Chapter Water of Jealousy to Wealthy of W by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Water of Jealousy to Wealthy

Water of Jealousy (The). This was a beverage which the Jews used to affirm no adulteress could drink without bursting.—Five Philosophical Questions Answered (1653).

Water of Life. This water has the property of changin g the nature of poison, and of making those salutary which were most deadly. A fairy gave some in a phial to Florina, and assured her that however often she used it, the bottle would always remain full.—Comtesse D’Aulnoy: Fairy Tales (“Florina,” 1682).

Water of Youth. In the Basque legends we are told of a “water,” one drop of which will restore youth to the person on whom it is sprinkled. It will also restore the dead to life, and the enchanted to their original form. It is called “the dancing water” in the tale called The Princess Fairstar, by the comtesse D’Aulnoy (1682). (See Old Age Restored, p. 772.)

Waters (Father of), Irawaddy in Burham. The Mississippi in North America.

Waters (zoung, i.e. young), a ballad. At yule-tide many a “well-favoured man” came to the king’s court, and the king asked his queen which she thought the fairest of all. She replied, “zoung Waters.” This excited the king’s jealousy, who ordered Waters to be imprisoned in Stirling Castle, and subsequently to be beheaded.—Percy: Reliques, ser. ii. bk. ii. 18.

Waterloo (The Field of), a poem by sir W. Scott (1815).

On Waterloo’s ensanguined plain
Full many a gallant man was slain;
But none, by bullet or by shot,
Fell half so flat as Walter Scott.
   —Anon.

Waterman (The), Tom Tug. The title of a ballad of a ballad opera by T. Dibdin (1774). (For the plot, see Wilelmina Bundle.)

Watkins (William), the English attendant on the prince of Scotland.—Sir W. Scott: Fair Maid of Perth (time, Henry IV.).

Watkin’s Pudding (Sir), a famous Welsh dish; so named from sir Watkin Lewis, a London alderman, who was very fond of it.

Watling Street and the Foss. The vast Roman road called Watling Street starts from Richborough, in Kent, and, after passing the Severn, divides into two branches, one of which runs to Anglesey, and the other to Holy Head.

The Foss runs north and south from Michael’s Mount, in Cornwall, to Caithness, the northern extremity of Scotland.

Those two mighty ways, the Watling and the Foss…
…the first doth hold her way
From Dover to the farth’st of fruitful Anglesey;
The second, south and north, from Michael’s utmost mount
To Caithness, which the farth’st of Scotland we account.
   —Drayton: Polyolbion, xiii. (1613).

Secunda via principalis dicitur “Watelingstreate,” tendens ab euro-austro in zephyrum septentrionalem. Incipit enim a Dovaria, tendens per medium Cantiæ, juxta London, per S. Albanum, Dunstaplum, Stratfordiam, Towcestriam, Litleburne, per montem Gilberti juxta Salopiam, deinde per Stratton et per medium Walliæ, usque Cardigan.—Leland: Itinerary of England (1712).

Watling Street of the Sky (The), the Milky Way.

Watts (Dr. Isaac). It is said that Isaac Watts, being beaten by his father for wasting his time in writing verses, exclaimed—

O father, pity on me take,
And I wil no more verses make.