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

Blifil is the original of Sheridan’s “Joseph Surface,” in the School for Scandal (1777).

Bligh (William), captain of the Bounty, so well known for the mutiny, headed by Fletcher Christian, the mate (1790).

Blimber (Dr.), head of a school for the sons of gentlemen, at Brighton. It was a select school for ten pupils only; but there was learning enough for ten times ten. “Mental green peas were produced at Christmas, and intellectual asparagus all the year round.” The doctor was really a ripe scholar, and truly kind-hearted; but his great fault was over-tasking his boys, and not seeing when the bow was too much strecthed. Paul Dombey, a delicate lad, succumbed to this strong mental pressure.

Mrs. Blimber, wife of the doctor, not learned, but wishing to be thought so. Her pride was to see the boys in the largest possible collars and stiffest possible cravats, which she deemed highly classical.

Cornelia Blimber, the doctor’s daughter, a slim young lady, who kept her hair short and wore spectacles. Miss Blimber “had no nonsense about her,” but had grown “dry and sandy with working in the graves of dead languages.” She married Mr. Feeder, B.A., Dr. Blimber’s usher.—Dickens: Dombey and Son (1846).

Blind Author (A). Robert Wauchope, appointed archbishop of Armagh by Paul III., in 1543, was blind from his birth, and died 1551.

Blind Bard on the Chian Strand (The). So Coleridge calls Homer. Byron calls him “The blind old man of Scio’s rocky isle,” in his Bride of Abydos. Also calle d “The man of Chios,” Melesigenês, Mæonidês, etc. (See these words.)

Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green, Henry, son and heir of sir Simon de Montfort. At the battle of Evesham the barons were routed, Montfort slain, and his son Henry left on the field for dead. A baron’s daughter discovered the young man, nursed him with care, and married him. The fruit of the marriage was “pretty Bessee, the beggar’s daughter.” Henry de Montfort assumed the garb and semblance of a blind beggar, to escape the vigilance of king Henry’s spies.

N.B.—Day produced, in 1659, a drama called The Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green; and S. Knowles, in 1834, produced his amended drama on the same subject. There is [or was], in the Whitechapel Road, a public-house sign called the Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green.—History of Sign-boards. (See Blinde.)

Blind Chapel Court (Mark Lane, London) is a corruption of Blanch Apple [ton]. In the reign of Richard II. it was part of the manor of a knight named Appleton.

Blind Emperor (The), Ludovig III. of Germany (830, 890–934).

Blind Harper (The), John Parry, who died 1739.

J. Stanley, musician and composer, was blind from his birth (1713–1786).

Blind Harry, a Scotch minstrel of the fifteenth century, blind from infancy. His epic of Sir William Wallace runs to II, 861 lines. He was minstrel in the court of James IV.

Blind Mechanician (The). John Strong, a great mechanical genius, was blind from his birth. He died at Carlisle, aged 66 (1732–1798).

BlindMen’s Dinner. (See Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, p. 116.) The joke forms the subject of one of Sacchetti’s tales. It is also told by Sozzini; but is of Indian origin.

Blind Naturalist (The), F. Hüber (1750–1830).