Chapter Alfred to Alkoremmi of A by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Alfred to Alkoremmi

Alfred, a masque, by James Thomson and David Mallet (1740). Afterwards dramatized by Mallet, and brought out at Drury Lane in 1851. Especially noted for the famous song of Rule Britannia.

(Sir Richard Blackmore wrote an historic poem in twelve books, called Alfred, 1715. H. J. Pye published, in 1801, an epic in six books, called by the same name.)

Algarsife and Camballo, sons of Cambuscan king of Tartary, and Elfêta his wife. Algarsife married Theodora.

I speak of Algarsife,
How that he won Theodora to his wife.
   —Chaucer: The Squire’s Tale.

Algebar (“the giant”). So the Arabians call the constellation Orion.

Begirt with many a blazing star,
Stood the great giant Algebar—
Orion, hunter of the beast.
   —Longfellow: The Occultation of Orion.

Alhambra (The), a volume of legends and narratives by Washington Irving (1812).

Everything in the [Alhambra] relating to myself and to the actual inhabitants of the Alhambra, is unexaggerated fact.—W. Irving.

Ali, cousin and son-in-law of Mahomet. The beauty of his eyes is proverbial in Persia, Ayn Ali (“eyes of Ali”) being the highest compliment a Persian can pay to beauty.

Ali Baba, a poor Persian woodcarrier, who accidentally learned the magic words, “Open, Sesamê!” “Shut, Sesamê!” by which he gained entrance into a vast cavern, the repository of stolen wealth and the lair of forty thieves. He made himself rich by plundering from these stores; and by the shrewd cunning of Morgiana, his female slave, the captain and his whole band of thieves were extirpated. In reward of these services, Ali Baba gave Morgiana her freedom, and married her to his own son.—Arabian Nights (“Ali Baba, or the Forty Thieves”). (See TYCHO.)

Alias. “You have as many aliases as Robin of Bagshot.” (See ROBIN OF BAGSHOT.)

ALICE , sister of Valentine, in Mons. Thomas, a comedy by John Fletcher (1619), Beaumont died 1616.

Alice , foster-sister of Robert le Diable, and bride of Rambaldo the Norman troubadour in Meyerbeer’s opera of Roberto il Diavolo. She came to Palermo to place in the duke’s hand his mother’s “will,” which he was enjoined not to read till he became a virtuous man. She is Robert’s good genius, and when Bertram, the fiend, claimed his soul as the price of his ill deeds, Alice, by reading the will, reclaimed him.

Alice , the servant-girl of dame Whitecraft, wife of the innkeeper at Altringham.—Sir W. Scott: Peveril of the Peak (time, Charles II.).

Alice, 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 passion roused him into manhood. (See ROSE.)—Tennyson: The Miller’s Daughter.

Alice (The lady), widow of Walter knight of Avenel .—Sir W. Scott: The Monastery (time, Elizabeth).

Alice [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 in Wonderland, a fairy tale by “Lewis Carroll” (the assumed name of C. L. Dodgson), published in 1869. A continuation, called Through the Looking-glass, was published in 1871.

Alichino, a devil in Dante’s Inferno.