Chapter Winds to Winter's Tale of W by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Winds to Winter's Tale

Winds (The), according to Hesiod, were the sons of Astræus and Aurora.

You nymphs, the winged offspring which of old
Aurora to divine Astræus bore.
   —Akenside: Hymn to the Naiads (1767).

Winds and Tides. Nicholas of Lyn, an Oxford scholar and friar, was a great navigator. He “took the height of mountains with his astrolobe,” and taught that there were four whirlpools like the Maelström of Norway — one in each quarter of the globe, from which the four winds issue, and which are the cause of the tides.

One Nicholas of Lyn
The whirlpools of the seas did come to understand, …
For such immeasured pools, philosophers agree,
I’ the four parts of the world undoubtedly there be,
From which they have supposed nature the winds doth raise,
And from them too proceed the flowing of the seas.
   —Drayton: Polyolbion, xix. (1622).

Windmill with a Weathercock Atop (The). Goodwyn, a puritan divine of St. Margaret’s, London, was so called (1593–1651).

Windmills. Don Quixote, seeing some thirty or forty windmills, insisted that they were giants, and, running a tilt at one of them, thrust his spear into the sails; whereupon the sails raised both man and horse into the air, and shivered the knight’s lance into splinters. When don Quixote was thrown to the ground, he persisted in saying that his enemy Freston had transformed the giants into windmills merely to rob him of his honour, but notwithstanding, the windmills were in reality giants in disguise. This is the first adventure of the knight.— Cervantes: Don Quixote, I. i. 8 (1605).

Windmills for Food. The giant Widenostrils lived on windmills. (See Widenostrils, p. 1210.) — Rabelais: Pantagruel, iv. 17 (1545).

Windsor (The Rev. Mr.), a friend of Master George Heriot the king’s goldsmith.—Sir W. Scott: Fortunes of Nigel (time, James I.).

Windsor Beauties (The), Anne Hyde duchess of York, and her twelve ladies in the court of Charles II., painted by sir Peter Lely at the request of Anne Hyde. Conspicuous in her train of Hebêes was Frances Jennings, eldest daughter of Richard Jennings of Standridge, near St. Alban’s.

Windsor Forest, a descriptive poem by Pope (1713).

Windsor Sentinel (The), who heard St. Paul’s clock strike thirteen, was John Hatfield, who died at his house in Glasshouse Yard, Aldersgate, June 18, 1770, aged 102.

Windsor of Denmark (The), the castle of Cronborg in Elsinore.

Windy-Cap, Eric king of Sweden.

[Told] of Erick’s cap and Elmo’s light.
   —Sir W. Scott: Rokeby, ii. 11 (1813).

Wine. If it makes one stupid it is vin d’êane; if maudlin, it is vin de cerf (from the notion that deer weep); if quarrelsome, it is vin de lion; if talkative, it is vin de pie; if sick, it is vin de porc; if crafty, it is vin de renard; if rude, it is vin de singe. To these might be added, vin de chèvre, when an amorous effect is produced; vin de coucou, if it makes one egotistical; and vin de crapaud, when its effect is inspiring.

Wine (1814). In 1858 a sale took place in Paris of the effects of the late duchesse de Raguse, including a pipe of Madeira. This wine was captured from the carcase of a ship wrecked at the mouth of the Scheldt in 1778, and had lain there till 1814, when Louis XVIII. bought it. Part of it was presented to the French consul, and thus it came into the cellar of the duc de Raguse. At the sale, forty-four bottles were sold, and the late baron Rothschild bought them for their weight in gold.