Part 207

=Skeleton in Armor, The.=--A lyric by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, suggested to him while riding on the seashore at Newport. A year or two previous a skeleton had been dug up at Fall River, clad in broken and corroded armor; and the idea occurred to him of connecting it with the Round Tower at Newport, generally known hitherto as the Old Windmill, though now claimed by the Danes as a work of their early ancestors.

=Sketch-Book, The.=--A series of short tales, sketches, and essays, published by Washington Irving in 1820. They are chiefly descriptive of English manners and scenery, and have often been reprinted.

=Skylark, Ode to the.=--By Percy Bysshe Shelley, written in 1820. “In sweetness,” says Leigh Hunt, “and not even there in passages, the _Ode to the Skylark_ is inferior only to Coleridge--in rapturous passion to no man. It is like the bird it sings--enchanting, profuse, continuous, and alone; small, but filling the heavens.”

Hail to thee, blithe spirit! Bird thou never wert, That, from heaven, or near it, Pourest thy full heart In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.

=Slick, Sam.=--The hero of various humorous narratives, by Haliburton, illustrating and exaggerating the peculiarities of the Yankee character and dialect.

=Slop, Dr.=--The name of a choleric and uncharitable physician in Sterne’s _Tristram Shandy, Gent._

=Slough of Despond.=--_Pilgrim’s Progress_, Bunyan. A deep bog, which Christian had to pass on his way to the Wicket Gate.

=Sly, Christopher.=--_Taming of the Shrew_, Shakespeare. A keeper of bears and a tinker and a sad drinker, son of a peddler.

=Sofronia= (_sof-rō´ni-ä_).--A young Christian of Jerusalem, the heroine of an episode in Tasso’s _Jerusalem Delivered_. She and her lover, Olinda, are condemned to death by Aladine, king of Jerusalem. The king finally, at the solicitation of Clorinda, spares them and they are married.

=Sohrab= (_sö-hrâb´_) =and Rustum.=--An episode, or narrative in verse, by Matthew Arnold. The story is told in prose in Sir John Malcolm’s _History of Persia_. “The powerful conception of the relation between the two chieftains, and the slaying of the son by the father, are,” says Stedman, “tragical and heroic. The descriptive passage at the close beginning--

But the majestic river floated on,

for diction and breadth of tone would do honor to any living poet.”

=Song of Roland.=--An ancient song recounting the deeds of Roland, the renowned nephew of Charlemagne, slain in the pass of Roncesvalles. At the battle of Hastings, Taillefer advanced on horseback before the invading army, and gave the signal for onset by singing this famous song.

=Spanker, Lady Gay.=--In _London Assurance_, by Boucicault, is a woman of great spirit, devoted to the chase.

=Speed.=--An inveterate punster and the clownish servant of Valentine, one of the two “gentlemen” in Shakespeare’s _The Two Gentlemen of Verona_.

=Spenlow= (_spen´lō_).--_Lavinia_ and _Clarissa_, in Dickens’ _David Copperfield_, two spinster aunts of Dora Spenlow, with whom she lived at the death of her father.

=Squeers.=--Name of a family prominent in Dickens’ _Nicholas Nickleby_. Wackford Squeers, master of Dotheboys Hall, in Yorkshire, is a vulgar, conceited, ignorant schoolmaster, overbearing and mean. He steals the boys’ pocket money, clothes his son in their best suits, half starves them, and teaches them next to nothing. Ultimately he is transported for theft. Mrs. Squeers, a raw-boned, harsh, heartless virago, with no womanly feeling for the boys put under her charge. Miss Fanny Squeers, daughter of the schoolmaster. Miss Fanny falls in love with Nicholas Nickleby, but later hates him because he is insensible to the soft impeachment. Master Wackford Squeers, over-bearing, self-willed and passionate.

=Squire of Dames.=--A personage introduced by Spenser in the _Faërie Queene_, and whose curious adventures are there recorded. The expression is sometimes applied to a person devoted to the fair sex.

=Steerforth= (_stēr´fōrth_), =James.=--_David Copperfield_, Dickens. The young man who led little Em’ly astray. When tired of his toy, he proposed to her to marry his valet. Steerforth, being shipwrecked off the coast of Yarmouth, Ham Peggotty tried to rescue him, but both were drowned.

=Stentor= (_sten´tor_).--A Grecian herald in the Trojan war whom Homer describes as great-hearted, brazen-voiced Stentor, accustomed to shout as loud as fifty other men.

=Stephano= (_stef´a-nō_).--(1) In Tasso’s _Jerusalem Delivered_, earl of Carnuti, the leader of four hundred men in the allied Christian army. He was noted for his military prowess and wise counsel; (2) a drunken butler in Shakespeare’s _The Tempest_; (3) servant to Portia in Shakespeare’s _Merchant of Venice_.

=Stiggins, Rev. Mr.=--A red-nosed, hypocritical “shepherd,” or Methodist parson, in Dickens’ _Pickwick Papers_, with a great appetite for pineapple rum. He is the spiritual adviser of Mrs. Weller, and lectures on temperance.

=Strephon= (_stref´on_).--The shepherd in Sir Philip Sidney’s _Arcadia_, who makes love to the beautiful Urania. It is a stock name for a lover, Chloe being usually the corresponding lady.

=Strongback.=--One of the seven attendants of Fortunio, in D’Aulnoy’s _Fairy Tales_. He could never be overweighted, and could fell a forest in a few hours without fatigue.

=Summer, St. Martin’s.=--The fine weather which generally occurs in October and November; referred to in _Henry VI._

=T=

=Tabard= (_tab´ārd_), =The.=--Is the inn, in High Street, Southwark, London, from which Chaucer makes his pilgrims start on their journey to Canterbury. It took its name from its sign--a tabard.

=Tale of Two Cities, A.=--A novel, by Charles Dickens, originally produced in _All the Year Round_ for 1859, and afterward republished in complete form. The author says he first conceived the main idea of the story when acting, with his children and friends, in Wilkie Collins’ drama of _The Frozen Deep_. His narrative is drawn from the scenes of the French revolution of 1789; and it was one of Dickens’ hopes, he says, to add something to the popular and picturesque means of understanding that terrible time; “though no one,” he continues, “can hope to add anything to the philosophy of Carlyle’s wonderful book.”

=Tales of a Wayside Inn.=--Name given by Longfellow to a collection of short poems arranged by himself and collected together much in the same form as Chaucer’s _Canterbury Tales_. These “tales” were mostly gathered from old literature and translated into Longfellow’s own verses--only one, _The Birds of Killingworth_, being said to be entirely original. Seven narratives are represented: the Landlord, the Student, the Spanish Cavalier, the Jew, the Sicilian, the Musician, and the Theologian. Four colonial tales are included in the work: _Paul Revere’s Ride_, _Elizabeth_, _Lady Wentworth_, and _The Rhyme of Sir Christopher_.

=Taming of the Shrew, The.=--A comedy by Shakespeare. The incident of Vincentio’s personation by the pedant was borrowed by Shakespeare from George Gascoigne’s _Supposes_. The chief characters are Petruchio and his wife Katharine, the shrew.

=Tam O’Shanter.=--The title of a poem by Burns, and the name of its hero, a farmer, who, riding home very late and very drunk from Ayr, in a stormy night, had to pass by the kirk of Alloway, a place reputed to be a favorite haunt of the devil and his friends and emissaries. On approaching the kirk, he perceived a light gleaming through the windows; but, having got courageously drunk, he ventured on till he could look into the edifice, when he saw a dance of witches. His presence became known, and in an instant all was dark; and Tam, recollecting himself, turned and spurred his horse to the top of her speed, chased by the whole fiendish crew. It is a current belief that witches, or any evil spirits, have no power to follow a poor wight any farther than the middle of the next running stream. Fortunately for Tam, the River Doon was near, and he escaped, while the witches held only the tail of his mare Maggie. It has been said of _Tam O’Shanter_ that in no other poem of the same length can there be found so much brilliant description, pathos, and quaint humor, nor such a combination of the terrific and the ludicrous.

=Tancred= (_tang´kred_).--In Tasso’s _Jerusalem Delivered_, was the greatest of all the Christian warriors, except Rinaldo.

=Tartufe=, or =Tartuffe= (_tār-tūf´_).--One of Molière’s best known comedies. Tartuffe is a religious hypocrite and impostor, who uses “religion” as the means of gaining money, covering deceit, and promoting self-indulgence. He is taken up by one Orgon, a man of property, who promises him his daughter in marriage; but, his true character being exposed, he is not only turned out of the house, but is lodged in jail for felony.

Isaac Bickerstaff adapted Molière’s comedy to the English stage, under the title of _The Hypocrite_. Tartuffe he calls “Dr. Cantwell,” and Orgon “Sir John Lambert.” It is thought that “Tartuffe” is a caricature of Père la Chaise, the confessor of Louis XIV., who was very fond of truffles (French, _truffes_), and that this suggested the name to the dramatist.

=Task, The.=--A poem by William Cowper. “_The Task_,” says Southey, “was at once descriptive, moral, and satirical. The descriptive parts everywhere bore evidence of a thoughtful mind and a gentle spirit, as well as of an observant eye; and the moral sentiment which pervaded them gave a charm in which descriptive poetry is often found wanting. The best didactic poems, when compared with _The Task_, are like formal gardens in comparison with woodland scenery.” “_The Task_,” says Hazlitt, “has fewer blemishes than _The Seasons_; but it has not the same capital excellence, the ‘unsought grace’ of poetry, the power of moving and infusing the warmth of the author’s mind into that of the reader.”

=Teazle= (_tē´zl_), =Lady.=--The heroine of Sheridan’s comedy _The School for Scandal_, and the wife of Sir Peter Teazle, an old gentleman who marries late in life. She is represented as being “a lively and innocent, though imprudent, country girl, transplanted into the midst of all that can bewilder and endanger her, but with enough of purity about her to keep the blight of the world from settling upon her.”

=Teazle, Sir Peter.=--A character in Sheridan’s play _The School for Scandal_, husband of Lady Teazle.

=Télémaque= (_tā-lā-mȧk´_), =Les Aventures de:= “_Adventures of Telemachus_”.--A romance by Fenelon, published in 1699. It is founded on the legendary history of Telemachus, and is one of the classics of French literature. Though the beautiful fiction of _Telemachus_, which has much in common with, and was doubtless suggested to Fenelon by the _Argenis_, be rather an epic poem in prose than a romance, it seems to have led the way to several political romances, or, at least, to have nourished a state for this species of composition.

=Tell, William.=--Title of a drama by Schiller. The hero is chief of the confederates of the forest cantons of Switzerland, and son-in-law of Walter Fürst. Having refused to salute the Austrian cap which Gessler, the Austrian governor, had set up in the market-place of Altdorf, he was condemned to shoot an apple from the head of his own son. He succeeded in this perilous task, but, letting fall a concealed arrow, was asked by Gessler with what object he had secreted it. “To kill thee, tyrant,” he replied, “if I had failed.” The governor now ordered him to be carried in chains across the Lake Lucerne to Küssnacht Castle, “there to be devoured alive by reptiles”; but, a violent storm having arisen on the lake, he was unchained, that he might take the helm. Gessler was on board; and, when the vessel neared the castle, Tell leaped ashore, gave the boat a push into the lake, and shot the governor. After this he liberated his country from the Austrian yoke.

=Tempest, The.=--One of Shakespeare’s fairy plays. The story runs: Prospero, duke of Milan, was dethroned by his brother Antonio, and left on the open sea with his three-year-old daughter Miranda, in “a rotten carcass of a boat.” In this they were carried to an enchanted island, uninhabited except by a hideous creature, Caliban, the son of a witch. Prospero was a powerful enchanter, and soon had not only Caliban, but all the spirits of the region under his control, including Ariel, chief of the spirits of the air. Years afterward Antonio, Alfonso, Sebastian and other friends of the usurper came near the island. Prospero, by his magic, raises a storm which casts their ship on the shore and the whole party are spellbound and brought to Prospero. Plots and counterplots follow, bringing in Caliban and clowns; but all are made ridiculous and are defeated by Prospero and Ariel.

=Tessa= (_tes´ä_).--In George Eliot’s novel of _Romola_ is the peasant girl who is deceived into marriage with Tito Melema.

=Thangbrand.=--_Tales of a Wayside Inn_, Henry W. Longfellow. King Olaf’s drunken priest, “short of stature, large of limb,” who was sent to Iceland, found the people poring over their books, and sailed backed to Norway to say to Olaf “little hope is there of these Iceland men.”

=Theagenes= (_thē-aj´e-nēz_)= and Chariclea= (_kar-i-klē´ä_).--The chief characters in a Greek love story, by Heliodorus, bishop of Trikka, fourth century. A charming fiction, largely borrowed from by subsequent novelists, and especially by Mdlle. de Scudéri, Tasso, Guarini, and D’Urfé.

=Thekla.=--The daughter of Wallenstein in Schiller’s drama of this name. She is an invention of the poet.

=Theodorus.=--The name of a physician, in Rabelais’ romance of _Gargantua_. At the request of Ponocrates, Gargantua’s tutor, he undertook to cure the latter of his vicious manner of living, and accordingly “purged him canonically with Anticyrian hellebore,” by which medicine he cleared out all the perverse habits of his brain, so that he became a man of honor, sense, courage, and piety.

=Theresa=, or =Teresa= (_te-rē´sä_, or _tā-rā´sä_).--Daughter of the count palatine of Padolia, beloved by Mazeppa, in Byron’s _Mazeppa_.

=Thersites= (_ther-sī´tēz_).--A scurrilous Grecian chief, loquacious, loud and coarse, in the _Iliad_. His chief delight was to inveigh against the kings of Greece. He squinted, halted, and on his tapering head grew a few white patches of starveling down.

=Thopas, Sir.=--In the _Canterbury Tales_, a capital sportsman, archer, wrestler, and runner, who resolved to marry no one but an “elf queen,” and accordingly started for Faëryland. Story left unfinished.

=Thorberg Skafting.=--_Tales of a Wayside Inn_, Henry W. Longfellow. The master-builder ordered by King Olaf to build a ship twice as long and twice as large as the _Dragon_, built by Raud the Strong, which was stranded.

=Three Musketeers= [_Trois Mousquetaires_ (_trwä mös-ke-tar´_), _Les_].--A novel by Alexander Dumas _père_, published in 1844. The scene is laid in the time of Richelieu. The three musketeers are Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, but D’Artagnan is the principal character. He is a young Gascon of an adventurous yet practical nature, with a genius for intrigue, who goes up to Paris to seek his fortune with an old horse, a box of miraculous salve given to him by his mother, and his father’s counsels. His career is one of hairbreadth escapes (with death, in the end, on the field of battle) in the society of the three musketeers.

=Thyestean Banquet.=--Referred to in Milton’s _Paradise Lost_. A cannibal feast. Thyestes was given his own two sons to eat at a banquet served up to him by his brother Atreus.

=Thyrsis= (_ther´sis_).--A herdsman introduced in the _Idylls_ of Theocritos, and in Vergil’s _Eclogues_.

Hard by, a cottage chimney smokes From betwixt two aged oaks, Where Corydon and Thyrsis, met, Are at their savory dinner set. Milton, _L’Allegro_.

=Timias.=--King Arthur’s squire in Spenser’s _Faërie Queene_. He went after the “wicked foster,” from whom Florimel fled, and the “foster” with his two brothers, falling on him, were all slain.

=Tobey, Uncle.=--A character in Sterne’s _Tristram Shandy_. A captain who was wounded at the siege of Namur, and was obliged to retire from the service. He is the impersonation of kindness, benevolence, and simple-heartedness; his courage is undoubted, and his gallantry delightful for its innocence and modesty.

=Tommy Atkins.=--_Barrack-Room Ballads_, Kipling. The name is here used in its general meaning, a British soldier. The name came from the little pocket ledgers served out, at one time, to all British soldiers. In these manuals were to be entered the name, the age, the date of enlistment, etc. The war office sent with each little book a form for filling it in, and the hypothetical name selected was _Tommy Atkins_. The books were instantly so called, and it did not require many days to transfer the name from the book to the soldier.

=Tom Sawyer, Adventures of.=--By Mark Twain. An “elastic” youth whose performances delight both old and young readers. Queer enterprises, influenced by the old superstitions among slaves and children in the Western states give reliable pictures of boy-life in the middle of the nineteenth century.

=Topsy.=--_Uncle Tom’s Cabin_, Mrs. Stowe. A young slave-girl, who never knew whether she had either father or mother, and being asked by Miss Ophelia St. Clare how she supposed she came into the world, replied, “I ’spects I growed.”

=Touchstone= (_tuch´stōn_).--A clown in Shakespeare’s _As You Like It_. His seven degrees of the lie are: (1) The retort courteous, (2) the quip modest, (3) the reply churlish, (4) the reproof valiant, (5) the countercheck quarrelsome, (6) the lie circumstantial, (7) the lie direct.

=Townley Mysteries.=--Certain religious dramas; so called because the MS. containing them belonged to P. Townley. These dramas are supposed to have been acted at Widkirk abbey, in Yorkshire.

=Tranio= (_trā´ni-ō_).--In Shakespeare’s _Taming of the Shrew_, one of the servants of Lucentio, the gentleman who marries Bianca, sister of Katharina “the Paduan shrew.”

=Triads.=--Three subjects, more or less connected, formed into one continuous poem or subject; thus the “Creation, Redemption, and Resurrection” would form a triad.

=Trim, Corporal.=--Uncle Toby’s attendant, in Sterne’s novel, _The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gent._, distinguished for his fidelity and affection, his respectfulness, and his volubility.

=Tristram= (_tris´tram_), =Sir.=--One of the most celebrated heroes of mediæval romance. His adventures form an episode in the history of Arthur’s court, and are related by Thomas the Rhymer, as well as by many romancists.

=Tubal= (_tū´bal_).--A wealthy Jew, the friend of Shylock, in Shakespeare’s _The Merchant of Venice_.

=Tuck, Friar.=--_Ivanhoe_, Scott. The father-confessor of Robin Hood and connected with Fountain’s Abbey. He is represented as a clerical Falstaff, very fat and self-indulgent, very humorous, and somewhat coarse. His dress was a russet habit of the Franciscan order. He was sometimes girt with a rope of rushes. Friar Tuck also appears in the “morris dance” on Mayday.

=Turveydrop.=--_Bleak House_, Dickens. A conceited dancing-master, who imposes on the world by his majestic appearance and elaborate toilette. He is represented as living upon the earnings of his son, who has a most slavish reverence for him as a perfect “master of deportment.”

=Tutivillus= (_tū-ti-vil´us_).--In Langland’s _Visions of Piers Plowman_, the demon who collects all the fragments of words omitted, mutilated, or mispronounced by priests in the performance of religious services, and stores them up in that “bottomless” pit which is “paved with good intentions.”

=Tweedledum and Tweedledee.=--The prince of Wales was the leader of the Handel party, supported by Pope and Dr. Arbuthnot; and the duke of Marlborough led the Bononcinists, and was supported by most of the nobility.

=Twelfth Night.=--A drama by Shakespeare. The story is said to have come from a novelette written early in the sixteenth century. A brother and sister, twins, are shipwrecked. Viola, dressed like her brother, becomes page to the duke Orsino. The duke was in love with Olivia, and, as the lady looked coldly on his suit, he sent Viola to advance it; but the willful Olivia, instead of melting toward the duke, fell in love with his beautiful page. Sebastian, the twin-brother of Viola, was attacked in a street brawl before Olivia, and, thinking him to be the page, she invited him in. The result was the marriage of Sebastian to Olivia, and of the duke to Viola.

=Twice-Told Tales.=--A collection of tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne, some of which had been already published in the _Token_, and other periodicals. They are mystical and, though in prose form, are the work of a poet. The tales are nearly all American in subject, but are treated from the spiritual rather than the practical side.

=Two Gentlemen of Verona= (_vā-rō´nä_).--A drama by Shakespeare, the story of which is taken from the Diana of Montemayor (sixteenth century). The plot resembles that of _Twelfth Night_, as Julia, disguised as a page, is a prominent figure.

=U=

=Uarda= (_ö-är´dä_).--A novel by Ebers, published in 1877. The scene is laid chiefly in Egypt at the time of the reign of Rameses II.

=Ubaldo.=--_Jerusalem Delivered_, Tasso. One of the older crusaders, who had visited many regions. He and Charles the Dane went to bring back Rinaldo from the enchanted castle.

=Ubeda.=--_Don Quixote_, Cervantes. A noted artist who one day painted a picture, but was obliged to write under it, “This is a cock,” in order that the spectator might know what was intended to be represented.

=Thule= (_thū´lē_).--“_Ultima Thule._” The extremity of the world; the most northern point known to the ancient Romans. Pliny and others say it is Iceland.

=Una= _(ū´nä_).--_Faërie Queene_, Spenser. The personification of truth. She goes, leading a lamb and riding on a white ass, to the court of Gloriana, to crave that one of her knights might undertake to slay the dragon which kept her father and mother prisoners. The adventure is accorded to the Red Cross Knight. Being driven by a storm into Wandering Wood, a vision is sent to the knight which causes him to leave Una, and she goes in search of him. In her wanderings a lion becomes her attendant. After many adventures, she finds St. George, “the Red Cross Knight,” but he is severely wounded. Una takes him to the House of Holiness, where he is carefully nursed, and then leads him to Eden.

=Uncle Tom’s Cabin.=--A work of fiction by Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe. It had an enormous sale, and at once made the author famous. As a picture of slave life as it once obtained in the Southern states of America it is certainly unsurpassed. The scenes described in it are so terrible that Mrs. Stowe deemed it advisable to publish in 1853 a _Key_ to the work, showing the large extent to which it is founded upon fact. The hero is, of course, Uncle Tom.

Uncle Tom was an old negro slave of unaffected piety, and most faithful in the discharge of all his duties. His master, a humane man, becomes embarrassed in his affairs, and sells him to a slave-dealer. After passing through various hands, and suffering intolerable cruelties, he dies. The figure next in interest is Legree, the brutal slave-owner. Everyone, also, will remember Eva and Topsy.

=Urganda= (_ör-gän´dä_).--In the romance of _Amadis de Gaul_, a powerful fairy sometimes appearing in all the terrors of an evil enchantress.

=Uriel= (_ū´ri-el_), or =Israfil=.--In the _Koran_, the angel who is to sound the resurrection trumpet. Longfellow, in _The Golden Legend_, calls him “the minister of Mars,” and says that he inspires man with “fortitude to bear the brunt and suffering of life.”