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 called to the bar.--E. Yates, _Celebrities_, xviii. A'CIS, a Sicilian shepherd, loved by the nymph Galate'a. The monster Polypheme (3 _syl_.), a Cyclops, was his rival, and crushed him under a huge rock. The blood of Acis was changed into a river of the same name at the foot of mount Etna. Not such a pipe, good reader, as that which Acis did sweetly tune in praise of his Galatea, but one of true Delft manufacture.--W. Irving (1783-1859). ACK'LAND (_Sir Thomas_), a royalist.--Sir W. Scott, _Woodstock_ (time, the Commonwealth). AC'OE (3 _syl_.), "hearing," in the New Testament sense (_Rom_. x. 17), "Faith cometh by hearing." The nurse of Fido [_faith_]. Her daughter is Meditation. (Greek,[Illustration], "hearing.") With him [_Faith_] his nurse went, careful Acoë, Whose hands first from his mother's womb did take him, And ever since have fostered tenderly. Phin. Fletcher, _The Purple Island_, ix. (1633). ACRAS'IA, Intemperance personified. Spenser says she is an enchantress living in the "Bower of Bliss," in "Wandering Island." She had the power of transforming her lovers into monstrous shapes; but sir Guyon (_temperance_), having caught her in a net and bound her, broke down her bower and burnt it to ashes.--_Faëry Queen_, ii. 12 (1590).