tes.
AL'CIPHRON, or _The Minute Philosopher_, the title of a work by bishop
Berkeley, so called from the name of the chief speaker, a freethinker.
The object of this work is to expose the weakness of infidelity.
_Al'ciphron_, "the epicurean," the hero of T. Moore's romance entitled
_The Epicurean_.
Like Aleiphron, we swing in air and darkness,
and know not whither the wind blows us.
--_Putnam's Magazine._
ALCME'NA (in Moliere, _Alcmene_), the wife of Amphitryon, general
of the Theban army. While her husband is absent warring against the
Telebo'ans, Jupiter assumes the form of Amphitryon; but Amphitryon
himself returns home the next day, and great confusion arises between
the false and true Amphitryon, which is augmented by Mercury, who
personates Sos'ia, the slave of Amphitryon. By this amour of Jupiter,
Alcmena becomes the mother of Her'cules. Plautus, Moliere, and Dryden
have all taken this plot for a comedy entitled _Amphitryon_.
ALCOFRI'BAS, the name by which Rabelais was called, after he came out
of the prince's mouth, where he resided for six months, taking toll of
every morsel of food that the prince ate. Pantag'ruel gave "the merry
fellow the lairdship of Salmigondin."--Rabelais, _Pantagruel_, ii. 32
(1533).
AL'COLOMB, "subduer of hearts," daughter of Abou Aibou of Damascus,
and sister of Ganem. The caliph Haroun-al-Raschid, in a fit of
jealousy, commanded Ganem to be put to death, and his mother and
sister to do penance for three days in Damascus, and then to be
banished from Syria. The two ladies came to Bag dad, and were taken in
by the charitable syndic of the jewellers. When the jealous fit of the
caliph was over he sent for the two exiles. Alcolomb he made his wife,
and her mother he married to his vizier.--_Arabian Nights_ ("Ganem,
the Slave of Love ").
ALCY'ON "the wofullest man alive," but once "the jolly shepherd swain
that wont full merrily to pipe and dance," near where the Severn
flows. One day he saw a lion's cub, and brought it up till it followed
him about like a dog; but a cruel satyr shot it in mere wantonness. By
the lion's cub he means Daphne, who died in her prime, and the cruel
satyr is death. He said he hated everything--the heaven, the earth,
fire, air, and sea, the day, the night; he hated to speak, to hear, to
taste food, to see objects, to smell, to feel; he hated man and woman
too, for his Daphne lived no longer. What became of this doleful
shepherd the poet cou
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