Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction, and the Drama, Vol. 4: A Revised American Edition of the Reader's HandbookBrewer, Ebenezer Cobham
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Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction, and the Drama, Vol. 4: A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook
Brewer, Ebenezer Cobham
Allusions; Fiction -- Dictionaries; Literature -- Dictionaries
=Slawken-Ber´gius Hafen=, an imaginary author, distinguished for the
great length of his nose. In the _Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy_
(by Sterne), Slawken-Bergius is referred to as a great authority on all
lore connected with noses, and a curious tale is introduced from his
hypothetical works about a man with an enormously long nose.
No nose can be justly amputated by the public, not even the nose of
Slawken-Bergius himself.--Carlyle.
=Slaygood= (_Giant_), master of a gang of thieves which infested the
King’s highway. Mr. Greatheart slew him, and rescued Feeblemind from his
grasp in a duel.--Bunyan, _Pilgrim’s Progress_, ii. (1684).
=Sleary=, proprietor of the circus at Coketown. A stout man with one eye
fixed and one loose, a voice like the efforts of a broken pair of
bellows, a flabby skin, and muddled head. He was never sober and never
drunk, but always kind-hearted. Tom Gradgrind, after robbing the bank,
lay concealed in this circus as a black servant till Sleary connived at
his escape. This Sleary did in gratitude to Thomas Gradgrind, Esq.,
M.P., who adopted and educated Cecilia Jupe, daughter of his clown,
Signor Jupe.
_Josephine Sleary_, daughter of the circus proprietor, a pretty girl of
18, who had been tied on a horse at two years old, and had made a will
at 12. This will she carried about with her, and in it she signified her
desire to be drawn to the grave by two piebald ponies. Josephine married
E. W. B. Childers, of her father’s circus.--C. Dickens, _Hard Times_
(1854).
=Sleek= (_Aminadab_), in _The Serious Family_, a comedy by Morris
Barnett.
=Sleeper= (_The_). Almost all nations have a tradition about some
sleeper who will wake after a long period of dormancy.
_American_ (_North_). RIP VAN WINKLE, a Dutch colonist, of New York,
slept twenty years in the Catskill Mountains.--Washington Irving.
_American_ (_South_). SEBASTIAN I., supposed to have fallen in the
battle of Alcazarquebir, in 1578, is only asleep, and will in due time
awake, return to life, and make Brazil the chief kingdom of the earth.
_Arabian Legends._ MAHOMMED MOHADI, the twelfth imân, is only sleeping,
like Charlemagne, till Antichrist appears, when he will awake in his
strength, and overthrow the great enemy of all true believers.
NOURJAHAD is only in a temporary sleep, waiting the fulness of time.
_British Traditions._ KING ARTHUR is not dead in Avillon, but is merely
metamorphosed into a raven. In due time he will awake, resume his proper
person, claim the throne of Britain, and make it the head and front of
all the kingdoms of the globe. “Because King Arthur bears for the nonce
the semblance of a raven, the people of Britain never kill a raven”
(Cervantes, _Don Quixote_, I. ii. 5).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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