Chapter Bortell to Boustrapa of B by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Bortell to Boustrapa

Bortell, the bull, in the beast-epic called Reynard the Fox (1498).

Boscan-[Almogavà], a Spanish poet of Barcelona (1500–1543). His poems are generally bound up with those of Garcilasso. They introduced the Italian style into Castilian poetry.

Sometimes he turned to gaze upon his book,
Boscan, or Garcilasso.
   —Bryon: Don Juan, i. 95 (1819).

Boscobel, or the preservation and escape of Charles II. after the battle of Worcester. J. Blount (?) professes his account to be a truthful narrative. Ainsworth wrote a novel called Boscobel, or The Royal Oak (1872).

Sir W. Scott’s Woodstock contains an account of the escape of Charles II. after the battle of Worcester, and carries on the romance to the death of Cromwell, the return of the king, and his death.

Boscobel Tracts (The), relative to the hairbreadth escapes of Charles II. in the forty days between the battle of Worcester and his escape to France. Dr. Copleston, bishop of Llandaff, wrote the Introduction (1827).

Bosmina, daughter of Fingal king of Morven (north-west coast of Scotland).—Ossian.

Boss, of Arthurian legend, is Boscastle, in Cornwall, on the Bristol Channel. Bude is also in Cornwall, on the Bristol Channel.

When the long wave broke
All down the thundering shores of Bude and Boss.
   —Tennyson: Idylls of the King.

Bossu (Réné le), French scholar and critic (1631–1680).

And for the epic poem your lordship bade me look at, upon taking the length, breadth, height, and depth of it, and trying them at home upon an exact scale of Bossu’s, ’tis out, my lord, in every one of its dimensions.—Sterne (1768).

(I think Sterne means the Abbé Bossut, the mathematician. His critic tried the book on its “length, breadth, height, and depth;” or perhaps he wishes to confound the two authors.)

Bossut (Abbé Charles), a celebrated mathematician (1730–1814).

(Sir Richard Phillips assumed a host of popular names, amongst others that of M. l’Abbé Bossut in several educational works in French.)

Bostana, one of the two daughters of th e old man who entrapped prince Assad in order to offer him in sacrifice on “the fiery mountain.” His other daughter was named Cavama. The old man enjoined these two daughters to scourge the prince daily with the bastinado, and feed him with bread and water till the day of sacrifice arrived. After a time, the heart of Bostana softened towards her captive, and she released him. Whereupon his brother Amgiad, out of gratitude, made her his wife, and became in time king of the city in which he was already vizier.—Arabian Nights (“Amgiad and Assad”).

Bostock, a coxcomb, cracked on the point of aristocracy and family birth. His one and only inquiry is, “How many quarterings has a person got?” Descent from the nobility with him covers a multitude of sins, and a man is no one, whatever his personal merit, who “is not a sprig of the nobility.”—J. Shirley: The Ball (1642).

Bosworth Field, an historical poem in heroic couplets, by sir J. Beaumont (1629).

Botanic Garden (The), a poem in two parts, by Dr. Erasmus Darwin, with scientific and other notes (1791).