Who’s The Dupe? Abraham Doiley is a retired slop-seller, with £80,000 or more. Being himself wholly uneducated, he is a great admirer of “larning,” and resolves that his daughter Elizabeth shall marry a great scholar. Elizabeth is in love with Captain Granger, but the old slop-seller has fixed his heart on a Mr. Gradus, an Oxford pedant. The question is how to bring the old man round. Gradus is persuaded to change his style of dress to please the lady, and Granger is introduced as a learned pundit. The old man resolves to pit together the two aspirants, and give Elizabeth to the best scholar. Gradus quotes two lines of Greek, in which the word panta occurs four times; Granger gives some three or four lines of English fustian. Gradus tells the old man that what Granger said was mere English; but Doiley, in the utmost indignation, replies, “Do you think I don’t know my own mother tongue? Off with your pantry, which you call Greek! t’other is the man for my money;” and he gives his daughter to the captain.--Mrs. Cowley, Who’s the Dupe?
Whole Duty of Man (The). Sir James Wellwood Moncrieff, bart., was so called by Jeffrey (1776-1851).
Wickfield (Mr.), a lawyer, father of Agnes. The “’umble” Uriah Heep was his clerk.
Agnes Wickfield, daughter of Mr. Wickfield; a young lady of sound sense and domestic habits, lady-like and affectionate. She is the second wife of David Copperfield.--C. Dickens, David Copperfield (1849).
Wickam (Mrs.), a waiter’s wife. Mrs. Wickam was a meek, drooping woman, always ready to pity herself or to be pitied, and with a depressing habit of prognosticating evil. She succeeded Polly Toodles as nurse to Paul Dombey.--C. Dickens, Dombey and Son (1846).
Wicliffe, called “The Morning Star of the Reformation” (1324-1384).
Widdrington (Roger), a gallant squire, mentioned in the ballad of Chevy Chase. He fought “upon his stumps,” after he lost his legs. (See Benbow.)
Widenostrils (in French Bringuenarilles), a huge giant, who had swallowed every pan, skillet, kettle, frying-pan, dripping-pan, saucepan and caldron in the land, for want of windmills, his usual food. He was ultimately killed by eating a lump of fresh butter at the mouth of a hot oven, by the advice of his physician.--Rabelais, Pantagruel, iv. 17 (1545).
Widerolf, bishop of Strasbourg (997), was devoured by mice in the seventeenth year of his episcopate, because he suppressed the convent of Seltzen on the Rhine. (See Hatto.)
Widow, in the Deserted Village (Goldsmith). “All the bloomy flush of life is fled” from Auburn: