Bartholomew (bär-thol´ō-mū) Fair.—A comedy by Ben Jonson, valuable for its lively pictures of the manners of the times. It is chiefly remarkable for the exhibition of odd humors and tumblers’ tricks.
Basilisco (bas-i-lis´kō).—Soliman and Perseda, old play. A boasting knight who became so popular with his foolish bragging that his name grew into a proverb.
Bassanio (ba-sä´ni-ō).—Merchant of Venice, Shakespeare. The lover of Portia who won her when he chose a leaden casket in which her portrait was hidden.
Bath, Major.—Amelia, Henry Fielding. A noble-minded gentleman, pompous in spite of poverty, and striving to live according to the “dignity and honor of man.” He tries to hide his poverty under bold speech even when found doing menial service.
Battle, Sarah.—Essays of Elia, Lamb. Sarah considered whist the business of life and literature one of the relaxations. When a young gentleman, of a literary turn, said to her he had no objection to unbend his mind for a little time by taking a hand with her, Sarah declared, “Whist was her life business; her duty; the thing she came into the world to do. She unbent her mind afterward over a book.”
Beatrice (bē´a-tris, or -trēs).—Divine Comedy, Dante. Daughter of an illustrious family of Florence for whom Dante had a great love. In his poem she is represented as being his guide through paradise. Beatrice is also the name of the heroine of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing.
Beauty and the Beast.—Fairy tale by Mme. Villeneuve. Oft repeated in stories for children, Beauty and the Beast are known in many forms. In the original tale young and lovely Beauty saved the life of her father by putting herself in the power of a frightful but kind-hearted monster, whose respectful affection and deep melancholy finally overcame her aversion to his hideousness, and induced her to consent to marry him. By her love Beast was set free from enchantment and allowed to assume his own form, a handsome and graceful young prince.
Bede, Adam.—Adam Bede, George Eliot. An ideal workman, hero of the novel.
Bedivere (bed´i-vēr).—Tales of the Round Table. Bedivere was the last knight of King Arthur’s Round Table.
Beggar’s Opera, The, by John Gay, first acted at Lincoln’s Inn Fields, in 1727, is the first, and perhaps the best, specimen of English ballad opera. It was acted in London amid unprecedented applause, and obtained scarcely less popularity through the provinces. It was said that it made Rich, the manager, gay; and Gay, the poet, rich. Hazlitt says of the Opera, that “it is indeed a masterpiece of wit and genius, not to say of morality.”