Chapter Austrian Army awfully arrayed to Azyoruca of A by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Austrian Army awfully arrayed to Azyoruca

Austrian Army awfully arrayed (An). (See P, for this and several other alliterative poems.)

Austrian Lip (The), a protruding under jaw, with a heavy lip disinclined to shut close. It came from kaiser Maximilian I., son of kaiser Frederick III., and was inherited from his grandmother Cimburgis, a Polish princess, duke of Masovia’s daughter, and hence called the “Cimburgis Under Lip.”

A similar peculiarity occurs in the family of sir Gideon Murray of Elibank. He had taken prisoner a young gentleman named Scoto, whom he was about to hang; but his wife persuaded him to commute the sentence into a marriage with their daughter “Meg of the muckle mouth.” Meg made him a most excellent wife, but the “muckle mouth” descended to their posterity for many generations.

Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table (The), a series of essays contributed by Oliver Wendell Holmes to the first twelve numbers of the Atlantic Monthly, and republished in 1858. The essays are discursive, poetical, philosophical, imaginative, and amusing.

It was followed by The Professor at the Breakfast-Table (1870), and The Poet at the Breakfast-Table (1872).

Autolycos, the craftiest of thieves. He stole the flocks of his neighbours, and changed their marks. Sisyphos outwitted him by marking his sheep under their feet.

Autolycus, a pedlar and witty rogue, in The Winter’s Tale, by Shakespeare (1604).

Avalon or Avallon, Glast onbury, generally called the “isle of Avalon.” The abode of king Arthur, Oberon, Morgaine la Fée, and the Fees generally; sometimes called the “island of the blest.” It is very fully described in the French romance of Ogier le Danois. Tennyson calls it Avilion (q.v.). Drayton, in his Polyolbion, styles it “the ancient isle of Avalon,” and the Romans “insula Avalonia.”

O three-times famous isle! where is that place that might
Be with thyself compared for glory and delight,
Whilst Glastonbury stood?
   —Drayton: Polyolbion, iii.(1612).

Avanturine or Aventurine , a variety of rock-crystal having a spangled appearance, caused by scales of mica or crystals of copper. The name is borrowed from that of the artificial gold-spangled glass obtained in the first instance par aventure (“by accident”).

… and the hair
All over glanced with dew-drop or with gem,
Like sparkles in the stone avanturine.
   —Tennyson: Gareth and Lynette.

Avare (L’). The plot of this comedy is as follows: Harpagon the miser and his son Cléante both want to marry Mariane, daughter of Anselme, alias don Thomas d’ Alburci, of Naples. Cléante ge ts possession of a casket of gold belonging to the miser, and hidden in the garden. When Harpagon disco vers his loss, he raves like a madman, and Cléante gives him the choice of Mariane or the casket. The m iser chooses the casket, and leaves the young lady to his son. The second plot is connected with Elise, the miser’s daughter, promised in marriage by the father to his friend Anselme; but Elise is herself in love with Valère, who, however, turns out to be the son of Anselme. As soon as Anselme discovers that Valère is his son, who he thought had been lost at sea, he resigns to him Elise; and so in both instances the young folks marry together, and the old ones give up their unnatural rivalry.—Molière: L’Avare (1667).

Avatar, the descent of Brahma to this earth. It is said in Hindû mythology that Brahma has already descended nine times in various forms. He is yet to appear once more, when he will assume the figure of a warrior upon a white horse, and will cut off all incorrigible offenders.

Nine times have Brahma’s wheels of lightning hurled
His awful presence o’er the alarmèd world;
Nine times hath Guilt, through all his giant frame,
Convulsive trembled, as the Mighty came;
Nine times hath suffering Mercy spared in vain,—
But Heaven shail burst her starry gates again.
He comes! dread Brahma shakes