Ame'lia, a model of conjugal affection, in Fielding's novel so called. It is said that the character was modelled from his own wife. Dr. Johnson read this novel from beginning to end without once stopping.
Amelia is perhaps the only book of which, being printed off betimes one morning, a new edition was called for before night. The character of Amelia is the most pleasing heroine of all the romances.—Dr. Johnson.
Ame'lia, in Thomson's Seasons, a beautiful, innocent young woman, overtaken by a storm while walking with her troth-plight lover, Cel'adon, "with equal virtue formed, and equal grace. Hers the mild lustre of the blooming morn, and his the radiance of the risen day." Amelia grew frightened, but Celadon said, "'Tis safety to be near thee, sure;" when a flash of lightning struck her dead in his arms.—"Summer" (1727).
Amelia, in Schiller's tragedy of The Robbers.
Or they will learn how generous worth sublimes
The robber Moor, and pleads for all his crimes;
How poor Amelia kissed with many a tear
His hand, blood-stained, but ever, ever dear.
Campbell, Pleasures of Hope, ii. (1799).
Amelia Bailey, ambitious woman with "literary tastes," who in pursuit of a suitable sphere, marries a rich Californian, and "shines with the diamonds her husband has bought, and makes a noise, but it is the blare of vulgar ostentation,"—William Henry Rideing, A Little Upstart (1885).