AMUN’DEVILLE (Lord Henry), one of the “British privy council.”  After the sessions of parliament he retired to his country seat, where he entertained a select and numerous party, among which were the duchess of Fitz-Fulke, Aurora Raby, and don Juan, “the Russian envoy.”  His wife was lady Adeline. (His character is given in xiv. 70, 71.)—­Byron, Don Juan, xiii. to end.

AM’URATH III., sixth emperor of the Turks.  He succeeded his father, Selim II., and reigned 1574-1595.  His first act was to invite all his brothers to a banquet, and strangle them.  Henry IV. alludes to this when he says—­

  This is the English, not the Turkish court;
  Not Amurath an Amurath succeeds,
  But Harry, Harry.

Shakespeare, 2 Henry IV. act v. sc. 2 (1598).

AMUSEMENTS OF KINGS.  The great amusement of Ardeltas of Arabia Petraea, was currying horses; of Artaba’nus of Persia, was mole-catching; of Domitian of Rome, was catching flies; of Ferdinand VII., of Spain, was embroidering petticoats; of Louis XVI., clock and lock making; of George IV., the game of patience.

AMY MARCH, the artist sister in Louisa M. Alcott’s Little Women (1868).

AMY WENTWORTH, the high-born but contented wife of the “Brown Viking of the Fishing-smack,” in John Greenleaf Whittier’s poem, Amy Wentworth.

  She sings, and smiling, hears her praise,
  But dreams the while of one
  Who watches from his sea-blown deck
  The ice-bergs in the sun. (1860.)

AMYN’TAS, in Colin Clout’s Come Home Again, by Spenser, is Ferdinando earl of Derby, who died 1594.

  Amyntas, flower of shepherd’s pride forlorn. 
  He, whilst he lived, was the noblest swain
  That ever piped on an oaten quill.

Spenser, Colin Clout’s Come Home Again (1591).

AMYN’TOR. (See AMINTOR.)

A’MYS and AMY’LION, the Damon and Pythias of mediaeval romance.—­See
Ellis’s Specimens of Early English Metrical Romances.

AMYTIS, the Median queen of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon.  Beautiful, passionate, and conscienceless, she condemns an innocent rival to the worst of fates, without a pang of conscience, and dies a violent death at the hands of one who was once her lover.

The gardens were well-watered and dripped luxuriantly....  At this time of the morning, Amytis amused herself alone, or with a few favored slaves.  She dipped through artificial dew and pollen, bloom and fountain, like one of the butterflies that circled above her small head, or one of the bright cold lizards that crept about her feet.  She bathed, she ran, she sang, and curled to sleep, and stirred and bathed again.—­The Master of the Magicians, by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps and Herbert D. Ward (1890).

ANACHARSIS [CLOOTZ].  Baron Jean Baptiste Clootz assumed the prenome of Anacharsis, from the Scythian so called, who travelled about Greece and other countries to gather knowledge and improve his own countrymen.  The baron wished by the name to intimate that his own object in life was like that of Anacharsis (1755-1794).