Character Sketches of Romance Volume I Part 34

Lord Brooke, _Treatise on Monarchie_, iv.

BAU'CIS AND PHILEMON, an aged Phrygian woman and her husband, who received Jupiter and Mercury hospitably when every one else in the place had refused to entertain them. For this courtesy the G.o.ds changed the Phrygians' cottage into a magnificent temple, and appointed the pious couple over it. They both died at the same time, according to their wish, and were converted into two trees before the temple.--_Greek and Roman Mythology_.

BAUL'DIE (2 _syl._), stable-boy of Joshua Geddes the quaker.--Sir W.

Scott, _Red-gauntlet_ (time, George III.).

_Baul'die_ (2 _syl._), the old shepherd in the introduction of the story called _The Black Dwarf_, by sir W. Scott (time, Anne).

BAVIAN FOOL (_The_), one of the characters in the old morris-dance. He wore a red cap faced with yellow, a yellow "slabbering-bib," a blue doublet, red hose, and black shoes. He represents an overgrown baby, but was a tumbler, and mimicked the barking of a dog. The word Bavian is derived from _bavon_, a "bib for a slabbering child" (see Cotgrave, _French Dictionary_). In modern French _bave_ means "drivel,"

"slabbering," and the verb _baver_ "to slabber," but the bib is now called _bavette_. (See MORRIS-DANCE.)

BAVIE'CA, the Cid's horse. He survived his master two years and a half, and was buried at Valencia. No one was ever allowed to mount him after the death of the Cid.

BAVIUS, any vile poet. (See MaeVIUS.)

BAWTRY. _Like the saddler of Baivtry, who was hanged for leaving his liquor_. (_Yorks.h.i.+re Proverb_.) It was customary for criminals on their way to execution to stop at a certain tavern in York for a "parting draught." The saddler of Bawtry refused to accept the liquor, and was hanged, whereas if he had stopped a few minutes at the tavern his reprieve, which was on the road, would have arrived in time to save him.

BA'YARD, _Le chevalier sans peur et sans reproche_; born in France in 1475. He served under Charles VIII. and Louis XII.; bore a gallant part in the "Battle of the Spurs," and died in 1524 of wounds received while in action.

_The British Bayard_, sir Philip Sidney (1554-1584).

_The Polish Bayard_, prince Joseph Poniatowski (1763-1814).

_The Bayard of India_, sir James Outram (1803-1863). So called by sir Charles Napier.

_Ba'yard_, a horse of incredible speed, belonging to the four sons of Aymon. If only one mounted, the horse was of the ordinary size, but increased in proportion as two or more mounted. (The word means "bright bay color.")--Villeneuve, _Les Quatre fils Aymon_.

_Bayard_, the steed of Fitz-James.--Sir W. Scott, _Lady of the Lake_, v. 18 (1810).

BAYAR'DO, the famous steed of Rinaldo, which once belonged to Amadis of Gaul. It was found in a grotto by the wizard Malagigi, along with the sword Fusberta, both of which he gave to his cousin Rinaldo.

His color bay, and hence his name he drew-- Bayardo called. A star of silver hue Emblazed his front.

Ta.s.so, _Rinaldo_, ii. 220 (1562).

BAYES (1 _syl._), the chief character of _The Rehearsal_, a farce by George Villiers, duke of Buckingham (1671). Bayes is represented as greedy of applause, impatient of censure, meanly obsequious, regardless of plot, and only anxious for claptrap. The character is meant for John Dryden.

[Ill.u.s.tration] C. Dibdin, in his _History of the Stage_, states that Mrs. Mountford played "Bayes" "with more variety than had ever been thrown into the part before."

No species of novel-writing exposes itself to a severer trial, since it not only resigns all Bayes'

pretensions "to elevate the imagination," ... but places its productions within the range of [general] criticism.--_Encyc. Brit._ Art. "Romance."

BAYNARD (_Mr._), introduced in an episode in the novel called _Humphrey Clinker_, by Smollett (1771).

BEA'CON (_Tom_), groom to Master Chiffinch (private emissary of Charles II.).--Sir W. Scott, _Peveril of the Peak_ (time, Charles II.).

BEA'GLE (_Sir Harry_), a horsy country gentleman, who can talk of nothing but horses and dogs. He is wofully rustic and commonplace. Sir Harry makes a bargain with lord Trinket to give up Harriet to him in exchange for his horse. (See GOLDFINCH.)--George Colman, _The Jealous Wife_ (1761).

BEAK. Sir John Fielding was called "The Blind Beak" (died 1780). BEAN LEAN (_Donald_), _alias_ Will Ruthven, a Highland robber-chief.

He also appears disguised as a peddler on the roadside leading to Stirling. Waverley is rowed to the robber's cave and remains there all night.

_Alice Bean_, daughter of Donald Bean Lean, who attends on Waverley during a fever.--Sir W. Scott, _Waverley_ (time, George II.).

BEAR (_The Brave_). Warwick is so called from his cognizance, which was _a bear and ragged staff_.

BEARCLIFF (_Deacon_), at the Gordon Arms or Kippletringam inn, where colonel Mannering stops on his return to England, and hears of Bertram's illness and distress.--Sir W. Scott, _Guy Mannering_ (time, George II.).

BEARDED (_The_). (1) Geoffrey the crusader. (2) Bouchard of the house of Montmorency. (3) Constantine IV. (648-685). (4) Master George Killingworthe of the court of Ivan _the Terrible_ of Russia, whose beard (says Hakluyt) was five feet two inches long, yellow, thick, and broad. Sir Hugh Willoughby was allowed to take it in his hand.

_The Bearded Master_. Soc'rates was so called by Persius (B.C.

468-399).

_Handsome Beard_, Baldwin IV. earl of Flanders (1160-1186).

_John the Bearded_, John Mayo, the German painter, whose beard touched the ground when he stood upright.

BEARNAIS (_Le_), Henri IV. of France, so called from his native province, Le Bearr. (1553-1610).

BEATON, the artist of _Every Other Week_, the story of which periodical is told in W. D. Howells's _A Hazard of New Fortunes_ (1889).

His name was Beaton--Angus Beaton. His father was a Scotchman, but Beaton was born in Syracuse, New York, and it had taken only three years to obliterate many traces of native and ancestral manner in him.

He wore his thick beard cut shorter than his moustache, and a little pointed; he stood with his shoulders well thrown back, and with a lateral curve of his person when he talked about art which would alone have carried conviction, even if he had not had a thick, dark bang coming almost to the brows of his mobile gray eyes, and had not spoken English with quick, staccato impulses, so as to give it the effect of epigrammatic and sententious French.

BE'ATRICE (3 _syl_.), a child eight years old, to whom Dante at the age of nine was ardently attached. She was the daughter of Folco Portina'ri, a rich citizen of Florence. Beatrice married Simoni de Bardi, and died before she was twenty-four years old (1266-1290).

Dante married Gemma Donati, and his marriage was a most unhappy one.

His love for Beatrice remained after her decease. She was the fountain of his poetic inspiration, and in his _Divina Commedia_ he makes her his guide through paradise.

Dante's Beatrice and Milton's Eve Were not drawn from their spouses you conceive. Byron, _Don Juan_, iii. 10 (1820).

(Milton, who married Mary Powell, of Oxfords.h.i.+re, was as unfortunate in his choice as Dante.)

_Beatrice_, wife of Ludov'ico Sforza.

_Beatrice_, daughter of Ferdinando king of Naples, sister of Leonora d.u.c.h.ess of Ferrara, and wife of Mathias Corvi'nus of Hungary.

_Beatrice_, niece of Leonato governor of Messina, lively and light-hearted, affectionate and impulsive. Though wilful she is not wayward, though volatile she is not unfeeling, though teeming with wit and gaiety she is affectionate and energetic. At first she dislikes Bened.i.c.k, and thinks him a flippant conceited c.o.xcomb; but overhearing a conversation between her cousin Hero and her gentlewoman, in which Hero bewails that Beatrice should trifle with such deep love as that of Bened.i.c.k, and should scorn so true and good a gentleman, she cries, "Sits the wind thus? then, farewell, contempt. Bened.i.c.k, love on; I will requite you." This conversation of Hero's was a mere ruse, but Bened.i.c.k had been caught by a similar trick played by Claudio, don Pedro, and Leonato. The result was they sincerely loved each other, and were married.--Shakespeare, _Much Ado about Nothing_ (1600).

BEATRICE CENCI, the _Beautiful Parricide (q.v.)._

BEATRICE D'ESTE, canonized at Rome.

BEATRICE GIORGINI, an Italian contessa whose parents contract a secret marriage, an unequal match as to birth and fortune, and, dying young, one by violence, leave their child in charge of Betta, a faithful nurse, who takes her to her mother's mother, an old peasant. At her grandmother's death she becomes companion to a relative of her father; marries don Leonardo, her father's cousin and one of the witnesses to the secret marriage, and uses him to prove her legitimacy and his own treachery.--Mary Agnes Tincker, _Two Coronets_ (1889).

BEAU BRUMMEL, George Bryan Brummel, son of a London pastry-cook, who became the fas.h.i.+on at the court of George III. and reigning favorite of the Prince of Wales. His story has been made the foundation of a brilliant American play by Clyde Fitch, in which Richard Mansfield takes the part of Brummel (1890).

BEAU CLARK, a billiard-maker at the beginning of the nineteenth century. He was called "The Bean," a.s.sumed the name of _Beauelerc_, and paid his addresses to a _protegee_ of lord Fife.

BEAU FIELDING, called "Handsome Fielding" by Charles II., by a play on his name, which was Hendrome Fielding. He died in Scotland Yard.