BILLINGSGATE (3 syl.).  Beling was a friend of “Brennus” the Gaul, who owned a wharf called Beling’s-gate.  Geoffrey of Momnouth derives the word from Belin, a mythical king of the ancient Britons, who “built a gate there,” B.C. 400 (1142).

BILLY BARLOW, a merry Andrew, so-called from a semi-idiot, who fancied himself “a great potentate.”  He was well known in the east of London, and died in Whitechapel workhouse.  Some of his sayings were really witty, and some of his attitudes truly farcical.

BILLY BLACK, the conundrum-maker.—­The Hundred-pound Note.

When Keeley was playing “Billy Black” at Chelmsford, he advanced to the lights at the close of the piece, and said, “I’ve one more, and this is a good un.  Why is Chelmsford Theatre like a half-moon?  D’ye give it up?  Because it is never full.”—­Records of a Stage Veteran.

BIMATER ("two-mother").  Bacchus was so called because at the death of his mother during gestation, Jupiter put the foetus into his own thigh for the rest of the time, when the infant Bacchus was duly brought forth.

BIMBISTER (Margery), the old Ranzelman’s spouse.—­Sir W. Scott, The Pirate (time, William III.).

BIND’LOOSE (John), sheriff’s clerk and banker at Marchthorn.—­Sir W. Scott, St. Ronan’s Well (time, George III.).

BINGEN (Bishop of), generally called bishop Hatto.  The tale is that during a famine, he invited the poor to his barn on a certain day, under the plea of distributing corn to them; but when the barn was crowded he locked the door and set fire to the building; for which iniquity he was himself devoured by an army of mice or rats.  His castle is the Mouse-tower on the Rhine.

  They almost devour me with kisses,
  Their arms about me entwine,
  Till I think of the bishop of Bingen,
  In his Mouse-tower on the Rhine.

  Longfellow, Birds of Passage.

BINKS (Sir Bingo), a fox-hunting baronet, and visitor at the Spa.

Lady Binks, wife of sir Bingo, but before marriage Miss Rachael Bonnyrigg.  Visitor at the Spa with her husband.—­Sir W. Scott, St. Ronan’s Well (time, Greorge III.).

BI’ON, the rhetorician, noted for his acrimonious and sharp sayings.

  Bioneis sermonibus et sale nigro.

  Horace, Epist. ii. 2, 60.

BIONDEL’LO, one of the servants of Lucentio the future husband of Bianca (sister of “the shrew").  His fellow-servant is Tra’nio.—­Shakespeare, Taming of the Shrew (1594).

BIORN, the son of Heriulf, a Northman, who first touched the shores of the New World.

  Across the unpathwayed seas,
  Shot the brave prow that cut on Vinland sands
  The first rune in the Saga of the West.

James Russell Lowell, The Voyage to Vinland.

BIRCH (Harvey), a prominent character in The Spy, a novel by J.F. 
Cooper.