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

Benjamin Johnson (1651–1742) … seemed to be proud to wear the poet’s double name, and was particularly great in all that author’s plays that were usually performed, viz. “Wasp,” “Corbaccio,” “Morose,” and “Ananias.’—Chetwood.

(“Wasp” in Bartholomew Fair, “Corbaccio” in The Fox, “Morose” in The Silent Woman, all by B. Jonson.)

Anarchus, king of the Dipsodes , defeated by Pantag’ruel, who dressed him in a ragged doublet, a cap with a cock’s feather, and married him to “an old lantern-carrying hag.” The prince gave the wedding breakfast, which consisted of garlic and sour cider. His wife, being a regular termagant, “did beat him like plaster, and the ex-tyrant did not dare to call his soul his own.”—Rabelais: Pantagruel, ii. 31 (1533).

Anarchy (The Masque of), by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1819). A satirical poem on what was called the “Manchester Massacres,” an exaggerate expression for the injuries received by the crowd which had met at St. Peter’s Field, Manchester, in defiance of the magistrates’ orders, to hear “Orator Hunt” on parliamentary reform. About 80,000 persons assembled, and the military, being sent for, dispersed the mob with the backs of their swords, but 100 persons were injured either by accident or being knocked down by the crowd. Shelley took the side of the mob. (See Peterloo.)

Anastasius, the hero of a novel called Memoirs of Anastasius, by Thomas Hope (1819), his master- work. It is the autobiography of a Greek, who, to escape the consequences of his crimes and villainies, becomes a regenade, and passes through a long series of adventures.

Fiction has but few pictures which will bear comparison with that of Anastasius, sitting on the steps of the lazaretto of Trieste, with his dying boy in his arms.—Encyclopædia Britannica (article “Romance”).

Anastasius Grün, the pseudonym of Anton Alexander von Auersperg, a German poet (1806–1876).

Anasterax, brother of Niquee [ne.-kay], with whom he lived in illicit intercourse. The fairy Zorphee, in order to withdraw her goddaughter from this alliance, enchanted her.—Amadis de Gaul.

Anaxarte , the Amadis of Greece, a supplemental part of the Portuguese romance called Amadis of Gaul [Wales]. Amadis of Greece was written by Feliciano de Silva.

Ancho, a Spanish brownie, who haunts the shepherds’ huts, warms himself at their fires, tastes their clotted milk and cheese, converses with the family, and is treated with familiarity mixed with terror. The Anche hates church-bells.

Anchors. A frigate has six: (1) the cock-bill anchor, forward; (2) the kedger, aft; (3) the flood anchor, towards the open; (4) the ebb anchor; (5) the bower anchor, to starboard; (6) the sheet anchor, to larboard or port.

Ancient Mariner (The), a poem by Coleridge (about 1796). The man, having shot an albatross (a bird of good omen to seamen), was doomed to wander with his crew from land to land. On one of his landings he told his tale to a hermit, and whenever he rested on terra firma, he was to repeat it as a warning to others.

Swinburne says: “For absolute melody and splendour, it were hardly rash to call it the first poem in the language.”

Ancor, a river of Leicestershire, running through Harshul, where Michael Drayton was born. Hence Wm. Browne calls him the shepherd

Who on the banks of Ancor tuned his pipe.
   —Britannia’s Pastorals, i. 5 (1613).

Anderson (Eppie), a servant at the inn of St. Ronan’s Well, held by Meg Dods.—Sir W. Scott: St. Ronan’s Well (time, George III.).