Chapter Spanish Main to Speech ascribed to Dumb Animals- of S by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Spanish Main to Speech ascribed to Dumb Animals-

Spanish Main (The), the coast along the north part of South America.

A parrot from the Spanish main.
   —Campbell.

Spanish Student (The), a dramatic poem by Longfellow (1845).

Spanish Tragedy (The), by T. Kyd (1597). Horatio (son of Hieronimo) is murdered while he is sitting in an arbour with Belimperia. Balthazar, the rival of Horatio, commits the murder, assisted by Belimperia’s brother Lorenzo. The murderers hang the dead body on a tree in the garden, where Hieronimo, roused by the cries of Belimperia, discovers it, and goes raving mad.

Spanker (Lady Gay), in London Assurance, by D. Boucicault (1841).

Dazzle and lady Gay Spanker “act themselves,” and will never be dropped out of the list of acting plays.— Percy Fitzgerald.

Sparabella, a shepherdess in love with D’Urfey , but D’Urfey loves Clumsilis, “the fairest shepherd wooed the foulest lass.” Sparabella resolves to kill herself; but how? Shall she cut her windpipe with a penknife? “No,” she says, “squeaking pigs die so.” Shall she suspend herself to a tree? “No,” she says, “dogs die in that fashion.” Shall she drown herself in the pool? “No,” she says, “scolding queans die so.” And while in doubt how to kill herself, the sun goes down, and

The prudent maiden deemed it then too late,
And till to-morrow came deferred her fate.
   —Gay: Pastoral, iii. (1714).

Sparkish, “the prince of coxcombs,” a fashionable fool, and “a cuckold before marriage.” Spar kish is engaged to Alithea Moody, but introduces to her his friend Harcourt, allows him to make loye to her before his face, and, of course, is jilted.—The Country Girl (Garrick, altered from Wycherly’s Country Wife, 1675).

William Mountford [1660–1692] flourished in days when the ranting tragedies of Nat Lee and the jingling plays of Dryden … held possession of the stage. His most important characters were “Alexander the Great” [by Lee], and “Castalio,” in the Orphan [by Otway]. Cibber highly commends his “Sparkish.”—Dutton Cook.

Sparkler (Edmund), son of Mrs. Merdle by her first husband. He married Fanny, sister of Little Dorrit. Edmund Sparkler was a very large man, called in his own regiment, “Quinbus Flestrin, junior, or the Young Man-Mountain.”

Mrs. Sparkler, Edmund’s wife. She was very pretty, very self-willed, and snubbed her husband in most approved fashion.—Dickens: Little Dorrit (1857).

Sparsit (Mrs.), housekeeper to Josiah Bounderby, banker and mill-owner at Coketown. Mrs. Sparsit is a “highly connected lady,” being the great-niece of lady Scadgers. She had a “Coriolanian nose, and dense black eyebrows,” was much believed in by her master, who, when he married, made her “keeper of the bank.” Mrs. Sparsit, in collusion with the light porter Bitzer, then acted the spy on Mr. Bounderby and his young wife.—Dickens: Hard Times (1854).

Spartan Broth, sorry fare.

The promoters would be reduced to dine on Spartan broth in Leicester Square.—Daily News, February 25, 1879.

Spartan Dog (A), a bloodhound.

O Spartan dog!
More fell than anguish, hunger, or the sea!
   —Shakespeare: Othello, act v. sc. 2 (1611).