Chapter Bleeding-heart Yard to Blood-Bath of B by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Bleeding-heart Yard to Blood-Bath

Bleeding-heart Yard (London). So called because it was the place where the devil cast the bleeding heart of lady Hatton (wife of the dancing chancellor), after he had torn it out of her body with his claws.—Dr. Mackay: Extraordinary Popular Delusions.

Blefuscu, an island inhabited by pigmies. It was situated north-east of Lilliput, from which it was parted by a channel 800 yards wide.—Dean Swift: Gulliver’s Travels (1726).

“Blefuscu is France, and the inhabitants of the Lilliputian court, which forced Gulliver to take shelter there rather than have his eyes put out, is an indirect reproach upon that [sic] of England, and a vindication of the flight of Ormond and Bolingbroke to Paris.—Sir W. Scott.

Bleise of Northumberland, the historian of king Arthur’s court.

Merlin told Blelse how king Arthur had sped at the great battle, and how the battle ented and told him the names of every king and knight of worship that was there. And Bleise wrote the battle word for word as Merlin told him, how it began and by whom, and how it ented, and who had the worst. All the battles that were done in king Arthur’s days, Merlin caused Bleise to write them. Also he caused him to write all the battles that every worthy knight did of king Arthur’s court.—Sir T. Malory: History of Prince Arthur, i. 15 (1470).

Blemmyes, a people of Africa, fabled to have no head, by having eyes and mouth in the breast. (See Gaora.)

Blemmyis traduntur capita abesse, ore et oculis pectori affixis.—Pliny.

Ctesias speaks of a people of India near the Gangês, sine cervice, oculos in humeris habentes. Mela also refers to a people quibus capita et vultus in pectore sunt.

Blenheim (The battle of), a poem by John Dennis, to whom the duke of Marlborough gave £100 (1705).

Another by Southey (1798), supposed to be told by Kasper—

It was a summer’s evening,
Old Kasper’s work was done;
And he before his cottage door
Was sitting in the sun.…

The ballad goes on to tell all the horrors of the war, and the burden is nevertheless “It was a famous victory”

Blenheim Spaniels. The Oxford electors are so called, because for many years they obediently supported any candidate which the duke of Marlborough commanded them to return. Lockhart broke through this custom by telling the people the fable of the Dog and the Wolf. The dog, it will be remembered, had on his neck the marks of his collar, and the wolf said he preferred liberty.

(The race of the little dog called the Blenheim spaniel has been preserved ever since Blenheim House was built for the duke of Marlborough in 1704.)

Bletson (Master Joshua), one of the three parliamentary commissioners sent by Cromwell with a warrant to leave the royal lodge to the Lee family.—Sir W. Scott: Woodstock (time, Commonwealth).

Bleys, called Merlin’s master, but he

…taught him naught…the scholar ran
Before his master; and so far that Bleys
Laid magic by; and sat him down and wrote
All things and whatsoever Merlin did
In one great annal book
   —Tennyson: Idylls of the King (“The Coming of Arthur”).

Blifil, a noted character in Fielding’s novel called The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling (1750).