Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama Part 103

=Quintus Fixlein= [_Fix.line_], the t.i.tle and chief character of a romance by Jean Paul Friedrich Richter (1796).

Francia, like Quintus Fixlein, had perennial fireproof joys, namely, employments.--Carlyle.

=Quiri'nus=, Mars.

Now, by our sire Quirinus, It was a goodly sight To see the thirty standards Swept down the stream of flight.

Lord Macaulay, _Lays of Ancient Rome_ ("Battle of the Lake Regillus,"

x.x.xvi., 1842).

=Quitam= (_Mr._), the lawyer at the Black Bear inn at Darlington.--Sir W.

Scott, _Rob Roy_ (time, George I.).

? The first two words in an action on a penal statute are _Qui tam_.

Thus, _Qui tam pro domina regina, quam pro seipso, sequitur_.

=Quixa'da= (_Gutierre_), lord of Villagarcia. Don Quixote calls himself a descendant of this brave knight.--Cervantes, _Don Quixote_, I. (1605).

=Quixote= (_Don_), a gaunt country gentleman of La Mancha, about 50 years of age, gentle, and dignified, learned and high-minded; with strong imagination perverted by romance, and crazed with ideas of chivalry. He is the hero of a Spanish romance by Cervantes. Don Quixote feels himself called on to become a knight-errant to defend the oppressed, and succor the injured. He engages for his squire Sancho Panza, a middle-aged, ignorant rustic, selfish, but full of good sense, a gourmand, attached to his master, shrewd and credulous. The knight goes forth on his adventures, thinks _wind-mills_ to be giants, _flocks of sheep_ to be armies, _inns_ to be castles, and _galley-slaves_ oppressed gentlemen; but the squire sees them in their true light. Ultimately, the knight is restored to his right mind, and dies like a peaceful Christian. The object of this romance was to laugh down the romances of chivalry of the Middle Ages.

(Quixote means "armor for the thighs," but Quixada means "lantern jaws."

Don Quixote's favorite author was Feliciano de Sylva; his model knight was Am'adis de Gaul. The romance is in two parts, of four books each.

Pt. I. was published in 1605, and pt. II. in 1615.)

The prototype of the knight was the duke of Lerma.

Don Quixote is a tall, meagre, lantern-jawed, hawk-nosed, long-limbed, grizzle-haired man, with a pair of large black whiskers, and he styles himself "The Knight of the Woeful Countenance."--Cervantes, _Don Quixote_, II. i. 14 (1615).

_Don Quixote's Horse_, Rosinante (4 _syl._), all skin and bone.

_Quixote_ (_The Female_), or _Adventures of Arabella_, a novel by Mrs.

Lennox (1752).

=Quixote of the North= (_The_), Charles XII. of Sweden; sometimes called "The Madman" (1682, 1697-1718).

=Quodling= (_The Rev. Mr._), chaplain to the duke of Buckingham.--Sir W.

Scott, _Peveril of the Peak_ (time, Charles II.).

=Quos Ego--=, a threat intended but withheld; a sentence broken off.

Eolus, angry with the winds and storms which had thrown the sea into commotion without his sanction, was going to say he would punish them severely for this act of insubordination; but having uttered the first two words, "Whom I----," he says no more, but proceeds to the business in hand.--Virgil, _aeneid_, i.

"Next Monday," said he, "you will be a 'substance,' and then----;"

with which _quos ego_ he went to the next boy.--Dasent, _Half a Life_ (1850).

=Quo'tem= (_Caleb_), a parish clerk or Jack-of-all-trades.--G. Colman, _The Review, or The Ways of Windsor_.

I resolved like Caleb Quotem, to have a place at the review.--Was.h.i.+ngton Irving.

=R= Neither Demosthenes nor Aristotle could p.r.o.nounce the letter _r_.

_R_ (_rogue_), vagabonds, etc., who were branded on the left shoulder with this letter.

They ... may be burned with a hot burning iron, of the breadth of a s.h.i.+lling, with a great Roman R on the left shoulder, which letter shall remain as a mark of a rogue.--Pyrnne,[TN-115] _Histriomastix_, or _The Player's Scourge_.

If I escape the halter with the letter R Printed upon it.

Ma.s.singer, _A New Way to Pay Old Debts_, iv. 2 (1629).

=Rab'agas=, an advocate and editor of a journal called the _Carmagnole_.

At the same office was published another radical paper, called the _c.r.a.paud Volant_. Rabagas lived in the kingdom of Monaco, and was a demagogue leader of the deepest red; but was won over to the king's party by the tact of an American lady, who got him an invitation to dine at the palace, and made him chief minister of state. From this moment he became the most strenuous opponent of the "liberal" party.--M. Sardou, _Rabagas_ (1872).

=Rabbi Jehosha=, wise teacher, whose good words are recorded in James Russell Lowell's poem "_What Rabbi Jehosha Said_."

=Rabbi Abron of Trent=, a fict.i.tious sage, and most wonderful linguist.

"He knew the nature of all manner of herbs, beasts and minerals."--_Reynard the Fox_, xii. (1498).

=Rabelais= (_The English_). Dean Swift was so called by Voltaire (1667-1745).

Sterne (1713-1768) and Thomas Amory (1699-1788) have also been so called.

_Rabelais_ (_The Modern_), William Maginn (1794-1842).

=Rabelais of Germany=, J. Fischart, called "Mentzer" (1550-1614).

=Rabelais's Poison.= Rabelais, being at a great distance from Paris, and without money to pay his hotel bill or his fare, made up three small packets of brick-dust. One he labelled "Poison for the king," another, "Poison for monsieur," and the third, "Poison for the dauphin." The landlord instantly informed against this "poisoner," and the secretary of state removed him at once to Paris. When, however, the joke was found out, it ended only in a laugh.--_Spectator_ ("Art of Growing Rich").

=Rab'ican= or =Rabica'no=, the horse of Astolpho. Its sire was Wind and its dam Fire. It fed on human food. The word means "short tail."--Ariosto, _Orlando Furioso_ (1516).

? Argalia's horse is called by the same name in _Orlando Innamorato_ (1495).