354 



THE STANDARD DICTIONARY OF FACTS 



Dory, John. A character in "Wild Oats" or "The 

 Strolling Gentleman." a comedy by John O Keefe. 



no-th.--BoN.s- Hall. Nicholas Nit kl. -by. Dick- 

 en^. A school for boy-; kept by a Mr. Squeers a puf- 

 fing, ignorant, over-bearing brute. who>e xystein of 

 .ion consisted of alternately beating and starvinn. 



Doubting ( a-tle. The castle of the plant l>e>pair. 

 in which Christian and Hopeful were incarcerated, but 

 from which they escaped by means of the key called 

 "Promise," which was able to open any lock in the 

 castle. 



Moii-'tcr--\vivVI. A German schemer, in Sir i 

 Walter Scott's novel of "The Antiquary." 



Drac. A sort of fairy in human form, whose abode i 

 is the caverns of rivers. " Faire le drac." same as " Faire 

 le diable." Irish, "Play the Puck"; English, "Play 

 the deuce." 



Dragon. A. The device on the roval banner of the old 

 British kings. The leader was called the pendragon. 

 Geoffrey of Monmouth says, "When Aurelius was king, 

 there appeared a star at Winchester of wonderful magni- 

 tude and brightness, darting forth a ray, at the end of 

 which was a name in form of a dragon." 



Drama of Exile, A. A poem by Elizabeth Barrett 

 Browning (1844). The exile is Eve, driven out of para- 

 dise into the wilderness, Lucifer, Gabriel, and Christ 

 are introduced into the poem, as well as Adam and 

 Eve. 



Dramatic Unities, The Three. One catastrophe, 

 one locality, one day. These are Aristotle's unities of 

 time, place, and action. To these the French have 

 added a fourth, the unity of uniformity, i. e., in tragedy 

 all the "dramatis persona? " should be tragic in style, 

 in comedy comic, and in farce farcical. 



Drap." Drayton. One of Queen Mab's maids of 

 honor. 



Draw'can-sir. The name of a blustering, bullying 

 fellow in the celebrated mock-heroic play of "The 

 Rehearsal," written by George Villiers, Duke of Buck- 

 ingham, assisted by Sprat and others. He is repre- 

 sented as taking part in a battle, where, after killing 

 all the combatants on both sides, he makes an extrava- 

 gantly boastful speech. From the popularity of the 

 character, the name became a synonym for a braggart. 



Dri'ver. Guy Marine ring, Scott. Clerk to Mr. 

 Pleydell, advocate, Edinburgh. 



Dro'mio. The Brothers Dromio. The brothers 

 exactly alike, who serve two brothers exactly alike, 

 in Shakespere's "Comedy of Errors," based on the 

 "Mena'ch'mi of Plautus." 



Dry -as Dust, The Rev. An imaginary personage 

 who serves to introduce Scott's novels to the public. 



Dudu, one of the three beauties of the harem, into 

 which Juan, by the sultana's order, had been admitted 

 in female attire. 



Du-es'sa. A foul witch, in Spenser's " Faery Queen," 

 who under the assumed name of Fidessa, and the assumed 

 character of a distressed and lovely woman, entices the 

 Redcross Knight into the House of Pride. The knight 

 having left the palace, is overtaken by Duessa, and 

 drinks of an enchanted fountain, which paralyses him, 

 in which state he is attacked, defeated, and imprisoned 

 by the giant Orgoglio. Duessa becomes the paramour 

 of Orgoglio, who decks her out in gorgeous ornaments, 

 gives Tier a gold and purple robe to wear, puts a triple 

 crown on her head, and sets her upon a monstrous beast 

 with seven heads. Prince Arthur slays Orgoglio and 

 rescues the knight. Duessa is stripped of her gorgeous 

 disguise and is found to be a hideous hag. 



Duff, Jamie. Guy Mannering, Scott. The idiot 

 boy attending Mrs. Bertram's funeral. 



Dulcine'a-del Toboso. A country girl whom 

 Don Quixote courts as his lady love. 



Du-maine'. A lord attending on the King of 

 Navarre, in Shakespere's "Love's Labor's Lost." 



Dun'can. (1) A king of Scotland immortalized in 

 Shakespere's tragedy of "Macbeth." Shakespere 

 represents him as murdered by Macbeth, who succeeds 

 to the Scottish throne, but according to history he fell 

 in battle. (2) A highland hero in Scott's ".Lady of the 

 Lake." 



Dunder, Sir David, of Dunder Hall. A conceited, 

 whimsical old gentleman, who forever interrupts a 

 speaker with "Yes, yes, I know it.," or "Be quiet, I 

 know it." "Ways and Means," by Colman. 



Dun-drear'y, Lord. A grotesque character in Tay- 

 lor's comedy, "Our American Cousin"; noted for his 

 aristocratic haughtiness of manner. The character is 

 said to have been created by the actor Sothern. 



Du'ran'dal', written also Durandart, Durindana, 

 and Durlindana. The name of the marvelous sword 

 of Orlando, the renowned hero of romance. It is said 

 to have been the workmanship of the fairies, who endued 



it with such wonderful properties that its owner was 

 able to cleave the Pyrenees with it at a blow. 



Du-ran-dar'te. A fabulous hero of Spain, cele- 

 brated in the ancient ballads of that country and in the 

 romances of chivalry. Cervantes has introduced him, 

 in "Don Quixote," in the celebrated adventure of the 

 knight in the cave of Montesinos. 



Dur'den, Dame. (1) The heroine of a popular English 

 song. She is described as a notable housewife, and the 

 mistress of five serving-girls and five laboring men. 

 The five men loved the five maids. (2) A sobriquet 

 playfully applied to Esther Summerson, the heroine of 

 Dickens's "Bleak House " 



Dur'ward, Quen'tin. The hero of Scott's novel of 

 the same name; a young archer of the Scottish gviard 

 in the service of Louis A.I. of France. When Liege 

 is assaulted, Quentin Durward and the Countess Isabelle, 

 who has been put into his charge, escape on horseback. 

 The countess publicly refuses to marry the Due d'Orleana, 

 to whom she has been promised, and ultimately marries 

 the young Scotchman. 



Dwarf, The Black. A novel by Sir Walter Scott. 

 The black dwarf is a fairy of the most malignant charac- 

 ter; a genuine northern Duergar, and once held by the 

 dalesmen of the border as the author of all the mischief 

 that befell their flocks and herds. In Scott's novel the 

 "Black Dwarf" is introduced under the "aliases" of Sir 

 Edward Mauley; Elshander, the recluse; Cannie Elshie; 

 and the Wise Wight of Mucklestane Moor. 



Dwarf, Ajberich. In the "Nibelungen Lied" the 

 dwarf " Alberich " is the guardian of the famous "hoard " 

 won by Siegfried from the Nibelungs. The dwarf is 

 twice vanquished by the hero, who gets possession of 

 his "Tarn-kappe" (cloak of invisibility). 



Dwarf, Peter. An allegorical romance by Ludwig 

 Tieck. The dwarf is a castle specter that ao vises and 

 aids the family; but all his advice turns out evil, and 

 all his aid productive of trouble. 



Earnscliffe, Patrick. Black Dwarf, Scott. The 

 young laird of EarnsclifT. 



Eb'lis. The name given by the Arabians to the 

 prince of the apostate angels, whom they represent as 

 exiled to the infernal regions for refusing to worship 

 Adam at the command of the Supreme. Eblis alleged, 

 in justification of his refusal, that he himself had been 

 formed of ethereal fire, while Adam was only a creature 

 of clay. 



Eck'hardt, The Faithful. A legendary hero of 

 Germany, represented as an old man with a white staff, 

 who, in Eisleben, appears on the evening of Maundy 

 Thursday, and drives all the people into their houses, 

 to save them from being harmed by a terrible procession 

 of dead men, headless bodies, and two-legged horses, 

 which immediately after passes by. Other traditions 

 represent him as the companion of the knight, Tann- 

 hauser, and as warning travelers from the Venusberg, 

 the mountain of fatal delights in the old mythology of 

 Germany. Tieck has founded a story upon this legend, 

 which has been translated into English by Carlyle, in 

 which Eckhardt is described as the good servant who 

 perishes to save his master's children from the seducing 

 fiends of the mountain. The German proverb, "Thou 

 art the faithful Eckhardt; thou warnest everyone," is 

 founded upon this tradition. 



Eclecta, the "Elect" personified in "The Purple 

 Island," by Phineas Fletcher. She is the daughter of 

 Intellect and Voletta (free-will). 



Ector, Sir. The foster-father of King Arthur, and 

 lord of many parts of England and Wales. Father of 

 Sir Kay, seneschal to King Arthur. 



Edda. There are two religious codes, so called, con- 

 taining the ancient Scandinavian mythology. One is in 

 verse, composed in Iceland in the Eleventh Century, by 

 Stemund Sigfusson, "the Sage"; and the other in prose, 

 compiled a century later by Snorri Sturleson, who wrote 

 a commentary on the first edda. 



E'den-hall, The Luck of. A painted goblet in the 

 possession of the Musgrave family of Eden-hall, Cumber- 

 land, said to have been left by the fairies on St. Cuth- 

 bert's Well. The tradition runs, that the luck of the 

 family is dependent on the safe keeping of this goblet. 

 The German poet Uhland embodied the legend in a 

 ballad, translated into English by Longfellow. 



Edgar. Son to Gloucester, in Shakespere's tragedy of 

 "Lear." He was disinherited for his half-brother, 

 Edmund. 



Edgar or Edgar'do. Master of Ravenswood, in 

 love with Lucy Ashton in Scott's " Bride of Lammer- 

 moor." 



E'dith. The "Maid of Lorn" in Scott's "Lord of 

 the Isles," who married Ronald when neace was restored 

 after the battle of Bannockburn. 



