Chapter Barbason to Bark of B by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

N.B. - The Barbers' Hall stood in Monkwell Street, Cripplegate. The last barber-surgeon in London was Middleditch, of Great Suffolk Street, in the Borough. He died 1821.

"To this year" (1541), says Wornum ... "belongs the Barber-Surgeons' picture of Henry (VIII) granting a charter to the Corporation. The barbers and surgeons of London, originally constituting one company, had been separated, but were again, in the 32 Henry VIII, combined into a single society and it was the ceremony of presenting them with a new charter which is commemorated by Holbein's picture, now in their hall in Monkwell Street."

Barbican (The) or Barbacan The outwork intended to defend the drawbridge in a fortified town or castle (French, barbacane). Also an opening or loophole in the wall of a fortress, through which guns may be fired.

Barbier Un barbier rase l'autre (French). Caw me and I'll caw thee. One good turn deserves another. One barber shaves another.

Barcarole (3 syl.) A song sung by Venetian barcaroli, as they row their gondolas. (Italian, barcarolo, a boatman.)

Barcelona A). A fichu, piece of velvet for the neck, or small neck-tie, made at Barcelona, and common in England in the first quarter of the nineteenth century. Also a neckcloth of some bright colour, as red with yellow spots.

"And on this handkerchief so starch and white
She pinned a Barcelona black and tight." Peter Pindar: Portfolio (Dinah).

"A double Barcelona protected his neck." - Scott: Peveril of the Peak (Prefatory Letter.)

Barclayans (See Bereans .)

Barcochebah or Barchochebas (Shimeon). A fanatical leader of the Jews who headed a revolt of the Jews against the Romans A.D. 132, took Jerusalem in 132, and was slain by Julius Severus in an assault of Bethel, A.D. 135. (Didot: Nouvelle Biographie Universelle.)

"Shared the fall of the Antichrist Barcochebah." - Professor Seeley: Ecce Homo.

Bardesanists Followers of Bardesanes, of Edessa, founder of a Gnostic sect in the second century. They believed that the human body was ethereal till it became imbruted with sin. Milton, in his Comus, refers to this: -

"When Lust
By unchaste looks, loose
gestures, and foul talk,
But most by lewd and lavish acts of sin,
Lets in defilement to the inward parts,
The soul grows clotted
by contagion,
Imbodies and imbrutes."

Bardit The ancient German chant, which incited to war.

Bardo de Bardi A wealthy Florentine scholar, father of Romola, in George Eliot's Romola, a novel (1863).

Bardolph One of Falstaff's inferior officers. Falstaff calls him "the knight of the burning lamp," because his nose was so red, and his face so "full of meteors." He is a low-bred, drunken swaggerer, without principle, and poor as a church mouse. (Merry Wives; Henry IV , i., ii.)

"We must have better assurance for Sir John than Bardolf's. We like not the security." - Lord Macaulay.

Bards The oldest bardic compositions that have been preserved are of the fifth century; the oldest existing manuscript is the Psalter of Cashel, a collection of bardic legends, compiled in the ninth century by Cormac Mac Culinan, bishop of Cashel and king of Munster.

Bard of Avon. Shakespeare, who was born and buried at Stratford-upon-Avon. Also called "The bard of all times." (1564--1616.)

Bard of Ayrshire. Robert Burns, a native of Ayrshire. (1759--1796.)

Bard of Hope. Thomas Campbell, author of The Pleasures of Hope. (1777--1844.)