eze_], called by Virgil "fidus Achates." The name has
become a synonym for a bosom friend, a crony, but is generally used
laughingly.--_The AEneid_.

He, like Achates, faithful to the tomb.

Byron, _Don Juan_, i. 159.

ACHER'IA, the fox, went partnership with a bear in a bowl of: milk.
Before the bear arrived, the fox skimmed off the cream and drank the
milk; then, filling the bowl with mud, replaced the cream atop. Says
the fox, "Here is the bowl; one shall have the cream, and the other
all the rest: choose, friend, which you like." The bear told the fox
to take the cream, and thus bruin had only the mud.--_A Basque Tale_.

A similar tale occurs in Campbell's _Popular Tales of the West
Highlands_ (iii. 98), called "The Keg of Butter." The wolf chooses the
_bottom_ when "oats" were the object of choice, and the _top_ when
"potatoes" were the sowing.

Rabelais tells the same tale about a farmer and the devil. Each was
to have on alternate years what grew _under_ and _over_ the soil. The
farmer sowed turnips and carrots when the _under_-soil produce came
to his lot, and barley or wheat when his turn was the _over_-soil
produce.

ACHILLE GRANDISSIME, "A rather poor specimen of the Grandissime type,
deficient in stature, but not in stage manner."--_The Grandissimes_,
by George W. Cable (1880).

ACHIL'LES (3 _syl_.), the hero of the allied Greek army in the siege
of Troy, and king of the Myr'midons.--See _Dictionary of Phrase and
Fable_.

_The English Achilles_, John Talbot, first earl of Shrewsbury
(1373-1453).

The duke of Wellington is so called sometimes, and is represented by
a statue of Achilles of gigantic size in Hyde Park, London, close to
Apsley House (1769-1852).

_The Achilles of Germany_, Albert, elector of Brandenburg (1414-1486).

_Achilles of Rome_, Sicin'ius Denta'tus (put to death B.C. 450).

ACHIT'OPHEL, "Him who drew Achitophel," Dryden, author of the famous
political satire of _Absalom and Achitophel_. "David" is Charles II.;
his rebellious son "Absalom" is the king's natural son, the handsome
but rebellious James duke of Monmouth; and "Achitophel," the
traitorous counsellor, is the earl of Shaftesbury, "for close designs
and crooked counsels fit."

Can sneer at him who drew Achitophel.

Byron, _Don Juan_, iii. 100.

There is a portrait of the first earl of Shaftesbury (Dryden's
"Achitophel") as lord chancellor of England, clad in ash-colored
robes, because he had never been call