Chapter Bryce's Day to Bull of B by Brewer's Readers Handbook

The ghost of Buckingham tells Thomas Sackville that he and king Richard III. had so plotted together, and were so privy to each other’s guilt, that each sought to kill the other. Richard having discovered the treasonable designs of Buckingham, he [the duke] fled to John Banastar, a man who had received great favours of the duke, and professed himself his fast friend; but, for the sake of £1000 blood-money, Banastar betrayed the duke to John Mitton, sheriff of Shropshire, and Mitton delivered up the duke to the king.

Buckingham (Mary duchess of), introduced by sir W. Scott in Peveril of the Peak (time, Charles II.).

Bucklaw (The laird of), afterwards laird of Girnington. His name was Frank Hayston. Lucy Ashton plights her troth to Edgar master of Ravenswood, and they exchange love-tokens at the Mermaid’s Fountain; but her father, sir William Ashton, for mercenary motives, promises her in marriage to the laird of Bucklaw, and as she signs the articles Edgar suddenly appears at the castle. They return to each other their love-tokens, and Lucy in married to the laird; but on the wedding night the bridegroom is found dangerously wounded in the bridal chamber, and the bride hidden in the chimney-corner, insane. Lucy dies in convulsions, but Bucklaw recovers and goes abroad.—Sir W. Scott: The Bride of Lammermoor (time, William III.).

Buckle (Put into), put into pawn at the rate of 40 per cent. interest.

To talk buckle, to talk about marriage.

I took a girl to dinner who talked buckle to me, and the girl on the other side talked balls.—Véra, 154.

Bucklers-bury (London), so called from one Buckle, a grocer (Old and New London). In the reign of Elizabeth and long afterwards Bucklersbury was chiefly inhabited by druggists, who sold green and dried herbs. Hence Falstaff says to Mrs. Ford, he could not assume the ways of those “lisping hawthorn buds [i.e. young fops], who smell like Bucklers-bury in simple-time.”—Shakespeare: Merry Wives of Windsor, act iii. sc. 3 (1601).

Bude light, a light devised by Mr. Gurney of Bude, in Cornwall. Intense light is obtained by supplying the burner with an abundant stream of oxygen. The principle of the Argand lamp is also a free supply of oxygen. Gurney’s invention is too expensive to be of general service, but an intense light is obtained by reflectors and refractors called Bude lights, although they wholly differ in principle from Gurney’s invention.

Buffoon (The Pulpit). Hugh Peters is so called by Dugdale (1599–1660).

Bug Bible (The), 1551. Matthew’s Bible is so called, because Psa. xci. 5 reads, “Thou shalt not be afraid of the bugges [bogies] by night.”

Bug Jargal, a negro, passionately in love with a white woman, but tempering the wildest passion with the deepest respect.—Hugo: Bug Jargal (a novel).

Bulbul, a nightingale, any singer of ditties. When, in The Princess (by Tennyson), the prince, disguised as a woman, enters with his two friends (similarly disguised) into the college to which no man was admitted, he sings; and the princess, suspecting the fraud, says to him, “Not for thee, O bulbul, any rose of Gulistan shall burst her veil,” i.e. “O singer, do not suppose that any woman will be taken in by such a flimsy deceit.” The bulbul loved the rose, and Gulistan means the “garden of rose.” The prince was the bulbul, the college was Gulistan, and the princess the rose sought.—Tennyson: The Princess, iv.

Bulbul-Hezar, the talking bird, which was joined in singing by all the song-birds in the neighbourhood. (See Talking Bird.)—Arabian Nights (“The Two Sisters,” the last story).