Chapter Aikwood to Alban of A by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Alasco, alias DR. Demetrius Doboobie, an old astrologer, consulted by the earl of Leicester.—Sir W. Scott: Kenilworth (time, Elizabeth).

Alasnam (Prince Zeyn) possessed eight statues, each a single diamond on a gold pedestal, but had to go in search of a ninth, more valuable than them all. This ninth was a lady, the most beautiful and virtuous of women, “more precious than rubies,” who became his wife.

One pure and perfect [woman] is … like Alasnam’s
lady, worth them all.—Sir W. Scott.

Alasnam’s Mirror. When Alasnam was in search of his ninth statue, the king of the genii gave him a test-mirror, in which he was to look when he saw a beautiful girl. “If the glass remained pure and unsullied, the damsel would be the same, but if not, the damsel would not be wholly pure in body and in mind.” This mirror was called “the touchstone of virtue.”—Arabian Nights (“Prince Zeyn Alasnam”).

Alastor, a house demon, the “skeleton in the cupboard,” which haunts and torments a family. Shelley has a poem entitled Alastor, or the Spirit of Solitude. (See the next article.)

Cicero says he meditated killing himself that he might become the Alastor of Augustus, whom he hated.—Plutarch: Cicero, etc. (“Parallel Lives”).

God Almighty mustered up an army of mice against the archbishop [Hatto], and sent them to persecute him as his furious Alastors.—Coryat: Crudities, 571.

Alastor, or “The Spirit of Solitude.” A poem in blank verse by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1815). Alastor, in Greek = Deus Vindex, but as the name of the Spirit of Solitude, it means “The Tormentor.” The poet wanders over the world admiring the wonderful works which he cannot help seeing, but finds no solution to satisfy his inquisitive mind, and nothing in sympathy with himself. In fact, the world was to him a crowded solitude, a mere Alastor, always disappointing and always tormenting him.

Alban (St.) of V erulam hid his confessor, St. Am phibal, and, changing clothes with him, suffered death in his stead. This was during the frightful persecution of Maximianus Herculius, general of Diocletian’s army in Britain, when 1000 Christians fell at Lichfield.

Alban—our proto-martyr called.
   —Drayton: Polyolbion, xxiv. (1622).