ACRA'TES (3 _syl_.), Incontinence personified in _The Purple Island_, by Phineas Fletcher. He had two sons (twins) by Caro, viz., Methos (_drunkenness_) and Gluttony, both fully described in canto vii. (Greek, _akrates_, "incontinent.") _Acra'tes_ (3 _syl_.), Incontinence personified in _The Faëry Queen_, by Spenser. He is the father of Cymoch'lês and Pyroch'lês.--Bk. ii. 4 (1590). ACRES (_Bob_), a country gentleman, the rival of ensign Beverley, _alias_ captain Absolute, for the hand and heart of Lydia Languish, the heiress. He tries to ape the man of fashion, gets himself up as a loud swell, and uses "sentimental oaths," _i. e_. oaths bearing on the subject. Thus if duels are spoken of he says, _ods triggers and flints_; if clothes, _ods frogs and tambours_; if music, _ods minnums_ [minims] _and crotchets_; if ladies, _ods blushes and blooms_. This he learnt from a militia officer, who told him the ancients swore by Jove, Bacchus, Mars, Venus, Minerva, etc., according to the sentiment. Bob Acres is a great blusterer, and talks big of his daring, but when put to the push "his courage always oozed out of his fingers' ends." J. Quick was the original Bob Acres.--Sheridan, _The Rivals_ (1775). As thro' his palms _Bob Acres_' valor oozed, So Juan's virtue ebbed, I know not how. Byron, _Don Juan_. Joseph Jefferson's impersonation of Bob Acres is inimitable for fidelity to the spirit of the original, and informed throughout with exquisite humor that never degenerates into coarseness. ACRIS'IUS, father of Dan'aê. An oracle declared that Danaê would give birth to a son who would kill him, so Acrisius kept his daughter shut up in an apartment under ground, or (as some say) in a brazen tower. Here she became the mother of Per'seus (2 _syl_.), by Jupiter in the form of a shower of gold. The king of Argos now ordered his daughter and her infant to be put into a chest, and cast adrift on the sea, but they were rescued by Dictys, a fisherman. When grown to manhood, Perseus accidentally struck the foot of Acrisius with a quoit, and the blow caused his death. This tale is told by Mr. Morris in _The Earthly Paradise_ (April). ACTAE'ON, a hunter, changed by Diana into a stag. A synonym for a cuckold. Divulge Page himself for a secure and wilful Actæon [cuckold]. Shakespeare, _Merry Wives_, etc., act iii. sc. 2 (1596). ACTE'A, a female slave faithful to Nero in his fall. It was this hetæra who wrapped the dead body in cerements, and saw it decently interred. This Actea was beautiful. She was seated on the ground; the head of Nero was on her lap, his naked body was stretched on those winding-sheets in which she was about to fold him, to lay him in his grave upon the garden hill.--Ouida, _Ariadnê_, i. 7.