As thro’ his palms Bob Acres’ valor oozed,
  So Juan’s virtue ebbed, I know not how.

Byron, Don Juan.

Joseph Jefferson’s impersonation of Bob Acres is inimitable for fidelity to the spirit of the original, and informed throughout with exquisite humor that never degenerates into coarseness.

ACRIS’IUS, father of Dan’ae.  An oracle declared that Danae would give birth to a son who would kill him, so Acrisius kept his daughter shut up in an apartment under ground, or (as some say) in a brazen tower.  Here she became the mother of Per’seus (2 syl.), by Jupiter in the form of a shower of gold.  The king of Argos now ordered his daughter and her infant to be put into a chest, and cast adrift on the sea, but they were rescued by Dictys, a fisherman.  When grown to manhood, Perseus accidentally struck the foot of Acrisius with a quoit, and the blow caused his death.  This tale is told by Mr. Morris in The Earthly Paradise (April).

ACTAE’ON, a hunter, changed by Diana into a stag.  A synonym for a cuckold.

  Divulge Page himself for a secure and wilful
  Actaeon [cuckold].

Shakespeare, Merry Wives, etc., act iii. sc. 2 (1596).

ACTE’A, a female slave faithful to Nero in his fall.  It was this hetaera who wrapped the dead body in cerements, and saw it decently interred.

This Actea was beautiful.  She was seated on the ground; the head of Nero was on her lap, his naked body was stretched on those winding-sheets in which she was about to fold him, to lay him in his grave upon the garden hill.—­Ouida, Ariadne, i. 7.

ACTORS AND ACTRESSES.  The last male actor that took a woman’s character on the stage was Edward Kynaston, noted for his beauty (1619-1687).  The first female actor for hire was Mrs. Saunderson, afterwards Mrs. Betterton, who died in 1712.

AD, AD’ITES (2 syl.).  Ad is a tribe descended from Ad, son of Uz, son of Irem, son of Shem, son of Noah.  The tribe, at the Confusion of Babel, went and settled on Al-Ahkaf [the Winding Sands], in the province of Hadramant.  Shedad was their first king, but in consequence of his pride, both he and all the tribe perished, either from drought or the Sarsar (an icy wind).—­Sale’s Koran, 1.

  Woe, woe, to Irem!  Woe to Ad! 
  Death, has gone up into her palaces!.... 
  They fell around me.  Thousands fell around. 
  The king and all his people fell;
  All, all, they perished all.

  Southey, Thalaba the Destroyer, i. 41, 45 (1797).

A’DAH, wife of Cain.  After Cain had been conducted by Lucifer through the realms of space, he is restored to the home of his wife and child, where all is beauty, gentleness, and love.  Full of faith and fervent in gratitude, Adah loves her infant with a sublime maternal affection.  She sees him sleeping, and says to Cain—­