Chapter Anadems to Androclus and the Lion of A by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Anadems to Androclus and the Lion

Anadems, crowns of flowers. (Greek, anadema, “a head-dress.”)

With fingers neat and fine
Brave anadems they make.
   —Drayton: Polyolbion, xv. (1612).

Anagnus, Inchastity personified in The Purple Island, by Phineas Fletcher (canto vii.). He had four sons by Caro, named Mæchus (adultery), Porneius (fornication), Acatharus, and Aselgês (lasciviousness), all of whom are fully described by the poet. In the battle of Mansoul (canto xi.) Anagnus is slain by Agneia (wifely chastity), the spouse of Encrates (temperance) and sister of Parthenia (maidenly chastity). (Greek, anagnos, “impure.”) (1633.)

Anagrams. Invented by Lycophron, a Greek poet, A.D. 280.

Charles James Stuart (James I.). Claims Arthur’s Seat.

Dame Eleanor Davies (prophetess in the reign of Charles I.). Never so mad a ladie.

Horatio Nelson. Honor est a Nilo. By Dr. Burney.

Marie Touchet (mistress of Charles IX.). Je charme tout. Made by Henri IV.

Pilate’s question, Quid Est Veritas? Est Vir qui adest.

Queen Victoria’s Jubile[e] Year. Love in a subject I require.

Radical Reform. Rare mad frolic.

Révolution Française. Un Corse la finera. Bonaparte was the Corsican who put an end to the Revolution.

Sir Roger Charles Doughty Tichborne, Baronet. You horrid butcher, Orton, biggest rascal here.

Anah, granddaughter of Cain and sister of Aholibamah. Japhet loved her, but she had set her heart on the seraph Azaziel, who carried her off to another planet when the Flood came.—Byron: Heaven and Earth.

Anah and Aholibamah are very different characters: Anah is soft, gentle, and submissive; her sister is proud, imperious, and aspiring; the one loving in fear, the other in ambition. She fears that her love makes her “heart grow impious,” and that she worships the seraph rather than the Creator.—Lord Lytton.

Anak, a giant of Palestine, whose descendants were terrible for their gigantic stature. The Hebrew spies said that they themselves were mere grasshoppers compared with the Anakim.

I felt the thews of Anakim,
The pulses of a Titan’s heart.
   —Tennyson: In Memoriam, iii.

(The Titans were giants, who, according to classic fable, made war with Jupiter or Zeus, I syl.)

Anak of Publishers. So John Murray was called by lord Byron (1778–1843).

Anamnestes , the boy who waited on Eumnestês (Memory). Eumnestês was a very old man, decrepit and half blind, a “man of infinite remembrance, who things foregone through many ages held.” When unable to “fet” what he wanted, he was helped by a little boy yclept Anamnestês, who sought out for him what “was lost or laid amiss.” (Greek, eumnêstis, “good memory;” anamnêstis, “research or calling up to mind.”)

And oft when things were lost or laid amiss,
That boy them sought and unto him did lend;
Therefore he Anamnestes clepêd is,
And that old man Eumnestes.
   —Spenser: Faërie Queene, ii. 9 (1590).

Ananias, in The Alchemist, a comedy by Ben Jonson (1610).