Chapter Wickfield to Wild of W by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Wickfield to Wild

Wickfield (Mr.), a lawyer, father of Agnes. The “’umble” Uriah Heep was his clerk.

Agnes Wickfield, daughter of Mr. Wickfield; a young lady of sound sense and domestic habits, lady-like and affectionate. She is the second wife of David Copperfield.—Dickens: David Copperfield (1849).

Wickham (Mrs.), a waiter’s wife. Mrs. Wickham was a meek, drooping woman, always ready to pity herself or to be pitied; and with a depressing habit of prognosticating evil. She succeeded Polly Toodles as nurse to Paul Dombey.—Dickens: Dombey and Son (1846).

Wiclevista, Wicliffism.

Some of them barke, Clatter and carpe, Of that heresy art
Called Wicleuista, The deuelishe dogmatista.
Skelton: Colyn Clout (time, Henry VIII.).

Wicliffe, called “The Morning Star of the Reformation” (1324–1384).

Widdrington (Roger), a gallant squire, mentioned in the ballad of Chevy Chase. He fought “upon his stumps,” after his legs were smitten off. (See Benbow, p. 110.

Widenostrils (in French, Bringuenarilles), a huge giant, who “had swallowed every pan, skillet, kettle, fryingpan, dripping-pan, saucepan, and caldron in the land, for want of windmills, his usual food.” He was ultimately killed by “eating a lump of fresh butter at the mouth of a hot oven, by the advice of his physician.”—Rabelais: Pantagruel, iv. 17 (1545).

Widerolf, bishop of Strasbourg (997), was devoured by mice in the seventeenth year of his episcopate, because he suppressed the convent of Seltzen on the Rhine. (See Hatto, p. 474.)

Widow (Goldsmith’s), in the Deserted Village, par. 9.

All but yon widowed, solitary thing,
That feebly bends beside the plashy spring;
She, wretched matron, forced in age, for bread,
To strip the brook, with mantling cresses spread,
To pick her wintry faggot from the thorn,
To seek her nightly shed, and weep till morn;
She only left of all the harmless train,
The sad historian of the pensive plain.

Her name was Catherine Geraghty.

Widow (The), courted by sir Hudibras, was the relict of Amminadab Wilmer or Willmot, an independent, slain at Edgehill. She was left with a fortune of £200 a year. The knight’s “Epistle to the Lady” and the “Lady’s Reply,’ in which she declines his offer, are usually appended to the poem entitled Hudibras.

Widow Blackacre, a perverse, bustling, masculine, pettifogging, litigious woman.—Wycherly: The Plain Dealer (1677).

Widow Flockhart, landlady at Waverley’s lodgings in the Canongate.— Sir W. Scott: Waverley (time, George II.).

Widow’s Curl (A), a small refractory lock of hair that will not grow long enough to be bound up with the tresses, but insists on falling down in a curl upon the forehead. It is said that this curl indicates widowhood.

Widow’s Peak (A), a point made in some foreheads by the hair projecting towards the nose like a peak. It is said to indicate widowhood.

Wieland or Volund, the wonderful blacksmith of the Scandinavian deities, corresponding to the Latin Vulcan. He made Siegfried’s famous sword Balmung. King Nidung cut the sinews of his feet and confined him in his forge, but he violated the king’s daughter and escaped in a feather boat. His adventures are related in the “Song of Völund” in the Elder Edda.