Chapter Gillamore to Gipsies' Head-quarters of G by Brewer's Readers Handbook

(The libretto of this opera is by Lorenzo da Pontê.)

The original of this character was don Juan Teno’ rio, of Seville, who lived in the fourteenth century. The traditions concerning him were dramatized by Tirso de Molina; thence passed into Italy and France. Glück has a musical ballet called Don Juan (1765); Moliére, a comedy on the same subject (1665); and Thomas Corneille (brother of the Grand Corneille) brought out, in 1673, a comedy on the same subject, called Le Feston de Pierre, which is the second title of Molière’s Don Juan. Goldoni, called “The Italian Molière,” has also a comedy on the same favourite hero.

Gipsey, the favourite greyhound of Charles I.

One evening, his [Charles I.] dog scraping at the door, he commanded me [sir Philip Warwick] to let in Gipsey.—Mernoirs, 329.

Gipsey Ring, a flat gold ring, with stones let into it, at given distances. So called because the stones were originally Egyptian pebbles—i.e. agate and jasper.

Gipsey-wort, botanical name Lycopus, from two Greek words luk(ou) pous (“wolf’s foot”). Threlkeld says, “Gypsies do die themselves of a blackish hue with the juice of this plant.”

Gipsies’ Head-quarters, Yetholm, Roxburgh.

Head-quarters of the gipsies here.
   —Double Acrostic (“Queen” ).

The tale is that the gipsies are wanderers because they refused to shelter the Virgin and Child in their flight into Egypt.—Aventinus: Annales Boiorum, viii.