Part i.

(John Sheffield, earl of Mulgrave (1649-1721) wrote an _Essay on Poetry_.)

ADRIENNE LECOUVREUR, French actress, said to have been poisoned by flowers sent to her by a rival. Died in 1730.

AE'ACUS, king of Oeno'pia, a man of such integrity and piety, that he was made at death one of the three judges of hell. The other two were Minos and Rhadaman'thus.

AEGE'ON a huge monster with 100 arms and 50 heads, who with his brothers, Cottus and Gygês, conquered the Titans by hurling at them 300 rocks at once. Homer says _men_ call him "Aege'on," but by the _gods_ he is called Bri'areus (3 _syl_.).

Briáreos or Typhon, whom the den By ancient Tarsus held.

--Milton, _Paradise Lost_, I. 199.

_Aege'on_, a merchant of Syracuse, in Shakespeare's _Comedy of Errors_ (1593).

AEMYLIA, a lady of high degree, in love with Am'yas, a squire of inferior rank. Going to meet her lover at a trysting-place, she was caught up by a hideous monster, and thrust into his den for future food. Belphoebê (3 _syl_.) slew "the caitiff" and released the maid (canto vii.). Prince Arthur, having slain Corflambo, released Amyas from the durance of Paea'na, Corflambo's daughter, and brought the lovers together "in peace and joyous blis" (canto ix.).--Spencer, _Faëry Queen_, iv. (1596).

AEMIL'IA, wife of Aege'on the Syracusian merchant, and mother of the twins called Antiph'olus. When the boys were shipwrecked, she was parted from them and taken to Ephesus. Here she entered a convent, and rose to be the abbess. Without her knowing it, one of her twins also settled in Ephesus, and rose to be one of its greatest and richest citizens. The other son and her husband Ægeon both set foot in Ephesus the same day without the knowledge of each other, and all met together in the duke's court, when the story of their lives was told, and they became again united to each other.--Shakespeare, _Comedy of Errors_ (1593).

AENE'AS, a Trojan prince, the hero of Virgil's epic called _Aeneid._ He was the son of Anchi'ses and Venus. His first wife was Creu'sa (3 _syl_.), by whom he had a son named Asca'nius; his second wife was Lavinia, daughter of Latinus king of Italy, by whom he had a posthumous son called Aene'as Sylvius. He succeeded his father-in-law in the kingdom, and the Romans called him their founder.

According to Geoffrey of Monmouth "Brutus," the first king of Britain (from whom the island was called _Britain_), was a descendant of Æneas.

AENE'ID, the epic poem of Virgil, in twelve books. When Troy was taken by the Greeks and set on fire, Aene'as, with his father, son, and wife, took flight, with the intention of going to Italy, the original birthplace of the family. The wife was lost, and the old father died on the way; but after numerous perils by sea and land, Æneas and his son Asca'nius reached Italy. Here Latïnus, the reigning king, received the exiles hospitably, and promised his daughter Lavin'ia in marriage to Æneas; but she had been already betrothed by her mother to prince Turnus, son of Daunus, king of Ru'tuli, and Turnus would not forego his claim. Latinus, in this dilemma, said the rivals must settle the dispute by an appeal to arms. Turnus being slain, Æneas married Lavinia, and ere long succeeded his father-in-law on the throne.