ion
of the weather, and the distribution of the seasons: the sun has
listened to my dictates, and passed from tropic to tropic by my
direction; the clouds, at my call, have poured their waters, and the
Nile has overflowed at my command; I have restrained the rage of the
Dog-star, and mitigated the fervor of the Crab. The winds alone ...
have hitherto refused my authority.... I am the first of human beings
to whom this trust has been imparted."--Dr. Johnson, _Rasselas_,
xli.--xliii. (1759).

AS'TROPHEL (_Sir Philip Sidney_). "Phil. Sid." may be a contraction
of _philos sidus_, and the Latin _sidus_ being changed to the Greek
_astron_, we get _astron philos_ ("star-lover"). The "star" he loved
was Penelope Devereux, whom he calls _Stella_ ("star"), and to whom he
was betrothed. Spenser wrote a poem called _Astrophel_, to the memory
of Sir Philip Sidney.

But while as Astrophel did live and reign,
Amongst all swains was none his paragon.

Spenser, _Colin Clout's Come Home Again_ (1591).

ASTYN'OME (4 _syl_.) or CHRYSEIS, daughter of Chryses priest of
Apollo. When Lyrnessus was taken, Astynome fell to the share of
Agamemnon, but the father begged to be allowed to ransom her.
Agamemnon refused to comply, whereupon the priest invoked the anger of
his patron god, and Apollo sent a plague into the Grecian camp. This
was the cause of contention between Agamemnon and Achilles, and forms
the subject of Homer's epic called _The Iliad_.

AS'WAD, son of Shedad king of Ad. He was saved alive when the angel of
death destroyed Shedad and all his subjects, because he showed mercy
to a camel which had been bound to a tomb to starve to death, that it
might serve its master on the day of resurrection.--Southey, _Thalaba
the Destroyer_ (1797).

ATABA'LIPA, the last emperor of Peru, subdued by Pizarro, the Spanish
general. Milton refers to him in _Paradise Lost_, xi. 409 (1665).

AT'ALA, the name of a novel by Francois Auguste Chateaubriand. Atala,
the daughter of a white man and a Christianized Indian, takes an oath
of virginity, but subsequently falling in love with Chactas, a young
Indian, she poisons herself for fear that she may be tempted to break
her oath. The novel was received with extraordinary enthusiasm (1801).

(This has nothing to do with _Attila_, king of the Huns, nor with
_Atlialie_ (queen of Judah), the subject of Racine's great tragedy.)

ATALANTA, of Arcadia, wished to remain single, and therefore gave out