catching; of _Domitian_ of Rome, was catching flies; of
_Ferdinand VII._, of Spain, was embroidering petticoats; of _Louis
XVI._, clock and lock making; of _George IV._, the game of patience.

AMY MARCH, the artist sister in Louisa M. Alcott's _Little Women_
(1868).

AMY WENTWORTH, the high-born but contented wife of the "Brown Viking
of the Fishing-smack," in John Greenleaf Whittier's poem, _Amy
Wentworth_.

She sings, and smiling, hears her praise,
But dreams the while of one
Who watches from his sea-blown deck
The ice-bergs in the sun. (1860.)

AMYN'TAS, in _Colin Clout's Come Home Again_, by Spenser, is
Ferdinando earl of Derby, who died 1594.

Amyntas, flower of shepherd's pride forlorn.
He, whilst he lived, was the noblest swain
That ever piped on an oaten quill.

Spenser, _Colin Clout's Come Home Again_ (1591).

AMYN'TOR. (See AMINTOR.)

A'MYS and AMY'LION, the Damon and Pythias of mediaeval romance.--See
Ellis's _Specimens of Early English Metrical Romances_.

AMYTIS, the Median queen of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon.
Beautiful, passionate, and conscienceless, she condemns an innocent
rival to the worst of fates, without a pang of conscience, and dies a
violent death at the hands of one who was once her lover.

The gardens were well-watered and dripped luxuriantly.... At this time
of the morning, Amytis amused herself alone, or with a few favored
slaves. She dipped through artificial dew and pollen, bloom and
fountain, like one of the butterflies that circled above her small
head, or one of the bright cold lizards that crept about her feet. She
bathed, she ran, she sang, and curled to sleep, and stirred and bathed
again.--_The Master of the Magicians_, by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps and
Herbert D. Ward (1890).

ANACHARSIS [CLOOTZ]. Baron Jean Baptiste Clootz assumed the _prenome_
of Anacharsis, from the Scythian so called, who travelled about
Greece and other countries to gather knowledge and improve his own
countrymen. The baron wished by the name to intimate that his own
object in life was like that of Anacharsis (1755-1794).

ANACHRONISMS. (See ERRORS.)

CHAUCER, in his tale of _Troilus_, at the siege of Troy, makes
Pandarus refer to _Robin Hood_.

And to himselfe ful soberly he saied,
From hasellwood there jolly Robin plaied.

Book v.

GILES FLETCHER, in _Christ's Victory_, pt. ii. makes the Tempter
seem to be "a good old _hermit_ or _palmer_, travelling to see some