ASTRAGON 
 
 
"Great Nature's Office," another "Nature's 
Nursery," and the library was called "The 
Monument of Vanished Mind."       Astra- 
gon (the poet says) discovered the load- 
stone and its use in navigation. He had 
one child, Bertha, who loved duke Gondi- 
bert, and to whom she was promised in 
marriage. The tale being unfinished, the 
sequel is not known.--Sir W. Davenant, 
Gondibert (died 1668). 
 
  Astre'a (Mrs. Alphra Behn), an au- 
thoress. She published the story of Prince 
Oroonoka (died 1689). 
   The stage now loosely does Astrea tread. 
                                 Pope. 
  Astringer, a falconer. Shakespeare in- 
troduces an astringer in All's Well that 
Ends Well, act v. sc. 1. (From the French 
austour, Latin austercus, "a goshawk.") A 
"gentle astringer" is a gentleman falconer. 
  We usually call a falconer who keeps that kind 
of hawk [the goshawk] an austringer.-Cowell, 
Law Dictionary. 
 
  As'tro-fiamman'te (5 syl.), queen of 
the night. The word means "flaming 
star."-Mozart, Die Zauberfl6te (1791). 
 
  Astronomer (The), in Rasselas, an old 
enthusiast, who believed himself to have 
the control and direction of the weather. 
He leaves Imlac his successor, but implores 
him not to interfere with the constituted 
order. 
  "I have possessed," said he to Imlac, "for five 
years the regulation of the weather, and the dis- 
tribution 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 author- 
ity.... 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 Penel- 
op6 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 iorne Again (1591). 
 
  Astyn'ome (4 syl.) or ChryseYs, daugh- 
ter of Chrys&s priest of Apollo. When 
Lyrnessus was taken, Astyniom6 fell to the 
share of Agamemnon, but the father 
begged to be allowed to ransom her. 
Agamemnon refused to comply, where- 
upon 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, be- 
cause 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, Thala ba 
the Destroyer (1797). 
 
  Atabalipa, 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 daugh- 
ter 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 
 
 
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ATALA