Chapter Blaze to Blindmen's Dinner of B by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Blind Ditch (A). One which cannot be seen. Here blind means obscure, as a blind village.

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

Blind Harry A Scotch minstrel of the fifteenth century. His epic of Sir William Wallace runs to 11,861 lines.

Blind Hedge (A). A hawhaw hedge, not easily seen. Milton uses the word blind for concealed, as “In the blind mazes of this tangled wood.” (Comus, line 181.)

Blind old Man of Scio's rocky Isle Homer is so called by Byron in his Bride of Abydos.

Blind Magistrate (The). Sir John Fielding, knighted in 1761, was born blind. He was in the commission of the Peace for Middlesex, Surrey, Essex, and the liberties of Westminster.

Blindman's Holiday The hour of dusk, when it is too dark to work, and too soon to light candles.

Blindman's Lantern (The), or “Eyes to the Blind.” A walking stick with which a blind man guides his way. In French argot bougie means a walking stick.

Blindmen's Dinner (The). A dinner unpaid for. A dinner in which the landlord is made the victim. Eulenspiegel being asked for alms by twelve blind men, said, “Go to the inn; eat, drink, and be merry, my men; and here are twenty florins to pay the fare.” The blind men thanked him; each supposing one of the others had received the money. Reaching the inn, they told the landlord of their luck, and were at once provided with food and drink to the amount of twenty florins. On asking for payment, they all said, “Let him who received the money pay for the dinner,” but none had received a penny.