"Merlin" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... she turned and spoke to him in French. "Do you not understand that caution is necessary? We must not be seen together. I will meet you at noon to-morrow in South Kensington Gardens. Adieu." She smiled upon him, and her glance had all the sweetness of that which Vivien bent on Merlin. "To the station!" she ...
— The King's Men - A Tale of To-morrow • Robert Grant, John Boyle O'Reilly, J. S. Dale, and John T.
... time to study either language or character; so, after a plain dinner at the Merlin's Head, the chief inn of the place, I set out for the purpose of seeing the newspaper proprietor. Fortified by a letter of introduction and some testimonials, I entered his shop,—he was a bookseller and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... told in that book the adventures of certain worthy knights and likewise how the magician Merlin was betrayed to his undoing ...
— The Story of the Champions of the Round Table • Howard Pyle
... rank was the poet—Merddin Wyllt—or "Merlin the Wild," who, wearing the chieftain's golden torc, fought at the battle of Arderydd, about A.D. 573, against Rhydderch Hael, that king of Alcluith or Dumbarton, who was the friend of St. Columba, and "the champion of the (Christian) ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson
... 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, surviving with their ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... hovering 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 ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... till the 4th of May we were busily occupied in fitting 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, which we saluted ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... is gone, and yet will not depart!— Is with me still, yet I from him exiled! 35 For still there lives within my secret heart The magic image of the magic Child, Which there he made up-grow by his strong art, As in that crystal[458:1] orb—wise Merlin's feat,— The wondrous 'World of Glass,' wherein inisled 40 All long'd-for things their beings did repeat;— And there he left it, like a Sylph beguiled, To live and ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... disproved or they would disprove the claim of Shakespeare to the sole authorship of Macbeth, Julius Caesar, King Lear, Hamlet, and Othello; they had established or they would establish the fact of his partnership in Locrine, Mucedorus, The Birth of Merlin, Dr. Dodipoll, and Sir Giles Goosecap. They had with them the incomparable critics of Germany; men whose knowledge and judgment on all questions of English literature were as far beyond the reach of their ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... 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 ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... 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 of the Aube coming under the jurisdiction of this court, ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... them happy, when may be shew'd for a penny The Fleet-streete Mandrakes, that heavenly motion of Eltham, Westminster Monuments, and Guildhall huge Corinaeus, That horne of Windsor (of an Unicorne very likely), The cave of Merlin, the skirts of Old Tom a Lincolne, King John's sword at Linne, with the cup the Fraternity drinke in, The tombe of Beauchampe, and sword of Sir Guy a Warwicke, The great long Dutchman, and roaring Marget a Barwicke, The mummied Princes, and Caesar's wine yet i' Dover, Saint ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 215, December 10, 1853 • Various
... printed, and will be 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. I have taken ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... after sunrise I continued my way very briskly; then what had been the warmth of the early sun turned into the violent heat of day, and remembering Merlin where he says that those who will walk by night must sleep by day, and having in my mind the severe verses of James Bayle, sometime Fellow of St Anne's, that 'in Tuscan summers as a general rule, the days are sultry but the nights are cool' (he was no flamboyant poet; he ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... 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 ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... are good To buy iron and gold; All earth's fleece and food For their like are sold. Boded Merlin wise, Proved Napoleon great,— Nor kind nor coinage buys Aught above its rate. Fear, Craft, and Avarice Cannot rear a State. Out of dust to build What is more than dust,— Walls Amphion piled Phoebus stablish must. When the Muses nine With the Virtues meet, Find to their design An Atlantic seat, ...
— Essays, Second Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... of old knew that truth and conducted themselves accordingly. But our modern wonder-workers fail of their due influence, because, not content to perform their marvels, they go on to explain them. Merlin and Roger Bacon were greater public benefactors than Morse and Edison. Man is —and he always has been and will be—something else besides a pure intelligence: and science, in order to become really popular, must ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne
... all radiant with smiles, a circumstance so uncommon, that Lucy's first idea was, that somebody had been bantering him with an imposition, which had thrown him into this ecstasy. Having sat for some time, rolling his eyes and gaping with his mouth like the great wooden head at Merlin's exhibition, he at length began— "And what do you ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... My body is so shrunken that I am hardly anything but a voice; and my bed reminds me of the singing grave of the magician Merlin, which lies in the forest of Brozeliand, in Brittany, under tall oaks whose tops soar like green flames toward heaven. Alas! I envy thee those trees and the fresh breeze that moves their branches, brother Merlin, for no green leaf rustles about my mattress-grave in Paris, where ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... put forth the theory that the government should be in their hands. Consequently they lay hold of it in the Legislative body in ways that are going to turn against them in the Convention. They accept for allies the worst demagogues of the extreme "Left," Chabot, Couthon, Merlin, Baziere, Thuriot, Lecointre, and outside of it, Danton, Robespierre, Marat himself, all the levelers and destroyers whom they think of use to them, but of whom they themselves are the instruments. The motions they make must pass at any cost and, to ensure ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... interested to hear how the family inquiries go. It is now quite certain that we are a second-rate lot, and came out of Cunningham or Clydesdale, therefore BRITISH folk; so that you are Cymry on both sides, and I Cymry and Pict. We may have fought with King Arthur and known Merlin. The first of the family, Stevenson of Stevenson, was quite a great party, and dates back to the wars of Edward First. The last male heir of Stevenson of Stevenson died 1670, 220 pounds, 10s. to the bad, from drink. About the same time the ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... parched; his tongue cleaves to the roof of St. Paul's; but he is undaunted. 'We are surely betrayed if that is really Sargent,' he says. Through the broken tracery of the Italian Gothic window a breeze or draught comes softly and fans his strong academic arms; he feels a twinge. Some Merlin told him he would suffer from ricketts with shannon complications. Seizing Excalibur, he opens the door cautiously. 'Draw, caitiffs,' he cries; 'draw.' 'Perhaps they cannot draw; perhaps they are impressionists,' said a raven on the hill; ...
— Masques & Phases • Robert Ross
... food by robbing ospreys, kites, marsh-harriers and other birds weaker than itself. So bold is it that it frequently swoops down and carries off a dead or wounded duck shot by the sportsman. Another raptorial bird of which the nest is likely to be found in January is the Turumti or red-headed merlin (Aesalon chicquera). The nesting season of this ferocious pigmy extends from January to May, reaching its height during March in the United Provinces and during April ...
— A Bird Calendar for Northern India • Douglas Dewar
... 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 in manuscript ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 227, March 4, 1854 • Various
... 358. Richardson's 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 an altitude ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser
... drawn up, which, with some few alterations and additions, were the same as were agreed upon by Mr. Cobbett and myself at Botley. Before we had finished these, a messenger arrived, to say that an immense number of persons were assembled in the front of the Merlin's Cave public-house, in Spa-fields, and that they were impatient for our arrival. Upon this, the Doctor and myself got into a hackney-coach, and drove immediately to the spot, which was covered by much the largest concourse of people I had ever seen ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... 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
... December 28. But it is necessary to weigh the words just quoted—"in the state it has since appeared." For on August 5, 1794, Francois Lanthenas, in an appeal for Paine's liberation, wrote as follows: "I deliver to Merlin de Thionville a copy of the last work of T. Payne [The Age of Reason], formerly our colleague, and in custody since the decree excluding foreigners from the national representation. This book was written by the author in the ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... that Louvet pronounced against him that very 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 unfortunate ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various
... a bit for being foolhardy, and said we should hear of his being caught and committed for trial. 'Why, they'll know the dog,' says he, 'and make him give evidence in court. I've known that done before now. Inspector Merlin nailed ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... 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 was ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... 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
... highly imaginative. Wace had amplified Geoffrey's chronicle somewhat, but Layamon made much larger additions, derived, no doubt, from legends current on the Welsh border. In particular the story of Arthur grew in his hands into something like fullness. He tells of the enchantments of Merlin, the wizard; of the unfaithfulness of Arthur's queen, Guenever; and the treachery of his nephew, Modred. His narration of the last great battle between Arthur and Modred; of the wounding of the king—"fifteen fiendly ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... Brutus, the grandson of AEneas, who, after passing many enchanted isles, at length establishes himself in England, where he finds King Arthur, the chivalric institution of the Round Table, and the enchanter Merlin, one of the most popular personages of the Middle Ages. Out of this legend arose some of the boldest creations of the human fancy. The word "romance," now synonymous with fictitious composition, originally meant only a work in the modern dialect, ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... aim of the art, and it was only by the exercise of much patience that the desired resuit was obtained. All birds of prey, when used for sport, received the generic name of falcon; and amongst them were to be found the gerfalcon, the saker-hawk, the lanner, the merlin, and the sparrow-hawk. The male birds were smaller than the females, and were called tiercelet—this name, however, more particularly applied to the gosshawk or the largest kind of male hawk, whereas the males ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... domestic life I would be known and loved; the world beyond Is not for me. But Margaret, sure I think That you should know me well, for you and I Grew up together, and when we look back Upon old times our recollections paint The same familiar faces. Did I wield The wand of Merlin's magic I would make Brave witchcraft. We would have a faery ship, Aye, a new Ark, as in that other flood That cleansed the sons of Anak from the earth, The Sylphs should waft us to some goodly isle Like that where whilome old Apollidon ...
— Poems, 1799 • Robert Southey
... were coined for the first time. This must have been a great boon to the poorer classes, and it evidently was felt to be a matter of great importance, insomuch that it was said to be the fulfilment of an ancient prophecy by the great seer Merlin, who had once foretold in mysterious language, that "there shall be half of the round." In the next century it appears that the want of small change had again made itself felt: for in the 2nd Richard II. we find the Commons setting forth in a petition to the ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... nor all true, all foolishness, nor all sense; so much have the storytellers told, and so much have the makers of fables fabled to embellish their stories that they have made all seem fable." [4] He omits the prophecies of Merlin from his narrative, because he does not understand them. "I am not willing to translate his book, because I do not know how to interpret it. I would say nothing that was not exactly as I said." [5] To this scrupulous regard for the truth, absolutely foreign to the ...
— Arthurian Chronicles: Roman de Brut • Wace
... draws down a star from heaven, or darkens the face of the moon. Let us be content to accept the result, when it is forced upon us, without inquiring too minutely into the process. Not with impunity can even the Adepts gain and keep the secrets of their evil Abracadabra. The beard of Merlin is gray before its time; premature wrinkles furrow the brow of Canidia; though the terror of his stony eyes may keep the fiends at bay, the death-sleep of Michael Scott is not untroubled; the pillars of Melrose shake ever and anon as though an earthquake passed by, and the monks cross themselves ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... innocent Brahman is to be put to death;" and this tickled the fish so that he laughed. Mr. Tawney says that Dr. Liebrecht, in "Orient und Occident," vol. i. p. 341, compares this story with one in the old French romance of Merlin. There Merlin laughs because the wife of Julius Caesar had twelve young men disguised as ladies-in-waiting. Benfey, in a note on Liebrecht's article, compares with the story of Merlin one by the Countess d'Aulnois, No. 36 of Basile's "Pentamerone," Straparola, iv. 1, and ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... 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 ...
— Fifty Per Cent Prophet • Gordon Randall Garrett
... Langbaine in his Account of the English 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 ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... to illustrate this, lest it be said that having been more than just to the father (v. sup.) I am still less than just to the son. Merlin is made to visit Morgane la Fee in the eleventh century. It is quite true that people generally began to hear about Merlin and Morgane at that time. But he had then been for about half a millennium in the sweet prison of the Lady of the Lake—over whom even Morgane ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... the force, the authority, of one who could control her future, and dictate her acts, and prescribe her duties, with something like the power of a god. In times past she would have tried to weave her spell around this strong man, in sheer wantonness of conquest, as Vivian threw her enchantments over Merlin; now she was conscious only of a strange willingness to submit to him, to take his yoke, and bow down under it, ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... 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 ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... 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 ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... Montmartre, accompany his brother and watch over him. In former times, when engaged with Abbe Rose in charitable work in the Charonne district, he had learnt that the guillotine could be seen from the house where Mege, the Socialist deputy, resided at the corner of the Rue Merlin. He therefore offered himself as a guide. As the execution was to take place as soon as it should legally be daybreak, that is, about half-past four o'clock, the brothers did not go to bed but sat up in the workroom, feeling somewhat drowsy, and exchanging few words. Then as soon as two o'clock ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... 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. ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... Fountain, whom the faery people know, With her limbs of samite whiteness and her hair of golden glow, Whom the boyish South Wind seeks for and the girlish-stepping Rain; Whom the sleepy leaves still whisper men shall never see again: She whose Vivien charms were mistress of the magic Merlin knew, That could change the dew to glowworms and the glowworms into dew. There's a thorn tree in the forest, and the faeries know the tree, With its branches gnarled and wrinkled as a face with sorcery; But the Maytime brings it clusters of a rainy fragrant white, Like ...
— Poems • Madison Cawein
... country and committed every kind of excess. Jean de Beaumanoir repaired to Ploermel to remonstrate, and it was agreed to settle the dispute by a fight between thirty warriors from each camp. The prophecies of Merlin were consulted, and found to promise victory to the English. The appointed place of meeting was by a large oak, the "Chene de Mi-Voie," on a lande or large plain, half way from each town. The battle began with great fury, at first to the disadvantage of the Bretons, when Bembro' ...
— Brittany & Its Byways • Fanny Bury Palliser
... better disposed towards it that it is a long tissue of marvels and fabulous adventures.[174] For the history of Thebes they are obliged to content themselves with Statius, and for that of Rome with Virgil, that same Virgil who became by degrees, in mediaeval legends, an enchanter, the Merlin of the cycle of Rome. He had, they believed, some weird connection with the powers of darkness; for he had visited them and described in his "AEneid" their place of abode: no one was surprised at seeing Dante take ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... as defeated, though he is by no means defeated by 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
... thought I was to pay the piper. Well, but here it is under black and white, signatum, sigillatum, and deliberatum; that as soon as my son Benjamin is arrived, he's to make over to him his right of inheritance. Where's my daughter that is to be?—Hah! old Merlin! body o' me, I'm so glad I'm revenged on ...
— Love for Love • William Congreve
... the French dub her Heliote) hath set all her heart and her hope on one that is a young lass like herself, and she is full of old soothsayings about a virgin that is to come out of an oak- wood and deliver France—no less! For me, I misdoubt that Merlin, the Welsh prophet on whom they set store, and the rest of the soothsayers, are all in one tale with old Thomas Rhymer, of Ercildoune, whose prophecies our own folk crack about by the ingle on winter nights at home. But be it as it may, this wench of Lorraine ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... sometime he angers me, With telling me of the Moldwarpe and the Ant, Of the Dreamer Merlin, and his Prophecies; And of a Dragon, and a finne-lesse Fish, A clip-wing'd Griffin, and a moulten Rauen, A couching Lyon, and a ramping Cat, And such a deale of skimble-skamble Stuffe, As puts me from my Faith. I tell you what, He held me last Night, at least, nine howres, In ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... 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 Middle Ages, With self-sustaining retinues of little gilt-edged ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... 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
... of Colmar in Alsace, Rewbel and Hausmann, and a Frenchman, Merlin, all three members of the national convention, came to Mayence for the purpose of conducting the defence of that city. They burned symbolically all the crowns, mitres, and escutcheons of the German empire, but were unable to induce the citizens of Mayence ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... 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 of another, ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... conceived that such cheap ryming as his own "Bride of 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 ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... fifty fog-blinded tourists, five-and-twenty dripping ponies, and five hundred empty porter-bottles; wherefrom they returned, as do many, disgusted, and with great colds in their heads. But most they loved to scramble up the crags of Dinas Emrys, and muse over the ruins of the old tower, "where Merlin taught Vortigern the courses of the stars;" till the stars set and rose as they had done for Merlin and his pupil, behind the four great peaks of Aran, Siabod, Cnicht, and Hebog, which point to the four quarters of ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... Leoena bowed In cloudlike marble, and beside her crouched The tongueless lioness; on the other side, And poising this, the second Sappho stood,— Young Erexcea, with her head discrowned, The anadema on the horn of her lyre: And by the walls there hung in sequence long Merlin himself, and Uterpendragon, With all their mighty deeds, down to the day When all the world seemed lost in wreck and rout, A wrath of crashing steeds and men; and, in The broken battle fighting hopelessly, King Arthur, with the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... Merlin was in the chair. The committee sat for a short time to draw up rules of procedure and arrange an adjournment. It was decided to prorogue the inquiry for six months, in order to allow witnesses to attend. A brief discussion ensued on the question of costs, and a short Bill was drafted, ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed
... close of this 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 passed except the breakfast, which ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... 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 ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Tennyson says that Merlin gave Arthur, when an infant, to sir Anton and his lady to bring up, and they brought him up as their own son. This does not correspond with the History of Prince Arthur, which states that he was committed to the ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... 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 ...
— The History Of Tom Thumb and Other Stories. • Anonymous
... Le 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, ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... Knights of Arthur 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
... 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 ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... Merlin is interesting because he is Arthur's great bard and magician. Taliesin is interesting because in a book called The Mabinogion, which is a translation of some of the oldest Welsh stories, we have the tale of ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... I 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 early and late I ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... indefinable quality, which we call sincerity, about the score. It was happily described at its production as a clever imitation of good music. The influence of Wagner is strongest in the love music, which owes much to 'Tristan und Isolde,' 'Merlin' (1886), Goldmark's second opera, has not been as successful in Germany as 'Die Koenigin von Saba,' The libretto, which is founded upon the Arthurian legend of Merlin and Vivien, shows many points of resemblance to Wagner's later works, and the music follows his system of guiding themes far more ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... Court is landed in a surprising and unknown world. But one of King Arthur's knights brought to life at the court of the present German Emperor aside from steam, electricity, gun powder, telegraph and telephones would find the system as despotic as in the days when the enchanter, Merlin, wove his spells and the sword Excalibur appeared from the depths of the magic lake. But while the system is as royal and as despotic as in King Arthur's day, while the king and his military nobles look down on the merchants and the toilers and ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... could see from her threshold, was the Bois Chesnu, the wood of oaks, or possibly the hoary [chenu] wood, the old forest.[185] We shall see later how this Bois Chesnu was the subject of a prophecy of Merlin the Magician. ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... members arrived at six o'clock, too late to do any good. The queen directed their notice to the broken doors, bidding them observe the outrageous way in which the home of the royal family had been violated. She saw signs of emotion in the countenance of Monsieur Merlin de Thionville, and observed upon it. Monsieur Merlin replied that he felt for her as a woman, a wife, and mother, but that she must not suppose that he shed a single tear for the king or the queen; that he ...
— The Peasant and the Prince • Harriet Martineau
... Roman ambassadors here received their audience at the court of the great king Arthur; and here also, the archbishop Dubricius ceded his honours to David of Menevia, the metropolitan see being translated from this place to Menevia, according to the prophecy of Merlin Ambrosius. "Menevia pallio urbis Legionum induetur." "Menevia shall be invested with the pall of ...
— The Itinerary of Archibishop Baldwin through Wales • Giraldus Cambrensis
... apparently interpreted the deputy- chamberlain's meaning rather from his action than his words;—"it is of an ancient and liberal pattern, having been made by your mother's father, auld James Stitchell, a master-fashioner of honest repute, in Merlin's Wynd, whom I made a point to employ, as I am now happy to remember, seeing your father thought fit to intermarry ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... 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 ...
— The Story Of The Duchess Of Cicogne And Of Monsieur De Boulingrin - 1920 • Anatole France
... know the grounds of my certitude: God grant that hearing them ye may understand and steadfastly believe the same. My assurances are not the marvels of Merlin, nor yet the dark sentences of profane prophesies; but, 1. the plain truth of God's word, 2. the invincible justice of the everlasting God, and 3. the ordinary course of his punishments and plagues from the beginning, ...
— John Knox • A. Taylor Innes
... decided and full of nervous force. "I will bring my hostess to see you on Monday or Tuesday, Master," he announced, as he said good-by. "And prepare yourself to fall at her feet like all the rest of us—Merlin and Vivien, you know. It will be a just punishment for ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... more remarkably certain than the close and constant association in mediaeval lore of the fairies and the fairy-world with the Arthurian cycle of romance;[74] King Arthur's sister was Morgan le Fay, whose son by Ogier was Merlin; and the romance of Huon of Bordeaux, which relates these facts, though strictly belonging to the Charlemagne cycle, contains the account of Oberon's bequest of his realm to King Arthur. Chaucer, ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick
... The Arthurian knight, the Renaissance courtier, the scholar and the wit must admit the twentieth-century artisan to their circle. Piers the ploughman must once more become the hero of song, and Saul Kane, the poacher, must find a place, alongside of Tiresias and Merlin, among the seers and mystics. Let democracy look to William Morris, poet, artist and social democrat, for inspiration and guidance, and take to heart the message of prophecy which he has left us: "If art, which is now sick, is to ...
— Songs of the Ridings • F. W. Moorman
... institution. He will not change the cut of his garments, and he is very careful to have his tailor make his clothes in the same style he dressed when he was young. He is very happy. He thinks that he is the enchanter Merlin, and he listens to Vivian, who makes appointments ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie
... interpretation "The Idylls" may teach false as well as true lessons of life. Some of the Knights of the Round Table (Galahad and Percivale) were worthy followers of the good and pure King Arthur, and some of them (like Lancelot and Tristram and Merlin) proved unable to live up to the vow of chastity to which Arthur swore all his knights. And on the part of the ladies of Arthur's court, there was purity and devotion and true womanhood in Elaine ...
— Sex-education - A series of lectures concerning knowledge of sex in its - relation to human life • Maurice Alpheus Bigelow
... meant not only pure knights but a regenerate 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 earth ...
— Heart of Man • George Edward Woodberry
... days, there lived a famous magician named Merlin, so powerful that he could change his form at will, or even make himself invisible; nor was there any place so remote but that he could reach it at once, merely by wishing himself there. One day, suddenly he stood at Uther's bedside, and said: "Sir King, I know thy ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... Assembly, excepting that the persecuted French 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 with vain endeavours ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... 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
... 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 ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... sunset or the ragged volcanic crags, he agreed with them. When Flambeau pointed out a rock shaped like a dragon, he looked at it and thought it very like a dragon. When Fanshaw more excitedly indicated a rock that was like Merlin, he looked at it, and signified assent. When Flambeau asked whether this rocky gate of the twisted river was not the gate of Fairyland, he said "Yes." He heard the most important things and the most trivial with the same tasteless absorption. He heard that the coast was death to ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... politics. 365 Hell is the pattern of all commonwealths: Lucifer was the first republican. Will you hear Merlin's prophecy, how three [posts?] 'In one brainless skull, when the whitethorn is full, Shall sail round the world, and come back again: 370 Shall sail round the world in a brainless skull, And come back again when the moon ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... of the fairy-haunted land Away the other side of Brittany, Beyond the heaths, edged by the lonely sea; 155 Of the deep forest-glades of Broce-liande, deg. deg.156 Through whose green boughs the golden sunshine creeps Where Merlin by the enchanted thorn-tree sleeps. For here he came with the fay deg. Vivian, deg.158 One April, when the warm days first began. He was on foot, and that false fay, his friend, 160 On her white palfrey; here he met his end, In these lone ...
— Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems • Matthew Arnold
... had depicted. There could be no others like them. Here Enid rode with Launcelot by her side; on that silvery beach, where the old bleached tree trunk lay as it must have lain for generations, Vivien had sat at Merlin's feet. There, in that space carpeted by wind-flowers and primroses, Queen Guinevere and Launcelot ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... eager mood To feed his hate with bitter food, Before the king's face Merlin stood And heard his tale of ill and good, Of Balen, and the sword achieved, And whence it smote as heaven's red ire That direful dame of doom as dire; And how the king's wrath turned to fire The grief wherewith ...
— The Tale of Balen • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... faces, are to be found in the works of Rabelais, and in the Moyen Parvenir, now generally attributed to him. It is almost needless to say that few of these were however original with the great French humorist. We find them in the Macaronics of Merlin Coccaius, and in scores of older authorities. Still it must be borne in mind that a similarity does not always establish an identity. There are few persons who cannot cite some droll instance of a sharper or greedy ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... believe (see Jeffrey of Monmouth, l. viii. c. 9-12) that Stonehenge is their monument, which the giants had formerly transported from Africa to Ireland, and which was removed to Britain by the order of Ambrosius, and the art of Merlin. * Note: Sir f. Palgrave (Hist. of England, p. 36) is inclined to resolve the whole of these stories, as Niebuhr the older Roman history, into poetry. To the editor they appeared, in early youth, so essentially poetic, as to justify ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... to-night enregistered my name among the goodly company of Love's Lunatics,—as yokefellow with Dan Merlin in his thornbush, and with wise Salomon when he capered upon the high places of Chemosh, and with Duke Ares sheepishly agrin in the net of Mulciber. Rogues all, madame! fools all! yet always the flesh trammels us, and allures the soul to such sensual delights as bar its passage toward the ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell
... "M. Merlin pense avec moi, et c'est quelque chose, que les justes plaintes formees contre l'administration de la bibliotheque royale [de France] cesseront des l'instant ou l'on aura redige et publie le catalogue general des livres imprimes."—Paulin ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 67, February 8, 1851 • Various
... Isle of Man, there is said to be a room which has never been opened in the memory of man. Various explanations have been assigned to account for this circumstance, one being that the old place was once inhabited by giants, who were dislodged by Merlin, and such as were not driven away remain spellbound beneath the castle. Waldron, in his "Description of the Isle of Man," has given a curious tradition respecting this strange room, in which the supernatural element holds a prominent place, and which is a good sample of other ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer
... also no doubt who taught you of magic Mexic things in keeping with the fairy Melissa of Charlemagne's day, and Merlin the ...
— The Flute of the Gods • Marah Ellis Ryan
... 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 in a wooden bowl and some brown bread ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... them you could see great castles lifting slow and splendid on arches of moonshine, with maidens waving their hands at the windows, which all turned into roaring rivers; and then would come the darkness of his own young heart wiping out the whole slateful. But boy's Magic doesn't trouble me—or Merlin's either for that matter. I followed the Boy by the flashes and the whirling wildfire of his discontent, and oh, but I grieved for him! Oh, but I grieved for him! He pounded back and forth like a bullock in a strange pasture—sometimes alone—sometimes waist-deep among ...
— Rewards and Fairies • Rudyard Kipling
... rose to retire. Taking in his hand a golden cup to pledge his guests, he was about to drink, when a shudder passed through his frame, and he cast the goblet away, exclaiming, 'It is not wine, but blood! My father Merlin is among us, and there is evil in the coming days. Break we up our court, my peers! It is no time for feasting, but rather for fasting and ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne
... above all things, for having bestowed the name of Arthur on his eldest son, who, this injudicious and over-hasty prophet forsees, will restore the glory of his great ancestor of the same name. Had Henry christened his second 'son Merlin, I do not doubt but poor Rous would have had still more divine visions about Henry the Eighth, though born to shake half the pillars ...
— Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Richard the Third • Horace Walpole
... flesh in part, and the thought of Raimbaut would never trouble Guillaume de Baux any more. In addition there was a fire of juniper wood and frankincense upon the hearth, and the room smelt too cloyingly of be-drugging sweetness. Then on the walls were tapestries which depicted Merlin's Dream, so that everywhere recoiling women smiled with bold eyes; and here their wantonness ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... the mavis 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 Queen ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... to a fortnight. Amongst his country 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 ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... stirring the people of Caermarthen into rebellion and pressing the siege of Abergavenny; nor could the presence of English troops save Shropshire from pillage. Everywhere the Welshmen rose for their "Prince"; the Bards declared his victories to have been foretold by Merlin; even the Welsh scholars at Oxford left the University in a body and joined his standard. The castles of Ruthin, Hawarden, and Flint fell into his hands, and with his capture of Conway gave him command of North Wales. ...
— History of the English People, Volume III (of 8) - The Parliament, 1399-1461; The Monarchy 1461-1540 • John Richard Green
... enough his paunch, Then are we well!" saide the emerlon;* *merlin "Thou murd'rer of the heggsugg,* on the branch *hedge-sparrow That brought thee forth, thou most rueful glutton, Live thou solain, worme's corruption! *For no force is to lack of thy nature;* *the loss of a bird of your Go! lewed be thou, while the ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... put any question to Montesinos, he, seeing me gazing at the 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 I suspect that time is not far off. What I marvel ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... please 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, ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More
... physician. Find out your ignorance, first; admit it frankly, second; be ready to recognize with true honor the next man you meet, third; and then, presto!—although it were needed that the floor of the parlor should open, and a little black-bearded Merlin be shot up like Jack in a box, as you saw in Humpty-Dumpty,—the right person, who knows the right thing, will appear, and your ignorance ...
— How To Do It • Edward Everett Hale
... waked a thousand years old. Romance already whispered through their dismantled, endless aisles. King Arthur's castle of Camelot was not more remote from to-day than College Hall from the twentieth-century March morning. Weeks, months, a little while it stood there, vanishing—like old enchanted Merlin—into the impenetrable prison of the air. There will be other houses on that hilltop, but never one so permanent as the dear house invisible; the double Latin cross, the ten granite columns, the Center ever green with ageless palms, the "steadfast crosses, ever pointing the heavenward ...
— The Story of Wellesley • Florence Converse
... country, whose memory was worshipped by the populace. 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 ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... otherwise with True 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 may rest upon ...
— The Balladists - Famous Scots Series • John Geddie
... shepherds tend their fleecy train, Where 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, ...
— The Poetry of Wales • John Jenkins
... he became a great magician, or, as we in our age would call him, a man of science and wisdom, named Merlin. He lived long on the mountain, but when he went away with a friend, he placed all his treasures in a golden cauldron and hid them in a cave. He rolled a great stone over its mouth. Then with sod and earth he covered it all over so as to hide it from view. His purpose was to leave this ...
— Welsh Fairy Tales • William Elliot Griffis
... "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 Mrs. Clayton's "Queens ...
— Great Singers, Second Series - Malibran To Titiens • George T. Ferris
... on this lady's raven-black hair, and so rich and broad and vigorous is the painting of a Japanese scarf she is wearing. Then as we turn to the east wall of the gallery we see the three great pictures of Burne-Jones, the Beguiling of Merlin, the Days of Creation, and the Mirror of Venus. The version of the legend of Merlin's Beguiling that Mr. Burne-Jones has followed differs from Mr. Tennyson's and from the account in the Morte d'Arthur. It is taken from the Romance of Merlin, ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde
... into 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 ...
— Tales of the Ridings • F. W. Moorman
... 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 ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... given us a remarkable series of portraits. He is recognized as one of the finest and most distinguished poets of our time. His successive volumes are: "Children of the Night", 1897; "Captain Craig", 1902; "The Town Down the River", 1910; "The Man Against the Sky", 1916; "Merlin", 1917; and "Launcelot", 1920. The last-named volume was awarded a prize of five hundred dollars, given by The Lyric Society for the best book manuscript offered to it in 1919. In addition to his work in poetry, Mr. Robinson has written two prose plays, "Van Zorn", and "The Porcupine". ...
— The Second Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... various writers. Henry of Huntingdon (1150) calls it Stanhenges, and terms it the second wonder of England, but professes entire ignorance of its purpose and marvels at the method of its construction. Geoffrey of Monmouth (1150) ascribes its origin to the magic of Merlin who, at the instance of Aurelius Ambrosius, directed the invasion of Ireland under Uther Pendragon to obtain possession of the standing stones called the "Giants' Dance at Killaraus." Victory being with the invaders, the stones were taken and transported across the seas with the greatest ...
— Wanderings in Wessex - An Exploration of the Southern Realm from Itchen to Otter • Edric Holmes
... conqueror, King Arthur, and containeth 28 chapters. The second book treateth of Balyn the noble knight, and containeth 19 chapters. The third book treateth of the marriage of King Arthur to Queen Guinevere, with other matters, and containeth 15 chapters. The fourth book how Merlin was assotted, and of war made to King Arthur, and containeth 29 chapters. The fifth book treateth of the conquest of Lucius the emperor, and containeth 12 chapters. The sixth book treateth of Sir Lancelot and Sir Lionel, and marvellous adventures, and containeth 18 chapters. ...
— Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse • Various |
