Character Sketches of Romance Volume I Part 118

17,18 (1470).

Then Elidure again, crowned with applausive praise, As he a brother raised, by brothers was deposed And put into the Tower ... but, the usurpers dead, Thrice was the British crown set on his reverend head.

Drayton, _Polyolbion_, viii. (1612).

[Ill.u.s.tration] Wordsworth has a poem on this subject.

ELIJAH FED BY RAVENS. While Elijah was at the brook Cherith, in concealment, ravens brought him food every morning and evening.--1 _Kings_ xvii. 6.

A strange parallel is recorded of Wyat, in the reign of Richard III.

The king cast him into prison, and when he was nearly starved to death, a cat appeared at the window-grating, and dropped into his hand a pigeon, which the warder cooked for him. This was repeated daily.

E'LIM, the guardian angel of Lebbeus (3 _syl_.) the apostle. Lebbeus, the softest and most tender of the twelve, at the death of Jesus "sank under the burden of his grief."--Klopstock, _The Messiah_, iii.

(1748).

ELINOR GREY, self-poised daughter of a statesman in Frank Lee Benedict's novel, _My Daughter Elinor_ (1869). EL'ION, consort of Beruth, and father of Che.--Sanchoniathon.

ELIOT (_John_). Of the Apostle to the North American Indians, Dr.

Cotton Mather writes:

"He that will write of Eliot must write of charity, or say nothing. His charity was a star of the first magnitude in the bright constellation of his virtues, and the rays of it were wonderfully various and extensive."--Cotton Mather, _Magna Christi Americana_ (1702).

_Eliot (George)_, Marian Evans (or "Mrs. Marian Lewes"), author of _Adam Bede_ (1858), _Mill on the Floss_ (1860), _Silas Marner_ (1861), etc.

ELISA, often written ELIZA in English, Dido, queen of Carthage.

... nec me meminisse pigebit Elisae, Dum memor ipse mei, dum spiritus hos reget artus.

Virgil, _Aeneid_, iv. 335, 336.

So to Eliza dawned that cruel day Which tore aeneas from her sight away, That saw him parting, never to return, Herself in funeral flames decreed to burn.

Falconer, _The s.h.i.+pwreck_, iii. 4 (1756).

ELIS'ABAT, a famous surgeon, who attended Queen Madasi'ma in all her solitary wanderings, and was her sole companion.--_Amadis de Gaul_ (fifteenth century).

eLISABETH OU LES EXILeS DE SIBERIE, a tale by Madame Cottin (1773-1807). The family being exiled for some political offence, Elizabeth walked all the way from Siberia to Russia, to crave pardon of the Czar. She obtained her prayer, and the family returned.

ELISABETHA (_Miss_). "She is not young. The tall, spare form stiffly erect, the little wisp of hair behind ceremoniously braided and adorned with a high comb, the long, thin hands and the fine network of wrinkles over her pellucid, colorless cheeks, tell this." But she is a gentlewoman, with generations of gentlewomen back of her, and lives for Doro, her orphan ward, whom she has taught music. She loved his father, and for his sake--and his own--loves the boy. She works for him, h.o.a.rds for him, and is ambitious for him only. When he grows up and marries a lowborn girl,--"a Minorcan"--and fills the old home with rude children, who break the piano-wires, the old aunt slaves for them. After he dies, a middle-aged man, she does not leave them.

"I saw her last year--an old woman, but working still."--Constance Fennimore Woolson, _Southern Sketches_ (1880).

ELISE (2 _syl_.), the motherless child of Harpagon the miser. She was affianced to Valere, by whom she had been "rescued from the waves."

Valere turns out to be the son of Don Thomas d'Alburci, a wealthy n.o.bleman of Naples.--Moliere, _L'Avare_ (1667).

ELIS'SA, step-sister of Medi'na and Perissa. They could never agree upon any subject.--Spenser, _Faery Queen_, ii. 2 (1590).

"Medina" (_the golden mean_), "Elissa" and "Perissa" (_the two extremes_).

ELIZABETH (_Le Marchant_.) Nice girl whose life is, darkened by a frustrated elopement, by which she is apparently compromised. All comes well in the end.--Rhoda Broughton, _Alas!_ (1890).

_Elizabeth (The Queen)_, haughty, imperious, but devoted to her people. She loved the earl of Ess.e.x, and, when she heard that he was married to the countess of Rutland, exclaimed that she never "knew sorrow before." The queen gave Ess.e.x a ring after his rebellion, saying, "Here, from my finger take this ring, a pledge of mercy; and whensoe'er you send it back, I swear that I will grant whatever boon you ask." After his condemnation, Ess.e.x sent the ring to the queen by the countess of Nottingham, craving that her most gracious majesty would spare the life of Lord Southampton; but the countess, from jealousy, did not give it to the queen. The queen sent a reprieve for Ess.e.x, but Burleigh took care that it came too late, and the earl was beheaded as a traitor.--Henry Jones, _The Earl of Ess.e.x_ (1745).

_Elizabeth (Queen)_, introduced by Sir W. Scott in his novel called _Kenilworth_.

ELIZABETH OF HUNGARY (_St._), patron saint of queens, being herself a queen. Her day is July 9 (1207-1231).

ELLEN (_Montgomery_). The orphaned heroine of Susan Warner's story, _The Wide, Wide World_ (1851.)

_Ellen (Wade)_. Girl of eighteen who travels and camps with the family of Ishmael Bush, although many grades above them in education and refinement. Betrothed to Paul Hover, the bee-hunter.--James Fennimore Cooper, _The Prairie_, (1827).

ELLESMERE (_Mistress_), the head domestic of Lady Peveril.--Sir W.

Scott, _Peveril of the Peak_ (time, Charles II.).

ELLIOTT, (_Hobbie, i.e._ Halbert), farmer at the Heugh-foot. His bride-elect is Grace Armstrong.

_Mrs. Elliott_, Hobbie's grandmother. _John_ and _Harry_, Hobbie's brothers.

_Lilias, Jean_, and _Arnot_, Hobbie's sisters.--Sir W. Scott, _The Black Dwarf_ (time, Anne).

ELMO (_St._). _The fire of St. Elmo_ (_Feu de Saint Elme_), a comazant. If only one appears on a s.h.i.+p-mast, foul weather is at hand; but if two or more, they indicate that stormy weather is about to cease. By the Italians these comazants are called the "fires of St.

Peter and St. Nicholas." In Latin the single fire is called "Helen,"

but the two "Castor and Pollux." Horace says (_Odes_, I. xiii. 27):

Quorum simul alba nautis stella refulsit, Defluit saxis agitatus humor, Concident venti, fugiuntque nubes, etc.

But Longfellow makes the _stella_ indicative of foul weather:

Last night I saw St. Elmo's stars, With their glimmering lanterns all at play ...

And I knew we should have foul weather to-day.

Longfellow, _The Golden Legend_.

(St. Elmo is the patron saint of sailors.)

ELO'A, the first of seraphs. He name with G.o.d is "The Chosen One," but the angels call him Eloa. Eloa and Gabriel were angel friends.

Eloa, fairest spirit of heaven. His thoughts are past understanding to the mind of man.

He looks more lovely than the day-spring, more beaming than the stars of heaven when they first flew into being at the voice of the Creator.

--Klopstock, _The Messiah_, i. (1748).

ELOI (_St._), that is, St. Louis. The kings of France were called Loys up to the time of Louis XIII. Probably the "delicate oath" of Chaucer's prioress, who was a French scholar "after the scole of Stratford-atte-Bowe," was St. Loy, _i.e._ St. Louis, and not St. Eloi the patron saint of smiths and artists. St.

Eloi was bishop of Noyon in the reign of Dagobert, and a noted craftsman in gold and silver. (Query, "Seint Eloy" for Seinte Loy?)

Ther was also a nonne, a prioresse, That of hire smiling was full simp' and coy, Hire greatest othe was but by Seint Eloy!

Chaucer, _Canterbury Tales_ (1388).