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
_St. George’s Limbs._ One of his arms fell from heaven upon the altar of
Pantaleon, at Cologne. Another was preserved in a religious house of
Barala, and was transferred thence in the ninth century to Cambray. Part
of an arm was presented by Robert of Flanders to the City of Toulouse;
another part was given to the abbey of Auchin, and another to the
Countess Matilda.
=George and the Dragon= (_St._). St. George, son of Lord Albert of
Coventry, was stolen in infancy by “the weird lady of the woods,” who
brought the lad up to deeds of arms. His body had three marks; a dragon
on the breast, a garter round one of the legs, and a blood-red cross on
the right arm. When he grew to manhood, he fought against the Saracens.
In Libya he heard of a huge dragon, to which a damsel was daily given
for food, and it so happened that when he arrived the victim was Sabra,
the king’s daughter. She was already tied to the stake when St. George
came up. On came the dragon; but the knight, thrusting his lance into
the monster’s mouth, killed it on the spot. Sabra, being brought to
England, became the wife of her deliverer, and they lived happily in
Coventry till death.—Percy, _Reliques_ III. iii. 2.
_St. George and the Dragon_, on old guinea-pieces, was the design of
Pistrucci. It was an adaptation of a didrachm of Tarentum, B.C. 250.
⁂ The encounter between George and the dragon took place at Berytus
(_Beyrut_).
The tale of St. George and the dragon is told in the _Golden Legends_ of
Jacques de Voragine.—See S. Baring-Gould, _Curious Myths of The Middle
Ages_.
=George I. and the duchess of Kendal= (1719). The duchess was a German,
whose name was Erangard Melrose de Schulemberg. She was created duchess
of Munster, in Ireland, baroness Glastonbury, Countess of Feversham, and
duchess of Kendal (died 1743).
=George II.= His favorite was Mary Howard, duchess of Suffolk.
George II., when angry, vented his displeasure by kicking his hat about
the room. We are told that Xerxes vented his displeasure at the loss of
his bridges by ordering the Hellespont to be fettered, lashed with 300
stripes, and insulted.
=George III., and the Fair Quakeress.= When George III. was about 20
years of age he fell in love with Hannah Lightfoot, daughter of a
linen-draper in Market Street, St. James’s. He married her in Kew
Church, 1759, but of course the marriage was not recognized. (See
LOVERS.)
⁂ The following year (September, 1760), he married the Princess
Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. Hannah Lightfoot married a Mr.
Axford, and passed out of public notice.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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