of Leicester.--Sir W. Scott, _Kenilworth_ (time,
Elizabeth).

ALAS'NAM (_Prince Zeyn_) possessed eight statues, each a single
diamond on a gold pedestal, but had to go in search of a ninth, more
valuable than them all. This ninth was a lady, the most beautiful and
virtuous of women, "more precious than rubies," who became his wife.

One pure and perfect _[woman]_ is ... like Alasnam's lady, worth them
all.--Sir Walter Scott.

_Alasnam's Mirror_. When Alasnam was in search of his ninth statue,
the king of the Genii gave him a test mirror, in which he was to
look when he saw a beautiful girl; "if the glass remained pure and
unsullied, the damsel would be the same, but if not, the damsel would
not be wholly pure in body and in mind." This mirror was called "the
touchstone of virtue."--_Arabian Nights_ ("Prince Zeyn Alasnam").

ALAS'TOR, a surname of Zeus as "the Avenger." Or, in general, any
deity or demon who avenges wrong done by man. Shelley wrote a poem,
_Alastor, or the Spirit of Solitude_.

Cicero says he meditated killing himself that he might become the
Alastor of Augustus, whom he hated.--Plutarch, _Cicero, etc._
("Parallel Lives.")

God Almighty mustered up an army of mice against the archbishop
[_Hatto_], and sent them to persecute him as his furious
Alastors.--Coryat, _Crudities_, 571.

AL'BAN (_St._) of Ver'ulam, hid his confessor, St. Am'phibal, and
changing clothes with him, suffered death in his stead. This was
during the frightful persecution of Maximia'nus Hercu'lius, general of
Diocle'tian's army in Britain, when 1000 Christians fell at Lichfield.

Alban--our proto-martyr called.
Drayton, _Polyolbion_, xxiv. [1622].

AL'BERICK OF MORTEMAR, the same as Theodorick the hermit of Engaddi,
an exiled nobleman. He tells king Richard the history of his life,
and tries to dissuade him from sending a letter of defiance to the
archduke of Austria.--Sir W. Scott, _The Talisman_ (time, Richard I.).

_Al' berick_, the squire of prince Richard, one of the sons of Henry
II. of England.--Sir W. Scott, _The Betrothed_ (time, Henry II.).

ALBERT, commander of the _Britannia_. Brave, liberal, and just,
softened and refined by domestic ties and superior information. His
ship was dashed against the projecting verge of Cape Colonna, the most
southern point of Attica, and he perished in the sea because Rodmond
(second in command) grasped one of his legs and could not be shaken
off.

Though trained in boist