Sitoph´agus (“the wheat-eater”), one of the mouse princes, who being wounded in the battle, crept into a ditch to avoid further injury or danger.
The lame Sitophagus, oppressed with pain,
Creeps from the desperate dangers of the plain;
And where the ditches rising weeds supply ...
There lurks the silent mouse relieved of heat,
And, safe embowered, avoids the chance of fate.
Parnell, Battle of the Frogs and Mice. iii. (about 1712).
The last two lines might be amended thus:
There lurks the trembling mouse with bated breath,
And, hid from sight, avoids his instant death.
Siward [Se.´ward], the earl of Northumberland, and general of the English forces, acting against Macbeth.—Shakespeare, Macbeth (1606).
Six Chronicles (The). Dr. Giles compiled and edited six Old English Chronicles for Bohn’s series in 1848. They are: Ethelwerd’s Chronicle, Asser’s Life of Alfred, Geoffrey of Monmouth’s British History, Gildas the Wise, Nennius’s History of the Britons, and Richard of Cirencester On the Ancient State of Britain. The last three were edited in 1757, by Professor Bertram, in his Scriptores Tres, but great doubt exists as to the genuineness of the chronicles contained in Dr. Bertram’s compilation. (See Three Writers.)
Sixteen-String-Jack, John Rann, a highwayman. He was a great fop, and wore sixteen tags to his breeches, eight at each knee (hanged 1774).
Dr. Johnson said that Gray’s poetry towered above the ordinary run of verse, as Sixteen-String-Jack above the ordinary foot-pad.—Boswell, Life of Johnson (1791).
Skeffington, author of Sleeping Beauty, Maids and Bachelors, etc.
And sure great Skeffington must claim our praise
For skirtless coats, and skeletons of plays.
Byron, English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (1809).