Chapter Amanda to Ambrose of A by Brewer's Readers Handbook

sir Thomas Egerton, keeper of the Great Seal (afterwards baron of Ellesmere and viscount Brackley). It was for this very lady, during her widowhood, that Milton wrote his Arcades .

No less praiseworthy are the sisters three
The honour of the noble family
Of which I meanest boast myself to be …
Phyllis, Charyllis, and sweet Amaryllis;
Phyllis the fair is eldest of the three,
The next to her is bountiful Charyllis,
But Amaryllis highest in degree.
   —Spenser: Colin Clout’s Come Home Again (1594).

Amaryllis, the name of a rustic beauty in the Idylls of Theocratos, and in the Eclogues of Virgil.

To sport with Amaryllis in the shade.
   —Milton.

Amasis, the ring of Amasis is the same as Polycrates’ ring (q.v.).

Amasis, Amosis, or Aahmes, founder of the eighteenth Egyptian dynasty (B.C. 1610). Lord Brooke attributes to him one of the pyramids. The three chief pyramids are usually ascribed to Suphis (or Cheops), Sen-Suphis (or Cephrenês), and Mencherês, all of the fourth dynasty.

Amasis and Cheops how can time forgive,
Who in their useless pyramids would live?
   —Lord Brooke: Peace.

Amateur (An). Pierce Egan the younger published under this pseudonym his Real Life in London, or The Rambles and Adventures of Rob Tally-ho, Esq., and his Cousin, the Hon. Tom Dashall, through the Metropolis (1821-2).

Amaurite, a bridge in Utopia. Sir Thomas More says he could not recollect whether Raphael Hythloday told him it was 500 paces or only 300 paces long, and he requested his friend, Peter Giles, living at Antwerp, to question the adventurer about it.

Amaurot, the chief city of “Utopia” (q.v.). (Greek, amauros, “shadowy, unknown.”)

Amaurots (The), a people whos e kingdom was invaded by the Dipsodes, but Pantagruel, coming to their defence, utterly routed the invaders.—Rabelais: Pantagruel, ii. (1533).

Amavia, the personification of Intemperance in grief. Hearing that her husband, sir Mordant, had been enticed to the Bower of Bliss by the enchantress Acrasia, she went in quest of him, and found him so changed in mind and body she could scarcely recognize him; however, she managed by tact to bring him away; but he died on the road, and Amavia stabbed herself from excessive grief.—Spenser: Faerie Queene, ii. I (1590).

Amazia. Samuel Pordage wrote a poem entitled Azaria and Hushai, in reply to Dryden’s Absalom and Achitophel (q.v.). Amazia stands for Charles II. In this reply we meet with these preposterous lines—

All his subjects, who his fate did moan,
With joyful hearts restored him to his throne;
Who then his father’s murderers destroyed,
And a long, happy, peaceful reign enjoyed,
Beloved of all, for merciful was he
Like God, in the superlative degree! (!!!)

Amazona, a f airy, who freed a certain country from the Ogri and the Blue Centaur. When she sounded her trumpet, the sick were recovered and became both young and strong. She gave the princess Carpillona a bunch of gilli-flowers, which enabled her to pass unrecognized before those who knew her well.—Comtesse D’Aulnoy: Fairy Tales (“The Princess Carpillona,” 1682).

Amazonian Chin, a beardless chin, like that of the Amazonian women. Especially applied to a beardless young soldier. (See Alexander, p. 22.)

When with his Amazonian chin he drove
The bristled lips before him.
   —Shakespeare: Coriolanus, act ii. sc. 2 (1609).