BROWN OF CALAVERAS, a dissipated blackleg and ne’er-do-weel, whose handsome wife, arriving unexpectedly from the East, retrieves his fortune and risks his honor by falling in love with another man, a brother-gambler.—­Bret Harte, Brown of Calaveras (1871).

BROWN THE YOUNGER (Thomas), the nom de plume of Thomas Moore in The Two-Penny Post-Bag, a series of witty and very popular satires on the prince regent (afterwards George IV.), his ministers, and his boon companions.  Also in The Fudge Family in Paris, and in The Fudges in England (1835).

BROWNE (General), pays a visit to lord Woodville.  His bedroom for the night is the “tapestried chamber,” where he sees the apparition of “the lady in the sacque,” and next morning relates his adventure.—­Sir W. Scott, The Tapestried Chamber (time, George III.).

BROWNLOW, a most benevolent old gentleman, who rescues Oliver Twist from his vile associates.  He refuses to believe in Oliver’s guilt of theft, although appearances were certainly against him, and he even takes the boy into his service.—­C.  Dickens, Oliver Twist (1837).

BROWNS. To astonish the Browns, to do or say something regardless of the annoyance it may cause, or the shock it may give to Mrs. Grundy.  Anne Boleyn had a whole clan of Browns, or “country cousins,” who were welcomed at court in the reign of Elizabeth.  The queen, however, was quick to see what was gauche, and did not scruple to reprove them for uncourtly manners.  Her plainness of speech used quite to “astonish the Browns.”

BROXMOUTH (John), a neighbor of Happer the miller.—­Sir W. Scott, The Monastery (time, Elizabeth).

BRUCE (Mr. Robert), mate on a bark trading between Liverpool and St. John’s, N.B., sees a man writing in the captain’s cabin, a stranger who disappears after pencilling certain lines on the slate.  These prove a providential warning by which the vessel escapes certain destruction.  The story is told by Robert Dale Owen in Footfalls on the Boundary of Another World, and vouched for as authentic (1860).

Bruce (The), an epic poem by John Barbour (1320-1395).

BRUEL, the name of the goose in the tale of Reynard the Fox.  The word means the “Little roarer” (1498).

BRUIN, the name of the bear, in the beast-epic called Reynard the Fox.  Hence a bear in general.

The word means “the brown one” (1498).

Bruin, one of the leaders arrayed against Hudibras.  He is meant for one Talgol, a Newgate butcher, who obtained a captain’s commission for valor at Naseby.  He marched next to Orsin [Joshua Gosling, landlord of the bear-gardens at Southwark].—­S.  Butler, Hudibras, i. 3.

Bruin (Mrs. and Mr.), daughter and son-in-law to sir Jacob Jollup.  Mr. Bruin is a huge bear of a fellow, and rules his wife with scant courtesy.—­S.  Foote, The Mayor of Garratt (1763).