Chapter Athenæum to Aubri's Dog of A by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Atimus, Baseness of mind personified in The Purple Island (1633), by Phineas Fletcher. “A careless, idle swain…his work to eat, drink, sleep, and purge his reins.” Fully described in canto viii. (Greek, atimos, “one dishonoured.”)

Atin (Strife), the squire of Pyrochlês.—Spenser: Faërie Queene, ii. 4, 5, 6 (1590).

Atlantean Shoulders, shoulders broad and strong, like those of Atlas, which support the world.

Sage he [Beëlzebub] stood,
With Atlantean shoulders, fit to bear
The weight of mightiest monarchies.
   —Milton: Paradise Lost, ii. 305 (1665).

Atlantes, the magician and sage who educated Rogero in all manly virtues.—Ariosto: Orlando Furioso (1516).

Atlantis. Lord Bacon wrote an allegorical fiction called Atlantis, or The New Atlantis. It is an island in the Atlantic, on which the author feigns that he was wrecked. There found he every model arrangement for the promotion of science and the perfection of man as a social being.

A moral country? But I hold my hand—
For I disdain to write an Atalantis [sic].
   —Byron: Don Juan, xi. 87.

Atlas’Shoulders, enormous strength. Atlas king of Mauritania is said to support the world on his shoulders.

Change thy shape and shake off age…Get thee Medea’s kettle (q.v.) and be boiled anew, come forth with… callous hands, a chine of steel, and Atlas’ shoulders.—Congreve: Love for Love, iv. (1695).

Atom (The History and Adventures of an), by Smollett (1769). A satire on the political parties of England from 1754 to the dissolution of lord Chatham’s administration. Chatham himself is severely handled.

Atossa. It is doubtful to whom Pope alludes in his Moral Essays; ii.—

But what are these to great Atossa’s mind!

Atossa, daughter of Cyrus, was the wife of Darius Hystaspis, and their son was Xerxes. As Xerxes was the son of Ahasuerus and Vashti (Old Testament), and Vashti was the daughter of Cyrus, it would seem that Ahasuerus was the same as Darius, and Vashti as Atossa.

It is supposed that Pope referred either to the duchess of Marlborough or to the duchess of Buckingham. He calls the former Sappho, but Sappho’s great friend was Atthis, not Atossa.

Atropos, one of the Fates, whose office it was to cut the thread of life with a pair of scissors.

… nor shines the knife,
Nor shears of Atropos before their vision.
   —Byron: Don Fuan, ii. 64.

Attala’s Wife, Cerca.

Attic Bee (The), Sophoclês (B.C. 495–405). Plato is called “The Athenian Bee.”

Attic Boy (The), referred to by Milton in his Il Penseroso, is Cephalus or Kephalos, beloved by Aurora (Morn), but married to Procris. He was passionately fond of hunting.

Till civil-suited Morn appear,
Not tricked and flounced, as she was wont
With the Attic boy to hunt,
But kerchiefed in a comely cloud.
   —Il Penseroso (1638).

Attic Muse (The), Xenophon, the historian (B.C. 444–359).