Character Sketches of Romance Volume I Part 9

_Al'ice_ (2 _syl_.), foster-sister of Robert le Diable, and bride of Rambaldo, the Norman troubadour, in Meyerbeer's opera of _Roberto il Diavolo_. She comes to Palermo to place in the duke's hand his mother's "will," which he is enjoined not to read till he is a virtuous man. She is Robert's good genius, and when Bertram, the fiend, claims his soul as the price of his ill deeds, Alice, by reading the will, reclaims him.

_Al'ice_ (2 _syl_.), the servant-girl of dame Whitecraft, wife of the innkeeper at Altringham.--Sir W. Scott, _Peveril of the Peak_ (time, Charles II.).

_Al'ice_, the miller's daughter, a story of happy first love told in later years by an old man who had married the rustic beauty. He was a dreamy lad when he first loved Alice, and the pa.s.sion roused him into manhood. (See ROSE.)--Tennyson, _The Miller's Daughter_.

_Al'ice (The Lady_), widow of Walter, knight of Avenel (2 _syl_).--Sir W. Scott, _The Monastery_ (time, Elizabeth).

_Al'ice_ [GRAY], called "Old Alice Gray," a quondam tenant of the lord of Ravenswood. Lucy Ashton visits her after the funeral of the old lord.--Sir W. Scott, _Bride of Lammermoor_ (time, William III.).

_Alice Munro_, one of the sisters taken captive by Indians in Cooper's _Last of the Mohicans_ (1821).

ALICHI'NO. a devil in Dante's _Inferno_.

ALICIA gave her heart to Mosby, but married Arden for his position. As a wife, she played falsely with her husband, and even joined Mosby in a plot to murder him. Vacillating between love for Mosby and respect for Arden, she repents, and goes on sinning; wishes to get disentangled, but is overmastered by Mosby's stronger will. Alicia's pa.s.sions impel her to evil, but her judgment accuses her and prompts her to the right course. She halts, and parleys with sin, like Balaam, and of course is lost.--Anon., _Arden of Feversham_ (1592).

_Alic'ia_, "a laughing, toying, wheedling, whimpering she," who once held lord Hastings under her distaff, but her annoying jealousy, "vexatious days, and jarring, joyless nights," drove him away from her. Being jealous of Jane Sh.o.r.e, she accused her to the duke of Gloster of alluring lord Hastings from his allegiance, and the lord protector soon trumped up a charge against both; the lord chamberlain he ordered to execution for treason, and Jane Sh.o.r.e he persecuted for witchcraft. Alicia goes raving mad.--Rowe, _Jane Sh.o.r.e_ (1713).

_Alic'ia_ (_The lady_), daughter of lord Waldemar Fitzurse.--Sir W.

Scott, _Ivanhoe_ (time, Richard I.).

ALICK [POLWORTH], one of the servants of Waverley.--Sir W. Scott, _Waverley_ (time, George II.).

ALIFAN'FARON, emperor of the island Trap'oban, a Mahometan, the suitor of Pentap'olin's daughter, a Christian. Pentapolin refused to sanction this alliance, and the emperor raised a vast army to enforce his suit. This is don Quixote's solution of two flocks of sheep coming in opposite directions, which he told Sancho were the armies of Alifanfaron and Pentapolin.--Cervantes, _Don Quixote_, I. iii. 4 (1605).

Ajax the Greater had a similar encounter. (See AJAX.)

ALIN'DA, daughter of Alphonso, an irascible old lord of Sego'via.--Beaumont and Fletcher, _The Pilgrim_ (1621).

(_Alinda_ is the name a.s.sumed by young Archas when he dresses in woman's attire. This young man is the son of general Archas, "the loyal subject" of the great duke of Moscovia, in the drama by Beaumont and Fletcher, called _The Loyal Subject_, 1618.)

ALIPRANDO, a Christian knight, who discovered the armor of Rinaldo, and took it to G.o.dfrey. Both inferred that Rinaldo had been slain, but were mistaken.--Ta.s.so, _Jerusalem Delivered_ (1575).

AL'IRIS, sultan of Lower Buchar'ia, who, under the a.s.sumed name of Fer'amorz, accompanies Lalla Rookh from Delhi, on her way to be married to the sultan. He wins her love, and amuses the tedium of the journey by telling her tales. When introduced to the sultan, her joy is unbounded on discovering that Feramorz the poet, who has won her heart, is the sultan to whom she is betrothed.--T. Moore, _Lalla Rookh_.

ALISAUNDER (_Sir_), surnamed LORFELIN, son of the good prince Boudwine and his wife An'glides (3 _syl_.). Sir Mark, king of Cornwall, murdered sir Boudwine, who was his brother, while Alisaunder was a mere child. When Alisaunder was knighted, his mother gave him his father's doublet, "bebled with old blood," and charged him to revenge his father's death. Alisaunder married Alis la Beale Pilgrim, and had one son called Bellen'gerus le Beuse. Instead of fulfilling his mother's charge, he was himself "falsely and feloniously slain" by king Mark.--Sir T. Malory, _History of King Arthur_, ii. 119-125 (1470).

AL'ISON, the young wife of John, a rich old miserly carpenter.

Absolon, a priggish parish clerk, paid her attention, but she herself loved a poor scholar named Nicholas, lodging in her husband's house.

Fair she was, and her body lithe as a weasel. She had a rouguish eye, small eyebrows, was "long as a mast and upright as a bolt," more "pleasant to look on than a flowering pear tree," and her skin "was softer than the wool of a wether."--Chaucer, "The Miller's Tale,"

_Canterbury Tales_, (1388).

_Al'ison_, in sir W. Scott's _Kenilworth_, is an old domestic in the service of the earl of Leicester at c.u.mnor Place.

AL'KEN, an old shepherd, who instructs Robin Hood's men how to find a witch, and how she is to be hunted.--Ben Jonson, _The Sad Shepherd_ (1637).

ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL, a comedy by Shakespeare (1598). The hero and heroine are Bertram of Rousillon, and Hel'ena a physician's daughter, who are married by the command of the king of France, but part because Bertram thought the lady not sufficiently well-born for him. Ultimately, however, all ends well.--(See HELENA.)

The story of this play is from Painter's _Gilletta of Narbon_.

ALL THE TALENTS Administration, formed by lord Grenville, in 1806, on the death of William Pitt. The members were lord Grenville, the earl Fitzwilliam, viscount Sidmouth, Charles James Fox, earl Spencer, William Windham, lord Erskine, sir Charles Grey, lord Minto, lord Auckland, lord Moira, Sheridan, Richard Fitzpatrick, and lord Ellenborough. It was dissolved in 1807.

On "all the talents" vent your venal spleen.

Byron, _English Bards and Scotch Reviewers_.

ALLAN, lord of Ravenswood, a decayed Scotch n.o.bleman.--Sir W. Scott, _The Bride of Lammermoor_ (time, William III.).

_Al'lan (Mrs.)_, colonel Mannering's housekeeper at Woodburne.--Sir W.

Scott, _Guy Mannering_ (time, George II.).

_Al'lan_ [Breck Cameron], the sergeant sent to arrest Hamish Bean McTavish, by whom he is shot. Sir W. Scott, _The Highland Widow_ (time, George II.).

ALLAN-A-DALE, one of Robin Hood's men, introduced by sir W. Scott in _Ivanhoe_. (See ALLIN-A-DALE.)

ALLAN QUARTERMAIN, hunter and traveller whose adventures are recorded in _She, King Solomon's Mines_, and _Allan Quartermain_, by W. Rider Haggard (1886-1891).

ALLE'GRE (3 _syl_.), the faithful servant of Philip Chabot. When Chabot was accused of treason, Allegre was put to the rack to make him confess something to his master's damage, but the brave fellow was true as steel, and it was afterwards shown that the accusation had no foundation but jealousy.--G. Chapman and J. s.h.i.+rley, _The Tragedy of Philip Chabot_.

ALLEN (_Ralph_), the friend of Pope, and benefactor of Fielding.

Let humble Allen, with an awkward shame, Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame.

Pope.

_Allen (Long)_, a soldier in the "guards" of king Richard I.--Sir W.

Scott, _The Talisman_.

_Allen (Major)_, an officer in the duke of Monmouth's army.--Sir W.

Scott, _Old Mortality_ (time, Charles II.).

ALL-FAIR, a princess, who was saved from the two lions (which guarded the Desert Fairy) by the Yellow Dwarf, on condition that she would become his wife. On her return home she hoped to evade this promise by marrying the brave king of the Gold Mines, but on the wedding day Yellow Dwarf carried her off on a Spanish cat, and confined her in Steel Castle. Here Gold Mine came to her rescue with a magic sword, but in his joy at finding her, he dropped his sword, and was stabbed to the heart with it by Yellow Dwarf. All-Fair, falling on the body of her lover, died of a broken heart. The syren changed the dead lovers into two palm trees.--Comtesse D'Aunoy, _Fairy Tales_ ("The Yellow Dwarf," 1682). ALLIN-A-DALE or ALLEN-A-DALE, of Nottinghams.h.i.+re, was to be married to a lady who returned his love, but her parents compelled her to forego young Allin for an old knight of wealth. Allin told his tale to Robin Hood, and the bold forester, in the disguise of a harper, went to the church where the wedding ceremony was to take place. When the wedding party stepped in, Robin Hood exclaimed, "This is no fit match; the bride shall be married only to the man of her choice." Then, sounding his horn, Allin-a-Dale with four and twenty bowmen entered the church. The bishop refused to marry the woman to Allin till the banns had been asked three times, whereupon Robin pulled off the bishop's gown, and invested Little John in it, who asked the banns seven times, and performed the ceremony.--_Robin Hood and Allin-a-Dale_ (a ballad).

ALL'IT. Captain of Nebuchadrezzar's guards in _The Master of the Magicians_, by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps and Herbert D. Ward. He is flattered and content to be the queen's favorite until he meets Lalitha, a Jewish damsel. He braves death to save her from runaway horses attached to a chariot, is captivated by her beauty, and forgets his royal mistress in an honorable love (1890).

ALLNUT (_Noll_), landlord of the Swan, Lambythe Ferry (1625).

_Grace Allnut_, his wife.

_Oliver Allnut_, the landlord's son.--Sterling, _John Felton_ (1852).

ALLWORTH (_Lady_), stepmother to Tom Allworth. Sir Giles Overreach thought she would marry his nephew Wellborn, but she married lord Lovel.

_Tom Allworth_, stepson of lady Allworth, in love with Margaret Overreach, whom he marries.--Ma.s.singer, _A New Way to pay Old Debts_ (1625).

ALL'WORTHY, in Fielding's _Tom Jones_, a man of st.u.r.dy rect.i.tude, large charity, infinite modesty, independent spirit, and untiring philanthropy, with an utter disregard of money or fame. Fielding's friend, Ralph Allen, was the academy figure of this character.

ALMA (_the human soul_) queen of a Castle, which for seven years was beset by a rabble rout. Arthur and sir Guyon were conducted by Alma over this castle, which though not named is intended to represent the human body.--Spenser, _The Faerie Queene_, ii. 9 (1590).