AL'IRIS, sultan of Lower Buchar'ia, who, under the assumed name of Fer'amorz, accompanies Lalla Rookh from Delhi, on her way to be married to the sultan. He wins her love, and amuses the tedium of the journey by telling her tales. When introduced to the sultan, her joy is unbounded on discovering that Feramorz the poet, who has won her heart, is the sultan to whom she is betrothed.--T. Moore, _Lalla Rookh_. ALISAUNDER (_Sir_), surnamed LORFELIN, son of the good prince Boudwine and his wife An'glides (3 _syl_.). Sir Mark, king of Cornwall, murdered sir Boudwine, who was his brother, while Alisaunder was a mere child. When Alisaunder was knighted, his mother gave him his father's doublet, "bebled with old blood," and charged him to revenge his father's death. Alisaunder married Alis la Beale Pilgrim, and had one son called Bellen'gerus le Beuse. Instead of fulfilling his mother's charge, he was himself "falsely and feloniously slain" by king Mark.--Sir T. Malory, _History of King Arthur_, ii. 119-125 (1470). AL'ISON, the young wife of John, a rich old miserly carpenter. Absolon, a priggish parish clerk, paid her attention, but she herself loved a poor scholar named Nicholas, lodging in her husband's house. Fair she was, and her body lithe as a weasel. She had a rouguish eye, small eyebrows, was "long as a mast and upright as a bolt," more "pleasant to look on than a flowering pear tree," and her skin "was softer than the wool of a wether."--Chaucer, "The Miller's Tale," _Canterbury Tales_, (1388). _Al'ison_, in sir W. Scott's _Kenilworth_, is an old domestic in the service of the earl of Leicester at Cumnor Place. AL'KEN, an old shepherd, who instructs Robin Hood's men how to find a witch, and how she is to be hunted.--Ben Jonson, _The Sad Shepherd_ (1637). ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL, a comedy by Shakespeare (1598). The hero and heroine are Bertram of Rousillon, and Hel'ena a physician's daughter, who are married by the command of the king of France, but part because Bertram thought the lady not sufficiently well-born for him. Ultimately, however, all ends well.--(See HELENA.) The story of this play is from Painter's _Gilletta of Narbon_. ALL THE TALENTS Administration, formed by lord Grenville, in 1806, on the death of William Pitt. The members were lord Grenville, the earl Fitzwilliam, viscount Sidmouth, Charles James Fox, earl Spencer, William Windham, lord Erskine, sir Charles Grey, lord Minto, lord Auckland, lord Moira, Sheridan, Richard Fitzpatrick, and lord Ellenborough. It was dissolved in 1807. On "all the talents" vent your venal spleen. Byron, _English Bards and Scotch Reviewers_. ALLAN, lord of Ravenswood, a decayed Scotch nobleman.--Sir W. Scott, _The Bride of Lammermoor_ (time, William III.). _Al'lan (Mrs.)_, colonel Mannering's housekeeper at Woodburne.--Sir W. Scott, _Guy Mannering_ (time, George II.).