She charmed at once and tamed the heart, Incomparable Britomart.

Sir W. Scott.

BRITON (Colonel), a Scotch officer, who sees donna Isabella jump from a window in order to escape from a marriage she dislikes.  The colonel catches her, and takes her to the house of donna Violante, her friend.  Here he calls upon her, but don Felix, the lover of Violante, supposing Violante to be the object of his visits, becomes jealous, till at the end the mystery is cleared up, and a double marriage is the result.—­Mrs. Centlivre, The Wonder (1714).

BROB’DINGNAG, a country of enormous giants, to whom Gulliver was a tiny dwarf.  They were as tall “as an ordinary church steeple,” and all their surroundings were in proportion.

Yon high church steeple, yon gawky stag.  Your husband must come from Brobdingnag.  Kane O’Hara, Midas.

BROCK (Adam), in Charles XII., an historical drama by J. E. Planche.

BROKEN-GIRTH-FLOW (Laird of), one of the Jacobite conspirators in The Black Dwarf, a novel by sir W. Scott (time, Anne).

BROKER OF THE EMPIRE (The).  Darius, son of Hystaspes, was so called by the Persians from his great care of the financial condition of his empire.

BROMIA, wife of Sosia (slave of Amphitryon), in the service of Alcmena.  A nagging termagant, who keeps her husband in petticoat subjection.  She is not one of the characters in Moliere’s comedy of Amphitryon.—­Dryden, Amphitryon (1690).

BROMTON’S CHRONICLE (time, Edward III.), that is, “The Chronicle of John Bromton” printed among the Decem Scriptores, under the titles of “Chronicon Johannis Bromton,” and “Joralanensis Historia a Johanne Bromton,” abbot of Jerevaux, in Yorkshire.  It commences with the conversion of the Saxons by St. Augustin, and closes with the death of Richard I. in 1199.  Selden has proved that the chronicle was not written by Bromton, but was merely brought to the abbey while he was abbot.

BRONTES (2 syl.), one of the Cyclops, hence a blacksmith generally.  Called Bronteus (2 syl.), by Spenser, Faery Queen, iv. 5 (1596).

  Not with such weight, to frame the forky brand,
  The ponderous hammer falls from Brontes’ hand.
  Jerusalem Delivered, xx. (Hool’s translation).

BRONZELY (2 syl.), a mere rake, whose vanity was to be thought “a general seducer.”—­Mrs. Inchbald, Wives as they Were, and Maids as they Are (1797).

BRONZOMARTE (3 syl.), the sorrel steed of sir Launcelot Greaves.  The word means a “mettlesome sorrel.”—­Smollett, Sir Launcelot Greaves (1756).

BROOK (Master), the name assumed by Ford when sir John Falstaff makes love to his wife.  Sir John, not knowing him, confides to him every item of his amour, and tells him how cleverly he has duped Ford by being carried out in a buck-basket before his very face.—­Shakespeare, Merry Wives of Windsor (1601).