Chapter Arideus to Armande of A by Brewer's Readers Handbook

The two horses of Achilles possessed the power of human speech. Balaam’s ass had the same gift. (See Speech ascribed to dumb animals.)

(One of the masquers in sir W. Scott’s Kenilworth is called “Arion.”)

Ariosto of the North, sir Walter Scott (1771–1832).

And, like the Ariosto of the North,
Sang ladye-love and war, romance and knightly worth.
   —Byron: Childe Harold, iv. 40.

Aristæus, protector of vines and olives, huntsmen and herdsmen. He instructed man also in the management of bees, taught him by his mother Cyrenê.

In such a palace Aristæus found
Cyrenê, when he bore the plaintive tale
Of his lost bees to her maternal ear.
   —Cowper: The Ice Palace of Anne of Russia.

Aristarchus, any critic. Aristarchus of Samothrace was the greatest critic of antiquity. His labours were chiefly directed to the Iliad and Odyssey of Homer. He divided them into twenty-four books each, marked every doubtful line with an obelos, and every one he considered especially beautiful with an asterisk. (Fl. B.C. 156; died aged 72.)

The whole region of belles lettres fell under my inspection … There, sirs, like another Aristarch, I dealt out fame and damnation at pleasure.—S. Foote: The Liar, i. 1.

“How, friend!” replied the archbishop, “has it [the homily] met with any Aristarchus [severe critic]?”—Lesage: Gil Blas, vii. 4 (1715).

Ariste, brother of Chrysale, not a savant, but a practical tradesman. He sympathizes with Henriette, his womanly niece, against his sister-in-law Philaminte and her daughter Armande, who are femmes savantes.—Molière: Les Femmes Savantes (1672).

Aristeas, a poet who continued to appear and disappear alternately for above 400 years, and who visited all the mythical nations of the earth. When not in the human form, he took the form of a stag.—Greek Legend.

Aristides (The British), Andrew Marvell, an influential member of the House of Commons in the reign of Charles II. He refused every offer of promotion, and a direct bribe tendered to him by the lord treasurer. Dying in great poverty, he was buried, like Aristidês, at the public expense (1620–1678).

Aristippos, a Greek philosopher of Cyrenê who studied under Socratês, and set up a philosophic school of his own, called “hedonism” (hdonh, “pleasure”).

C. M. Wieland has an historic novel in German, called Aristippus, in which he sets forth the philosophical dogmas of this Cyrenian (1733–1813).

An axiom of Aristippos was, Omnis Aristippum decuit color, et status, et res (Horace, Epist., i. 17. 23); and his great precept was, Mihi res, non me rebus subjungere (Horace, Epist., i. 1. 18).

I am a sort of Aristippus, and can equally accommodate myself to company and solitude, to affluence and frugality.—Lesage: Gil Blas, v. 12 (1715).

Aristobulus, called by Drayton Aristobulus (Rom. xvi. 10), and said to be the first that brought to England the “glad tidings of salvation.” He was murdered by the Britons.

The first that ever told Christ crucified to us,
By Paul and Peter sent, just Aristobulus …
By the Britons murdered was.
   —Drayton: Polyolbion, xxiv. (1622).