AUTOCRAT OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE, a mythical personage who indites Oliver Wendell Holmes's breakfast-table conversations. AUTOL´YCOS, the craftiest of thieves. He stole the flocks of his neighbors, and changed their marks. Sis´yphos outwitted him by marking his sheep under their feet. AUTOL´YCUS, a peddler and witty rogue, in _The Winter's Tale_, by Shakespeare (1604). AVARE (_L_'). The plot of this comedy is as follows: Harpagon the miser and his son Cléante (2 _syl._) both want to marry Mariane (3 _syl._), daughter of Anselme, _alias_ don Thomas d'Alburci, of Naples. Cléante gets possession of a casket of gold belonging to the miser, and hidden in the garden. When Harpagon discovers his loss he raves like a madman, and Cléante gives him the choice of Mariane or the casket. The miser chooses the casket, and leaves the young lady to his son. The second plot is connected with Elise (2 _syl._), the miser's daughter, promised in marriage by the father to his friend Anselme (2 _syl._); but Elise is herself in love with Valère, who, however, turns out to be the son of Anselme. As soon as Anselme discovers that Valère is his son, who he thought had been lost at sea, he resigns to him Elise, and so in both instances the young folks marry together, and the old ones give up their unnatural rivalry.--Molière, _L'Avare_ (1667). AVE´NEL (2 _syl._), _Julian_, the usurper of Avenel Castle. _Lady Alice_, widow of sir Walter. _Mary_, daughter of Lady Alice. She marries Halbert Glendinning.--Sir W. Scott, _The Monastery_ (date 1559). _Ave´nel_ (_Sir Halbert Glendinning, knight of_), same as the bridegroom in _The Monastery_. _The lady Mary of Avenel_, same as the bride in _The Monastery_.--Sir W. Scott, _The Abbot_ (time, Elizabeth). _The White Lady of Avenel_, a spirit mysteriously connected with the Avenel family, as the Irish banshee is with true Mile´sian families. She announces good or ill fortune, and manifests a general interest in the family to which she is attached, but to others she acts with considerable caprice; thus she shows unmitigated malignity to the sacristan and the robber. Any truly virtuous mortal has commanding power over her. Noon gleams on the lake, Noon glows on the fell; Awake thee, awake, White maid of Avenel! Sir W. Scott, _The Monastery_ (time, Elizabeth). AVEN´GER OF BLOOD, the man who had the birthright, according to the Jewish, polity, of taking vengeance on him who had killed one of his relatives. ... the Christless code That must have life for a blow. Tennyson, _Maud_, II. i. 1. AVERY (_Parson_), a missionary "to the souls of fishers starving on the rocks of Marblehead." He is wrecked with his crew, one wintry midnight, and dies praying aloud.--J.G. Whittier, _The Swan Song of Parson Avery_ (1850).