Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction, and the Drama, Vol. 2: A Revised American Edition of the Reader's HandbookBrewer, Ebenezer Cobham
General
Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction, and the Drama, Vol. 2: A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook
Brewer, Ebenezer Cobham
Allusions; Fiction -- Dictionaries; Literature -- Dictionaries
_Great Marquis_ (_The_), Dom Sebastiano Jose de Carvalho, Marquis de
Pombal, greatest of all the Portuguese statesmen (1699-1782).
=Great Moralist= (_The_), Dr. Samuel Johnson (1709-1784).
=Great Unknown= (_The_), Sir Walter Scott, who published his _Waverley
Novels_ anonymously (1771-1832).
=Great Unwashed= (_The_). The artisan class were first so called by Sir
W. Scott.
=Greaves= (_Sir Launcelot_), a well-bred young English squire of the
George II. period; handsome, virtuous, and enlightened, but
crack-brained. He sets out, attended by an old sea-captain, to detect
fraud and treason, abase insolence, mortify pride, discourage slander,
disgrace immodesty, and punish ingratitude. Sir Launcelot, in fact, is a
modern Don Quixote, and Captain Crow is his Sancho Panza. T. Smollet,
_The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves_ (1760).
Smollett became editor of the _Critical Review_, and an attack in that
journal on Admiral Knowles led to a trial for libel. The author was
sentenced to pay a fine of £100, and suffer three months imprisonment.
He consoled himself in prison by writing his novel of _Launcelot
Greaves_.—Chambers, _English Literature_, ii. 65.
=Grecian Daughter= (_The_), Euphrasia, daughter of Evander, a Greek who
dethroned Dionysius the Elder, and became king of Syracuse. In his old
age he was himself dethroned by Dionysius the Younger, and confined in a
dungeon in a rock, where he was saved from starvation by his daughter,
who fed him with “the milk designed for her own babe.” Timoleon having
made himself master of Syracuse, Dionysius accidentally encountered
Evander, his prisoner, and was about to kill him, when Euphrasia rushed
forward and stabbed the tyrant to the heart.—A. Murphy, _The Grecian
Daughter_ (1772).
⁂ As an historical drama, this plot is much the same as if the writer
had said that James I. (of England) abdicated and retired to St.
Germain, and when his son James II. succeeded to the crown, he was
beheaded at White hall; for Murphy makes Dionysius the Elder to have
been dethroned, and going to Corinth to live (act i.), and Dionysius the
Younger to have been slain by the dagger of Euphrasia; whereas Dionysius
the Elder never was dethroned, but died in Syracuse at the age of 63;
and Dionysius the Younger was not slain in Syracuse, but being
dethroned, went to Corinth, where he lived and died in exile.
=Greedy= (_Justice_), thin as a thread paper, always eating and always
hungry. He says to Sir Giles Overreach (act iii. 1), “Oh, I do much
honor a chine of beef! Oh, I do reverence a loin of veal!” As a justice,
he is most venial—the promise of a turkey will buy him, but the promise
of a haunch of venison will out-buy him.—Massinger, _A New Way to Pay
Old Debts_ (1628).
=Greek Church= (_Fathers of the_): Eusebius, Athana´sius, Basil “the
great,” Gregory Nazianze´nus, Gregory of Nyssa, Cyril of Jerusalem,
Chrys´ostom, Epipha´nius, Cyril of Alexandria, and Ephraim, deacon of
Edessa.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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