Chapter Baal to Badger of B by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Sometimes you would see this Lewis Baboon behind his counter, selling broad-cloth, sometimes measuring linen; next day he would be dealing in mercery-ware; high heads, ribbons, gloves, fans, and lace, he understood to a nicety …nay, he would descend to the selling of tapes, garters, and shoe-buckles. When shop was shut up, he would go about the neighbourhood, and earn half-a-crown, by teaching the young men and maidens to dance. By these means he had acquired immense riches, which he used to squander away at back-sword [in war], quarter-staff, and cudgel-play, in which he took great pleasure.—Dr. Arbuthnot: History of John Bull, ii.(1712).

Babylon. Cairo in Egypt was so called by the crusaders. Rome was so called by the puritans; and London was, and still is, so called by some, on account of its wealth, luxury, and dissipation. The reference is to Rev. xvii. and xviii.

Babylonian Wall. The f oundress of this wall (two hundred cubits high, and fifty thick) was Semiramis, mythic foundress of the Assyrian empire. She was the daughter of the fish-goddess Derceto of Ascalon, and a Syrian youth.

Our statues…she
The foundress of the Babylonian wall.
   —Tennyson: The Princess, ii.

Bacbuc or Babouc, the oracle of the “Holy Bottle of Lanternland.”—Rabelais: Pantagruel.

Bacchantes, priestesses of Bacchus.

Round about him [Bacchus] fair Bacchantês,
Bearing cymbals, flutes, and thyrses,
Wild from Naxian groves, or Zantê’s
Vineyards, sing delirious verses.
   —Longfellow: Drinking Song.

Bacchus, in the Lusiad, an epic poem by Camoens (1569), is the personification of the evil principle which acts in opposition to Jupiter, the lord of Destiny. Mars is made by the poet the guardian power of Christianity, and Bacchus of Mohammedanism.

Bacharach [Back-a-rack], a red wine, so called from a town of the same name in the Lower Palatinate. Pope Pius II. used to import a tun of it to Rome yearly, and Nuremberg obtained its freedom at the price of four casks of it a-year. The word Bacharach means “the altar of Bacchus” (Bacchiara), the altar referred to being a rock in the bed of the river, which indicated to the vine-growers what sort of year they might expect. If the head of the rock appeared above water, the season would be a dry one, and a fine vintage might be looked for; if not, it would be a wet season, and bad for the grapes.

…that ancient town of Bacharach,—
The beautiful town that gives us wine,
With the fragrant odour of Muscadine.
   —Longfellow The Golden Legend.

Backbite (Sir Benjamin), nephew of Crabtree, very conceited and very censorious. His friends called him a great poet and wit, but he never published anything, because “twas very vulgar to print;” besides, as he said, his little productions circulated more “by giving copies in confidence to friends.”—Sheridan: School for Scandal (1777).

When I first saw Miss Pope she was performing “Mrs. Candour,” to Miss Farren’s “lady Teazle,” King as “sir Peter,’ Parsons “Crabtree,” Dodd “Backbite,” Baddeley “Moses,” Smith “Charles,” and John Palmer “Joseph” [Surface]—James Smith Memoirs, etc.

Bacon of Theology, bishop Butler, author of The Analogy of Religion, Natural and Revealed, etc. (1692–1752).

Bacrack. (See BACHARACH.)

Bactrian Sage (The), Zoroaster or Zerdusht, a native of Bactria, now Balkh (B.C. 589–513).