It has been wondered why Fielding should have chosen to leave the stain of illegitimacy on the birth of his hero ... but had Miss Bridget been privately married ... there could have been no adequate motive assigned for keeping the birth of the child a secret from a man so reasonable and compassionate as Allworthy.—­Encyc.  Brit. Art.  “Fielding.”

Bridget (Mrs.), in Sterne’s novel called The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gent. (1759).

Bridget (Mother), aunt of Catherine Seyton, and abbess of St. Catherine.—­Sir W. Scott, The Abbot (time, Elizabeth).

Bridget (May), the milkwoman at Falkland Castle.—­Sir W. Scott, Fair Maid of Perth (time, Henry IV.).

BRIDGEWARD (Peter), the bridgekeeper of Kennaquhair ("I know not where").—­Sir W. Scott, The Abbot (time, Elizabeth).

Bridgeward (Peter), warder of the bridge near St. Mary’s Convent.  He refuses a passage to father Philip, who is carrying off the Bible of lady Alice.—­Sir W. Scott, The Monastery (time, Elizabeth).

BRIDLE.  John Grower says that Rosiphele princess of Armenia, insensible to love, saw in a vision a troop of ladies splendidly mounted, but one of them rode a wretched steed, wretchedly accoutred except as to the bridle.  On asking the reason, the princess was informed that she was disgraced thus because of her cruelty to her lovers, but that the splendid bridle had been recently given, because the obdurate girl had for the last month shown symptoms of true love.  Moral—­Hence let ladies warning take—­

Of love that they be not idle, And bid them think of my bridle. Confessio Amantis ("Episode of Rosiphele,” 1325-1402).

BRIDLEGOOSE (Judge), a judge who decided the causes brought before him, not by weighing the merits of the case, but by the more simple process of throwing dice.  Rabelais, Pantagruel, iii. 39 (1545.)

BRIDLESLY (Joe), a horse-dealer at Liverpool, of whom Julian Peveril buys a horse.—­Sir W. Scott, Peveril of the Peak (time, Charles II.).

BRIDOISON [Bree.dwoy.zong], a stupid judge in the Mariage de Figaro, a comedy in French, by Beaumarchais (1784).

BRIDOON (Corporal), in lieutenant Nosebag’s regiment.—­Sir W. Scott, Waverley (time, George II.).

BRIENNIUS (Nicephorus), the Caesar of the Grecian empire, and husband of Anna Comnena (daughter of Alexius Comnenus, emperor of Greece).—­Sir W. Scott, Count Robert of Paris (time, Rufus).

BRIGADORE (4 syl.), sir Guyon’s horse.  The word means “Golden saddle.”—­Spenser, Faery Queen, v. 3 (1596).

BRIGANTES (3 syl.), called by Drayton Brigants, the people of Yorkshire, Lancashire, Westmoreland, Cumberland, and Durham.

  Where in the Britons’ rule of yore the Brigants swayed,
  The powerful English established ...  Northumberland [Northumbria]. 
  Drayton, Polyolbion, xvi. (1613).