BREWSTER (William). The Life and Death of William Brewster, elder in the first church planted in Massachusetts, was written by his colleague William Bradford (1630-1650).  After a feeling eulogy upon his departed friend, he remarks, parenthetically:  “He always thought it were better for ministers to pray oftener and divide their prayers, than be long and tedious in the same (except upon solemn and special occasions, as in days of humiliation and the like).  His reason was that the hearts and spirits of all, especially the weak, continue and stand bent (as it were) so long towards God as they ought to do in that duty without flagging and falling off.”  This is a remarkable deliverance for a day when two-hour prayers were the rule, and from a man who, his biographer tells us, “had a singular good gift in prayer.”

BRIANA, the lady of a castle who demanded for toll “the locks of every lady and the beard of every knight that passed.”  This toll was established because sir Crudor, with whom she was in love, refused to marry her till she had provided him with human hair sufficient to “purfle a mantle” with.  Sir Crudor, having been overthrown in knightly combat by sir Calidore, who refused to pay “the toll demanded,” is made to release Briana from the condition imposed on her, and Briana swears to discontinue the discourteous toll.—­Spenser, Faery Queen, vi. 1 (1596).

BRIANOR (Sir), a knight overthrown by the “Salvage Knight,” whose name was sir Artegal.—­Spenser, Faery Queen, iv. 5 (1596).

BRIAREOS (4 syl.), usually called Briareus [Bri.a.ruce], the giant with a hundred hands.  Hence Dryden says, “And Briareus, with all his hundred hands” (Virgil, vi.); but Milton writes the name Briareos (Paradise Lost, i. 199).

  Then, called by thee, the monster Titan came,
  Whom gods Briareos, men AEgeon name. 
  Pope, Iliad, i.

BRIAREUS (Bold), Handel (1685-1757).

BRIAREUS OF LANGUAGES, cardinal Mezzofanti, who was familiar with fifty-eight different languages.  Byron calls him “a walking polyglot” (1774-1849).

BRIBOCI, inhabitants of Berkshire and the adjacent counties.—­Caesar, Commentaries.

BRICK (Jefferson), a very weak pale young man, the war correspondent of the New York Rowdy Journal, of which colonel Diver was editor.—­C.  Dickens, Martin Chuzzlewit (1844).

BRIDE OF ABYDOS (The), Zuleika (3 syl.), daughter of Giaffer (2 syl.), pacha of Abydos.  She is the troth-plight bride of Selim; but Giaffer shoots the lover, and Zuleika dies of a broken heart.—­Byron, Bride of Abydos (1813).

BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR, Lucy Ashton, in love with Edgar master of Ravenswood, but compelled to marry Frank Hayston, laird of Bucklaw.  She tries to murder him on the bridal night, and dies insane the day following.—­Sir W. Scott, The Bride of Lammermoor (time, William III.).