"Merlin" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... still fairies in those days, and those who had titles used to go to Court. Seven of them were invited to be god-mothers, Queen Titania, Queen Mab, the wise Vivien, trained by Merlin in the arts of enchantment, Melusina, whose history was written by Jean d'Arras, and who became a serpent every Saturday (but the baptism was on a Sunday), Urgele, White Anna of Brittany, and Mourgue who led Ogier the Dane into the ...
— The Story Of The Duchess Of Cicogne And Of Monsieur De Boulingrin - 1920 • Anatole France
... men I loved. I think that we Shall never more, at any future time, Delight our souls with talk of knightly deeds, Walking about the gardens and the halls Of Camelot, as in the days that were. I perish by this people which I made— Tho' Merlin sware that I should come again To rule once more; but, let what will be, be, I am so deeply smitten thro' the helm That without help ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... "Hath he not said so? Hath he not spoken of wagons without horses, ships without sails? And is not all this what every dissour and jongleur tells us of in his stories of Merlin? Gentle maiden," he added earnestly, drawing nearer to her, and whispering in a voice of much simple pathos, "thou art young, and I owe thee much. Take care of thyself. Such wonders and derring-do are too ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Alexander the Great, said to have been the son of Olympias and a serpent; Scipio Africanus, Aristomenes of Messina, Julius Caesar, Porphyry, the Emperor Julian, who re-established the oath of fire abolished by Constantine the Apostate, Merlin the enchanter, child of a Sylph and a nun daughter of Charlemagne; Saint Thomas Aquinas, Paracelsus and, ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France
... highly popular, had fallen into disrepute so far as "society" was concerned. Bagnigge Wells, Merlin's Cave, the London Spa, Marylebone Gardens, Cromwell's Gardens, Jenny's Whim, were all tea-gardens, with recesses, and avenues, and alcoves for love-making and tea-drinking, where an orchestra discoursed sweet music or an organ served as a substitute. An intelligent foreigner, who ...
— Dickens' London • Francis Miltoun
... insulting towards me, and sometimes she treats me with a sweet frankness which has something sisterly in it. One day, for instance, she came to my window and asked me if I would go for a walk with her. "Bring your sketch-book, Monsieur Odiot," she called out gaily, "and I will take you to Merlin's ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... knights. Along with those whom I have named came King Ban of Gomeret, and he had in his company only young men, beardless as yet on chin and lip. A numerous and gay band he brought two hundred of them in his suite; and there was none, whoever he be, but had a falcon or tercel, a merlin or a sparrow-hawk, or some precious pigeon-hawk, golden or mewed. Kerrin, the old King of Riel, brought no youth, but rather three hundred companions of whom the youngest was seven score years old. Because of their great age, their heads were all as white as snow, and their beards ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... of Charlemagne, Of Merlin and the Mort d'Arthure, Mingled together in his brain With talcs of Flores and Blanchefleur, Sir Launcelot, Sir Morgadour, Sir Guy, Sir ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... fugitive king saw it in flames, and soon after expired with grief. His queen, Helen, fruitlessly attempting to save his life, abandoned for a while her infant son Lancelot. Returning, she discovered him in the arms of the nymph Vivian, the mistress of Merlin, who on her approach sprung with the child into a deep lake and disappeared. This lake is held by some to be the lake Linius, a wide insular water near the sea-coast, in the regions of Linius or "The Lake;" now called Martin Mere or Mar-tain-moir, ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... tribes, the larger number of individuals, as might be supposed, are common to the northern portions of the three continents. Among these are the golden eagle, the white-headed or sea eagle, the osprey, the peregrine falcon, the gyrfalcon, the merlin goshawk, the common buzzard, rough-legged buzzard, hen-harrier, long-eared owl, short-eared owl, great snowy owl, and Tengmalm's owl. Nearly all the ducks and other swimming families, as might be expected, are also identical, as they can make their way with ease round the Circle, and find ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... of this famous art, I have thought fit to present the world with the following prophecy. The original is said to be of the famous Merlin, who lived about a thousand years ago; and the following translation is two hundred years old, for it seems to be written near the end of Henry the Seventh's reign. I found it in an old edition of Merlin's ...
— The Bickerstaff-Partridge Papers • Jonathan Swift
... had a little glass with the sapper Merlin, sergeant, who was on duty last night at the general's quarters, and he said ...
— The Conscript - A Story of the French war of 1813 • Emile Erckmann
... not be positive," said I, "but I think from its tone and tenor that it was composed by Merddyn, whom my countrymen call Merlin." ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... cast in bronze, the figure of a man on his hands and knees, bestridden by another figure holding a bridle and a whip; it is Aristotle, symbol of masculine wisdom, bridled and driven by woman. Six hundred years afterwards, Tennyson revived the same motive in Merlin, enslaved not for a time but forever. In both cases the satire justly punished the man. Another version of the same story—perhaps the original—was the Mystery of Adam, one of the earliest Church plays. Gaston Paris says "it ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams
... to the left, she bent her steps towards a footbridge spanning a gap in the cliff side and, pausing at the bridge, let her eyes rest musingly on the great, mysterious opening picturesquely known as Merlin's Cave. The tide was coming in fast, and she could hear the waves boom hollowly as they slid over its stony floor, only to meet and fight the opposing rush of other waves from the further end—since what had once been the magician's cave was now a subterranean passage, piercing right through ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... those that Christianity found most difficulty in rooting out. Thence Celtic Messianism, that belief in a future avenger who shall restore Cambria, and deliver her out of the hands of her oppressors, like the mysterious Leminok promised by Merlin, the Lez- Breiz of the Armoricans, the Arthur of the Welsh. [Footnote: M. Augustin Thierry has finely remarked that the renown attaching to Welsh prophecies in the Middle Ages was due to their steadfastness in affirming the future of their race. (Histoire de la Conquete d'Angleterre.)] ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... again called, but do not find at home the chief secretary, M. Merlin.... I shall miss the packet of the 24th, but I am told she is a slow ship and that I shall probably find the letters reach home quite as soon by the next. I will leave this open to add if anything occurs between this and ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... was also no doubt who taught you of magic Mexic things in keeping with the fairy Melissa of Charlemagne's day, and Merlin ...
— The Flute of the Gods • Marah Ellis Ryan
... billowing in the wind, their stalwart younglings pushing up about their knees: a whole forest, healthy and beautiful, giving colour to the light, giving perfume to the air: what is this but the most imposing piece in nature's repertory? Heine wished to lie like Merlin under the oaks of Broceliande. I should not be satisfied with one tree; but if the wood grew together like a banyan grove, I would be buried under the tap-root of the whole; my parts should circulate ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... time,' he says, in winding up that knotted skein of prophecy, which he leaves for Merlin to disentangle, for 'he lives before his time,' as he takes that opportunity ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... Thomas, as it was with Merlin before him, and with all the men, wise and foolish, who have once yielded to the glamourie of the Elfin Queen and others of her type and sex. The Rhymer of Ercildoune was probably only a man more learned and far-seeing than others of his time. His reputation for Second Sight ...
— The Balladists - Famous Scots Series • John Geddie
... They have been practised in the cool air and under the grey skies of Europe. There is a fountain called Barenton, of romantic fame, in those "wild woods of Broceliande," where, if legend be true, the wizard Merlin still sleeps his magic slumber in the hawthorn shade. Thither the Breton peasants used to resort when they needed rain. They caught some of the water in a tankard and threw it on a slab near the spring. On Snowdon there is a lonely tarn called ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... Rydderch, surnamed Hael, i.e. The Liberal, who vanquished his enemies and rivals in war, especially by the great victory of Arderyth, in 577.[1] He was a religious and deserving prince, and his magnificence, generosity, and other virtues, are extolled by the ancient author of the Triades, by Merlin, Taliessin, the old laws of the Britons, and the authors of the lives of St. Kentigern and St. Asaph. This prince, however, was afterwards obliged by rebellious subjects, under Morcant Mawr, and Aeddon, surnamed Uraydog, or The ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... and for a long time we have been mournful, for we have lost our Queen, our beautiful Queen. She loved a mortal, and on this account she was banished from Fairyland, nor may she ever revisit the haunt and the kingdom that were hers. But Merlin, the oldest and the wisest of the wizards, told us we should find another Queen, and that we should know her by the poppies in her hair, the whiteness of her brow, and the stillness of her eyes, ...
— Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches • Maurice Baring
... to heel, in a spasm of will, From sleep or debate, a mannikin squire With head of a merlin hawk and quill Acrow on an ear. At him rained fire From a blast of eyeballs hotter than speech, To say what a deadly poison stuffed The France here laid in her bloody ditch, Through the Legend passing ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... you will. And Jo can stop at Mrs. Merlin's and take her to Top Hill. She always presides in my absence. She is a good housekeeper and is never disagreeable ...
— Penny of Top Hill Trail • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... get the order cancelled failed, and as he did not obey it he was struck off the list of employed general officers on the 15th of September 1795, the order of the 'Comite de Salut Public' being signed by Cambaceres, Berber, Merlin, and Boissy. His application to go to Turkey still, however, remained; and it is a curious thing that, on the very day he was struck off the list, the commission which had replaced the Minister of War recommended to the 'Comite de Saint Public' that he and his ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... this Mountain; nor as yet even loud dishonour. Gifts it boasts not, nor graces, of speaking or of thinking; solely this one gift of assured faith, of audacity that will defy the Earth and the Heavens. Foremost here are the Cordelier Trio: hot Merlin from Thionville, hot Bazire, Attorneys both; Chabot, disfrocked Capuchin, skilful in agio. Lawyer Lacroix, who wore once as subaltern the single epaulette, has loud lungs and a hungry heart. There too is Couthon, little dreaming what he is;—whom a sad chance has paralysed in the ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... to a comatose condition Miss Chandos reverted to No. 1, and by attractive passes got him on his legs and made him follow her up and down the limited space at her disposal. She looked then like a pretty Vivien manipulating a youthful Merlin; and I was not at all surprised at the effect of her "woven paces and her waving hands." She asked him his name, and he told her. It was W——. "No," she said, "it's Jones. Mary Jones. What's your name?" But the youth was not quite so far gone as to rebaptize himself ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... "Merlin" in our handbook in the Referee at the time, thus disposed of some of the points just ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp
... handmarks of the Roman; and an antiquity older perhaps than any, and still living and active—a complete Celtic nomenclature and a scarce-mingled Celtic population. These rugged and grey hills were once included in the boundaries of the Caledonian Forest. Merlin sat here below his apple-tree and lamented Gwendolen; here spoke with Kentigern; here fell into his enchanted trance. And the legend of his slumber seems to body forth the story of that Celtic race, deprived for so many centuries of their authentic speech, ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... "Merlin, the mighty liar and magician, perdition singe him for the weariness he worketh with his one tale! But that men fear him for that he hath the storms and the lightnings and all the devils that be in hell at his beck ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... habits in unusual abundance. The visitors to Tenby find great diversion in these and the other caves on the coast: in fact, the whole coast as far as Milford Haven is one succession of natural curiosities and antiquities. One cavern bears the name of Merlin's Cave, and is hallowed by a legend of the enchanter, who was born at Carmarthen in ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... also a third party, headed by Chabot, Bazin, and Merlin, which was supported by the clubs of the Jacobins and the Cordeliers. The great oracles of the Jacobins were Robespierre, Varennes, and Collot d'Herbois; while the leaders of the Cordeliers were Danton and Desmoulins. Robespierre was excluded, as were others of the last assembly, from the new ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... mediocre the man, the better his chance of getting on among mediocrities; he can play the toad-eater, put up with any treatment, and flatter all the little base passions of the sultans of literature. There is Hector Merlin, who came from Limoges a short time ago; he is writing political articles already for a Right Centre daily, and he is at work on our little paper as well. I have seen an editor drop his hat and Merlin pick it up. The fellow ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... of September, after three sessions of the Court of Appeals in which the lawyers for the defence pleaded, and the attorney-general Merlin himself spoke for the prosecution, the appeal was rejected. The Imperial Court of Paris was by this time instituted. Monsieur de Grandville was appointed assistant attorney-general, and the department ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... Would Bonifaces quarrel as to who should take me in? Or would my pilgrim's progress end where Bunyan started his on, And my grand tour be round and round the backyard of a prison? I give you here a saying deep and therefore, haply true; 'Tis out of Merlin's prophecies, but quite as good as new: The question boath for men and meates longe voyages yt beginne Lyes in a notshell, rather saye lyes in a case of tinne. 20 But, though men may not travel now, as in ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... the fabric of Peregrine's life, and he belonged to them as exclusively as the grouse or mountain linnet. He knew every rock upon their crests and every runnel of water that fretted its channel through the peat; he could mark down the merlin's nest among the heather and the falcon's eyrie in the cleft of the scar. If he started a brooding grouse and the young birds scattered themselves in all directions, he could gather them all around him by imitating the mother's ...
— Tales of the Ridings • F. W. Moorman
... "Why, sir, that's Mr. Merlin. Summer folks, you might say. He bought one of the old mansions. This is his second ...
— The Flying Stingaree • Harold Leland Goodwin
... first season in Rome the Bryants came to town, and the old poet, old in aspect even then, called on us; but he was not a childly man, and we youngsters stood aloof and contemplated with awe his white, Merlin beard and tranquil but chilly eyes. Near the end of May William Story invited us to breakfast with him; the Bryants and Miss Hosmer and some English people were there; and I understood nothing of what ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... Douai), Minister of Justice under the quintette, really ruled France for nearly five years. This was Merlin, author of the 'Law of the Suspects,' which Mr. Carlyle, though obviously in the dark as to its real genesis and objects, finds himself constrained to stigmatize as the 'frightfullest law that ever ruled in a nation of ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... Unknown had already hurled himself, weaponless, upon the seeming victor and seizing him about the waist with mighty strength, hurled him to the ground. And even as the fallen knight, much shaken, prepared to arise, lo, Merlin the Wizard appeared and cast him into ...
— In the Court of King Arthur • Samuel Lowe
... not another deputy, Jean Debry, proposed the formation of a body of 1,200 volunteers, who "will sacrifice themselves," as formerly the assassins of the Old Man of the Mountain, in "attacking tyrants, hand to hand, individually," as well as generals?[3132] Have we not seen Merlin de Thionville insisting that "the wives and children of the emigres should be kept as hostages," and declared responsible, or, in other words, ready for slaughter if ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... doubt not but that Angling is an art. Is it not an art to deceive a Trout with an artificial fly?—a Trout that is more sharp-sighted than any Hawk you have named, and more watchful and timorous than your high-mettled Merlin is bold. And yet I doubt not to catch a brace or two to-morrow for a friend's breakfast." ...
— A Danish Parsonage • John Fulford Vicary
... was now informed that the vacancy would only be filled on the day of doom. He was also told that a similar table would be constructed by Merlin. Here the grandson of Brons would honorably occupy the vacant place, which is designated in the legend as the "Siege Perilous," because it proved fatal to all for whom it was ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber
... he writes. It is a "spirit" which broods over many a song, but is incarnate, so to speak, in the elegy which immortalises the tomb of his lost friend. For Tennyson, the spirit of poetry is the spirit of religion—a blowing to music of the deepest thoughts of the philosopher. In "Merlin and the Gleam" we may read this as ...
— Morality as a Religion - An exposition of some first principles • W. R. Washington Sullivan
... Goldmark's opera "Merlin" presented at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York City, under ...
— Annals of Music in America - A Chronological Record of Significant Musical Events • Henry Charles Lahee
... away by the feeling that there was no ordered scheme to which I must conform. After due consideration, however, I have decided to let it stand as it is, although the reader may find himself somewhat puzzled at the time element. I had best say that however the years may have dealt with Merlin Grainger, I myself was thinking always in the present. It ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... be trying, my reader, to steer a middle course between John the Baptist and Herodias. Now you resolve to get free of her guilty charms, and break the spell that fascinates you. Merlin will emancipate himself from Vivien, before she learn his secret, and dance with it down the wood, leaving him dishonoured and ashamed. But, within an hour, the Syren is again singing her dulcet notes, and drawing the ship closer and closer to the rocks, with their black teeth, waiting to grind ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... prophecy of Merlin's, more than eight hundred years old, was called to mind, which said that in a far future time France would be lost by a woman and restored by a woman. France was now, for the first time, lost—and by a woman, Isabel of Bavaria, her base Queen; doubtless ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain
... of the river; but after carrying the outer-works they were repulsed, and their commander, Count Dunnop, with four hundred of his men, were slain. At the same time two sloops-of-war, the Augusta and Merlin, which were sent to aid in the assault, ran aground while they endeavoured to avoid the chevaux-de-frise and were burnt. Preparations, however, being made for attacking the fort on the marshy island, which was the chief defense of the river, an attack was made, and a breach was soon effected ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... true from false, dream from deed. So quiet was I that a robin came and perched close to me on a bramble, whose last leaves were the colour of the bird's red breast, and there it sang a little, so that I roused to life with the sound. Then swooped down a merlin with flash of gray wings on the robin and took it, and that angered me so that I rose on my elbow to fray it away; and with that the last cloud left my mind and I knew where I was. Then, too, from where he waited my waking came Vig, my great Danish dog, who had been tied at the thane's ...
— Wulfric the Weapon Thane • Charles W. Whistler
... Sir Isaac was a great magician, and had been used to raise spirits by his arts, and finally was himself carried up to heaven one night, while he was gazing at the moon; and that this event had been foretold by Merlin:—it would surely be the height of absurdity to dilate on the truth of the Newtonian theory as "the moral evidence" of the truth of the miracles and prophecy. Yet this is what those do, who adduce the excellence of the precepts and spirituality of the general doctrine of the New ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... that bygone pleasure, Sit down together at our Merlin's feet, Drink from one cup the overflowing measure, And find, in sharing ...
— Robert F. Murray - his poems with a memoir by Andrew Lang • Robert F. Murray
... only stunned by the fall, however, and soon awoke, to find herself at the entrance of a cave, which was the tomb of Merlin. Melissa, the prophetess maid, welcomed her, assured her that Rogero should be her spouse, and showed her their phantom descendants, brave princes and beautiful princesses of the house of Este. She then told her that Brunello, a knight of King Agramant, was hastening ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... Queen Igraine grew daily nearer the time when the child Arthur should be born, Merlin, by whose counsel the king had taken her to wife, came to the king and said: "Sir, you must provide for the nourishing of your child. I know a lord of yours that is a passing true man, and faithful, and he shall ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... still held by the French King—namely, that although France would be lost by a woman, a maiden should save it. Any hope to the people in those distressful days was eagerly seized on; and although the first prophecy dated from the mythical times of Merlin, it stirred the people, especially when, later on, Joan of Arc appeared among them, and her story ...
— Joan of Arc • Ronald Sutherland Gower
... neighbours he arrogates as much honour for being reader of an Inn of Chancery, as if it had been of his own house; for they, poor souls, take law and conscience, Court and Chancery, for all one. He learned to frame his case from putting riddles and imitating Merlin's prophecies, and to set all the Cross Row together by the ears; yet his whole law is not able to decide Lucan's one old controversy betwixt Tau and Sigma. He accounts no man of his cap and coat idle, but who trots not the circuit. He affects no life or quality for itself, but for ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... has, sure enough, squoire," replied Peter, regarding the animal with an approving eye, as Nicholas enumerated his merits. "Boh, if ey might choose betwixt him an yunk Mester Ruchot Assheton's grey gelding, Merlin, ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... flew, And the "ouzel-cock so black of hue;" And the "throstle," with his "note so true" (You remember what Shakespeare says—HE knew); And the soaring lark, that kept dropping through Like a bucket spilling in wells of blue; And the merlin—seen on heraldic panes— With legs as vague as the ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... story of Dinas Emrys father told me," he added with relish. "King Vortigern was building a castle on Snowdon, and every night whatever they had built in the daytime fell down. After awhile they sent for old Merlin to see what the matter was. And it was two great serpents in a pool away down under the foundation. One was white and one was red, and they fought all the time. First the white one had the best of it, but the red one beat him at last, and chased him out of the ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... merlin. FALCO RICHARDSONII. Rare summer resident; not uncommon in migration; naturalists not quite sure that it breeds in the State; has been taken in summer at ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser
... the French and the English, have differed in a multitude of points, but they have one and all delighted in pastorals. No class of heroes either in history or fiction has uttered so much verse and prose as the keepers of sheep. Neither Ajax son of Telamon, nor the wise king of Ithaca, nor Merlin, Lancelot, or Charlemagne, nor even the inexhaustible Grandison, can bear the least comparison with Tityrus. It is easy to give many reasons for this; but the phenomenon still remains somewhat strange. The best explanation is perhaps that the pastoral is one of the most convenient pretexts existing ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... Presbyterians met in a different place every year. Delegated pastors there gathered from every quarter. From Northern France came men used to live in constant hazard of their lives; from Paris, confessors such as Merlin, the chaplain who, leaving Coligny's bedside, had been hidden for three days in a hayloft, feeding on the eggs that a hen daily laid beside him; army-chaplains were there who had passionately led battle-psalms ere their colleagues charged the foe, and had striven ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... female, the length of the male being 13 ins., wing 7.7 ins., and that of the female 15.4 ins., wing 9 ins. The male peregrine, known to hawkers as the tiercel, is greatly inferior in size to his mate. The merlin, the osprey, the falcon, the spotted eagle, the golden eagle, the gos-hawk, the harrier, the buzzard, the eagle-owl, and other species of owls are further examples where the female bird is larger than the male. Among many of these families the ...
— The Truth About Woman • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... would be one of the two Directors who were elected in place of Carnot and Barthelemy; but the Councils had no higher opinion of his civic capacity than Bonaparte had formed; and, to his great disgust, Merlin of Douai and Francois of Neufchatel were chosen. The last scenes of the coup d'etat centred around the transportation of the condemned deputies. One of the early memories of the future Duc de Broglie recalled the sight of the "deputes fructidorises travelling in closed carriages, ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... other, "I am called Bernlak de Hautdesert, through might of Morgain la Fay, who dwells in my house. Much has she learnt of Merlin, who knows all your knights at home. She brought me to your hall for to essay the prowess of the Round Table. She wrought this wonder to bereave you of your wits, hoping to have grieved Guenever and ...
— Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight - An Alliterative Romance-Poem (c. 1360 A.D.) • Anonymous
... rubbish, half nonsense half knavery, as "The White King's Prophecy," "Supernatural Light," "The Starry Messenger," and "Annus Tenebrosus, or the Black Year." The rogue's starry mantle descended on his adopted son, a tailor, whom he named Merlin, junior. The credulity of the atheistical times of Charles II. is only equalled by that of our ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... over the early history of Windsor Castle appear the mighty phantoms of the renowned King Arthur and his knights, for whom it is said Merlin reared a magic fortress upon its heights, in a great hall whereof, decorated with trophies of war and of the chase, was placed the famous Round Table. But if the antique tale is now worn out, and no longer part of our faith, it is pleasant at ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... his best work, "The Bride" is by no means his worst. Like most of his poems, it is written in an heroic stanza of six lines, and, as is not so common with him, is in dialogue form. The dialogue for the most part is well sustained and sprightly. The story of the birth of Merlin, it is true, seems to have been inserted mainly to fill out the required number of pages; but this digression has an interest of its own, in that the name here given to Merlin's mother, "Lady Adhan," does not appear in the ordinary versions ...
— The Bride • Samuel Rowlands et al
... others, who recognized his ability before he had made any impression out of Vienna. Four of his compositions during the past fifteen years, the "Sakuntala" overture, the operas "The Queen of Sheba" and "Merlin," and "Die Iaendliche Hochzeit" (The Country Wedding) symphony have made a permanent reputation for him. The overture and operas have been performed several times in this country. Besides these he has written ...
— The Standard Operas (12th edition) • George P. Upton
... stable, would, no doubt, be a Herculean labour. For that purpose, Merlin (of Douay), when Minister of the police, proposed to the Directory to convert the whole of the buildings of the ci-devant Palais Royal into barracks. This was certainly striking at the root of the evil; but, probably, so bold a project was rejected, lest its execution, ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... Hall, Carnarvonshire. One of the Wynns, the 3rd Baron Newborough, was, at his wish, buried here. The archaeology and history of the isle are voluminous. Lady Guest's Mabinogion translation (i. p. 115, ed. of 1838) gives an account of the (legendary) Bardsey House of Glass, into which Merlin (Myrddin) took a magic ring, originally kept ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... anything more than a melodramatic incident characteristic of medieval romances. It reminds one of the following statement by Wilbur L. Cross, which, with the omission of the reference to "giants" and "Merlin," characterizes the Hrlfssaga quite accurately and shows how it harmonizes with the spirit of medieval literature of its kind, "It is true that they [i.e., the Arthurian romances] sought to interest, and did interest, by a free employment of the marvellous, fierce encounters of knights, ...
— The Relation of the Hrolfs Saga Kraka and the Bjarkarimur to Beowulf • Oscar Ludvig Olson
... in Paris as American minister, literally as well as morally, with open arms, in that memorable scene when, in the presence and amid the cheers of the National Convention, the president, Merlin de Douai, imprinted upon his cheeks, in the name of France, the kiss of fraternity. Till he was recalled in the latter days of Washington's administration, Monroe was the representative not so much of the government to which he owed allegiance as of the faction to which he ...
— James Madison • Sydney Howard Gay
... Merlin had been and gone—and had left two prescriptions; one written, the other verbal. With the written one, Benson, in his chauffeur's livery, was dispatched to the drug store; the verbal one was precisely what Jimmie Dale had expected from the fussy old family physician: "Two or three days of ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... It was her Majesty's own gift," replied the earl, still gazing into the depths of the gem. "She took it from her finger, and told me, with a smile, that it was an heirloom from her Tudor ancestors, and had once been the property of Merlin, the British wizard, who gave it to the lady of his love. His art had made this diamond the abiding-place of a spirit, which, though of fiendish nature, was bound to work only good, so long as the ring was ...
— Other Tales and Sketches - (From: "The Doliver Romance and Other Pieces: Tales and Sketches") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... loosened shadowy hair that he so ardently loved, there the sweet maidenhood of 'The Golden Stair,' the blossom-like mouth and weary loveliness of the 'Laus Amoris,' the passion-pale face of Andromeda, the thin hands and lithe beauty of the Vivian in 'Merlin's Dream.' And it has always been so. A great artist invents a type, and Life tries to copy it, to reproduce it in a popular form, like an enterprising publisher. Neither Holbein nor Vandyck found in England ...
— Selected Prose of Oscar Wilde - with a Preface by Robert Ross • Oscar Wilde
... tell me it is [1]whisper'd in the books Of all our sages, that this mighty hero, By Merlin's art begot, hath not a bone Within his skin, but ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... old books called Welsh Triads, in which all things are classed by threes, there is a description of three men called "The Three Generous Heroes of the Isle of Britain." One of these—named Nud or Nodens, and later called Merlin—was first brought from the sea, it is stated, with a herd of cattle consisting of 21,000 milch cows, which are supposed to mean those waves of the sea that the poets often describe as White Horses. He grew up to be a ...
— Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... field of vanquished foes; Say, have ye lost each wild majestic close That erst the choir of Bards or Druids flung, What time their hymn of victory arose, And Cattraeth's glens with voice of triumph rung, And mystic Merlin harped, and ...
— Some Poems by Sir Walter Scott • Sir Walter Scott
... in the obscure studies to which I have referred were not so much due to any natural liking for the life of a recluse as to the shattering of certain matrimonial designs. I had learned of the wreck of my hopes upon reading a press paragraph which announced the engagement of Isobel Merlin to Eric Coverly. And it was as much to conceal my disappointment from the world as for any better reason that I had slunk into retirement; for if I am slow to come to a decision in such a matter, once come to, it is ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... still actually exist? My body is so shrunk that there is hardly anything left of me but my voice, and my bed makes me think of the melodious grave of the enchanter Merlin, which is in the forest of Broceliand in Brittany, under high oaks whose tops shine like green flames to heaven. Oh, I envy thee those trees, brother Merlin, and their fresh waving. For over my mattress grave here in Paris no green leaves rustle, and ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... a grey stone castle with moat and drawbridge upon which through the day armored knights on prancing steeds rode from castle to village, always on missions of good to the towns and hamlets. Never did Donald tire of reading about Arthur, Galahad, Merlin and the others, but Launcelot, the Bold, was his favorite knight. As he read of their deeds his black eyes flashed, his nervous slim body quivered, the deep rich red flooded his brown cheeks. He was one of them, took part in their tournaments, rescued the lovely ladies and overcame wicked monsters ...
— The Upward Path - A Reader For Colored Children • Various
... product, bequeath'd to the moderns, bequeath'd to America as studies. For the men, Yudishtura, Rama, Arjuna, Solomon, most of the Old and New Testament characters; Achilles, Ulysses, Theseus, Prometheus, Hercules, Aeneas, Plutarch's heroes; the Merlin of Celtic bards; the Cid, Arthur and his knights, Siegfried and Hagen in the Nibelungen; Roland and Oliver; Roustam in the Shah-Nemah; and so on to Milton's Satan, Cervantes' Don Quixote, Shakspere's Hamlet, ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... "The Mirror of Venus" are among the works planned and completed, or carried far towards completion, during these years. At last, in May 1877, the day of recognition came, with the opening of the first exhibition of the Grosvenor Gallery, when the "Days of Creation," the "Beguiling of Merlin," and the "Mirror of Venus" were all shown. Burne-Jones followed up the signal success of these pictures with "Laus Veneris," the "Chant d'Amour," "Pan and Psyche," and other works, exhibited in 1878. Most of these pictures are painted in gay and brilliant ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... purpose—but it seems certain that many of the characters are intended to symbolize higher and lower qualities. According to some interpretations King Arthur stands for the power of conscience and Queen Guinevere for the heart. Galahad represents purity, Bors rough honesty, Percivale humility, and Merlin the power of the intellect, which is too easily beguiled by treachery. So the whole story is moralized by the entrance, through Guinevere and Lancelot, of sin; by the gradual fading, through the lightness of one or the treachery ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... inclined, Saith Merlin,[16] who bamboozled are. The word, though rather unrefined, Has yet an energy we ill can spare; So by its aid I introduce my tale. A well-fed rat, rotund and hale, Not knowing either Fast or Lent, Disporting ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... the crown for himself. The country was like to fare ill when laws were broken on every side, and the corn which was to give the poor bread was trodden underfoot, and there was none to bring the evildoer to justice. Then, when things were at their worst, came forth Merlin the magician, and fast he rode to the place where the Archbishop of Canterbury had his dwelling. And they took counsel together, and agreed that all the lords and gentlemen of Britain should ride to London and meet on Christmas Day, now at hand, in the Great Church. So ...
— The Book of Romance • Various
... a flaming dragon stretching his jaws behind my back.' Papa was deeply shocked at my levity. Was it for me, an artist (bless the mark!), to baulk the high aims of art? Besides it was vaguely hinted that, to reward me, certain afternoon-parties were to be got up; and then, when I had got out of Merlin-land, and assured myself I was human by eating lunch, I was to meet a goodly company of distinguished folk—great poets, and one or two more mystic painters, a dilettante duke, and the nameless crowd ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... a universal shout They took the old regalia out From an open grave that day; From a grave that would not close, Where the first Napoleon lay Expectant, in repose, As still as Merlin, with his conquering face Turned up in its unquenchable appeal To men and heroes of the advancing race,— Prepared to set the seal Of what has been on what shall ...
— The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume IV • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... here in the country, where the sage bard, the great Merlin, or Myrdhyn, lived, induce the belief that this mysterious stone represents the Druid lover of the fatal Viviana;—may this not be the very stone brought from Brociliande, within, or under, which he is in durance; ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... bread. 25. The King asks of the convention some Latin books, that he may instruct his son himself. 26. Address from Finisterre to the convention, denouncing the deputies Marat, Robespierre, Danton, Chabot, Barire, and Merlin. Buzot supports the accusation. 27. Kersaint proposes to the convention to make a descent upon England with one hundred thousand men, and to sign an immortal treaty upon the Tower of London, which shall ...
— Historical Epochs of the French Revolution • H. Goudemetz
... about ten million square feet of decks and bulkheads, and air-and-water system, hydroponic tanks and carniculture vats, astrogation and robo-pilot equipment, about which I know very little, a hyperspace pilot system, about which I know nothing at all.... Conn, why don't you just build a new Merlin? It ...
— The Cosmic Computer • Henry Beam Piper
... the edge of the wave. One is left by the receding tide, and a nearer view shows it to be a jelly-like globe, clearer than the crystal of Merlin. Dropped softly into a vessel of water, at first it lies quiescent and almost invisible upon the bottom. A moment after, it rises in quick undulations, flashing prismatic tints with every motion. Again it rests, and we see that it is banded by eight meridians, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... halves, but involved in much more sudden and total ruin than the personages of real history usually meet with; yet, if it is thought fit he should be restored, it is done as quickly and completely as if Merlin's rod had been employed. He enters Russia with a prodigious army, which is totally ruined by an unprecedented hard winter; (everything relating to this man is prodigious and unprecedented;) yet in a few months ...
— Historic Doubts Relative To Napoleon Buonaparte • Richard Whately
... attack of the british fleet the fort set fire to the Augusta, of 64 guns, and she shortly after blew up; and the Merlin sloop was so roughly handled, that she was hastily evacuated. The british admiral then procured a pilot, who carried two men of war, cut down for that purpose, on the Pennsylvania side of the island; a manoeuvre the Americans deemed impracticable. The works of the fort were now ...
— Travels in the United States of America • William Priest
... the lines, 'Trust me not at all, or all in all?'" I continued to torture him. "It was Tennyson who made Vivien say those words to Merlin. She was deceiving him, and meant to ruin him when she'd wormed out his secret; for that reason, it isn't a very appropriate quotation. But, otherwise, it's particularly so. If you trusted me for yourself, you'd trust me for others, too. It's the same thing—or else it's nothing. I'm not like ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... life I never saw the man that brought as much to paper in a summer's day as young master here has done in one half hour; he beats the parson and 'torney Williams all to nothing. But I see how it is: they say Merlin wrote the History of Wales down to the day of judgment upon these very rocks that lie right a-head: and sure, if he did, there's somebody must come to read it: and that must be young master here. For you see he cocks his eye at the rocks, as if he had some ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. I. • Thomas De Quincey
... Geographie comparee of Charles Tissot (1884). Trained scholars were sent there annually by the French government: Cagnat, Saladin, Poinssot, La Blanchere, S. Reinach, E. Babelon, Carton, Audollent, Steph. Gsell, J. Toutain, Esperandieu, Gauckler, Merlin, Homo and many others, to say nothing of German scholars, such as Willmans and Schulten, and especially of a great number of enthusiastic officers of the army of occupation, who explored all the ancient sites, and in many cases excavated with great success (for their results see the ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... deposit their quadrants in places of safety. The dog all the time stood with his feet firmly planted on the deck, watching the captain, as if he fully understood what was going on. Captain Davenport, as he turned, patted him on the head. "You are a wise dog, Merlin," he observed; "but you cannot take an observation yet." Merlin wagged his tail as if he had received a compliment, or, at all events, well pleased at the notice taken ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... that in the days of the famed Prince Arthur, who was king of Britain, in the year 516, there lived a great magician, called Merlin, the most learned and skilful enchanter in the world ...
— The History of Tom Thumb, and Others • Anonymous
... state. Here, however, the externalization of the Divine will in the Holy Grail, and, as in the Christian epic generally, its confusion on the marvellous side with a world of enchantment passing here into the sensuous sphere of Merlin, are felt to be inadequate. The war of "soul with sense" was the subject-matter, as was Spenser's; the method of revolution of its phases was also Spenser's; but the two poems differ in the point that Spenser's knight wins, but Tennyson's king loses, so far as ...
— Heart of Man • George Edward Woodberry
... King Arthur, Merlin, the famous enchanter, was out on a journey, and stopped one day at the cottage of an honest ploughman to ask for refreshment. The ploughman's wife brought him some milk in a wooden bowl, and some brown bread on a ...
— The History Of Tom Thumb and Other Stories. • Anonymous
... takes 'Any and 'Arriet, and without question allows them to achieve deeds; nor does he hesitate to pass them into the realms of the supernatural. Such violation of the first principles of narration is never to be met with in the elder writers. Achilles stands as tall as Troy, Merlin is as old and as wise as the world. Rhythm and poetical expression are essential attributes of dramatic genius, but the original sign of race and mission is an instinctive modulation of man with the deeds he attempts or achieves. The man and the deed must be cognate and equal, ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... the ship for sea, and not an hour was lost after that was accomplished, in getting under weigh, when we stood to the southward. We were not sorry to have the chance of seeing some active service. On the 8th we spoke HMS Merlin, with two transports bound for Halifax, on the 12th the Milford and Lively, on a cruise. On the same day we anchored in Nantucket Roads, Boston, where we found lying the Renown, wearing the broad pennant of Commodore Banks, ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... the changes which she wished to introduce. The clergy were, of course, nearly unanimous in opposition.[319] She was, however, vigorously and wisely seconded in her efforts by the eminent reformed pastor, Merlin, formerly almoner of Admiral Coligny, whom Calvin had sent from Geneva at her request.[320] But when, contrary to his advice, the Queen of Navarre had summoned a meeting of the estates of her small ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... has never been reckoned adequate. Vivien was first composed as Merlin and Nimue, and then Geraint and Enid was adapted from the Mabinogion, the Welsh collection of Marchen and legends, things of widely different ages, now rather Celtic, or Brythonic, now amplifications made under the influence of mediaeval ...
— Alfred Tennyson • Andrew Lang
... premier et le second volume de Merlin, qui est le premier livre de la table ronde, avec plusieurs choses moult recreative: aussi les Prophecies de Merlin, qui est le tierce partie et derniere: Lettres Gothiques, 2 tom. 4to., maroq. rouge, Paris, ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... ancestor of all around him: which fact the Indian Vedas express, when they say, "He that can discriminate is the father of his father." And in our old British legends of Arthur and the Round-Table, his friend and counsellor, Merlin the Wise, is a babe found exposed in a basket by the river-side, and, though an infant of only a few days, he speaks to those who discover him, tells his name and history, and presently foretells the fate of the by-standers. Wherever there is power, there is age. Don't be deceived ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... lived in Merlin's cave. Bradamant gave her the enchanted ring to take to Roge'ro; so, under the form of Atlant[^e]s, she went to Alc[i]na's isle, delivered Rog[e]ro, and disenchanted all the ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... Meanwhile, they were waited upon by various persons, who represented that, in order to effect a settlement of the differences between the two countries, it would be necessary to place a sum of money at the disposal of Talleyrand as a douceur for the ministers (except Merlin, the minister of justice, who was already obtaining enough from the condemnation of vessels), and also to make a loan of money to the government. The plenipotentiaries, though they at first repulsed these suggestions, at length offered to send one ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XI • John Lord
... Edwards's "History of the Opera"; Fetis's "Biographie des Musiciens"; Ebers's "Seven Years of the King's Theatre"; Lumley's "Reminiscences"; Charles Hervey's "Theatres of Paris"; Arsene Houssaye's "Galerie de Portraits"; Countess de Merlin's "Memoires de Madame Malibran"; Ox-berry's "Dramatic Biography and Histrionic Anecdotes"; Crowest's "Musical Anecdotes" and ...
— Great Singers, Second Series - Malibran To Titiens • George T. Ferris
... gentlemen, who had come down from the room where Coligny was lying. "He suffered atrociously in the hands of the surgeon, for he had come without his instruments, and amputated Coligny's fingers with a dagger so blunt that it was only on the third attempt that he succeeded. Merlin, his minister, was by his side, with several of his most intimate friends. We were in tears at the sight of our noble chief thus traitorously struck down. He turned to us ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty
... the most exalted ideas of the true poetic function, as this passage from "Merlin" ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... men of the planet didn't believe him. They couldn't, for the search for Merlin had become their abiding obsession. Merlin meant everything to them: ...
— The Cosmic Computer • Henry Beam Piper
... does not tell us that this Shrubsall, in throwing down the Mincamber, i.e. the Menamber, acted very like the old missionaries in felling the sacred oaks in Germany. Merlin, it was believed, had proclaimed that this stone should stand until England had no king; and as Cornwall was a stronghold of the Stuarts, the destruction of this loyal stone may have seemed a matter ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... instead of Ista quidem ego, as given by Baronius and Binius, in the epistle of Symmachus, Ep. vii. al. vi. (see also Labbe and Cossart, t. iv. p. 1298.), the true reading is Ista quidem nego. How can this be verified? The epistle is not extant either in Crabbe or Merlin. Is the argument {198} of J. B. borne out by any good authority, either ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 227, March 4, 1854 • Various
... wasn't yet exhausted. No more of wandering by night, to be sure, upon moor or fell, gun in hand, chasing the merlin or the polecat to its hidden lair; no more of long watching after the snowy owl or the long-tailed titmouse among the frozen winter woods; but there remained one almost untried field on which Edward could expend his remaining ...
— Biographies of Working Men • Grant Allen
... eldest brother went to the Warlock Merlin and told him all the case, and asked him if he knew where Burd Ellen was. "The fair Burd Ellen," said the Warlock Merlin, "must have been carried off by the fairies, because she went round the church 'wider shins'—the opposite way to the sun. She is now in the Dark Tower of the King ...
— English Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... I will tell you two, and perhaps three, if you keep very quiet. Listen to me. Once in Wales there was a great wizard named Merlin. Many magic things he could do. He knew how to change one living being into another, iron into silver, and silver into gold. A fine thing that would be if it were mine. And afar from him lived a great witch. Trinali was her name. A great witch was Trinali. Many men did she ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... Dramatick Poets (1691) ascribes to Shakespeare "about forty-six plays, all which except three are bound in one volume in Fol., printed London, 1685" (p. 454). The three plays not printed in the fourth folio are the Birth of Merlin, or the Child has lost his Father, a tragi-comedy, said by Langbaine to be by Shakespeare and Rowley; John King of England his troublesome Reign; and the Death of King John at Swinstead Abbey. Langbaine thinks that the last two "were ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... Arthur, Merlin, the most learned enchanter of his time, was on a journey; and being very weary, stopped one day at the cottage of an honest ploughman to ask for refreshment. The ploughman's wife with great civility immediately brought him some milk ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... land a wise magician named Merlin. He was so old that his beard was as white as snow, but his eyes were as clear as a little child's. He was very sorry to see all the fighting that was going on, because he feared that it would do ...
— King Arthur and His Knights • Maude L. Radford
... you to learn that at the end of each day, as the shadows begin to crowd down upon the world, I keep a tryst with you beneath the old Merlin oak where you first clasped me breathless and terrified in your arms? (Be sure, dear Heart, on this account, he will be the first sage in the forest to wear a green beard of bloom next spring!) And each time the memory of that moment, which began in such fright for me, and ended in such rapture ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More
... him that M. Merlin, aprs bien de gestes menaans,(43) had held a pistol, in the midst of the Assembly. His father was a mad republican, and never satisfied with the rational spirit of patriotism that animated M. Girardin; who, witnessing the distress of all the friends he ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... saw mage Merlin, whose vast wit And hundred winters are but as the hands Of loyal vassals toiling for ...
— Practice Book • Leland Powers
... and was some time a member of Pembroke-Hall in Cambridge. There are no particulars on record concerning this poet. He was beloved, says Langbaine, by Shakespear, Johnson, and Fletcher, and writ with the former the British Merlin, besides what he joined in writing with poets of the third class, as ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume I. • Theophilus Cibber
... attribute my actions to any such motives. As for the ignorant people of the kingdom, they do not appal me, although they evidently imagine that I have imbibed, during my residence in England, something of the spirit of the enchanter Merlin, that, by signs and cabalistic words alone, I am thought ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... blood-cells of various Vertebrates (equally magnified). 1. of man, 2. camel, 3. dove, 4. proteus, 5. water-salamander (Triton), 6. frog, 7. merlin (Cobitis), 8. lamprey (Petromyzon). a surface-view, b edge-view. ...
— The Evolution of Man, V.2 • Ernst Haeckel
... tomb in amazement, said to me, 'This is my friend Durandarte, flower and mirror of the true lovers and valiant knights of his time. He is held enchanted here, as I myself and many others are, by that French enchanter Merlin, who, they say, was the devil's son; but my belief is, not that he was the devil's son, but that he knew, as the saying is, a point more than the devil. How or why he enchanted us, no one knows, but time will tell, and ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... up from below. I knew well that we owed the extraordinary obedience of the girls to the magnetic influence of that remarkable woman their chaperon, and how long she could continue to exert the charm which meshed them in the cabin, as Vivien meshed Merlin in the hollow oak, it was impossible to guess. At any instant we might hear a girlish voice calling the name of Lady MacNairne. Even if Tibe—but I dared not ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... Abydos," for instance, which he had written from beginning to end in four days, or even the traveling reflections of Harold and Juan on men and women, were scarcely steady enough Sunday afternoon's reading for a patriarch-Merlin like Scott. So he dedicates to him a work of a truly religious tendency, on which for his own part he has done his best,—the drama of "Cain." Of which dedication the virtual significance to Sir Walter might be translated ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... in the list of birds that the change is most striking. Eagles are gone: if one is seen it is a stray from Scotland or Wales; and so are the buzzards, except from the moors. Falcons are equally rare: the little merlin comes down from the north now and then, but the peregrine falcon as a resident or regular visitor is extinct. The hen-harrier is still shot at intervals; but the large hawks have ceased out of the daily life, as it were, of woods and fields. Horned owls are becoming rare; even the barn-owl has ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... Though the Arthur of romantic and fairy legends—the Arthur of the round table, had been dead for six centuries, they still looked for his second appearance among them, according to the prophecy of Merlin; and now, with fond and short-sighted enthusiasm, fixed their hopes on the young Arthur as one destined to redeem the glory and independence of their oppressed and miserable country. But in the very midst of the rejoicings which succeeded the birth of the prince, his grandfather, Henry II., demanded ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... Suresnes during the summer; and her friend the Duchess de Duras' causeries were frequented by such men as Cuvier, Humboldt, Talleyrand, Mole, de Villele, Chateaubriand, and Villemain. Other circles existed in the houses of the Dukes Pasquier and de Broglie, the countess Merlin, and Madame ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... yard in the city of Saginaw are some Washington walnuts growing today. Following this distribution to the schools we had still several bushels of the nuts, and one bushel was presented to what is known as Merlin Grotto, a branch or division of the Masonic Order. As General Washington was a member of that organization it seemed fitting that that society should have some of the nuts. So in the beautiful ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Sixth Annual Meeting. Rochester, New York, September 1 and 2, 1915 • Various
... names of a male deer, from hind calf, year by year, through brocket and spayed, and staggard and stag, till his sixth year, when he is truly a hart and has his rights of brow, bay, and tray antlers. I am skilled in the uses of falcon-gentle, gerfalcon, saker, lanner, merlin, ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... published after Christmas Day; I like it mightily: I don't know how it will pass. You will never understand it at your distance, without help. I believe everybody will guess it to be mine, because it is somewhat in the same manner with that of "Merlin"(8) in the Miscellanies. My Lord Privy Seal set out this day for Holland: he'll have a cold journey. I gave Patrick half a crown for his Christmas box, on condition he would be good, and he came home drunk at midnight. ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... of Arthur; The Round Table; Gareth and Lynette; Marriage of Geraint; Geraint and Enid; Balin and Balan; Merlin and Vivien; Lancelot and Elaine, The Holy Grail; Pelleas and Ettarre; The last tournament; Guinevere; The passing of Arthur. Portions of the Arthur legends told ...
— Lists of Stories and Programs for Story Hours • Various
... The Merlin's chair used by the king, not being suited to Napoleon, whose limbs and health were in full strength and vigour, was banished to the back closet. Some person being found sitting in it, when the Emperor passed through unexpectedly, he gave him an angry look, and the chair ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... idealized Methuselah as he approached his ninth centennial, the God-given wisdom engraved on the face of Moses as he came down from Sinai, the mystic power of mighty Merlin as he softly intoned a spell of albamancy, all these seemed to have been blended carefully together and infused into the man who sat behind the typer, composing sentences in ...
— Fifty Per Cent Prophet • Gordon Randall Garrett
... connections appear in the metrical romances of the twelfth or thirteenth century, as well as in those early Anglo-Norman chroniclers or fabulists, who have been at the pains to inform us of the pre-historic events of their country. The author of the romance-poem of the well-known Merlin—so famous in British prophecy—in introducing his hero, enters upon a long dissertation on the origin of the infernal arts. He informs us on the authority of 'David the prophet, and of Moses,' that the greater part of the angels who rebelled under the leadership ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams
... eloquent harangue, which Madame Roland called the "Robespierreiad." Assisted by his brother and by Danton, Robespierre, in the sitting of November 5th, overpowered the Girondins, and went to the Jacobins to enjoy the fruits of his victory, where Merlin de Thionville declared him an eagle, and a barbarous reptile. From that moment he never ceased to promote the death of Louis XVI., with an asperity and a perseverance almost incredible. In short, until the fatal day of the martyrdom of that amiable and ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various
... rode, and all the broods Of legend laired.—And, where no sound intrudes Upon the ear, except the glimmering wail Of some far bird; or, in some flowery swale, A brook that murmurs to the solitudes, Might think he hears the laugh of Vivien Blent with the moan of Merlin, muttering bound By his own magic to one stony spot; And in the cloud, that looms above the glen,— In which the sun burns like the Table Round,— Might dream he sees the towers ...
— Weeds by the Wall - Verses • Madison J. Cawein
... enemies in the field, And I pray'd God to grant what He had will'd. There were they vanquish'd, and betook themselves Unto the bitter passages of flight. I mark'd the hunt, and waxing out of bounds In gladness, lifted up my shameless brow, And like the merlin cheated by a gleam, Cried, "It is over. Heav'n! I fear thee not." Upon my verge of life I wish'd for peace With God; nor repentance had supplied What I did lack of duty, were it not The hermit Piero, touch'd with charity, In his devout orisons thought on me. But who art thou that ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... we have prudent men of business able to add two and two together, and justice may be out of hand distinguished from injustice by an impanelment of the nearest twelve fools. Here we have many Helmases a-cackling wisely under a goose-feather. But yonder are Cato and Nestor and Merlin and Socrates, Abelard sits with Aristotle there, and the seven sages confer with the major prophets, and yonder is all that was ...
— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell
... Welsh poets it may, perhaps, be interesting to remember two. These are Taliesin, or "Shining Forehead," and Merlin. ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... echoes oft the pleading strain Of rural lovers. O'er my soul Such varied scenes in vision roll, Whether, O prince of bards, I see The fire of Greece reviv'd in thee, That like a deluge bursts away; Or Taliesin tune the lay; Or thou, wild Merlin, with thy song Pour thy ungovern'd soul along; Or those perchance of later age More artful swell their measur'd rage, Sweet bards whose love-taught numbers suit Soft measures and the Lesbian lute; Whether, Iolo, mirtle-crown'd, Thy ...
— The Poetry of Wales • John Jenkins
... falconers, especially for its great powers and tractable disposition. The gyr falcon is less than the Icelander, but much larger than the slight falcon. These powerful birds are flown at herons and hares, and are the only hawks that are fully a match for the fork-tailed kite. The merlin and hobby are both small hawks and fit only for small birds, as the blackbird, &c. The sparrow-hawk may be also trained to hunt; his flight is rapid for a short distance, kills partridges well in the early season, and is the best of all ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 339, Saturday, November 8, 1828. • Various
... ("The Triads of the Isle of Britain"). It contains the traditions from the ancient times until the seventh century. Among the famous triads of this book are: The three bards who bore the cloth of gold, Merlin Ambrosius, Merlin, son of Morvryn, and Taleisin, chief of the bards. There were three principles of song: Composition of poetry, execution upon the harp, and erudition. In the sixth century we see the bards playing the harp and singing their stirring songs with inspiring ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews
... the ground; their lances lying by their sides, their shields hanging on the trees which overshadowed them; their very horses reposing idly on the grass on which they cared not to browse. All seemed under the influence of a spell as powerful as that under which Merlin had bound the pitiless daughter of Arthur; but the moment that Marie Antoinette passed within the gates the enchantment was dissolved; the pages sprung to their feet, and brought the easily roused steeds to their awakened masters. Twenty-five challengers, with scarfs ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge |
