Chapter BRIDGET to Britannia of B by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Briskie, disguised under the name of Putskie. A captain in the Moscovite army, and brother of general Archas “the loyal subject” of the great-duke of Moscovia.—Fletcher: The Loyal Subject (1618).

Brissotin, one of the followers of Jean Pierre Brissot, and advanced revolutionist. The Brissotins were subsequently merged in the Girondists, and the word dropped out of use.

Bristol Boy (The), Thomas Chatterton the poet, born at Bristol. Also called “The Marvellous Boy.” Byron calls him “the wondrous boy who perished in his pride” (1752–1770).

Bristol Man’s Gift, a present of something which the giver pronounces to be of no use or no value to himself.

Britain, according to the British triads, was called first “The green waterfort” (Clas Merddyn); this was before it was populated. Its next name was “The honey isle” (Y Vêl Ynys). But after it was brought under one head by Prydain son of Aedd, it was called “Prydain’s isle” (Ynys Prydain).

It has also been called “Hyperborea,” “Atlantica,” “Cassiteris,” “Romana,” and “Thulê.” Also “Yr Ynys Wen” (“the white island”), and some will have that the word Albion is derived from the Latin, albus, “white,” and that the island was so called from “its white cliffs”—an etymology only suited to fable.

Bochart says Baratanic (“country of tin”), a Phœnician word, contracted into B’ratan’, is the true derivation.

N.B.—Britain, in Arthurian romance, always means Brittany. England is called Logris or Logria.

Britain (Benjamin), in Dickens’s Battle of Life (1846).

Britannia. The Romans represented the island of Great Britain by the figure of a woman seated on a rock, from a fanciful resemblance thereto in the general outline of the island. The idea is less poetically expressed by “An old witch on a broomstick.”

(The effigy of Britannia on our copper coin dates from the reign of Charles II. (1672), and was engraved by Roetier from a drawing by Evelyn)

It is not known for certainty which of the court favourites of Charles II. is meant to be represented by the effigy. Some say Frances Theresa Stuart, duchess of Richmond; others think it is intended for Barbara Villiers, duchess of Cleveland; but as the effigy was first struck on the coin in 1672, and Louise de Querouaille was created duchess of Portsmouth in 1673, probably the French favourite was honoured by being selected for the academy figure.

Britannia, the name of the ship under the command of captain Albert, in Falconer’s poem called The Shipwreck. It was dashed to pieces on the projecting verge of cape Colonna, the most southern point of Attica (1756).