Sparkish, “the prince of coxcombs,” a fashionable fool, and “a cuckold before marriage.” Sparkish is engaged to Alithēa Moody, but introduces to her his friend, Harcourt, allows him to make love to her before his face, and, of course, is jilted.--The Country Girl (Garrick, altered from Wycherly’s Country Wife, 1675).
Sparkler (Edmund), son of Mrs. Merdle by her first husband. He married Fanny, sister of Little Dorrit. Edmund Sparkler was a very large man, called in his own regiment “Quinbus Flestrin, junior, or the Young Man-Mountain.”
Mrs. Sparkler, Edmund’s wife. She was very pretty, very self-willed, and snubbed her husband in most approved fashion.--C. Dickens, Little Dorrit (1857).
Sparrowgrass, pen-name of Frederic S. Cozzens, under which he depicted the blunders and mishaps of a pair of city-bred people, who set up their Lares and Penates in Yonkers, N.Y.--Frederic Swartwout Cozzens, The Sparrowgrass Papers (1856).
Sparsit (Mrs.), housekeeper to Josiah Bounderby, banker and mill-owner at Coketown. Mrs. Sparsit is a “highly connected lady,” being the great-niece of Lady Scadgers. She had a “Coriolanian nose and dense black eyebrows,” was much believed in by her master, who, when he married, made her “keeper of the bank.” Mrs. Sparsit, in collusion with the light porter, Bitzer, then acted the spy on Mr. Bounderby and his young wife.--C. Dickens, Hard Times (1854).
Spasmodic School (The), certain authors of the nineteenth century, whose writings abound in spasmodic phrases, startling expressions, and words used out of their common acceptation. Carlyle, noted for his Germanic English, is the chief of this school. Others are Bailey, author of Festus, Sydney Dobell, Gilfillan, and Alexander Smith.
⁂ Professor Aytoun has gibbeted this class of writers in his Firmilian, a Spasmodic Tragedy (1854).
Spear of Achillês. Telĕphos, son-in-law of Priam, opposed the Greeks in their voyage to Troy. A severe contest ensued, and Achillês, with his spear, wounded the Mysian king severely. He was told by an oracle that the wound could be cured only by the instrument which gave it; so he sent to Achillês to effect his cure. The surly Greek replied he was no physician, and would have dismissed the messengers with scant courtesy, but Ulysses whispered in his ear that the aid of Telephos was required to direct them on their way to Troy. Achillês now scraped some rust from his spear, which, being applied to the wound, healed it. This so conciliated Telephos that he conducted the fleet to Troy, and even took part in the war against his father-in-law.
Achillês’ and his father’s javelin caused
Pain first, and then the boon of health restored.