAS.
A Knight of the Round Table: one of the three knights sent by king Arthur to king Leodogran to ask for the hand of his daughter Guinevere. Brastias became a hermit and retired to a hermitage in the forest of Windsor, where he was visited by sir Lancelot when the latter was commanded by Guinevere to avoid the court.
Coming of Arthur.
BRENDAN.
An Irish saint of the sixth century. He lived an ascetic life and was Abbot over 100 monks. Said to have visited certain islands in the eastern ocean where he—with his Irish monks—preached.
And we came to the Isle of a Saint who had sail’d with St. Brendan of yore.
The islands of St. Brendan are supposed to be to the west of the Canary Islands. Brendan visited St. Columbia at Iona in 563. He is the hero of the Navigation of St. Brendan, a popular tale of the mediæval ages.
Voyage of Maeldune.
BRETON (Brittany).
Maud; Merlin and Vivien; Last Tournament.
BRETT (Captain).
Joined sir Thomas Wyatt in insurrection to prevent the marriage of Mary with Philip of Spain, and was in charge of the London deserters; taken prisoner by sir Maurice Berkeley at Temple Bar, and executed.
Queen Mary.
BRIAR.
= Brier.
Day-Dream; Promise of May.
BRIER.
A plant with a stem bearing prickles.
Buonaparte; You might have won; The Princess; The Window; Last Tournament; Lover’s Tale.
BRIGADE, Heavy.
See Heavy Brigade.
BRIGADE, Light.
See Light Brigade.
BRIGADE, Scarlett’s.
See Scarlett’s Brigade.
BRIONY.
On a sudden a low breath Of tender air made tremble in the hedge The fragile bindweed-bells and briony rings; And he look’d up.
A wild climbing plant common in English hedgerows; its rings are its spiral tendrils.
Talking Oak; The Brook.
BRITAIN.
You ask me why; The Princess; Third of February; A Welcome to Her Royal Highness Marie Alexandrovna; Boädicea; Maud; Coming of Arthur; Marriage of Geraint; Balin and Balan; Lancelot and Elaine; Last Tournament; Guinevere; To the Queen, II; Defence of Lucknow; Sir John Oldcastle, Lord Cobham; Battle of Brunanburh; Opening of the Indian and Colonial Exhibition; To Marquis of Dufferin and Ava; Harold; Queen Mary.
BRITO (Richard de).
See De Brito.
BRITTANY.
The north-western peninsula of France. It was conquered by the Romans in 57–56 B.C., and in the fifth and sixth centuries was invaded and christianized from England and Ireland. From the end of the tenth to the middle of the fifteenth centuries it was independent of the French king, being governed by dukes, but in 1532 was united to the French crown.
Last Tournament; Harold; The Foresters.
BROC.
See De Broc.
BROCELIANDE.
A forest supposed to have been Brittany. At one end of the forest stands the fountain of Baranton, and near by is the tomb of Merlin surmounted by a cross of wood. From the fountain flows a mineral spring, which bubbles up when a piece of iron or copper is thrown into it.
And chased the flashes of his golden horns Until they vanish’d by the fairy well That laughs at iron—as our warriors did— Where children cast their pins and nails, and cry, ‘Laugh, little well,’ but touch it with a sword, It buzzes fiercely round the point;
Merlin and Vivien.
BROOKS.
William Henry Brookfield, son of Charles Brookfield, a Sheffield solicitor. Curate of Maltby (1834), St. James’, Piccadilly, London (1840), and St. Luke’s, Berwick Street (1841); chaplain-in-ordinary to queen Victoria (1860). Whilst at Trinity College, Cambridge, made the acquaintance of Tennyson, who in 1875 wrote for Lord Lyttelton’s preface to Sermons by the late Rev. William Henry Brookfield, the following:
Old Brooks, who loved so well to mouth my rhymes, How oft we two have heard St. Mary’s chimes! How oft the Cantab supper, host and guest, Would echo helpless laughter to your jest! How oft with him we paced that walk of limes, Him, the lost sight of those dawn-golden times. Life of Tennyson.
To Rev. W. H. Brookfield.
BRUNANBURH.
The scene of a bloody battle in 937, where Athelstan (q.v.) and his brother Edmund Atheling (q.v.) gained a decisive victory over Anlaf the Dane, Constantine of Scotland, and the Northumbrian Danes, which victory practically established the unity of England. The site of the battle is uncertain, but it has been variously located in Northumberland, Dumfriesshire, Lancashire and Yorkshire.
Battle of Brunanburh; Harold.
BRUNELLESCHI.
A famous Italian architect, born at Florence. He built the Pitti Palace, the churches of San Lorenzo, and Spirito Santo, as well as the Duomo of the Cathedral, the latter being his principal title to fame.
My dearest brother, Edmund, sleeps, Not by the well-known stream and rustic spire, But unfamiliar Arno, and the dome Of Brunelleschi:
The Brook.
BRUSSELS.
The capital of Belgium.
Queen Mary.
BRUTUS (Lucius Junius).
See Lucius Junius Brutus.
BUBLIN’.
= a young unfledged bird.
Owd Roä.
BUCKINGHAM.
Edward Stafford, third duke of Buckingham, eldest son of Henry Stafford, second duke. On April 16, 1521, he was committed to the Tower for treason, and on May 13 was tried by seventeen peers, presided over by the duke of Norfolk; condemned and executed on Tower Hill on the 17th of the same month, his body being buried in the church of the Austin Friars (1478–1521).
Queen Mary.
BUDE.
when the long wave broke All down the thundering shores of Bude and Bos,
The rocky coast of Cornwall. Bude is a small port on the north coast of that county.
Guinevere.
BULBUL.
A Persian word much used in Persian poetry. Though there is much dispute as to the bird to which it refers, it is generally considered to be the nightingale.
The living airs of middle night Died round the bulbul as he sung;
Recollections of the Arabian Nights; The Princess.
BULL.
An inn sign.
The Bull, the Fleece are cramm’d, and not a room For love or money.
Audley Court.
BULL (Edward).
A curate.
Edwin Morris.
BULLINGHAM (Nicholas).
Fellow of All Souls’ College, Oxford, 1536; chaplain to archbishop Cranmer; prebendary of Lincoln, 1547; and rector of Thimbleby, 1551; deprived on account of being married in 1553, and on the outbreak of the Marian persecution fled to Germany. In the reign of Elizabeth he returned, was appointed to the vacant See of Lincoln rendered vacant by the deprivation of bishop Watson, and was one of the bishops appointed to draw up the Articles. In 1571 he was translated to Worcester, and appointed one of the Commissioners for the enforcement of the Book of Common Prayer. He died in 1576 and was buried in the chapel at Worcester cathedral. On his tomb appears the following epitaph:
Here born, here bishop, buried here, A Bullyngham by name and stock, A man twice married in God’s fear, Chief pastor, late of Lincolne flock, Whom Oxford trained up in youth, Whom Cambridge doctor did create, A painful preacher of the truth, Who changed this life for happy fate 18 April, 1576. Dictionary of National Biography.
Queen Mary.
BURDOCK.
A broad-leaved, prickly plant.
Holy Grail.
BURGUNDY.
An old duchy of France.
Harold.
BURLEIGH.
Deeply mourn’d the Lord of Burleigh, Burleigh-house by Stamford-town.
Lord of Burleigh.
BURLEIGH-HOUSE.
‘Burleigh-house by Stamford-town’ is the county residence of the marquis of Exeter, the descendant of the famous Cecil, lord Burleigh, who was Secretary of State to queen Elizabeth. In the Civil War it was taken by the Parliamentarians.
Lord of Burleigh.
BUTTER-BUMP.
= Bittern, a bird of the heron family.
Northern Farmer, Old Style.
BUTTERFLY.
The name of an extensive group of beautiful winged insects.
Adeline; Talking Oak; Queen Mary; Promise of May.
BUZZARD.
A rapacious bird of prey of the falcon family.
Queen Mary.
BUZZARD-CLOCK.
= Cockchafer, a beetle, called also the May-bug.
Northern Farmer, Old Style.
CADE (Jack).
And Thomas White will prove this Thomas Wyatt, And he will prove an Iden to this Cade.
An Irish adventurer, and the leader of an insurrection in Kent in the reign of Henry VI (1450), against the oppressive taxation of the government. With a force of 15,000 men marched on London, and encamped at Blackheath; and defeating the royal army sent against him entered London on July 2, 1450. The citizens however retaliated and a struggle took place between them and Cade on the night of July 5. As a result terms were arranged, and the Kentish men retired from the city. A price being set upon Cade’s head, he attempted to reach the coast, but was pursued by a Kentish squire named Alexander Iden (q.v.), who fought and killed him in a garden at Heathfield in Sussex, for which service he was knighted.
King Henry. The head of Cade!—Great God, how just art thou!— O, let me view his visage, being dead. King Henry. How art thou call’d? and what is thy degree? Iden. Alexander Iden, that’s my name; A poor esquire of Kent, that loves his king. King Henry. Iden, kneel down. Rise up a knight. Shakespeare: 2 King Henry VI. Act V. Scene i.
On the side of the road opposite the garden where he was killed stands a monumental stone bearing the following inscription:
Near this spot was slain the notorious Rebel Jack Cade By Alexander Iden, Sheriff of Kent, A.D. 1450. His body was carried to London, and his head fixed on London Bridge. This is the success of all rebels, And this fortune chanceth ever to traitors.
Queen Mary.
CADMEAN.
A citadel of Thebes, built by Cadmus (q.v.), son of Agenor, king of Phœnicia.
Lucretius.
CADMUS.
In Greek mythology son of Agenor, king of Phœnicia by Telephassa or Agriope. Was ordered by his father to go in quest of his sister Europa whom Jupiter carried away, and he was never to return to Phœnicia if he did not bring her back. His search proving fruitless, he consulted the Delphic oracle, who ordered him to build the Cadmean, afterwards the citadel of Thebes. Here he killed a dragon which guarded the well of Arês, and sowed its teeth which sprang up as armed men, who immediately fought and slew each other, except five. For this act Cadmus made reparation to Arês for a period of eight years.
The great God, Arês, burns in anger still Against the guiltless heirs of him from Tyre, Our Cadmus, out of whom thou art, who found Beside the springs of Dircê, smote, and still’d Thro’ all its folds the multitudinous beast The dragon,
Afterwards he married Hermione, the mother of Venus, and both of them being changed into serpents by Zeus were removed to Elysium. Cadmus was the first to introduce the alphabet into Greece.
Tiresias.
CAER-ERYRI.
= Snowdon. The latter part of the word means ‘eagle’s nest.’
Or if some other told How once the wandering forester at dawn, Far over the blue tarns and hazy seas, On Caer-Eryri’s highest found the King,
Gareth and Lynette.
CAERLEON.
An ancient town in Monmouthshire on the river Usk. The name Caerleon-upon-Usk distinguished it from Chester, which was Caerleon-on-Dee. This ‘City of Legions’ with its golden domes and magnificent churches, and its gorgeous palace, with its giant tower
from whose high crest, they say, Men saw the goodly hills of Somerset, And white sails flying on the yellow sea;
is supposed to have equalled Rome in splendour. It was one of the principal residences of king Arthur, where he lived in splendid state, surrounded by his knights, and where he held his court.
For Arthur on the Whitsuntide before Held court at old Caerleon upon Usk.
King Arthur’s ninth great battle against the Saxons was fought here. Roman remains have been found, as walls, bath, and an amphitheatre (16 feet high and 222 by 192 feet) called king Arthur’s Round Table.
Marriage of Geraint; Geraint and Enid; Balin and Balan; Lancelot and Elaine; Merlin and Vivien; Pelleas and Ettarre.
CAERLYLE.
The city of Carlisle in Cumberland.
Lancelot and Elaine.
CÆSAR.
nor tame and tutor with mine eye That dull cold-blooded Cæsar.
Octavian Augustus Cæsar, the adopted son of Julius Cæsar.
Dream of Fair Women.
CÆSAR.
And King Leodogran Groan’d for the Roman legions here again, And Cæsar’s eagle:
Coming of Arthur.
CÆSAR.
And sweeter than the bride of Cassivelaun, Flur, for whose love the Roman Cæsar first Invaded Britain, But we beat him back,
= Julius Cæsar.
Marriage of Geraint.
CÆSAR.
Rome of Cæsar, Rome of Peter, which was crueller?
Locksley Hall Sixty Years After.
CÆSAR.
Now thy Forum roars no longer, Fallen every purple Cæsar’s dome—
To Virgil.
CÆSAR.
Lightning may shrivel the laurel of Cæsar, but mine would not wither.
Parnassus.
CÆSAR.
Of ‘Render unto Cæsar.’... The Good Shepherd! Take this, and render that.
Harold.
CAIAPHAS-ARUNDEL.
These Pharisees, this Caiaphas-Arundel, What miracle could turn?
Has reference to archbishop Arundel, who examined and condemned to death sir John Oldcastle.
Sir John Oldcastle, Lord Cobham.
CAIN.
Maud; Forlorn; Happy; Becket; Queen Mary.
CALABER (Quintus).
See Quintus Calaber.
CALAIS.
A French seaport on the straits of Dover. It was captured by Edward III in 1347 after a heroic defence, and remained under the English crown until the time of Mary (1558), when it was taken by the duke of Guise. It was the last town held by the English on French soil, and its loss was a blow to the English nation, queen Mary declaring that on her death ‘Calais’ would be found written on her heart.
Queen Mary.
CALIPHAT.
The government or empire of the Caliphs.
Recollections of the Arabian Nights.
CALIXTUS.
The first pope of Rome; elected 219 A.D. and martyred 223 A.D. He is known as the constructor of the celebrated catacombs on the Appian Way at Rome.
Harold.
CALLIOPE.
A daughter of Jupiter and Mnemosyne, and the first and noblest of the nine Muses (q.v.). She is represented as presiding over epic poetry and eloquence. Her attributes are a tablet and stylus; sometimes a scroll.
Rather, O ye Gods, Poet-like, as the great Sicilian called Calliope to grace his golden verse—
Lucretius.
CALPE.
The rock of Gibraltar, and one of the pillars of Hercules—the other being Abyla. It is supposed these two were originally one mountain, but Hercules tore them asunder and the sea poured between them.
Last with wide arms the solid earth He tears, Piles rock on rock, no mountain mountain rears; Heaves up huge Abyla on Afric’s sand, Crowns with him Calpe Europe’s salient strand, Crests with opposing towers the splendid scene, And pours from urns immense the sea between, Darwin: Botanic Garden: Part I. Economy of Vegetation.
The Poet.
CAMA.
In Hindu mythology the god of love and marriage, represented as riding across the sky on the back of a parrot accompanied by the cuckoo and the humming-bee.
Or over hills with peaky tops engrail’d, And many a tract of palm and rice, The throne of Indian Cama slowly sail’d A summer fann’d with spice.
Palace of Art.
CAMBALU.
The mediæval name of Pekin, the city of the Great Khan.
His eye might there command wherever stood City of old or modern fame, the seat Of mightiest empire, from the destined walls Of Cambalu, seat of Cathaian Can, Milton: Paradise Lost, xi. 385–388.
Columbus.
CAMBRIDGE.
The capital of Cambridgeshire, and the seat of one of the English Universities.
Becket.
CAMEL.
A large ruminant quadruped, much used in Asia and Africa as a beast of burden, and for riding. The camel is remarkable for its ability to go a long time without drinking.
Merlin and Vivien; Lover’s Tale.
CAMELEON.
A small lizard famous for changing its colour.
Queen Mary.
CAMELIARD.
The realm of Leodogran, father of Guinevere, wife of king Arthur. Brecknock—three miles from which town is a hill known as Arthur’s hill—was considered to have marked one of its borders, and its capital is said to have been Carohaise, a city as yet undiscovered.
Leodogran, the King of Cameliard, Had one fair daughter, and none other child; And she was fairest of all flesh on earth, Guinevere, and in her his one delight.
With the assistance of king Arthur he cleared his realm of wild beasts and heathen hordes that swarmed from overseas, after which his daughter Guinevere became Arthur’s queen.
Coming of Arthur.
CAMELOT.
The place where king Arthur chiefly held his court.
As it fell out on a Pentecost day, King Arthur at Camelot kept his court royall, With his faire queene dame Guenever the gay; And many bold barons sitting in hall; With ladies attired in purple and pall; And heraults in hewkes, hooting on high, Cryed, Largesse, Largesse, Chevaliers tres-hardie. Percy’s Reliques. King Ryence’s Challenge.
Caxton in his preface to Malory’s Morte d’Arthur speaks of it as if it were in Wales, probably meaning Caerleon-upon-Usk, where the Roman amphitheatre is still called Arthur’s Round Table. The place referred to by Shakespeare in his King Lear is considered to be in Cornwall.
Goose, if I had you upon Sarum plain, I’d drive ye cackling home to Camelot. Shakespeare: King Lear, Act II. Scene ii.
But the Camelot of the Arthurian romance is supposed to be the city of Winchester.
Balin’s sword was put in a marble stone standing upright as great as a millstone, and the stone hoved always above the water, and did many years, and so by adventure it swam down the stream to the city of Camelot that is in English Winchester.
Malory: Morte d’Arthur, Book II. chap. xix.
It is now identified with a village called Camel in Somersetshire and the town of Camelford in Cornwall. In the former place remains of the entrenchments of an ancient town are still to be seen. The village still preserves the traditions of Arthur, ‘the bridge over the river Camel is called Arthur’s Bridge,’ and in the neighbourhood is a spring known as ‘Arthur’s Well.’ At Camelford there is a grave locally known as ‘King Arthur’s grave,’ and in the vicinity is Slaughter Hill, the reputed scene of the ‘last weird battle in the west,’ where the traitor Modred was slain, and where Arthur received his mortal wound. In Gareth and Lynette it is described as:
a city of shadowy palaces And stately, rich in emblem and the work Of ancient kings who did their days in stone: Which Merlin’s hand, the Mage at Arthur’s court, Knowing all arts, had touch’d, and everywhere At Arthur’s ordinance, tipt with lessening peak And pinnacle, and had made it spire to heaven.
And in the centre of the city was the great hall which Merlin had built for Arthur
O brother, had you known our mighty hall Which Merlin built for Arthur long ago! For all the sacred mount of Camelot, And all the dim rich city, roof by roof, Tower after tower, spire beyond spire,
But in the description of the departure of the three knights in search of the Holy Grail, Percivale says:
O brother, had you known our Camelot, Built by old kings, age after age, so old The king himself had fears that it would fall, So strange, and rich, and dim; for where the roofs Totter’d toward each other in the sky Met foreheads all along the streets of those Who watch’d us pass;
And in Pelleas and Ettarre, as Pelleas is riding away from the castle of Ettarre
he saw High up in heaven the hall that Merlin built, Blackening against the dead-green stripes of even, ‘Black nest of rats,’ he groan’d, ‘ye build too high.’
Lady of Shalott; Morte d’Arthur; Gareth and Lynette; Marriage of Geraint; Balin and Balan; Merlin and Vivien; Lancelot and Elaine; Holy Grail; Pelleas and Ettarre; Last Tournament; Guinevere; Passing of Arthur; Merlin and the Gleam.
CAMILLA.
See Julian.
CAMMA.
Wife of Sinnatus (q.v.), afterwards priestess in the temple of Artemis.
The Cup.
CAMPANILI.
A genus of plants, bearing bell-shaped flowers.
The Daisy.
CÁMULODÚNE.
The Roman name for the city of Colchester. Claudius established a Roman settlement here to assist in the subjugation of Caractacus, a warlike king who lived in South Wales. During the absence of the Governor, the Iceni, under Boädicea (q.v.) captured and burnt the colony and massacred the inhabitants, some 70,000 Romans being said to have perished, but Suetonius Paulinus on his return from Wales recovered possession of the place.
Boädicea.
CANA.
Perhaps, like him of Cana in Holy Writ, Our Arthur kept his best until the last;
Refers to the marriage feast in Cana of Galilee where Christ was present with His disciples and performed His miracle of turning the water into wine. John ii. 1–11.
Holy Grail.
CANADA.
A Welcome to Her Highness Marie Alexandrovna, Duchess of Edinburgh; Hands all Round.
CANNING.
Stratford Canning, first viscount Stratford de Redcliffe, the famous ambassador. Was secretary to the Envoy to Denmark in 1807; Constantinople in 1808, and two years later was left in charge of the British Embassy at Constantinople; plenipotentiary to Switzerland 1813–20; envoy to the United States of America 1820–24; to St. Petersburg 1824, and again to Constantinople in 1825. M.P. for Salisbury 1828, and for Stockbridge, 1830; appointed Envoy to St. Petersburg 1833, but the Czar refused to receive him; in 1835 declined the governorship of Canada; M.P. for Kings Lynn 1835–41, and in 1842 appointed ambassador at Constantinople. Envoy to Switzerland 1847, and in the following year returned to Constantinople. In 1852 he was created viscount Stratford de Redcliffe, and six years later resigned his ambassadorship. He died in 1880. A statue to his memory was erected in Westminster Abbey in 1884.
Will Waterproof’s Lyrical Monologue; Epitaph on Lord Stratford de Redcliffe.
CANOPUS.
A bright star in the rudder of Argo, a constellation of the southern hemisphere; so called from the old Egyptian city Canopus, or from an Egyptian god of that name.
‘We drank the Libyan Sun to sleep, and lit Lamps which out-burn’d Canopus.’
Dream of Fair Women.
CANTERBURY.
Queen Mary; Harold; Becket.
CANTERBURY-BELLS.
= Campanula, a plant bearing bell-shaped flowers.
City Child.
CANTERBURY MINSTER.
Becket.
CAPITOL.
The temple of ancient Rome, where the senate met. It was situated on the Mons Capitolinus, the smallest but the most famous of the seven hills on which Rome is built.
Freedom.
CAPRERA.
A small island in the Buccinari group of the coast of Sardinia. It was the home of general Garibaldi, where he died, and his burial-place.
To Ulysses.
CARADOS.
A king subdued by king Arthur, fighting on behalf of Leodogran, king of Cameliard.
Coming of Arthur.
CARAFFA.
John Peter Caraffa, elected pope of Rome under the title of Paul IV in 1555, at the age of eighty.
Queen Mary.
CARAVEL.
the frailer caravel, With what was mine, came happily to the shore. There was a glimmering of God’s hand.
The small, open ship of the Portuguese was called a caravel. When Bovadilla (q.v.) started on his homeward voyage to Spain, a hurricane burst over his fleet. Many of the ships were entirely lost, and others returned to San Domingo in a shattered condition. The only ship of the fleet which pursued her voyage and ultimately reached her port of destination was the frail caravel freighted with the property of Columbus.
Columbus.
CARBONEK.
A castle, according to legend built as the resting place of the Holy Grail in the time of Alain, grandson of Joseph of Arimathæa. It was the residence of king Pelles, whose daughter Elaine was mother of sir Galahad.
and looking up, Behold, the enchanted towers of Carbonek, A castle like a rock upon a rock,
Holy Grail.
CAREW (Peter).
See Peter Carew.
CARIAN ARTEMISIA.
Daughter of Lygdamis, and queen of Halicarnassus. She built in memory of her husband king Mausolus of Caria, the famous Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, counted by the ancients as one of the seven wonders of the world. With five ships she joined Xerxes in his invasion of Greece, and fought at Salamis, 480 B.C., where she displayed such signal courage and energy, that Xerxes exclaimed: ‘My men have become women, and my women men.’
and she The foundress of the Babylonian wall The Carian Artemisia strong in war.
The Princess.
CARLOS.
Don Carlos, son of Philip II of Spain.
Queen Mary.
CAROLINE.
There’s Margaret and Mary, there’s Kate and Caroline: But none so fair as little Alice in all the land they say,
One of the four little girl friends of Alice, ‘Queen of the May.’
May Queen.
CARP.
A fresh-water fish.
Marriage of Geraint.
CARRIER-PIGEON.
A domestic pigeon used to convey messages from a distant point to its home.
Harold.
CARYATIDS.
In Greek architecture draped female figures supporting an entablature in place of a column.
The Princess.
CASCINÈ.
At Florence too what golden hours, In those long galleries, were ours; What drives about the fresh Cascinè, Or walks in Boboli’s ducal bowers.
A park of Florence about two miles long, bounded by the rivers Arno and Mugnone. It affords refreshing walks to the traveller, and is a fashionable rendezvous, particularly for driving.
The Daisy.
CASSANDRA.
A Trojan princess; the beautiful daughter of Priam and Hecuba, whom Apollo in return for her love endowed with the gift of prophecy. She predicted to the Trojans the siege and destruction of their city, and was shut up in prison as a madwoman. On the fall of Troy she became the slave of Agamemnon, and was murdered along with her master by his wife Clytemnestra. She is one of the characters in Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida.
Œnone; Romney’s Remorse.
CASSIA.
A genus of plants of many species, most of which have purgative qualities.
Love and Death.
CASSIOPEIA.
Queen of Ethiopia, mother of Andromeda. For boasting that her daughter’s beauty surpassed the beauty of the sea-nymphs, Neptune sent a sea-serpent, which ravaged the kingdom. At death she was made a constellation, consisting of thirteen stars.
Or that starred Ethiop queen that strove To set her beauty’s praise above The Sea-Nymphs, and their powers offended. Milton: Il Penseroso, 19–21.
The Princess.
CÁSSIVËLAÚN.
Cássivëlaún, was a king of Britain at the time when Julius Cæsar invaded the island. Mwrchan, a Gallic chief, in league with Cæsar seized and carried away to Gaul, Flur, Cássivëlaún’s betrothed, but Cássivëlaún invading Gaul at the head of 60,000 troops, gained a complete victory and rescued his bride.
And sweeter than the bride of Cassivelaun, Flur, for whose love the Roman Cæsar first Invaded Britain,
On Cæsar’s second invasion of the island, Cássivëlaún again vanquished him; but the Romans being reinforced by Androgeus, he was defeated and agreed to pay tribute to the amount of 3,000 pounds of silver annually. Several years after he died and was buried at York.
Boädicea; Marriage of Geraint.
CASTALIES.
See Castaly.
The Princess.
CASTALY.
A fountain at the foot of mount Parnassus, sacred to the Muses; called after a nymph who drowned herself in it to escape Apollo. Its waters inspired those who drank thereof with the gift of poetry.
Becket.
CASTILE—CASTILLE.
A district of Spain, divided by the mountains of Castile into old and new Castile. Anciently inhabited by Celtiberian tribes, but united to the crown of Spain in 1469 by the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella.
Columbus; Queen Mary.
CASTLE PERILOUS.
The home of Lady Lyonors. There she was held captive by four knights. Lynette (q.v.) her sister went to king Arthur and asked for a knight to fight to rescue her, and the task was given to sir Gareth (q.v.), who overcame the knights and liberated the lady. Malory in his Morte d’Arthur says that Gareth married the lady and his brother Gaheris married Lynette, but Tennyson says that Gareth married Lynette, but makes no mention of lady Lyonors.
Gareth and Lynette.
CASTRO.
Chaplain to king Philip of Spain.
Thou knowest I bad my chaplain, Castro preach Against these burnings.
Queen Mary.
CAT.
A domestic animal.
The Falcon; The Owl; The Goose; Walking to the Mail; The Princess; Maud; Promise of May; The Foresters; Holy Grail; Northern Cobbler; Tomorrow; Spinster’s Sweet-Arts; Locksley Hall Sixty Years After; Owd Roä; Church-warden and the Curate.
CATALONIAN MINORITE.
For curbing crimes that scandalised the Cross By him, the Catalonian Minorite, Rome’s Vicar in our Indies?
Catalonian = Catalonia, a Spanish province. Minorite = a monk. Has reference to Friar Bernardo Buil, a Benedictine monk who accompanied Columbus on his second voyage to America, 1493. He had been chosen by pope Alexander VI to be his apostolic vicar in the West Indies.
Columbus.
CATERPILLAR.
The coloured grub of the lepidopterous insects, or of butterflies and moths.
Guinevere.
CATHARINE.
of Aragon (b. 1485), first queen of Henry VIII, youngest daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain. Married first to Arthur, eldest son of Henry VII, in 1501, but was left a widow, and in 1509 by a papal dispensation was married to her brother-in-law, afterwards Henry VIII. In 1533, shortly after Henry’s cleavage with Rome, Cranmer declared the marriage null and void; but the pope pronounced it valid, 1534. Died 1535, and buried in Peterborough Abbey.
Queen Mary.
CATHAY.
The mediæval name for Tartary, the capital of which was Albracca.
the ship From Ceylon, Inde, or far Cathay, unloads For him the fragrant produce of each trip; Byron: Don Juan, Canto XII. Stanza ix.
Locksley Hall.
CATHERINE.
Daughter of a woman who chides her because she is contemplating a marriage, of which her mother says she is unworthy.
Murder would not veil your sin, Marriage will not hide it, Earth and Hell will brand your name, Wretch you must abide it....
She exhorts her to confess to her lover.
Up, get up, and tell him all, Tell him you were lying!
Forlorn.
CATIEUCHLANIAN.
An ancient British tribe whose kingdom embraced the present counties of Buckinghamshire, Northamptonshire, and Middlesex.
Boädicea.
CATO.
M. Porcius Cato, Roman orator and statesman. He was known as ‘the Censor,’ to which office he was appointed in 184 B.C. He was an opponent of Hellenic fashions, and during the second Punic war (215 B.C.), when Rome was in danger of being captured by Hannibal, a law—called the Oppian Law—was passed to restrain the extravagant dress of the Roman ladies, but some years after the women rose in revolt, and were successful in getting the law repealed in spite of the opposition of Cato (234–149, B.C.).
Titanic shapes, they cramm’d The forum, and half-crush’d among the rest A dwarf-like Cato cower’d.
The Princess.
CATULLUS.
Considered to be the greatest of Roman lyric poets. Some of his poems are inspired by the love for a beautiful maiden named Lesbia, a passion that eventually proved his downfall. The poem referred to in Edwin Morris, 79, is by Catullus.
Hendecasyllabics; Frater Ave Atque Vale; Poets and their Bibliographies.
CAUCASIAN.
but every legend fair Which the supreme Caucasian mind Carved out of Nature for itself,
A phrase by which the race of people who inhabited the Caucasian mountains was known.
Palace of Art.
CAUCASIAN.
He never yet had set his daughter forth Here in the woman-markets of the west, Where our Caucasians let themselves be sold.
Alludes to the sale of Caucasian girls for Turkish harems.
Aylmer’s Field.
CAUCASUS.
A mountain range, 900 miles in length, with an average height of 12,000 feet, extending from the Black Sea to the Caspian.
The Poet; A Welcome to Her Royal Highness Marie Alexandrovna, Duchess of Edinburgh.
CAUF.
= Calf.
Spinster’s Sweet-Arts.
CAVALL.
King Arthur’s best hound; name of a mountain in Wales, where tradition says exists a stone with a footprint of the dog impressed in it.
And chiefly for the baying of Cavall, King Arthur’s hound of deepest mouth,
Marriage of Geraint.
CECIL.
William, baron Burghley, queen Elizabeth’s chief minister.
Queen Mary.
CECILY.
A Roman virgin of rank, who embraced Christianity in the reign of Antoninus, and who is said to have been visited by angels. She is the Latin saint of music, and the reputed inventor of the organ. Suffered martyrdom about 200 B.C.
Or in a clear-wall’d city on the sea, Near gilded organ-pipes, her hair Wound with white roses, slept St. Cecily; An angel look’d at her.
Dryden, Pope, Addison and other English poets have contributed Odes, but the best-known is Dryden’s (1697).
Orpheus could lead the savage race, And trees unrooted left their place, Sequacious of the lyre; But bright Cecilia raised the wonder higher: When to her organ vocal breath was given, An angel heard, and straight appeared Mistaking earth for heaven. Dryden: A Song for St. Cecilia’s Day, 48–54.
Palace of Art.
CEDAR. CEDAR-TREE.
The name of several evergreen trees.
Recollections of the Arabian Nights; Gardener’s Daughter; The Princess; Milton; Maud; Queen Mary.
CELANDINE.
A plant of the poppy family with yellow leaves.
Progress of Spring.
CELIDON.
A forest, and the scene of Arthur’s seventh victory over the Saxons. One authority considers it in Cornwall, another in Lincolnshire, while another places it on the banks of the Carron in Upper-Tweeddale.
then the war That thunder’d in and out the gloomy skirts Of Celidon the forest;
Lancelot and Elaine.
CELTIC DEMOS.
See Demos.
CHAMIAN ORACLE.
There in a silent shade of laurel brown Apart the Chamian Oracle divine Shelter’d his unapproach’d mysteries:
The temple of Jupiter Ammon. Ammon was an Egyptian god, represented in the shape of a ram, his chief temple being in the desert of Libyan, twelve days’ journey from Memphis. This temple possessed a famous oracle, said to have had connexion with the oracle at Dodona, two black doves flying away from Thebes in Egypt, one to the temple of Jupiter Ammon and the other to Dodona, by which the inhabitants were informed of the divine mission; consequently the Greeks identified Ammon with their god Zeus and the Romans with their Jupiter.
Alexander.
CHARING CROSS.
A part of London, the junction of Whitehall and the Strand. It derived its name from the stone cross which was erected as a memorial to Eleanor, queen of Edward I.
Queen Mary.
CHARIOTEER.
and the Charioteer And starry Gemini hang like glorious crowns Over Orion’s grave low down in the west,
The constellation Auriga, situated midway between the Polar Star and Orion.
Maud; Achilles over the Trench.
CHARLES (the First).
King of England, third son of James I and Anne, daughter of the king of Denmark. Created duke of York and Cornwall on the accession of his father, and in 1616, four years after the death of his elder brother Henry, created Prince of Wales. Succeeding his father in 1625 he married Henrietta Maria, youngest daughter of Henry IV of France. Became involved in controversy with Parliament, particularly regarding the revenues rendered necessary by his extravagant policy, and for eleven years through his ministers governed without one. Civil war eventually broke out which ended in the disastrous battle of Naseby in 1645. In the following year he surrendered himself to the Scots at Newark, who handed him over to the English. On January 20, 1649, he was brought to trial, and on the 27th of the same month was condemned, and beheaded at Whitehall three days later (1600–1649).
Third of February.
CHARLES (the Second).
King of England, second son of Charles I. Having assisted his father until after the battle of Naseby he proceeded with his mother to the Hague, where he received the news of his father’s fate. He was proclaimed king at Edinburgh on February 3, 1649, and again on July 15, 1650, after his arrival in that country, and on January 1 in the following year was crowned at Scone, in Perthshire. In August of the same year he invaded England at the head of 10,000 troops, but was defeated by Cromwell at Worcester. Escaping, he hid in the branches of a large oak in Boscobel wood to avoid his pursuers, who actually came under the tree where he was. Wandering from place to place in disguise he eventually reached Shoreham, escaped to France, and hence to Brussels, where he remained until the death of Cromwell in 1658. Two years later he was recalled to the throne, and arriving in England was received with acclamation. In 1665 he declared war against Holland and a Dutch fleet sailed up the Medway and destroyed several ships. The same year a great plague swept away a large number of the inhabitants of London, and in the following year a large portion of the city was destroyed by fire. In 1674 he made peace with Holland, and his niece, princess Mary, married William of Orange in 1677 (1630–1685).
Talking Oak.
CHARLES (the Fifth).
Emperor of Germany, son of Philip of Austria, became in 1516 by right of birth, ruler of Spain, the Netherlands, Sicily, and Naples; and on the death of his grandfather added Austria to his dominions. His chief ambition was the suppression of the Reformation and the succession of his son Philip to the imperial crown, but failing in both, abdicated in favour of his son, and retired to the monastery of St. Yuste, in Estremadura, where he died, having, notwithstanding his retirement, continued to direct the policy of his son (1500–1558).
Queen Mary.
CHARLES’S WAIN.
The constellation of Ursa Major, a wagon without a wagoner, an old English name for the constellation of the Great Bear.
May Queen.
CHARLEY.
A dog—a King Charles spaniel—belonging to Maud.
Look, a horse at the door, And little King Charley snarling.
Maud.
CHARLIE.
A son of an old woman, who outlived all her children. See Harry.
Grandmother.
CHARLIE.
Only son of an old book-loving village squire. Unlike his father he did a little hunting and fishing. His father’s estate was entailed, and being in debt he asked his son to help him out of the difficulty, but he refused, suggesting that the books should be sold. Charlie however did not live to enjoy the possession of the estates, for while out riding one evening his horse threw him, and he was killed.
Village Wife.
CHARLOCK.
A plant of the mustard family, with yellow leaves, that grows as a weed in cornfields.
Gareth and Lynette.
CHARTIST PIKE.
I once was near him, when his bailiff brought A Chartist pike.
A weapon used by the revolutionary party known as the Chartists. During the agitation by the working-classes for greater political power in 1838 in a document called the ‘People’s Charter’ there were fears of a secret rising on account of the petition being refused by the House of Commons.
Walking to the Mail.
CHATELET.
A poet-squire in the suite of Marshal Damville, who was executed for intrigue with Mary, queen of Scots.
Margaret.
CHAUCER (Dan).
See Dan Chaucer.
CHESTNUT.
= a tree.
Miller’s Daughter; Lord of Burleigh; Progress of Spring.
CHICHESTER (Bishop of).
Hilary; elected bishop of Chichester 1147, and archbishop of York the same year, but the latter appointment was not confirmed by the pope. He urged Becket to accept the ‘ancient customs’ included in the embassy to the pope against Becket; and granted absolution to those bishops whom Becket had excommunicated (d. 1169).
Becket.
CHIMERA.
In Greek mythology a fire-eating monster, destroyed by Bellerophon, having the head of a lion, the body of a goat, and the tail of a dragon. The word signifies any impossible monstrosity.
The Princess.
CHINA.
till warming with her theme She fulmined out her scorn of laws Salique And little-footed China, touch’d on Mahomet With much contempt and came to chivalry:
Refers to the custom prevalent in China of cramping the feet of girls from an early age in tight bandages to keep them small.
The Princess.
CHRISTCHURCH (Dean of).
our Bishops from their sees Or fled, they say, or flying—Poinet, Barlow, Bale, Scory, Coverdale; besides the Deans Of Christchurch, Durham, Exeter, and Wells—
Queen Mary.
CHRISTIAN.
More like the picture Of Christian in my ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’ here Bow’d to the dust beneath the burthen of sin.
The hero of Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress.
Promise of May.
CHRISTOPHER COLON.
See Columbus.
CICALA.
At eve a dry cicala sung, There came a sound as of the sea;
An insect with wings. The male makes a shrill sound by peculiar organs in the side of the abdomen.
Mariana in the South.
CLARA VERE de VERE.
Daughter of an earl, nobly born, but of a haughty and proud disposition. The poet assured her that hers was not a character to be admired, and that for all her wealth and name he would not forsake a simple maiden with a truer heart. In the poem appear the well-known lines:
Howe’er it be, it seems to me, ’Tis only noble to be good. Kind hearts are more than coronets, And simple faith than Norman blood.
Lady Clara Vere de Vere.
CLARE, LADY.
The supposed child of an earl, who is afterwards told by her old nurse that she is not the lady Clare, as the old earl’s daughter died almost directly after birth. The nurse tells her that she is her mother. The supposed lady Clare hastens to tell the truth to her lover, lord Ronald, the real heir to her lands. This takes place on the eve of her marriage. Lord Ronald greatly appreciates her honesty and frankness.
If you are not the heiress born And I,’ said he, ‘the lawful heir, We two will wed to-morrow morn, And you shall still be Lady Clare.’
Lady Clare.
CLARENCE.
A lady-in-waiting to queen Mary.
Queen Mary.
CLARIANCE.
King of Northumberland, subdued by king Arthur fighting on behalf of Leodogran, king of Cameliard.
Coming of Arthur.
CLARIBEL.
Claribel lived in a beautiful bower, where everything was at peace.
Where Claribel low-lieth The breezes pause and die, Letting the rose-leaves fall:
Claribel.
CLAUDIAS.
One of the petty kings overcome by king Arthur fighting on behalf of Leodogran, king of Cameliard.
Coming of Arthur.
CLELIA.
A Roman virgin who swam the river Tiber to escape from Porsina, king of Clusium, whose hostage she was. Being sent back by the Romans, Porsina not only set her at liberty but allowed her to take with her a part of the hostages.
The Princess.
CLEMATIS.
A genus of climbing plants.
Golden Year; City Child; The Window; Voyage of Maeldune.
CLEOPATRA-LIKE.
Cleopatra-like as of old To entangle me when we met,
= Cleopatra, queen of Egypt, distinguished for her beauty and her charms; first fascinated Cæsar, and after his death Mark Antony (q.v.). On the fall and suicide of the latter she killed herself to escape being taken to Rome.
Maud.
CLIFFORD.
See Rosamund, Rosamund de Clifford.
CLOVER.
A genus of plants, containing a great number of species.
A Dirge; City Child.
COBHAM.
Sir John Oldcastle, lord Cobham; lollard leader; first author and first martyr among the English nobility. In the reign of Henry IV he commanded an English army in France, where he compelled the duke of Orleans to raise the siege of Paris. Becoming a convert to Wycliffe’s doctrines, he was in the reign of Henry V tried by archbishop Arundel and other bishops; declared to be a heretic, and sent to the tower, but escaping, summoned all his followers to meet him in St. Giles’ fields. The assemblage being attacked and his followers dispersed, he fled to Wales, and after hiding for four years was captured, conveyed to London, and being condemned was hanged in chains and burnt, December 1416.
Sir John Oldcastle, Lord Cobham.
COBRA.
A hooded and poisonous snake, a native of the East Indies.
Akbar’s Dream.
COCK, THE.
O plump head-waiter at The Cock To which I most resort,
A Tavern, No. 201, Fleet Street, near Temple Bar, and of great antiquity.
Generally he would stay at the Temple or in Lincoln’s Inn Fields; dining with his friends at The Cock, and other taverns. A perfect dinner was a beefsteak, a potato, a cut of cheese, a pint of port, and afterwards a pipe (never a cigar).
‘The plump head-waiter of The Cock,’ by Temple Bar, famous for chop and porter, was rather offended when told of the poem [Will Waterproof]. ‘Had Mr. Tennyson dined oftener there, he would not have minded it so much,’ he said.
Edward Fitzgerald quoted in Life of Tennyson.
Pepys in his Diary for April 23, 1668, speaks of having been there:
Thence by water to the Temple, and there to the Cock alehouse, and drank, and ate a lobster, and sang, and mighty merry.
Will Waterproof’s Lyrical Monologue.
COCKATRICE.
A fabulous monster, resembling a serpent.
Holy Grail.
COCO.
= the cocoa-nut tree.
Enoch Arden.
COCO-PALM.
= Cocoa-palm.
Progress of Spring.
COESNON.
A river forming the boundary between Normandy and Brittany.
Harold.
COGOLETTO.
A village in the province of Genoa, on the coast.
The Daisy.
COLE (Henry).
Fellow of the New College, Oxford, 1521–40; submitted to the Reformation, and became prebendary of Salisbury in 1539, but on Mary’s accession joined the Roman Catholic party; was made archdeacon of Ely in 1553, canon of Westminster and provost of Eton; and disputed with Cranmer at Oxford in 1554. He preached at St. Mary’s Church, Oxford, on the occasion of the martyrdom of Cranmer in 1556.
Him perch’d up there? I wish some thunderbolt Would make this Cole a cinder, pulpit and all.
Dean of St. Paul’s, 1556–9; vicar-general of the archbishop of Canterbury, 1557–8; sent to Ireland to extirpate protestantism 1558.
‘In 1558,’ says Timbs and Gunn’s Abbey, Castles, etc., ‘Dr. Henry Cole, dean of St. Paul’s, was entrusted with the commission issued by queen Mary, to institute prosecutions against such as should refuse to observe the ceremonies of the Roman Catholic religion in Ireland. The doctor stopped at Chester on his way, and at the Blue Posts Inn was visited by the Mayor, to whom, in the course of conversation, he communicated the business upon which he was engaged; opening his cloak-bag, he took out a leather box, observing with exultation, “he had that within which would lash the heretics of Ireland.” The hostess accidentally overheard the discourse, and having a brother who was a Protestant, she became alarmed for his safety; and with a surprising quickness of thought, whilst the doctor was complimenting his worship down the stairs, to open the box, take out the commission, and leave instead a pack of cards, with the knave of clubs uppermost. Soon afterwards the dean sailed for Ireland, where he arrived on December 7, 1558. Being introduced to the Lord-Deputy Fitzwalter and the Privy Council, he explained the nature of his embassy, and then presented the box containing, as he thought, the commission; his lordship took it, and having lifted the lid, beheld with considerable surprise the pack of cards, with the knave on the top. The doctor was thunderstruck, and in much confusion affirmed that a commission he certainly had, and that some artful person must have made the exchange. “Then,” said his lordship, “you have nothing to do but return to London and get it renewed; meanwhile we’ll shuffle the cards.” This unwelcome advice the doctor was constrained to follow ... but before he could reach Ireland a second time queen Mary died, and her sanguinary commission became useless. The woman whose dexterity and presence of mind had thus providentially operated, was rewarded by Elizabeth with a pension of forty pounds a year.’
In 1559 he was one of the eight romanist disputants at Westminster Abbey, and for contempt was fined 500 marks and deprived of all his preferments. In the following year he was committed to the Tower, whence he was removed to the Fleet. His subsequent history is obscure.
Queen Mary.
COLEWORT.
A species of cole, or cabbage.
Guinevere.
COLLANTINE.
A town on the Anio, built by the people of Alba.
Lucretius.
COLOSSEUM.
Like some old wreck on some indrawing sea, Gain’d their huge Colosseum.
The great amphitheatre in Rome standing on the site of Nero’s palace. It was begun by Vespasian 72 A.D., and finished by Titus A.D. 82. It was here the fights of wild beasts and gladiators went on.
St. Telemachus.
COLT.
A young horse.
Talking Oak; Enoch Arden; The Brook; The Princess; Coming of Arthur; Romney’s Remorse.
COLUMBUS.
A celebrated Genoese navigator. His life is of little interest till 1470, when he settled in Lisbon and made voyages to the Madeira and the Azores. Thinking it possible to reach India by sailing westward, he made an appeal to his native city but without result; to the king of Portugal, to Henry VII of England, and to the dukes of Medina Sidonia, and Medina Celi, who advised him to lay his proposals before the Spanish king and queen. After seven years of delay his proposals were accepted by the Spanish monarchs, and on August 3, 1492, his little squadron of three small ships set sail on its perilous voyage, and on October 12 of the same year landed on the island of Guanahani, one of the Bahamas, which he called San Salvador, and thence sailed to Cuba and Hispaniola. On his return to Spain in 1493 he was welcomed with great enthusiasm, and many honours were conferred upon him, that which he prized most of all being the title ‘Admiral of the Ocean.’ He sailed on his second voyage on September 25, 1493, and discovered Porto Rico and Jamaica. Returned in 1496 and set out on his third voyage which resulted in the discovery of Trinidad, and the mainland of South America. His enemies in Spain, however, did him much harm, and a new governor, Francisco Bovadilla (q.v.), acted with great harshness; and in October 1500 Columbus was placed in irons and sent back to Spain. This treatment caused a wave of indignation to sweep over Spain, and Columbus, on landing, was restored to favour by Ferdinand and Isabella.
Chains for the Admiral of the Ocean! chains For him who gave a new heaven, a new earth, As holy John had prophesied of me, Gave glory and more empire to the kings Of Spain than all their battles! chains for him Who push’d his prows into the setting sun And made West East, and sail’d the Dragon’s mouth, And came upon the Mountain of the World, And saw the rivers roll from Paradise!
In 1502 he made his fourth and last voyage and explored the north coast of the gulf of Mexico. He returned in 1504, and worn out in body died two years later at Valladolid, in poverty and want. He was buried at Valladolid, but in 1513 his remains were translated to Seville, and a monument erected to his memory inscribed: ‘To Castile and Leon Columbus has given a new world.’ In 1513 they were taken, with those of his son Diego, and laid in the Cathedral of San Domingo. Two hundred and fifty years later the island was ceded to the French, and they were removed to the cathedral of Havana in Cuba. After the Cuban war the bones were—in 1898—brought from Havana to Spain, kept for a time at Granada, and finally deposited in 1912 in the cathedral of Seville (1435–1506).
The Daisy; Columbus.
COMO.
A town on the lake of Como of Italy.
The Daisy.
CONSTANTINUS.
A king of Scotland, who allied himself with the Danes under Anlaf against Athelstan. The allied kings were defeated at Brunanburh (937 A.D.), by Athelstan and his brother Edmund. This victory practically established the unity of England.
Battle of Brunanburh.
CONVOLVULUS.
A genus of twining plants, called also Bindweed.
Enoch Arden; Voyage of Maeldune.
CONY.
= a rabbit.
Enoch Arden.
COOMBERLAND (Cumberland).
Promise of May.
COOT.
A short-tailed water-fowl, with a white spot on the forehead.
The Brook.
COPHETUA.
An imaginary king of Africa. Sitting one day at his palace window he saw a beggar maid pass, and fell in love with her and married her. The story is alluded to in Percy’s Reliques, and in Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost, and Romeo and Juliet.
The magnanimous and most illustrate king Cophetua set eye upon the pernicious and indubitate beggar Zenelophon,
Shakespeare: Love’s Labour’s Lost, Act IV. Scene i.
So sweet a face, such angel grace, In all that land had never been: Cophetua sware a royal oath: ‘This beggar maid shall be my queen!’
Beggar Maid.
COPTIC.
Peal after peal, the British battle broke, Lulling the brine against the Coptic sands.
= Egyptian.
Buonaparte.
CORINNA.
A Greek poetess, born at Tanagra in Bœotia. She was the most eminent of the Greek lyric poets, but only fragments of her poems remain. At the national games she was said to have obtained a victory over Pindar, the lyric poet of Greece. Her name is the title of one of de Stael’s novels:
At the word, they raised A tent of satin, elaborately wrought With fair Corinna’s triumph; here she stood, Engirt with many a florid maiden-cheek, The woman-conqueror;
The Princess.
CORITANIAN.
A British tribe who inhabited the present counties of Lincolnshire, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire, and Northamptonshire.
Boädicea.
CORNELIA.
Wife of Titus Sempronius Gracchus, and mother of the Gracchi. She was held in high esteem by the Romans, who during her lifetime erected a statue in her honour with the inscription: Cornelia, the mother of the Gracchi.
The Princess.
CORNWALLIS (Sir Thomas).
Eldest son of sir John Cornwallis. In 1549, he was sent into Norfolk to suppress the rebellion headed by Ket, and was made sheriff of Norfolk in 1553. In the following year he escorted the princess Elizabeth to London; and was one of the commissioners at the trial of sir Thomas Wyatt, the insurrectionary leader. From 1554–7 he was treasurer of Calais, and it is generally considered that he sold the town to the French. In the latter year he was made Comptroller of the Household, but on the accession of Elizabeth was removed from the post, as well as from the privy council, and retired into private life. He died in 1604 (1510–1604).
Queen Mary.
CORONACH.
An Irish funeral song or lamentation.
Dying Swan.
CORRIENTES.
A province, Argentine Republic, between the Parana and the Uruguay rivers.
To Ulysses.
COSSACK.
Cossack and Russian Reel’d from the sabre-stroke, Shatter’d and sunder’d.
The Cossacks are a warlike people in south-eastern Russia, forming splendid light cavalry.
Charge of the Light Brigade.
COURTENAY.
Edward Courtenay, earl of Devonshire. With his parents was in 1538, when only twelve years of age, imprisoned in the Tower until 1547, when he was released by Edward VI. On the accession of Mary he was created earl of Devonshire, and at her coronation carried the Sword of State; and being held in high favour by the queen, was hopeful for her hand in marriage; but on Mary’s marriage with Philip of Spain was urged to propose marriage to the princess Elizabeth. At the end of 1553 a plot was discovered having for its object the placing of Elizabeth on the throne. Sir Thomas Wyatt joined in the conspiracy, but he and his followers were promptly suppressed and Courtenay was sent back to the Tower, and subsequently removed to Fotheringay. In 1555 he was exiled and went to Brussels, and thence to Padua, where he died (1526–1556).
Queen Mary.
COURT-GALEN.
Our great court-Galen poised his gilt-head cane,
Has reference to a celebrated Greek physician named Claudius Galenus of Pergamos. He went to Rome where he gained great renown in the medical profession, and undertook scientific journeys through Greece and Asia. He was a great writer, being author of some 300 volumes—125 of which were destroyed in a fire—and his writings, which left no branch of medicine untouched, formed for many centuries the chief text-books for physicians and doctors. It was customary for the medical profession to carry a gilt-headed cane in his honour.
The Princess.
COVENTRY.
A city in Warwickshire. According to legend it obtained its municipal rights from Leofric about 1044, by the ride of Godiva (q.v.) through the streets of the city.
Godiva.
COVERDALE (Miles).
Bishop of Exeter, and translator of the Bible. The Great Bible or Cromwell’s Bible (1539) was printed under his direction and issued under the auspices of Thomas Lord Cromwell. Cranmer’s Bible (1540), was also edited by Coverdale. Appointed chaplain to Edward VI in 1548 and bishop of Exeter in 1551. Upon the accession of Mary he was deposed from his See and imprisoned, but released upon the intercession of the king of Denmark and retired to Geneva; but returned to England after Elizabeth had ascended the throne, and subsequently appointed to the living of St. Magnus, near London Bridge (1488–1568).
Queen Mary.
COW.
The female of the bovine animals.
The Brook; Northern Farmer, Old Style; Village Wife; Promise of May; Spinster’s Sweet-Arts; Locksley Hall Sixty Years After; Church-warden and the Curate; Queen Mary; The Foresters.
COWSLIP.
A species of primrose, having yellow blossoms.
Adeline; Rosalind; May Queen; Talking Oak; Aylmer’s Field; In the Children’s Hospital.
CRAB.
An animal of the class Crustacea with the whole body covered by a crust-like shell.
Harold; The Foresters; Walking to the Mail.
CRADLEMONT.
A king of North Wales, subdued by king Arthur, fighting on behalf of Leodogran, king of Cameliard.
Coming of Arthur.
CRAG-CLOISTER.
The monastery of Sumelas. It stands on the side of a rocky glen near Trebizond, 4,000 feet above the level of the sea, and is approached by a zigzag path at the side of the cliff. The foundation is considered to be some 1,500 years old, and in 1360 it was rebuilt by the emperor Alexius Comnenus. The bull of that emperor, which henceforth became its charter, is still preserved in the monastery, which also possesses the firman of Mohammed II, by which he accorded his protection to the monks on becoming ruler of that part of Asia Minor.
To Ulysses.
CRAKE.
A corn-crake, a bird which frequents grain fields.
In Memoriam.
CRANE.
A large wading bird, with long legs, neck and bill.
The Princess; Progress of Spring.
CRANMER.
Archbishop of Canterbury; born at Aslacton, Nottingham. In 1522 he was appointed vicar of St. Mary’s, Taunton. His opinion of the divorce of Henry VIII with Catherine of Aragon recommended him to that monarch, which opinions he propounded in a treatise. In 1530 he was sent as an embassy to the pope, and two years later to the emperor Charles V, and while in Germany married a niece of the reformer Osiander. In 1533 he was created archbishop of Canterbury, and pronounced Henry’s marriage with Catherine as invalid and that with Anne Boleyn lawful. On the accession of Mary he was committed to the Tower, but subsequently released. A charge of heresy was however brought against him and he was condemned. On the promise of life he was induced to sign his abjuration of the Protestant faith. For having committed this act he was struck with deep remorse, and when brought into St. Mary’s Church, Oxford, to read his recantation in public, instead of complying he denounced the errors of the Romish Church. This greatly enraged his enemies, who, denouncing him as a heretic, dragged him to the stake opposite Balliol College. When the faggots were lighted he put his right hand in the flame and exclaimed ‘This unworthy hand’ (1489–1556).
Queen Mary.
CRAW.
Woä—theer’s a craw to pluck wi’ tha, Sam:
= crow, to have something to settle with some one.
Northern Farmer, New Style.
CRETE.
or Candia, an island in the Mediterranean sea.
On a Mourner.
CRICHTON.
His own—I call’d him Crichton, for he seem’d All-perfect, finish’d to the finger nail.
James Crichton, surnamed ‘the Admirable Crichton’ a Scottish nobleman. He visited Paris, Rome and other continental universities, and at Venice he challenged all scholars, claiming to be an expert linguist, as well as an expert swordsman. He became tutor to the son of the duke of Mantua. He was killed one night in the street, presumably by a body of masked men, when only twenty-three years of age.
Edwin Morris.
CRICKET.
An orthopterous insect. The male makes a chirping noise by rubbing his wing-covers against each other.
Death of the Old Year; In Memoriam; Merlin and Vivien; Lancelot and Elaine; Voyage of Maeldune.
CROCODILE’S TEARS.
= Affected tears.
A Dirge.
CROCUS.
A bulbous plant with brilliant yellow or purple flowers.
Œnone; Palace of Art; To Rev. F. D. Maurice; Voyage of Maeldune; Prefatory Sonnet to the ‘Nineteenth Century’; Progress of Spring.
CROW.
A large black bird.
Audley Court; Locksley Hall; Will Waterproof’s Lyrical Monologue; Merlin and Vivien; The Ring; Queen Mary; The Foresters.
CROWN.
An inn sign.
and she brew’d the best ale in all Glo’ster, that is to say in her time when she had the ‘Crown.’
Becket.
CUCKOO.
A bird whose name is supposed to be called from its note. It builds no nest of its own, but lays its eggs in the nests of other birds to be hatched by them.
Gardener’s Daughter; The Princess; The Window; Coming of Arthur; Lover’s Tale; Prefatory Poem to my Brother’s Sonnets; To Mary Boyle; Progress of Spring; Queen Mary.
CUCKOO-FLOWER.
A species of Cardamine, called also Lady’s Smock.
Margaret; May Queen.
CULVER.
A dove, or wood-pigeon.
Progress of Spring.
CUMBERLAND.
Promise of May.
CUNOBELINE.
= Cámulodúne (q.v.)
CUPID.
In Roman mythology the God of love, and the son of Mercury and Venus; represented as a winged boy and armed with a bow and a quiver of arrows. In Apuleius’ Golden Ass Cupid and Psyche (q.v.) are the subjects of a beautiful fable representing the soul of perfection.
Edwin Morris; Talking Oak; The Princess; Becket.
CUSHIE.
Name of a cow.
Spinster’s Sweet-Arts.
CYGNET.
A young swan.
Lancelot and Elaine.
CYPRESS.
An evergreen tree, whose branches used to be used at funerals and to adorn tombs, hence a symbol of mourning and sadness.
Amphion; The Princess; The Daisy; In Memoriam; Lover’s Tale; Dedicatory Poem to the Princess Alice; Voyage of Maeldune; Akbar’s Dream; The Cup.
CYRIL.
One of the two friends of prince Arac. A man of vigorous, healthy common-sense, undisturbed by haunting fancies, unfettered by false modesty, and as clear-sighted as jovial. In gaining admission to the ladies’ college he had a very humorous manner in dealing with two of the tutors. Psyche he appeased, by complimenting her abilities as a lecturer, and admiring Aglaïa, her baby. The lady Blanche he silenced by appealing to her ambitions.
The Princess.
CYPRUS.
Again this Richard is the lion of Cyprus, Robin, the lion of Sherwood—
= Richard Cœur de Lion. When journeying to Jerusalem on the third Crusade he stayed some time at this island, and here he married Berengaria of Navarre, after having deposed the ruler of the island.
The Foresters.
CYRUS.
A warlike and blood-thirsty king who after subduing the eastern parts of Asia organized an expedition against the Massagetæ in Scythia. Tomyris (q.v.), queen of the Massagetæ, met and defeated him, and cutting off his head threw it into a vessel filled with human blood, remarking as she did so, ‘There, drink thy fill,’
And great bronze valves, emboss’d with Tomyris And what she did to Cyprus after fight,
The Princess.
CZAR.
And Jack on his ale-house bench has as many lies as a Czar;
Represents the indignation of the English people with Russia in 1853 at her destruction of the independence of Poland, and its tyrannous demand for the surrender of the Hungarian refugees.
Maud.
DAFFODIL.
A plant of the genus Narcissus. It has a bulbous root, and flowers of a yellow hue.
Maud; Lover’s Tale; Prefatory Sonnet to the ‘Nineteenth Century.’
DAFFODILLY.
= Daffodil.
The Princess.
DAGONET.
King Arthur’s Fool and a Knight of the Round Table.
And upon a day Sir Dagonet, King Arthur’s fool, came into Cornwall, with two squires with him,
For they would not for no good that Sir Dagonet were hurt, for king Arthur loved him passing well, and made him knight with his own hands. And at every tournament he began to make king Arthur to laugh.
Malory: Morte d’Arthur, Book X. chap. xii.
Tennyson says that he was made a mock-knight by Gawain.
Dagonet, the fool, whom Gawain in his mood Had made mock-knight of Arthur’s Table Round, At Camelot,
Last Tournament.
DAHOMEY.
A French colony on the Guinea coast of Africa. The colony represents the former native kingdom of Dahomey, where human victims were offered in sacrifice, but these were prohibited after the country was subdued by the French in 1892.
Head-hunters and boats of Dahomey that float upon human blood!
The Dawn.
DAISY.
Name of a cow.
Queen Mary.
DAISY.
A common wild-flower.
Two Voices; Gardener’s Daughter; The Daisy; City Child; In Memoriam; Maud; Lover’s Tale; The Wreck; The Ring; The Throstle; Queen Mary; Promise of May; The Foresters.
DAMON.
The polish’d Damon of your pastoral here, This Dobson of your idyll?
A goat-herd in Virgil’s Eclogues.
Promise of May.
DAN. DANNY O’ROON.
The lover of a certain Molly Magee. They agreed to meet on the morrow at a chapel-door, but that to-morrow never came. Years afterwards his body was found in a peat bog, perfectly preserved. Molly recognized the body as that of her former lover and fell dead by his side.
Tomorrow.
DANAË.
An Argive princess, daughter of Acrisius (q.v.), king of Argos. She was confined in an inaccessible tower of brass by her father, where she was visited by Jupiter in the form of a shower of gold, and became the mother of Perseus. She was then, with her son, cast into the sea, but was rescued by a fisherman named Dictys, of the island of Seriphos. Polydectes, king of the island, wished her to marry him, but Perseus rescued her, and took her back to Greece.
The included Danaë has escaped again Her tower, and her Acrisius—where to seek? I have been about the city.
The Princess; Becket.
DANAÏD.
Danaus, king of Argos, had fifty daughters, called the Danaïds. Ægyptus, brother of Belus, king of Egypt, and his fifty sons drove Danaus and his fifty daughters from Egypt into Argos. The sons of Ægyptus subsequently followed and compelled Danaus to give his daughters in marriage. At their father’s command they all (with one exception), murdered their husbands on their wedding-night, and were punished in Hades by having to pour water everlastingly into sieves.
Let not your prudence, dearest, drowse, or prove The Danaïd of a leaky vase,
The heads of the sons of Ægyptus were buried at Argos; but their bodies were left at Lerna, where they had been murdered.
The Princess.
DANCE OF DEATH.
An allegorical representation of the universal power of death, dating from the fourteenth century. Frescoes of the Dance of Death are painted on the walls of the Campo Santo at Pisa; on the walls of the Tower of London; the cloister of St. Paul’s; the Hungerford Chapel at Salisbury Cathedral; and many other churches.
Queen Mary.
DAN CHAUCER.
Dan Chaucer, the first warbler, whose sweet breath Preluded those melodious bursts that fill The spacious times of great Elizabeth With sounds that echo still.
Dan is a title of honour commonly used by old poets.
Dream of Fair Women.
DANIEL.
Refers to Daniel, a book of the Old Testament.
Sea Dreams.
DANIEL.
Has reference to Daniel, the Hebrew Prophet.
Harold.
DANNY. DANNY O’ROON.
See Dan.
Tomorrow.
DAN SMITH.
A farm labourer.
Promise of May.
DANTE.
The most distinguished of the Italian poets.
Palace of Art.
DANUBE.
The Danube to the Severn gave The darken’d heart that beat no more; They laid him by the pleasant shore, And in the hearing of the wave. Let her great Danube rolling fair Enwind her isles, unmark’d of me: I have not seen, I will not see Vienna;
Arthur Henry Hallam, died at Vienna on the Danube, and was buried at Clevedon on the Severn.
In Memoriam.
DARNLEY BRIDGE.
There is Darnley bridge It has more ivy;
The Brook.
DARNLEY CHASE.
Then crost the common into Darnley chase To show Sir Arthur’s deer.
The Brook.
DAUPHIN, THE.
The title of the eldest son of the king of France, and heir to the crown. Since the Revolution of 1830 the title has been discontinued. Mary, queen of Scots, was married to the dauphin of France in 1558, who for a year (1559–60) was king Frances II.
Queen Mary.
DAVID.
King David called the heavens a hide, See Psalm civ. 2.
Columbus.
DAVID.
They say the gloom of Saul Was lightened by young David’s harp See Samuel xvi. 23.
Queen Mary.
DAVID.
And no David To meet him? See Samuel xvii.
Harold.
DAWES (Jocky).
See Jocky Dawes.
Walking to the Mail.
DEAD INNOCENCE.
See Tournament of the Dead Innocence.
DEAD MARCH.
Hush, the Dead March wails in the people’s ears: The dark crowd moves, and there are sobs and tears:
= a funeral march in Handel’s Oratorio.
Ode on the death of the Duke of Wellington.
DEAN.
An ancient royal forest in the west of Gloucestershire.
Marriage of Geraint; Pelleas and Ettarre.
DE BRITO.
One of the murderers of Thomas Becket.
Becket.
DE BROC.
of Saltwood Castle. It was at this castle that the four knights—murderers of Becket—stayed upon their arrival in England from Normandy, and from thence proceeded to Canterbury.
Becket.
DEE.
The river Dee; rises in Bala lake in Merionethshire and flows into the Irish Sea. The ancient Britons considered it to be a sacred river, its ancient name Deva meaning divine.
As the south-west that blowing Bala lake Fills all the sacred Dee.
Geraint and Enid.
DEER.
A quadruped of several species, as the stag, the fallow-deer, the reindeer, etc.
Talking Oak; Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere; The Brook; Aylmer’s Field; The Princess; The Victim; Gareth and Lynette; Last Tournament; Harold; Becket; The Cup; The Foresters.
DELIUS.
A surname of Apollo, because he was born at Delos.
Lucretius.
DE MORVILLE.
Hugh de Morville, son of Hugh de Morville, of Burgh-on-Sands, and one who took part in the murder of Thomas Becket. He married Helwis de Stuteville and thus inherited the castle of Knaresborough. There is scant evidence as to whether he actually struck the archbishop, as he kept back the crowd which were pouring into the cathedral. After the murder he rode with his companions to Saltwood Castle, and thence to Knaresborough, where he sheltered his fellow-murderers, and finally was sent by the pope to the Holy Land as a penance, after which he regained the royal favour. He died in 1204.
Becket.
DEMOS.
Celtic Demos rose a Demon,
The mob of France, with Celtic blood in their veins.
Locksley Hall Sixty Years After.
DENIS. DENIS OF FRANCE.
Bishop of Paris and patron saint of France. One of the missionaries sent from Rome in the third century to convert the Gauls. By order of the Roman governor he was tortured and put to death about 270 A.D.
Ay, by St. Denis, now will he flame out, And lose his head as old St. Denis did.
Becket.
DENMARK.
The King of France is with us; the King of Denmark is with us; the world is with us—war against Spain!
Queen Mary.
DERWENT.
A river in Derbyshire.
Where lie the Norsemen? on the Derwent? ay At Stamford-bridge.
Harold.
DESENZANO.
Row us out from Desenzano, to your Sirmione row! So they row’d, and there we landed—
A small town at the south-west angle of the Lago de Garda in Italy.
Frater Ave Atque Vale.
DE TRACY.
William de Tracy, one of the murderers of Thomas Becket. He was the first to approach the archbishop, and struggled before the altar with Becket who dashed him on the pavement. He is considered to have struck the first mortal blow which nearly severed the arm of Edward Grim—Becket’s cross-bearer—who rushed between the archbishop and De Tracy. With his fellow-murderers he rode back to Saltwood Castle, and thence to Knaresborough, the home of de Morville; and was the first of the four to surrender himself to the pope; but the last to set out for the Holy Land. He however got no farther than the isle of Sicily, where he was taken ill of a foul disease and died in 1173, praying for forgiveness.
Becket.
DEVILSTOW.
He bad me put her into a nunnery— Into Godstow, into Hellstow, Devilstow! The Church! the Church! God’s eyes!
Becket.
DEVON.
See Courtenay, Earl of Devon.
DEVON (County of).
Marriage of Geraint; Geraint and Enid; The Revenge; Queen Mary.
DIAN.
See Diana.
The Princess; The Foresters.
DIANA.
An Italian goddess, the dispenser of light, identified with the Greek goddess Artemis (q.v.). She was a virgin goddess represented as presiding over the open country, armed with a bent bow and quiver and attended by gods. The temple of Diana at Ephesus was one of the seven wonders of the world.
but also that the temple of the great goddess Diana should be despised, and her magnificence should be destroyed, whom all Asia and the world worshippeth.
Acts xix. 27.
Literary Squabbles; The Cup.
DICK.
Thim’s my noätions, Sammy, wheerby I means to stick; But if thou marries a bad un, I’ll leäve the land to Dick.—
Son of a northern farmer, who was to receive the lands at his father’s death, if his brother married ‘a bad ’un.’
Northern Farmer, New Style.
DICK—DICKY.
Son of a north of England farmer. When young his life was saved by their faithful dog ‘Owd Roä.’
Owd Roä.
DICKON.
look ye, here’s little Dickon, and little Robin, and little Jenny—
One of a crowd of women and children collected together on London Bridge.
Queen Mary.
DICKON.
One of the three pages attendant on queen Mary.
Queen Mary.
DIDO.
Ilion falling, Rome arising, wars, and filial faith, and Dido’s pyre;
Daughter of Belus, king of Tyre. Having put Sichæus to death for the sake of his wealth she fled to Africa and founded Carthage. Hairbas, king of the Libyans, made suit for her hand in marriage, but in order to escape him she erected a funeral pyre and stabbed herself in the presence of her subjects. According to Virgil she fell in love with Æneas, who fleeing from Troy, visited Dido at Carthage, but the gods ordered him to leave her, and on his doing so she stabbed herself with a sword given her by him. When Porson, the celebrated Greek scholar—who boasted he could rhyme on any subject, was asked to rhyme upon the three Latin gerunds, he gave this couplet:
When Dido found Eneas would not come, She mourned in silence, and was Di-do dum (b). Brewer: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable.
To Virgil.
DIES ILLA. DIES IRÆ.
let ’em look to it, Cranmer and Hooper, Ridley and Latimer, Rogers and Ferrar, for their time is come. Their hour is hard at hand, their ‘dies Iræ,’ Their ‘dies Illa,’ which will test their sect.
Dies Illa = That (awful) day. Dies Iræ = Day of Wrath; the name of a famous mediæval Latin hymn on the Last Judgment, the opening lines of which are:
Dies iræ, dies illa, Solvet sæclum, in favilla Teste David cum sybilla. The day of wrath, that dreadful day Shall all the world in ashes lay, As David and the sybils say.
The hymn is supposed to have been written by Thomas de Celano, a Franciscan friar of the thirteenth century. Macaulay’s version of the lines is:
On that great, that awful day, This vain world shall pass away, Thus the sibyl sang of old.
Queen Mary.
DIET.
Yet while they rode together down the plain. Their talk was all of training, terms of art, Diet and seeling, jesses, leash and lure.
Has reference to the feeding of hawks, which was an important matter in their management.
Merlin and Vivien.
DIM SAESNEG.
The Shepherd, when I speak, Failing a sudden eyelid with his hard ‘Dim Saesneg’ passes, wroth at things of old—
Two Welsh words meaning ‘no Saxon’ and ‘no English.’
Sir John Oldcastle, Lord Cobham.
DIOTIMA.
A Mantineia priestess, the teacher of Socrates. Socrates was put to death by poison in 399 B.C. on a charge of teaching atheistic and immoral doctrines. The usual method of inflicting the death penalty in Athens at that period was by a decoction of the hemlock.
beneath an emerald plane Sits Diotima, teaching him that died Of hemlock;
The Princess.
DIRCÊ.
Wife of Lycus, king of Thebes, who for her ill-treatment of Antiope, her divorced predecessor, was by Antiope’s two sons—Amphion (q.v.) and Zethus—tied to the tail of a wild bull, which dragged her about, until the gods, pitying her sufferings, changed her into a fountain, which bore her name ever after.
Tiresias.
DIVES.
When Dives loathed the times, and paced his land In fear of worse, And sanguine Lazarus felt a vacant hand Fill with his purse.
The name given to the rich man in the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus. Luke xvi.
To Mary Boyle.
DOBBINS (Dobson).
Promise of May.
DOBSON.
A farmer, in love with Dora, daughter of farmer Steer.
Promise of May.
DOE.
The female of the fallow-deer.
The Foresters; Lady Clare.
DON.
‘We be all good English men. Let us bang these dogs of Seville, the children of the devil, For I never turn’d my back upon Don or devil yet.’
A Spanish title.
The Revenge.
DON CARLOS.
See Carlos.
DONOVAN’S WAKE.
An’ he ped me back wid the best he could give at ould Donovan’s wake—
A wake is a festival held on the anniversary of a patron saint, especially in Ireland.
Tomorrow.
DOON (Bonny).
See Bonny Doon.
DOORM.
A russet-bearded earl who tried to make Enid his mistress; and because she would not consent smote her on the cheek; whereupon her husband, Sir Geraint, cut off his head with one stroke of his sword.
Take my salute,’ unknightly with flat hand, However lightly, smote her on the cheek. Then Enid, Sent forth a sudden sharp and bitter cry, This heard Geraint, and grasping at his sword, (It lay beside him in the hollow shield), Made but a single bound, and with a sweep of it Shore thro’ the swarthy neck, and like a ball The russet-bearded head roll’d on the floor.
Geraint and Enid.
DORA.
A niece of farmer Allan.
Dora.
DORA. DORA STEER.
Daughter of farmer Steer, and sister of Eva (q.v.).
Promise of May.
DORMOUSE.
A rodent, so-called because they are usually torpid in winter. It is allied to the mouse, and resembles the squirrel in habits.
The Window.
DORSET—DORSETSHIRE (County of).
First Quarrel.
DOVE.
A pigeon.
Supposed Confessions of a Second-rate Sensitive Mind; Miller’s Daughter; Gardener’s Daughter’s Walking to the Mail; Locksley Hall; Lucretius; The Princess; The Window; In Memoriam; Maud; To E. Fitzgerald; Progress of Spring; Harold; Becket.
DOVER.
A seaport in Kent.
Queen Mary; Harold; Becket.
DRAGON.
Inn sign.
Slip-shod waiter, lank and sour, At the Dragon on the heath! Let us have a quiet hour, Let us hob-and-nob with Death.
Vision of Sin.
DRAGON-FLY.
An insect of the family libellula.
Two Voices; Marriage of Geraint; Lover’s Tale.
DRAGON OF THE GREAT PENDRAGONSHIP.
And while he spake to these his helm was lower’d, To which for crest the golden dragon clung Of Britain; so she did not see the face, Which then was an angel’s, but she saw, Wet with the mists and smitten by the lights, The Dragon of the great Pendragonship Blaze, making all the night a steam of fire.
The crest of Arthur’s helmet. Spenser describes it thus:
His haughtie Helmet, horrid all with god, Both glorious brightnesse and great terrour bredd: For all the crest a Dragon did enfold With greedie pawes, and over all did spredd His golden winges: his dreadfull hideous hedd Close couched on the bever, seemed to throw From flaming mouth bright sparckles fiery redd, That suddeine horrour to faint hartes did show; And scaly tayle was stretcht adowne his back full low. Spenser: Faerie Queene, Book I. Canto vii.
Guinevere.
DRAGON’S MOUTH.
And made West East, and sail’d the Dragon’s mouth,
The passage between the island of Trinidad and the peninsula of Paria, South America. In the rainy months of July and August the impetuous body of water which flows through the gulf of Paria renders the entrance and exit extremely dangerous to navigation.