Not that Adam that kept the paradise, but that Adam that keeps the prison.—Shakespeare, Comedy of Errors, act iv. sc. 3 (1593).
Adam, a faithful retainer in the family of sir Eowland de Boys. At the age of fourscore, he voluntarily accompanied his young master Orlando into exile, and offered to give him his little savings. He has given birth to the phrase, "A Faithful Adam" [or man-servant].—Shakespeare, As You Like It (1598).
Adam Bell, a northern outlaw, noted for his archery. The name, like those of Clym of the Clough, William of Cloudesly, Robin Hood, and Little John, is synonymous with a good archer.
Adamastor, the Spirit of the Cape, a hideous phantom, of unearthly pallor; "erect his hair uprose of withered red, his lips were black, his teeth blue and disjointed, his beard haggard, his face scarred by lightning, his eyes shot livid fire, his voice roared." The sailors trembled at sight of him, and the fiend demanded how they dared to trespass "where never hero braved his rage before?" He then told them "that every year the shipwrecked should be made to deplore their foolhardiness."—Camöens, The Lusiad, v. (1569).
Adam'ida, a planet on which reside the unborn spirits of saints, martyrs, and believers. U'riel, the angel of the sun, was ordered at the crucifixion to interpose this planet between the sun and the earth, so as to produce a total eclipse.
Adamida, in obedience to the divine command, flew amidst overwhelming storms, rushing clouds, falling mountains, and swelling seas. Uriel stood on the pole of the star, but so lost in deep contemplation on Golgotha, that he heard not the wild uproar. On coming to the region of the sun, Adamida slackened her course, and advancing before the sun, covered its face and intercepted all its rays.—Klopstock, The Messiah, viii. (1771).
Adams (John), one of the mutineers of the Bounty (1790), who settled in Tahiti. In 1814 he was discovered as the patriarch of a colony, brought up with a high sense of religion and strict regard to morals. In 1839 the colony was voluntarily placed under the protection of the British Government.
Adams (Parson), the beau-ideal of a simple-minded, benevolent, but eccentric country clergyman, of unswerving integrity, solid learning, and genuine piety; bold as a lion in the cause of truth, but modest as a girl in all personal matters; wholly ignorant of the world, being "in it but not of of it."—Fielding, Joseph Andrews (1742).
His learning, his simplicity, his evangelical purity of mind are so admirably mingled with pedantry, absence of mind, and the habit of athletic ... exercise ... that he may be safely termed one of the richest productions of the muse of fiction. Like Don Quixote, parson Adams is beaten a little too much and too often, but the cudgel lights upon his shoulders ... without the slightest stain to his reputation.—Sir W. Scott.
Ad'dison of the North, Henry Mackenzie, author of The Man of Feeling (1745-1831).