AIM’WELL (Thomas, viscount), a gentleman of broken fortune, who pays his addresses to Dorin’da, daughter of Lady Bountiful.  He is very handsome and fascinating, but quite “a man of the world.”  He and Archer are the two beaux of The Beaux’ Stratagem, a comedy by George Farquhar (1705).

I thought it rather odd that Holland should be the only “mister” of the party, and I said to myself, as Gibbet said when he heard that “Aimwell” had gone to church, “That looks suspicions” (act ii. sc. 2).—­James Smith, Memoirs, Letters, etc. (1840).

AIRCASTLE, in the Cozeners, by S. Foote.  The original of this rambling talker was Gahagan, whose method of conversation is thus burlesqued: 

Aircastle:  “Did I not tell you what parson Prunello said?  I remember, Mrs. Lightfoot was by.  She had-been brought to bed that day was a month of a very fine boy—­a bad birth; for Dr. Seeton, who served his time with Luke Lancet, of Guise’s.—­There was also a talk about him and Nancy the daughter.  She afterwards married Will Whitlow, another apprentice, who had great expectations from an old uncle in the Grenadiers; but he left all to a distant relation, Kit Cable, a midshipman aboard the Torbay.  She was lost coming home in the channel.  The captain was taken up by a coaster from Eye, loaded with cheese—­” [Now, pray, what did parson Prunello say?  This is a pattern of Mrs. Nickleby’s rambling gossip.]

AIR’LIE (The earl of), a royalist in the service of king Charles I.—­Sir W. Scott, Legend of Montrose.

AIRY (Sir George), a man of fortune, in love with Miran’da, the ward of sir Francis Gripe.—­Mrs. Centlivre, The Busylody (1709).

A’JAX, son of Oileus [O.i’.luce], generally called “the less.”  In conseqnence of his insolence to Cassan’dra, the prophetic daughter of Priam, his ship was driven on a rock, and he perished at sea.—­Homer, Odyssey, iv. 507; Virgil, AEneid, i. 41.

A’JAX TEL’AMON.  Sophocles has a tragedy called Ajax, in which “the madman” scourges a ram he mistakes for Ulysses.  His encounter with a flock of sheep, which he fancied in his madness to be the sons of Atreus, has been mentioned at greater or less length by several Greek and Roman poets.  Don Quixote had a similar adventure.  This Ajax is introduced by Shakespeare in his drama called Troilus and Cressida. (See ALIFANFARON).

  The Tuscan poet [Ariosto] doth advance
  The frantic paladin of France [Orlando Furioso];
  And those more ancient [Euripides and Seneca] do enhance
  Alcides in his fury [Hercules Furens];
  And others, Ajax Telamon;—­
  But to this time there hath been none
  So bedlam as our Oberon;
  Of whom I dare assure you.

M. Drayton, Nymphidia (1536-1631).

AJUT AND ANNINGAIT, in The Rambler.