Character Sketches of Romance Volume I Part 52

BRAZEN (_Captain_), a kind of Bobadil. A boastful, tongue-doughty warrior, who pretends to know everybody; to have a liaison with every wealthy, pretty, or distinguished woman; and to have achieved in war the most amazing prodigies.

BRAZEN HEAD. The first on record is one which Sylvester II.

(_Gerbert_) possessed. It told him he would be pope, and not die till he had sung ma.s.s at Jerusalem. When pope he was stricken with his death-sickness while performing ma.s.s in a church called Jerusalem (999-1003).

The next we hear of was made by Rob. Grosseteste (1175-1253).

The third was the famous brazen head of Albertus Magnus, which cost him thirty years' labor, and was broken to pieces by his disciple Thomas Aqui'nas (1193-1280).

The fourth was that of friar Bacon, which used to say, "Time is, time was, time comes." Byron refers to it in the lines:

Like friar Bacon's brazen head, I've spoken, "Time is, time was, time's past [?]"

_Don Juan_, i. 217 (1819).

Another was made by the marquis of Vilena of Spain (1384-1434). And a sixth by a Polander, a disciple of Escotillo an Italian.

_Brazen Head_ (_The_), a gigantic head kept in the castle of the giant Fer'ragus of Portugal. It was omniscient, and told those who consulted it whatever they desired to know, past, present, or future.--_Valentine and Orson_.

BREAKFAST TABLE (_Autocrat of_). See AUTOCRAT.

BREAKING A STICK is part of the marriage ceremony of the American Indians, as breaking a gla.s.s is still part of the marriage ceremony of the Jews.--Lady Augusta Hamilton, _Marriage Rites, etc._, pp. 292, 298.

In one of Raphael's pictures we see an unsuccessful suitor of the Virgin Mary breaking his stick, and this alludes to the legend that the several suitors of the "virgin" were each to bring an almond stick which was to be laid up in the sanctuary over night, and the owner of the stick which budded was to be accounted the suitor G.o.d ordained, and thus Joseph became her husband.--B.H. Cowper, _Apocryphal Gospel_ ("Pseudo-Matthew's Gospel," 40, 41).

In Florence is a picture in which the rejected suitors break their sticks on the back of Joseph.

BREC'AN, a mythical king of Wales. He had twenty-four daughters by one wife. These daughters, for their beauty and purity, were changed into rivers, all of which flow into the Severn. Brecknocks.h.i.+re, according to fable, is called after this king. (See next art.)

Brecan was a prince once fortunate and great (Who dying lent his name to that his n.o.ble seat), With twice twelve daughters blest, by one and only wife.

They, for their beauties rare and sanct.i.ty of life, To rivers were transformed; whose pureness doth declare How excellent they were by being what they are ...

..._[they]_ to Severn shape their course.

M. Drayton, _Polyolbion_, iv. (1612).

BREC'HAN (_Prince_), father of St. Cadock and St. Canock, the former a martyr and the latter a confessor.

BRECK (_Alison_), an old fishwife, friend of the Mucklebackits.--Sir W. Scott, _The Antiquary_ (time, Greorge III.).

_Breck (Angus)_, a follower of Rob Roy M'Gregor, the outlaw.--Sir W.

Scott, _Rob Roy_ (time, Greorge I.).

BREITMAN (_Hans_), the giver of the entertainment celebrated in Charles G.o.dfrey Leland's dialect verses, _Hans Breitman gave a Party_.

A favorite with parlor and platform "readers." (1871.)

BREN'DA [TROIL], daughter of Magnus Troil and sister of Minna.--Sir W.

Scott, _The Pirate_ (time, William III.).

BRENG'WAIN, the confidante of Is'olde (_2 syl._) wife of sir Mark king of Cornwall. Isolde was criminally attached to her nephew sir Tristram, and Brengwain a.s.sisted the queen in her intrigues.

_Breng'wain_, wife of Gwenwyn prince of Powys-land.--Sir W. Scott, _The Betrothed_ (time, Henry II.).

BRENNETT (_Maurice_), a man whom "life had always cast for the leading business" and who "bears himself in a manner befitting the t.i.tle role." In pursuance of this destiny he becomes a mining speculator, betrays his confiding partner and everybody else who will trust, and when success seems within his grasp is thwarted by the discovery of a man he had supposed to be dead. The woman he would have married to secure her fortune, around which he had woven the fine web of his schemes, breaks out impetuously:

"If you will prove his complicity ... I will pursue him to the ends of the earth."

At that moment through the window she sees the head-light of the train that is bearing Maurice Brennett away into the darkness. The thorough search made for him afterward is futile.--Charles Egbert Craddock, _Where the Battle was Fought_ (1885).

BRENTA'NO (_A_), one of inconceivable folly. The Brentanos, Clemens and his sister Bettina, are remarkable in German literary annals for the wild and extravagant character of their genius. Bettina's work, _Gothe's Correspondence with a Child_ (1835), is a pure fabrication of her own.

At the point where the folly of others ceases, that of the Brentanos begins.--_German Proverb_.

BRENTFORD (_The two kings of_). In the duke of Buckingham's farce called _The Rehearsal_ (1671), the two kings of Brentford enter hand-in-hand, dance together, sing together, walk arm-in-arm, and to heighten the absurdity the actors represent them as smelling at the same nosegay (act ii. 2).

BRETWALDA, the over-king of the Saxon rulers, established in England during the heptarchy. In Germany the over-king was called emperor. The bretwalda had no power in the civil affairs of the under-kings, but in times of war or danger formed an important centre.

BREWER OF GHENT (_The_), James van Artevelde, a great patriot. His son Philip fell in the battle of Rosbecq (fourteenth century).

BREWSTER (_William_). _The Life and Death of William Brewster_, elder in the first church planted in Ma.s.sachusetts, was written by his colleague William Bradford (1630-1650). After a feeling eulogy upon his departed friend, he remarks, parenthetically: "He always thought it were better for ministers to pray oftener and divide their prayers, than be long and tedious in the same (except upon solemn and special occasions, as in days of humiliation and the like). His reason was that the hearts and spirits of all, especially the weak, continue and stand bent (as it were) so long towards G.o.d as they ought to do in that duty without flagging and falling off." This is a remarkable deliverance for a day when two-hour prayers were the rule, and from a man who, his biographer tells us, "had a singular good gift in prayer."

BRIA'NA, the lady of a castle who demanded for toll "the locks of every lady and the beard of every knight that pa.s.sed." This toll was established because sir Crudor, with whom she was in love, refused to marry her till she had provided him with human hair sufficient to "purfle a mantle" with. Sir Crudor, having been overthrown in knightly combat by sir Calidore, who refused to pay "the toll demanded," is made to release Briana from the condition imposed on her, and Briana swears to discontinue the discourteous toll.--Spenser, _Faery Queen_, vi. 1 (1596).

BRI'ANOR (_Sir_), a knight overthrown by the "Salvage Knight," whose name was sir Artegal.--Spenser, _Faery Queen_, iv. 5 (1596).

BRIAR'EOS (_4 syl._), usually called Briareus [_Bri'.a.ruce_], the giant with a hundred hands. Hence Dryden says, "And Briareus, with all his hundred hands" (_Virgil_, vi.); but Milton writes the name Briareos (_Paradise Lost_, i. 199).

Then, called by thee, the monster t.i.tan came, Whom G.o.ds Briareos, men aegeon name.

Pope, _Iliad_, i.

BRI'AREUS (_Bold_), Handel (1685-1757).

BRI'AREUS OF LANGUAGES, cardinal Mezzofanti, who was familiar with fifty-eight different languages. Byron calls him "a walking polyglot"

(1774-1849).

BRIBO'CI, inhabitants of Berks.h.i.+re and the adjacent counties.--Caesar, _Commentaries_.

BRICK (_Jefferson_), a very weak pale young man, the war correspondent of the _New York Rowdy Journal_, of which colonel Diver was editor.--C. d.i.c.kens, _Martin Chuzzlewit_ (1844).

BRIDE OF ABY'DOS (_The_), Zulei'ka (_3 syl._), daughter of Giaffer (_2 syl._), pacha of Abydos. She is the troth-plight bride of Selim; but Giaffer shoots the lover, and Zuleika dies of a broken heart.--Byron, _Bride of Abydos_ (1813).

BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR, Lucy Ashton, in love with Edgar master of Ravenswood, but compelled to marry Frank Hayston, laird of Bucklaw.

She tries to murder him on the bridal night, and dies insane the day following.--Sir W. Scott, _The Bride of Lammermoor_ (time, William III.).

[Ill.u.s.tration] _The Bride of Lammermoor_ is one of the most finished of Scott's novels, presenting a unity of plot and action from beginning to end. The old butler, Caleb Balderston, is exaggerated and far too prominent, but he serves as a foil to the tragic scenes.

In _The Bride of Lammermoor_ we see embodied the dark spirit of fatalism--that spirit which breathes on the writings of the Greek tragedians when they traced the persecuting vengeance of destiny against the houses of Laius and Atreus.

From the time that we hear the prophetic rhymes the spell begins, and the clouds blacken round us, till they close the tale in a night of horror.--Ed.

Rev.

BRIDE OF THE SEA, Venice, so called from the ancient ceremony of the doge marrying the city to the Adriatic by throwing a ring into it, p.r.o.nouncing these words, "We wed thee, O sea, in token of perpetual domination."

BRIDGE. The imaginary bridge between earth and the Mohammedan paradise is called "Al Sirat'."