Character Sketches of Romance Volume I Part 114

MARIE ANTOINETTE. Farewell, my children, for ever. I go to your father.

[--] MASANIELLO. Ungratetul traitors! (Said to the a.s.sa.s.sins.)

MATHEWS (_Charles_). I am ready.

MIRABEAU. Let me die to the sounds of delicious music.

MOODY (the actor):

Reason thus with life, If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing That none but fools would keep.

Shakespeare.

MOORE (_Sir John_). I hope my country will do me justice.

NAPOLEON I. Mon Dieu! La nation Francaise! Tete d'armee!

NAPOLEON III. Were you at Sedan? (To Dr. Conneau.)

NELSON. I thank G.o.d I have done my duty.

NERO. Qualis artifex pereo!

PALMER (the actor). There is another and a better country. (This he said on the stage, it being a line in the part he was acting. From _The Stranger_.)

PITT (_William_). O, my country, how I love thee!

PIZARRO. Jesu!

POPE. Friends.h.i.+p itself is but a part of virtue.

[**] RABELAIS. Let down the curtain, the farce is over.

SAND (_George_). Laisez la verdure. (Meaning, "Leave the tomb green, do not cover it over with bricks or stone." George Sand was Mde.

Dudevant.)

SCHILLER. Many things are growing plain and clear to my understanding.

SCOTT (_Sir Walter_). G.o.d bless you all! (To his family.) SIDNEY (_Algernon_). I know that my Redeemer liveth. I die for the good old cause.

SOCRATES. Crito, we owe a c.o.c.k to aesculapius.

STAEL (_Mde. de_). I have loved G.o.d, my father, and liberty.

[--] TALMA. The worst is, I cannot see.

[*] Ta.s.sO. Lord, into thy hands I commend my spirit!

THURLOW (_Lord_). I'll be shot if I don't believe I'm dying.

[**] VESPASIAN. A king should die standing.

WEBSTER. I still live!

WILLIAM III. (of England). Can this last long? (To his physician).

WILLIAM OF Na.s.sAU. O G.o.d, have mercy upon me, and upon this poor nation! (This was said as he was shot by Balthasar Gerard, 1584).

WOLFE (_General_). What! do they run already? Then I die happy.

WYATT (_Thomas_) That which I then said I unsay. That which I now say is true. (This to the priest who reminded him that he had accused the Princess Elizabeth of treason to the council, and that he now alleged her to be innocent.)

[Ill.u.s.tration] Those names preceded by similar pilcrows indicate that the "dying words" ascribed to them are identical or nearly so. Thus the [*] before Charlemagne, Columbus, Lady Jane Grey, and Ta.s.so, show that their words were alike. So with the before Augustus, Demonax, and Rabelais; the [**] before Louis XVIII. and Vespasian; the [--] before Caesar and Masaniello; the [ ] before Arria, Hunter, and Louis XIV.; and the [--] before Goethe and Talma.

DYS'COLUS, Moroseness personified in _The Purple Island_, by Phineas Fletcher (1633). "He nothing liked or praised." Fully described in canto viii. (Greek, _duskolos_, "fretful.")

DYSMAS, DISMAS, OR DEMAS, the penitent thief crucified with our Lord.

The impenitent thief is called Gesmas or Gestas.

Alta pet.i.t Dismas, infelix innma Gesmas.

_Part of a Charm_.

To paradise thief Dismas went, But Gesmas died impenitent.

EADBURGH, daughter of Edward the Elder, king of England, and Eadgifu, his wife. When three years old, her father placed on the child some rings and bracelets, and showed her a chalice and a book of the Gospels, asking which she would have. The child chose the chalice and book, and Edward was pleased that "the child would be a daughter of G.o.d." She became a nun, and lived and died in Winchester.

EAGLE (_The_), ensign of the Roman legion. Before the Cimbrian war, the wolf, the horse, and the boar were also borne as ensigns, but Marius abolished these, and retained the eagle only, hence called emphatically "The Roman Bird."

_Eagle (The Theban)_, Pindar, a native of Thebes (B.C. 518-442).

EAGLE OF BRITTANY, Bertrand Duguesclin, constable of France (1320-1380).

EAGLE OF DIVINES, Thomas Aqui'nas (1224-1274).

EAGLE OF MEAUX [_Mo_], Jacques Benigne Bossuet, bishop of Meaux (1627-1704).

EAGLE OF THE DOCTORS OF FRANCE, Pierre d'Ailly, a great astrologer, who maintained that the stars foretold the great flood (1350-1425).

EARNSCLIFFE (_Patrick_), the young laird of Earnscliffe.--Sir W.

Scott, _Black Dwarf_ (time, Anne).

EASTWARD HO! a comedy by Chapman, Marston, and Ben Jonson. For this drama the three authors were imprisoned "for disrespect to their sovereign lord, King James I." (1605). (See WESTWARD Ho!).

EASTY (_Mary_), a woman of Salem (Ma.s.s), convicted of witchcraft, sends before her death a pet.i.tion to the court, a.s.serting her innocence. Of her accusers she says: "I know, and the Lord, He knows (as will shortly appear), that they belie me, and so I question not but they do others. The Lord alone, who is the searcher of all hearts knows, as I shall answer it at the tribunal seat, that I know not the least thing of witchcraft. Therefore I cannot, I durst not, belie my own soul."--Robert Caleb, _More Wonders of the Invisible World_ (1700).

EASY (_Mids.h.i.+pman_), hero of Marryatt's sea-story of same name.