Volume I Part 108 (1/2)

_Drama (Father of the French)_, Etienne, Jodell (1532-1573).

_Father of the Greek Drama_, Thespis (B.C. sixth century).

_Father of the Spanish Drama_, Lopez de Vega (1562-1635).

DRAP, one of Queen Mab's maids of honor.--Drayton, _Nymphidia_.

DRA'PIER'S LETTERS, a series of letters written by Dean Swift, and signed ”M.D. Drapier,” advising the Irish not to take the copper money coined by William Wood, to whom George I. had given a patent. These letters (1724) stamped out this infamous job and caused the patent to be cancelled. The patent was obtained by the d.u.c.h.ess of Kendall (mistress of the king), who was to share the profits.

Can we the Drapier then forget?

Is not our nation in his debt?

'Twas he that writ the ”Drapier's Letters.”

Dean Swift, _Verses on his own death_.

DRAWCAN'SIR, a bragging, bl.u.s.tering bully, who took part in a battle, and killed every one on both sides, ”sparing neither friend nor foe.”--George Villiers, duke of Buckingham, _The Rehearsal_ (1671).

Juan, who was a little superficial, And not in literature a great Drawcansir.

Byron, _Don Juan_, xi. 51 (1824).

At length my enemy appeared, and I went forward some yards like a Drawcansir, but found myself seized with a panic as Paris was when he presented himself to fight with Menelaus.--Lesage, _Gil Blas_, vii.

(1735).

DREAM AUTHORs.h.i.+P. Coleridge says that he wrote his _Kubla Khan_ from his recollection of a dream.

[Ill.u.s.tration] Condillac (says Cabanis) concluded in his dreams the reasonings left incomplete at bed-time.

_Dreams_. The Indians believe all dreams to be revelations, sometimes made by the familiar genius, and sometimes by the ”inner or divine soul.” An Indian, having dreamt that his finger was cut off, had it really cut off the next day.--Charlevoix, _Journal of a Voyage to North America_.

DREAM'ER (_The Immortal_), John Bunyan, whose _Pilgrim's Progress_ is said by him to be a dream (1628-1688).

[Ill.u.s.tration] The pretense of a dream was one of the most common devices of mediaeval romance, as, for example, the _Romance of the Rose_ and _Piers Plowman_, both in the fourteenth century.

DREARY (_Wat_), _alias_ BROWN WILL, one of Macheath's gang of thieves.

He is described by Peachum as ”an irregular dog, with an underhand way of disposing of his goods” (act i.1).--Gay, _The Beggar's Opera_ (1727).

DREW (_Timothy_). A half-witted cobbler who, learning that a tailor had advertised for ”frogs,” catches a bagful and carries them to him, demanding one dollar a hundred. The testy tailor imagining himself the victim of a hoax, throws his shears at his head, and Timothy, in revenge empties the bag of bull-frogs upon the clean floor of Buckram's shop. Next day Timothy's sign was disfigured to read--_Shoes Mended and Frogs Caught. By Timothy Drew._--_The Frog Catcher_, Henry J. Finn, American Comic Annual 1831.

DRINK used by actors, orators, etc.

BRAHAM, bottled porter.

CATLEY (_Miss_), linseed tea and madeira.

COOKE (_G. F._), everything drinkable.

EMERY, brandy-and-water (cold).