Volume I Part 118 (1/2)

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).