Chapter Emeralder to Enfants de Dieu of E by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Emeralder to Enfants de Dieu

Emeralder, an Irishman, a native of the Emerald Isle.

Emerita (St.), sister of king Lucius. When her brother abdicated the British crown, she accompanied him to Switzerland, and shared with him there a martyr’s death.

Emerita the next, king Lucius’ sister dear,
Who in Helvetia with her martyr brother died.
   —Drayton: Polyolbion, xxiv. (1622).

Emile , the chief character of a philosophical romance on education by Jean Jacques Rousseau (1762). Emile is the author’s ideal of a young man perfectly educated, every bias but that of nature having been carefully withheld.

N.B.—Emile is the French form of Emilius.

His body is inured to fatigue, as Rousseau advises in his Emilius.—Continuation of the Arabian Nights, iv. 69.

Emilia, beloved by both Palamon and Arcite. (For the tale, see Palamon, etc.)—Chaucer: Canterbury Tales (“The Knight’s Tale,” 1383).

Emilia, wife of Iago, the ancient of Othello in the Venetian army. She is induced by Iago to purloin a certain handkerchief given by Othello to Desdemona. Iago then prevails on Othello to ask his wife to show him the handkerchief; but she cannot find it, and Iago tells the Moor she has given it to Cassio as a love-token. At the death of Desdemona, Emilia (who till then never suspected the real state of the case) reveals the truth of the matter, and Iago rushes on her and kills her.—Shakespeare: Othello (1611).

The virtue of Emilia is such as we often find, worn loosely, but not cast off; easy to commit small crimes, but quickened and alarmed at atrocious villainies.—Dr. Johnson.

Emilia. Shakespeare, The Winter’s Tale. Also the lady-love of Peregrine Pickle, in The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, by Smollett (1751).

Emilie (The Divine), to whom Voltaire wrote verses, was Mde. Châtelet, with whom he lived at Cirey for ten years. Her palfrey was called “Rossignol.”

Emily, the fiancée of colonel Tamper. Duty called away the colonel to Havannah. On his return he pretended to have lost one eye and one leg in the war, in order to see if Emily would love him still. Emily, was greatly shocked, and Mr. Prattle the medical practitioner was sent for. Amongst other gossip, Mr. Prattle told his patient he had seen the colonel, who looked remarkably well, and most certainly was maimed neither in his legs nor in his eyes. Emily now saw through the trick, and resolved to turn the tables on the colonel. To this end she induced Mdlle. Florival to appear en militaire, under the assumed name of captain Johnson, and to make desperate love to her. When the colonel had been thoroughly roasted, and was about to quit the house for ever, his friend major Belford entered and recognized Mdlle. as his fiancée; the trick was discovered, and all ended happily.—Colman, sen.: The Deuce is in Him (1762).

Emir or Ameer, a title given to lieutenants of provinces and other officers of the sultan; and occasionally assumed by the sultan himself. The sultan is not unfrequently called “The Great Ameer,” and the Ottoman empire is sometimes spoken of as “the country of the Great Ameer.” What Matthew Paris and other monks call “ammirals” is the same word. Milton speaks of the “mast of some tall ammiral” (Paradise Lost, i. 294).

N.B.—The difference between xariff or sariff and amir is this: the former is given to the blood successors of Mahomet, and the latter to those who maintain his religious faith.—Selden: Titles of Honour, vi. 73–4 (1672).