Ce'lia, a girl of sixteen, in Whitehead's comedy of The School for Lovers. It was written expressly for Mrs. Cibber, daughter of Dr. Arne.
Mrs. Cibber was at the time more than fifty years old, but the uncommon symmetry and exact proportion in her form, with her singular vivacity, enabled her to represent the character of "Celia" with all the juvenile appearance marked by the author.—Percy, Anecdotes.
Ce'lia, a poetical name for any lady-love: as "Would you know my Celia's charms ...?" Not unfrequently Streph'on is the wooer when Celia is the wooed. Thomas Carew calls his "sweet sweeting" Celia; her real name is not known.
Ce'lia (Dame), mother of Faith, Hope, and Charity. She lived in the hospice called Holiness. (Celia is from the Latin, coelum, "heaven.")—Spenser, Faëry Queen, i. 10 (1590).
Celia Shaw, a gentle-hearted mountain girl who, learning that her father and his clan intend to "clean out" a family fifteen miles up the mountain, steals out on a snowy night and makes her way to their hut to warn them of their danger. She takes cold on the fearful journey, and dies of consumption.—Charles Egbert Craddock, In the Tennessee Mountains (1884).
Célimène (3syl.), a coquette courted by Alceste (2 syl.) the "misanthrope" (a really good man, both upright and manly, but blunt in behavior, rude in speech, and unconventional). Alceste wants Célimène to forsake society and live with him in seclusion; this she refuses to do, and he replies, as you cannot find, "tout en moi, comme moi tout en vous, allez, je vous refuse." He then proposes to her cousin Eliante (3 syl.), but Eliante tells him she is already engaged to his friend Philinte (2 syl), and so the play ends.—Molière, Le Misanthrope (1666).
"Célimène" in Molière's Les Précieuses Ridicules is a mere dummy. She is brought on the stage occasionally towards the end of the play, but never utters one word, and seems a supernumerary of no importance at all.
Celin'da, the victim of count Fathom's seduction.—Smollett, Count Fathom (1754).
Cel'lide (2 syl.), beloved by Valentine and his son Francisco. The lady naturally prefers the younger man.—Beaumont and Fletcher, Mons. Thomas (1619).
Celtic Homer (The), Ossian, said to be of the third century.