BULL-DOGS, the two servants of a university proctor, who follow him in his rounds to assist him in apprehending students who are violating the university statutes, such as appearing in the streets after dinner without cap and gown, etc.

BULLET-HEAD (The Great), George Cadoudal, leader of the Chouans (1769-1804).

BULLSEGG (Mr.), laird of Killancureit, a friend of the baron of Bradwardine.—­Sir W. Scott, Waverley (time, George II.).

BULMER (Valentine), titular earl of Etherington, married to Clara Mowbray.

Mrs. Ann Bulmer, mother of Valentine, married to the earl of Etherington during the life-time of his countess; hence his wife in bigamy.—­Sir W. Scott, St. Ronan’s Well (time, George III.).

BUMBLE, beadle of the workhouse where Oliver Twist was born and brought up.  A stout, consequential, hard-hearted, fussy official, with mighty ideas of his own importance.  This character has given to the language the word bumbledom, the officious arrogance and bumptious conceit of a parish authority or petty dignitary.  After marriage the high-and-mighty beadle was sadly henpecked and reduced to a Jerry Sneak.—­C.  Dickens, Oliver Twist (1837).

BUM’KINET, a shepherd.  He proposes to Grub’binol that they should repair to a certain hut and sing “Gillian of Croydon,” “Patient Grissel,” “Cast away Care,” “Over the Hills,” and so on; but being told that Blouzelinda was dead, he sings a dirge, and Grubbinol joins him.

  Thus wailed the louts in melancholy strain,
  Till bonny Susan sped across the plain;
  They seized the lass in apron clean arrayed,
  And to the ale-house forced the willing maid;
  In ale and kisses they forgot their cares,
  And Susan Blouzelinda’s loss repairs.

Gay, Pastoral, v. (1714).

(An imitation of Virgil’s Ecl. v.  “Daphnis.”)

BUMPER (Sir Harry), a convivial friend of Charles Surface.  He sings the popular song, beginning—­

  Here’s to the maiden of bashful fifteen,
  Here’s to the widow of fifty, etc.

Sheridan, School for Scandal (1777).

BUMPPO (Natty), the Leather Stocking of Cooper’s Pioneers; Hawk-Eye of The Last of the Mohicans; the Deer Slayer and the Pathfinder of the novels of those names; and the trapper of The Prairie, in which his death is recorded.  A white man who has lived so long with Indians as to surpass them in skill and cunning, retains native nobility of character, and in his countenance “an open honesty and total absence of guile” that inspires trust.

BUNCE (Jack), alias Frederick Altamont, a ci-devant actor, one of the crew of the pirate vessel.—­Sir W. Scott, The Pirate (time, William III.).

BUNCH (Mother), an alewife, mentioned by Dekker in his drama called Satiromastix (1602).  In 1604 was published Pasquil’s Jests, mixed with Mother Bunch’s Merriments.