Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction, and the Drama, Vol. 2: A Revised American Edition of the Reader's HandbookBrewer, Ebenezer Cobham
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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
=Honey.= Glaucus, son of Minos, was smothered in a cask of honey.
=Honeycomb= (_Will_), a fine gentleman, the great authority on the
fashions of the day. He was one of the members of the imaginary club
from which the _Spectator_ issued.—_The Spectator_ (1711-1713).
=Honeycombe= (_Mr._), the uxorious husband of Mrs. Honeycombe, and
father of Polly. Self-willed, passionate, and tyrannical. He thinks to
bully Polly out of her love-nonsense, and by locking her in her chamber
to keep her safe, forgetting that “love laughs at locksmiths,” and
“where there’s a will there’s a way.”
_Mrs. Honeycombe_, the dram-drinking, maudling, foolish wife of Mr.
Honeycombe, always ogling him, calling him “lovey,” “sweeting,” or
“dearie,” but generally muzzy, and obfuscated with cordials or other
messes.
_Polly Honeycombe_, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Honeycombe; educated by
novels, and as full of romance as Don Quixote. Mr. Ledger, a stock
broker, pays his addresses to her; but she hates him, and determines to
elope with Mr. Scribble, an attorney’s clerk, and nephew of her nurse.
This folly, however, is happily interrupted.—G. Colman, the elder,
_Polly Honeycombe_ (1760).
=Honeyman= (_Charles_), a free-and-easy clergyman, of social habits and
fluent speech,—Thackeray, _The Newcomes_ (1855).
=Honeymoon= (_The_), a comedy by J. Tobin (1804). The general scheme
resembles that of the _Taming of the Shrew_, viz., breaking-in an unruly
colt of high mettle to the harness of wifely life. The duke of Aranza
marries the proud, overbearing, but beautiful Juliana, eldest daughter
of Balthazar. After marriage, he takes her to a mean hut, and pretends
he is only a peasant, who must work for his daily bread, and that his
wife must do the household drudgery. He acts with great gentleness and
affection; and by the end of the month, Juliana, being thoroughly
reformed, is introduced to the castle, where she finds that her husband
after all is the duke, and that she is the duchess of Aranza. It is an
excellent and well written comedy.
=Honeywood=, “the good-natured man,” whose property is made the prey of
swindlers. His uncle, Sir William Honeywood, in order to rescue him from
sharpers, causes him to be seized for a bill to which he has lent his
name “to a friend who absconded.” By this arrest the young man is taught
to discriminate between real friends and designing knaves. Honeywood
dotes on Miss Richland, but fancies she loves Mr. Lofty, and therefore
forbears to avow his love; eventually, however, all comes right.
Honeywood promises to “reserve his pity for real distress, and his
friendship for real merit.”
_Sir William Honeywood_, uncle of Mr. Honeywood “the good-natured man.”
Sir William sees with regret the faults of his nephew, and tries to
correct them. He is a dignified and high-minded gentleman.—Goldsmith,
_The Good-natured Man_ (1767).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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