REVELS, entertainments of dancing, masking, acting comedies, farces, and the like, anciently very frequent in the inns of court and in noblemen's houses, but now much disused. The officer who had the direction of the revels at court was called the Master of the Revels.
REVENGE means the return of injury for injury, and differs materially from that sudden resentment which rises in the mind immediately on being injured; which, so far from being culpable when restrained within due bounds, is absolutely necessary for self-preservation. Revenge, on the contrary, is a cool and deliberate wickedness, and is often executed years after the offence had been given; and the desire of it is generally the effect of littleness, weakness, and vice, whilst to do right, and to suffer wrong, is a mark of a great soul, that scorns to stoop to suggested revenge.