Part 68

Black Frank, Johnson’s negro servant, Frank Barber

Blackmore, Sir Richard, a wordy poetaster (d. 1729), who was the butt of all contemporary wits

Blair, Dr. Hugh, Scotch divine an critic, encouraged Macpherson to publish the Ossian poetry (1718-1800)

Blatant cast, the, does not really die. See the end of Faery Queen vi.

Bobadil and Beseus, Pistol and Parolles, braggart characters in Jonson’s Every Man in His Humour, Beaumont and Fletcher’s King and no King, Shakespeare’s Henry V., and All’s Well that Ends Well, respectively

Boileau, Nicholas, the great French critic, whose Art of Poetry long constituted the canons of French and English literary art (1636-1711)

Bolt Court, on the N. side of Fleet Street. Johnson lived at No. 8 from 1777 till his death in 1784

Borodino, 70 miles west from Moscow, where the Russians made a stand against Napoleon, 1812

Boscan, a Spanish imitator of Petrarch Alva’s tutor; served in Italy (1485-1533)

Bourne, Vincent, an usher at Westminster School, mentioned early in the “Essay on Warren Hastings,”

Boyle, Hon. Charles, edited the Letters of Phalaris which gave rise to the famous controversy with Bentley, for which, see the essay on Sir William Temple (vol. iii. of this edition)

Bradamante, in Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso, a Christian lady who loves the Saracen knight, Ruggiero

Brothers, Richard, a fanatic who held that the English were the lost ten tribes of Israel (1757-1824)

Brownrigg, Mrs., executed at Tyburn (1767) for abusing and murdering her apprentices

Bruhl, Count, the favourite of Augustus III. of Saxony who enriched himself at the risk of ruining his master and his country.

Bucer, Martin, a German reformer who mediated between Luther and Zwingli, and became Professor of Divinity at Cambridge (1491-1551)

Buchanan, George, Scottish scholar and humanist; tutor to Mary Queen of Scots and James VI. (1506-82)

Burn, Richard, an English vicar compiled several law digests among them the Justice of the Peace, (1709-85)

Burnet, Gilbert, bishop of Salisbury, supported the claims of William of Orange to the English throne, and wrote the History of my Own Times (1643-1715)

Button’s, on the south side of Russell Street, Covert Garden succeeded Will’s as the wits’ resort

Butts, Dr. physician-in-ordinary to Henry VIII. (d. 1545) and one of the characters in Shakespeare’s Henry VIII.

CACUS, the mythological giant who stole the oxen of Hercules

Camaldoli, Order of, founded by St. Romauld, a Benedictine (eleventh century) in the Vale of Camaldoli among the Tuscan Apennines

Cambray, Confederates of, the pope, the emperor. France and Spain who by the League of Cambray combined to attack Venice

Campbell, Dr. John, a miscellaneous political and historical writer (1708~75)

Capreae, or Capri, a small island nineteen miles south from Naples, the favourite residence of Augustus and Tiberius, and the scene of the latter’s licentious orgies

Capuchins, a branch of the monastic order of the Franciscans

Carlile, Richard, a disciple of Tom Paine’s who was repeatedly imprisoned for his radicalism. He worked especially for the freedom of the Press (1790-1843)