I was also conueyed to their lodgings, which gathered tribute for the King of Denmarke, where I saw a pair of bilbowes; and I asked whether they were for the Lappians, (if neede were) and they said no, but onely for their owne company if they should chance to be vnruly. Id. Ib. vol. i. p. 295. Tell that brave man of hope, He shall the Mountford's find in th' head of all their troops,

To answer his proud braves; our bilbows be as good
As his, our arms as strong.-Drayton. Poly-Olbion, s. 22.
It was not so of old men took up trades,
That knew the craft they had been bred in right,
An honest bilboe-smith would make good blades.
B. Jonson. To my faithful Servant.

66

BILE. A. S. Bile, ulcus; Dut. Buyle; Ger. Buhel; Sw. Bald. Junius says, Buyle vel puyle est tuber, a puylen; protuberare, prominere.' Wachter, that Beul is a stroke, a blow; the mark made by a blow; a tumour; from the A. S. Bluan, to give a blow, to strike; yet he doubts whether the signification can be transferred from a tumour (a tuberculis) to an ulcer (ad ulcera). See BOIL. Applied to

An ulcerous tumour.

The liver minds his own affair;
Kindly supplies our public uses,
And parts and strains the vital juices;
Still lays some useful bile aside,

To tinge the chyle's insipid tide;
Else we should want both gibe and satire;
And all be burst with pure good-nature.-Prior. Alma, c.1.
Some of them [voracious animals] have the biliary duct
inserted into the pylorus.-Arbuthnot. On Aliments, c. 1.
Why bilious juice a golden light puts on,
And floods of chyle in silver currents run.
Garth. Dispensary, c. 1.
BILK. Mr. Gifford says, "Bilk seems to have
become a cant word about this (Ben Jonson's)

time, for the use of it is ridiculed by others, as well as Jonson. It is thus explained in Cole's English Dictionary, Bilk, nothing; also to deceive.' Lye, from the Goth. Bilaikan, which properly signifies insultando illudere.

To cheat, to defraud, to elude.

Tub. Hee will ha' the last word, though he take bilke for't. Hugh. Bilke? what's that?

Tub. Why nothing, a word signifying nothing; and borrow'd here to express nothing.

B. Jonson. Tale of a Tub, Act i. sc. 1. [He] was then ordered to get into the coach, or behind it, for that he wanted no instructors; but be sure you dog you, says he, don't you bilk me.-Spectator, No. 498. Patrons in days of yore, like patrons now, Expected that the bard should make his bow At coming in, and ev'ry now and then Hint to the world that they were more than men ; But, like the patrons of the present day, They never bilk'd the poet of his pay.

Churchill. Independence. BI-LITERAL. Consisting of, formed by, two letters, (literæ.)

It is the genius of the Sanscrit, and other languages of the same stock, that the roots of the verbs be almost universally biliteral.-Sir W. Jones. Fourth Anniversary Discourse.

BILL, v. A. S. Bile. Perhaps from the A. S. BILL, n. Pullian, to pull. The beak, that which pecketh; the bill, that which pulleth. So in Lat. Vellicare, (from vellere, to pull,) is to pull, as a bird does.

The bill, beak, or nib of a bird, the nose or snout of a beast or fish, the snout or beak of a ship, (Somner.)

To bill (met.), to fondle, to play the part of fond lovers.

And of a rauen, which was tolde,

Of nyne hondred wynter olde,

She toke the head, with all the bille.-Gower. Con. A. b. v.

No sooner had the bird the maiden eyde,
But, leaping on the rocke, downe from a bough
He takes a cherry up, (which he but now
Had hither brought, and in that place had laid
Till to the cleft his song had drawne the maid)
And flying with the small stem in his bill,
(A choicer fruit, than hangs on Bacchus' hill)
In fair Marina's bosom tooke his rest,
A heavenly seat fit for so sweet a guest:
Where Citherea's doves might billing sit,
And gods and men with envy look on it.
Browne. British Pastorals, s. 3.
On whose [the cup's] swelling sides, four handles fixed

were

And upon every handle sate, a pair of doves of gold; Some billing and some pecking meat.

Chapman. Homer. Iliad, b. xi. Forthwith from out the ark a raven flies And after him, a surer messenger, A dove sent forth once and agen to spie Green tree or ground whereon his foot may light: The second time returning, in his bill An olive leafe he brings, pacific signe.

Milton. Paradise Lost, b. xi. On the other side, Tom Faddle and his pretty spouse, wherever they come, are billing at such a rate, as they think must do our hearts good who behold 'em.

Spectator, No. 300.

His eyes with milder beauties beam, Than billing doves beside the stream.

Moore. Solomon, pt. iii.

O let them ne'er, with artificial note,
To please a tyrant, strain their little bill,
But sing what heaven inspires, and wander where they
will.-Beattie. The Minstrel, b. i.

BILL.
BILLETS.
BILLMAN.

}

A. S. Bill; Dut. Byl, Ger. Beil; which Skinner thinks is Securis rostrata, a beaked axe, so called from its great resemblance to the bill of a bird. Junius thinks billets are pieces of wood cut with a bill.

A hooked tool or weapon, to cut, mow, hew.

Agayne loke how vncomely a thyng it were if a philosophier would with his cloke & long beard scip about the stage, & play a parte in an interlude: or els holde a bill & a net in his hande in the place where the swordplayers are wont to fyght at vtteraunce, and syng theyr accustomed song. Udal. Mark, Pref. For where before tymes there were sent ouer, for the ayde and tuicyon of the tounes, and citees, brought vnder the obeysaunce of the English nacion thousands of men, apte and mete for the warre, and defence: now were sent into Fraunce, hundreds, yea scores, some rascall, and some not able to drawe a bow or carry a bill. Hall. Hen. VI. an. 14.

When that the stak of wood was reared vp
Under the ayre within the inward court
With clouen oke and billets made of fyrre,
With garlandes she doth all beset the place.

Surrey. Virgile. Æneis, b. i He in the mornynge caused the Mayre of the citie apparell in armure the beste and most coragious persones the citie: whiche brought to him iii. m. archers and iii. I bilmen besyde them that were deputed to defend the citie. Hall. Hen. IV. an. The souldiers Englishmen were all asleep except th watch, the which was slender; and yet the shout arise bowes and bils, bows and bils; which is a signification extreme defence, to avoide the present danger in all town of war.-Knox. History of Reformation, p. 91.

Cocceius Proculus a bilman of the garde had a suite wit his neighbour about a small parcell of ground, which la doubtfull betweene them, Otho with his owne money bough his neighbours whole ground, and freely bestowed it vpor him.-Savile. Tacitus. Historie, p. 18.

Enuy, when it is once conceiued in a malicious heart, is like fire in billets of juniper, which (they say) continues more yeares than one.-Bp. Hall. Cont. Anna & Peninna.

Firing the wood cut in length like our billets, at the ends, and joyning them together so close, that though no flame or fire did appeare, yet the heat continued without intermission. Sir F. Drake. Revived, p. 50. Come, pierce your old hogsheads, ne'er stint us in sherry, For this is the season to drink and be merry; That, reviv'd by good liquor and billets together, We may brave the loud storms, and defy the cold weather. Fenton. Imit. of Horace, b. i. Ode 9.

The ranks of bill-men in order to battle are always environ'd with pike men; for the bill-men serve specially for execution if the enemy be overthrown.

Oldys. Life of Ralegh. Though winter reigns, our labours never fail : Then all day long we hear the sounding flail; And oft the beetle's strenuous stroke descends, That knotty block-wood into billets rends.

Scott. Amabean, Ecl. 2. Spelman, Schedula, libellus, syngraphus; A. S. Bille unde Græco BILLET, v. Barb. BIAλos; Gal. and Bel. Billet. BILLET, n. The verb occurs in our old translators; Conquirere milites, in modern usage, to enlist, to enroll, to put or write upon the muster. roll; is rendered to bill by Sir Henry Savile. To billet a soldier or other person is by note, bill, or particular in writing, to appoint his quarters or lodgings.

A bill seems to be applied to a statement in writing of certain particular things, as a bill of indictment, a bill of costs, a bill of exchange; the first setting forth the particular offences charged; the second, the particular sums claimed; and the last, the particular sum to be paid, the time when, the place where, &c.

BILL, v. BILL, n.

This salfe cherl came forth a ful gret pas,
And saide; lord, if that it be your will,
As doth me right upon this pitous bill,
In which I plaine upon Virginius,
And if that he wol sayn it is not thus,
I wol it prove, and finden good witnesse,
That soth is that my bille wol expresse.

Chaucer. The Doctoures Tale, v. 12,008 He desyred to haue a byl drawen of the sayde resygnacion, that he myght be perfyght in the rehersall thereof. Fabyan, an. 1389. But This bil putteth he fourth in ye pore beggers name. we verely thinke if them self haue as much wit as thair proctour lacketh, they had leuer see their bylmaker burned, then their supplicacion spedde.

The father of Alenas denied, and said that he had cast in no lot for him; and it seemd unto every man that there was some error in writing of those billes or names for the lottery. Holland. Plutarch, p. 157. Item, you haue caused the sixt of October last past, at Hampton Court for the defence of your owne cause, diuers seditious bils to bee written in counterfeited hands, and secretly to be throwne abroad in diuers partes of this realme. Stowe. Edw. VI. an. 1540.

The billowing snow, and violence of the shower, That from the hills disperse their dreadful store, And o'er the vales collected ruin pour.

Prior. Solomon, b. iii. Their legions roam without a guide, Like vessels tost on ocean's billowy tide, Whose course unsteer'd the winds and tempests sway, And chance conducts them o'er the watry way. Lewis. Statius, b. x. Without this last [judgment] the vessel is tossed by every billow, and will find shipwreck in every breeze. Goldsmith. Citizen of the World. When first the kingdom to thy virtues due Rose from the billowy deep in distant view; When Albion's isle, old ocean's peerless pride, Towered in imperial state above the tide.

Warton. On the Marriage of the King. BIN. Skinner, and after him, Tooke, derive from the A. S. Pyndan, to enclose, to pen, or pin; to bin, differing merely in the application, from to pen or pin.

Any thing that encloses, that confines; as a corn-bin, a wine-bin.

Wel coude he kepe a garner and a binn
Ther was non auditour coude on him winne.
Chaucer. The Prologue, v. 595.
You might haue sene them throng out of the town:
Like ants, when they do spoile the bing of corne,
For winters dread, which they beare to their den.
Surrey. Virgile. Enæis, b. iv.

& I persecuted this way vnto the deathe byndinge and deliuerynge into prison both men and women.

Now sith it may nat goodly be withstound
And is a thing so virtuous in kind
Refuseth nought to loue for to ben bond
Sith as him seluen list he may not bind.

Chaucer. Troilus, b. i. And vnto thys your fathers set their hades & scales, binding them selues to compell the king to keepe thys contracte. Barnes. Workes, p. 89.

The hunter seelynge both his eyen, and byndinge his [the lyon's] legges strongly together, fynally daunteth his fiercenesse, and maketh hym obediente to his ensygnes and tokens. Sir T. Elyot. The Governor, b. ii. c. 14.

And likewyse they did calculate that whiche mighte transcende and be ouer the ioynters or byndinge togiders of the sayd bricques.-Nicolls. Thucydides, p. 76.

Well Jessica goe in, Perhaps I will returne immediately; Doe as I bid you, shut dores after you, fast binde fast finde, A prouerbe neuer stale in thriftie minde.

Shakespeare. Merchant of Venice, Act ii. sc. 5.

Euen in those actions whereby an offence may bee occasioned (though not giuen) charity bindes us to cleare both our owne name, and the conscience of others.

Bp. Hall. Cont. Altar of the Reubenites.

For he knows, that we have no strength but what he gives us; and therefore, as he binds burdens upon our shoulders, so he gives us strength to bear them.

Bp. Taylor, vol. i. Ser. 11. There grew by this a field of corne, high, ripe; where reapers wrought, And let thicke handfuls fall to earth; for which, some other brought Bands, and made sheaves. Three binders stood, and took the handfuls reapt

From boyes that gatherd quickly up; and by them armefuls heapt. Chapman. Homer. Iliad, b. xviii.

There too he form'd the likeness of a field Crowded with corn, in which the reapers toil'd Each with a sharp tooth'd sickle in his hand. Along the furrow here, the harvest fell

In frequent handfuls; there, they bound the sheaves.
Three binders of the sheaves their sultry task
All plied industrious, and behind them boys
Attended, filling with the corn their arms,
And off'ring still their bundles to be bound.-Couper. Ib.

There goes through the whole length of it a spacious walk of the finest gravel, made to bind and unite so firmly, that it seems one continued stone.-Tatler, No. 179.

Wood. Athena Oxon. Booksellers to the Reader. But in that he came so late thither as this author men

Bible, 1551. Ib.

Eroude had holden Jon, and bounden him, and puttide tions, and stayed so long there as three years, which he him into prisoun.-Wiclif. Matt. c. 14. afterwards mentions; and, as the biographical fry who follow have nibbled out of him ;-they are all mistaken, for he will presently appear two years before that time amounts to, in the wars abroad.-Oldys. Life of Ralegh.

We both are bound to follow heavens beheasts,
And tend our charges with obeisaunce meeke.
Spenser. Faeric Queene, b. iii. c. 6.

The law, by which all creatures else are bound,
Binds man the lord of all.

Cowper. Task, b. i.
Where in the croft the russet hay-rick stands,
The dextrous binder twists the sedgy bands,
Across the stack his sharp-edg'd engine guides,
And the hard mass in many a truss divides.

Scott. Amabean, Ecl. 2. BI-NO'MINOUS. Bis, Binus, two, and Nomen, a name.

Having two names.

Expect not I should reckon up their several names, because daily increasing, and many of them are binominous, as which, when they began to tire in sale, are quickned with a new name.-Fuller. Worthies. Norwich.

BIN-O'CULAR. Bis, Binus, two, and Oculus, an eye. See OCULAR.

Having two eyes. When applied to a telescope;-allowing or requiring the use of both

eyes.

So that as most animals are binocular, spiders for the most part octonocular, and some senocular; so flies, &c. are multocular, having as many eyes as there are perforations in their cornea.-Derham. Phys. Theol. b. viii. c. 3. note a.

As in certain circumstances we invariably see one object appear double, so in others we as invariably see two objects unite into one; and, in appearance, lose their duplicity. This is evident in the appearance of the binocular telescope. Reid. Inquiry, c. 6. s. 13. From Bios, life, and ypapew, to grave, to write. A writer of the lives of

BIO'GRAPHER. BIOGRAPHY. BIOGRAPHICAL. individuals.

The character of the author, that industrious and exact antiquary and biographer, Mr. Anthony Wood, is well known to the learned world.

His biographical writings teach philosophy, at once by precept and by example. His morals and his characters mutually explain and give force to each other. His sentiments of the duty of a biographer were peculiarly just and delicate.-Langhorne. Life of Plutarch.

Those parallel circumstances and kindred images, to which we readily conform our minds, are, above all other writings, to be found in narratives of the lives of particular persons; and therefore, no species of writing seems more worthy of cultivation than biography, since none can be more delightful or more useful, none can more certainly enchain the heart by irresistible interest, or more widely diffuse instruction to every diversity of condition.

Johnson. Rambler, No. 60.

You cannot compare the history of the same events as delivered by any two historians, but you will meet with many circumstances which, though mentioned by one, are either wholly omitted, or differently related by the other; and this observation is peculiarly applicable to biographical writings. Watson. Apology for Christianity.

BI-PARTITE. Bis, two, and Partiri, par-
BI'PARTED.
titus, to part.
Shared, separated, divided, into two parts.

By our by-parted crowne, of which
The moyetie is mine,

By God, to whome my soule must passe,
And so in time may thine,
I pray thee.
Warner. Albion's England, b. iv.
The divine fate is also bipartite; some theists supposing
God, both to decree and to doe all things in us (evil as well
as good) or by his immediate influence to determine all
actions, and so make them alike necessary to us.
Cudworth. Intellectual System, Pref. p. 1.

BI-PED. Gr. Atmous; Lat. Bipes. Bis, two, and pes, a foot in natural history as distinguished from quadruped.

:

Having two feet.

By which the man, when heav'nly life was ceas'd,
Became an helpless, naked, biped beast,
Forc'd, on a cursed earth, to fret and toil;
To brutes a native, him a foreign soil.

Byrom. An Epistle. BI-PE/NNATED. Bis, two, and Penna, a

wing.

Having two wings.

BI-SULCOUS. Bis and Sulcus; Gr. 'OXкOS, tractus, from 'EAкe, to draw. Applied in natural history to

Cloven footed animals.

Others there are which make good the paucity of their breed with the length and duration of their dayes, whereof there want not examples in animals uniparcus; first, in tisulcous or cloven hooft, as camels and beeves, whereof there is above a million annually slain in England. Brown. Vulgar Errours, b. vi. c. 6.

BITCH. Of uncertain etymology; applied to the female of the dog, and other animals; and also, opprobriously, to a woman.

He would set down in writing, and openly pronounce, that neither bitches loved their whelpes, nor mares their foles, hens their chickens, and other foules their little birds in respect of any reward, but freely, and by instinct of nature.-Holland. Plutarch, p. 180.

From below

By your true names of Stygian bitches you
I will call upp, and to the sunnes light leaue.
May. Lucan, b. vi.
A. S. Bitan; Dut. Byten; Ger.
Beissen; Sw. Bita.

To pinch, to squeeze, to gripe, to crush; to pierce, to penetrate, to wound, to pain as a bite, or any thing which biteth;-literally and metaphorically.

Bit, v. BIT, n. BITLESS. A bit; a small piece; so much bit or bitten: as a bit of bread; a bit of a bridle. To bit-to put the bit in the mouth, to cause to bite, gripe, or hold fast.

A Bite, (see the quotations from Swift and the Spectator,) applied met. from the simpleness, silliness, eagerness, with which fish bite or catch the bait, to that unsuspecting credulity which seizes and swallows whatever is imposed upon it.

BITE, v. BITE, n. BITER. BITING, n. 'BITINGLY.

And yspyted hym thour out myd an yrene spyte And rostede in thys grete fure, to abbe the folle byle. R. Gloucester, p. 207. Here now the grete dispute, & the vilenie That to ther bak gan bite of Scotland the clergie. R. Brunne, p. 335. And if ghe bite and ete ech othir, se ghe lest ghe be wastid ech fro othir.-Wiclif. Galatians, c. 5.

If ye bite and deuoure one another: take hede lest ye be consumed one of another.-Bible, 1551. Ib.

Right as a serpent hideth under floures,
Til he may see his time for to bite.

Chaucer. The Squieres Tale, v. 10,826.
What thing is than this power that may not done away
the bitings of businesse, ne eschew the pricks of dread.
Id. Boecius, b. iii.

Understandest thou not, that I am a philosopher. That other man answered again bytingly and said: I had wel vnderstand it, if thou hadst holden thy tongue stil.-Id. Ib. Spite drauc me into Boreas raigne,

Where hory frostes the frutes do bite, When hilles were spred and cuery plaine With stormy winters mantle white.

Surrey. The Constant Louer Lamenteth. And the Lord sayd vnto Moses: make the a serpent and hang it vp for a sygne, and let as many as are bitten, loke vpon it and they shall liue.-Bible, 1551. Num. c. 21.

Whiche message he dissimulated as litle to regarde as the bytung of a flee, as though the Englishmen in the battaile, whiche he knewe to be at hande, could do no enterprice (as it happened indeed) either necessary to be feared, or worthy to be remembered.-Hall. Hen. VII. an. 3.

For whether the braue gennet be broken with the bitte, or with the snaffle, whether he be brought in awe with a well mouthed.-Gascoigne. Advert. of the Author. spurre, or with a wand, all is one if hee prove readie and

Here hath beene wt mee a poore woman weepyng, and waylyng, and crying out, howe you haue vndone her, her poore husband, and her miserable children, for all they haue not one bitte of bread, towardes their foode, neither is she able to labour.-Barnes. Workes, p. 208.

The pointed steele arriuing rudely theare, His harder hide would neither pearce nor bight, But glauncing by forth passed forward right. Spenser. Faerie Queene, b. 1. c. 11. The oration thus framed to bite and to please the soldiers mindes, and the moderate seuerity vsed withall (for onely on two iustice was done) were gratefully accepted. Savile. Tacitus. Historie, p. 49.

They [the Brocks, &c.] will draw in their breath so hard, that their skin being stretched and puffed up withall, they will avoid the biting of the hound's tooth, and checke the wounding of the hunter; so as neither the one nor the other can take hold of them.-Holland. Plinie, b. viii. c. 38.

Of whose doore, her faire
And halfe transparent hand, receiu'd the key,
Bright, brazen; bitted passing curiously,
And at it hung a knob of iuory.

Chapman. Homer, Odysses, b. xxi.
Therefore that great Creator, well foreseeing
To what a monster she would soon be changing,
(Though lovely once, perfect and glorious being,)
Curb'd with her iron bit, and held from ranging.
P. Fletcher. The Purple Island, c. 5.
All the abject sorts
Of sorrow, I have varied, tumbl'd in dust, and hid;
No bit, no drop of sustenance toucht.

Chapman. Homer. Iliad, b. xxiv. There is an old poore man, Who after me, hath many a weary steppe Limpt in pure loue: till he be first suffic'd, Opprest with two weake euils, age, and hunger, I will not touch a bit.

Shakespeare. As You Like It, Act ii. sc. ".

The whyttiour that eny whight is. bote yf he worcke ther after

The biterour he shall a bygge.-Piers Plouhman, p. 275. The bitternesse that thow hast browe, now brouk hit thy self.

That ert doctour of deth, drynk that thou madest. Id. p. 361. That if ye han bitter envie, and stryvyngis ben in youre hertis, nyle ye haue glorie and be lieris agens the treuthe. Wiclif. James, c. 3. But if ye haue bytter enuyinge and strife in your hertes, reioyce not: neyther be against the trueth.-Bible, 1551. Ib.

All men are agreed to call vinegar sour, honey sweet, and aloes bitter; and as they are all agreed in finding these qualities in those objects, they do not in the least differ concerning their effects with regard to pleasure and pain. They all concur in calling sweetness pleasant, and sourness and bitterness unpleasant.

Burke. Sublime and Beautiful. On Taste.
My sweets

And she that sweetens all my bitters too,
Nature, enchanting Nature, in whose form
And lineaments divine I trace a hand
That errs not, and find raptures still renew'd,
Is free to all men-universal prize.-Cowper. Task, b. iii.
BITTERN. Dut. Butoor; Fr. Butor; Sp.
BITTOUR. Bitor; It. Bittore. Bos taurus,
or Boatus taurinus, from the noise it makes, when

its head is immersed in the mire. "In the territory about Arelate, there is a bird called Taurus, because it loweth like a bull or cow, for otherwise a small bird it is," (Plin. x. 42.)

And as a bitore bumbleth in the mire,
She laid hire mouth unto the water doun.
Bewrey me not, thou water, with thy soun,
Quod she, to thee I tell it, and no mo,
Min husbond hath long asses eres two.

Chaucer. The Wif of Bathes Tale, v. 6544. Then to the water's brink she laid her head, And as a biltour bumps within a reed, "To thee alone, O Lake," she said, "I tell, (And as thy queen, command thee to conceal :) Beneath his locks the king my husband wears A goodly royal pair of asses ears."-Dryden. Ib.

BITUME.

BITU'MED.

BITUMEN.

That a bittor maketh that mugient noyse, or as we term it bumping, by putting its bill into a reed as most beleive, or as Bellonius and Aldrovandus conceive, by putting the same in water or mud, and after a while retaining the ayr by suddenly excluding it again, is not so easily made out."

Browne. Vulgar Errours, b. iii. c. 27. Along thy glades, a solitary guest, The hollow sounding bittern guards its nest. Goldsmith. Deserted Village. Lat. Bitumen; Gr. Пirus, πιθος, πιθυς, from πιειν, premere, premendo, affigere, (Lennep,) to press, to fix, by pressure. See the example from Goldyng.

BITUMINATED.

BITU'MINOUS.

The common noun is Bitumen; May uses Bitume.

She buylded Babilon and enclosed it with a wall of bricke enterlayed with sand and bytumen, which is a kynd of slimye mortar, yssuing out of the ground, in diuers places of that countrye.-Goldyng. Justine, p. 2.

Mix with these Idaan pitch, quick sulphur, silver's spume, Sea onion, hellebore, and black bitume.-May. Where is Marcus Scaurus Theater, the bituminated walls of Babylon? And how little rests of the Pyramids of Egypt. Feltham, pt. i. Resolve 46.

2 Sail. Sir, we have a chest beneath the hatches, caulked
and bitumed ready.
Per. I thank thee.-Shakespeare. Pericles, Act iii. sc. 1.
Hee with a crew, whom like ambition joyns
With him or under him to tyrannize,
Marching from Eden towards the west, shall finde
The plain, wherein a black bituminous gurge
Boiles out from under ground, the mouth of hell.
Milton. Paradise Lost, b. xii.

A worse knob remains to be plained, how they [the trees] are preserved sound so many ages, seeing moisture is the mother of corruption, and such the ground wherein they are found: except any will say there is clammy bituminous substance about them, which fenceth them from being corrupted. Fuller. Worthies. Anglesey. The fabric seem'd a wood of rising green, With sulphur and bitumen cast between, To feed the flames.-Dryden. Palamon & Arcite, b. iii. The Maker! ample in his bounty, spread The various strata of earth's genial bed; Temper'd the subject mass with pregnant juice, And subtile stores of deep and sacred use; Salts, oils, and bitumen, and unctuous pitch, With precious, though mysterious, influence rich. Brooke. Universal Beauty, b. iii. The light Wood-nymphs; and those, who o'er the grots preside, Whose stores bituminous with sparkling fires, In summer's tedious absence, cheer the swains, Long sitting at the loom.-Dyer. The Fleece, b. iii. Bis, twice, and Valve,

BI-VALVE, adj.perhaps Voluæ, so called,

because they fold inwards,

n.

BIVALVED. BIVALVULAR. ral History; as the examples sufficiently explain. Bivalvular, or bivalve husk, is one that opens or gapes the whole length, like a door that opens in two parts. Miller. Gardener's Dictionary. Crabs, either of this kind, or allied to them, the antients believed to have been the consentaneous inmates of the pinnæ, and other bivalves.-Pennant. British Zoology.

With respect to the figure of shells, Aristotle has divided them into three kinds. There are first, the univalve, or turbinated, which consist of one piece, like the box of a snail; secondly, the bivalve, consisting of two pieces, united by a hinge, like an oyster.

Goldsmith. Animated Nature, vol. iv.

The muscle and the oyster appear to have but few distinctions, except in their shape and the power of motion in the former. Other bivalved shell fish, such as the cockle, the

scallop, and the razor-shell, have differences equally minute.

Id. Ib.

BI-VIOUS. Bis, twice, and via, a path or way. Having two paths or ways.

In bivious theorems, and Janus-faced doctrines, let virtuous considerations state the determination. Brown. Christian Morals, vol. ii. p. 3. BLAB, v. Junius refers to babbling; in BLAB, n. Dut. Labberen (be-labberen); BLABBER, V. Ger. Blapperen; perhaps from BLA'BBING, n. Labben; A. S. Lap-ian, to lap And or lip (differing indeed in the application). thus we approach Skinner's explanation: Labiis quicquid occurrit effutire,—

To pour forth from the lips whatever occurs to us; to tell all that we know; to prate or talk thoughtlessly, carelessly, without reserve or dis

crimination.

I could almoste A thousand olde stories thee aledge Of women loste, through false & fooles boste: Prouerbes canst thyself ynow, and woste Ayenst that vice for to ben a blabbe.

Chaucer. Troilus, b. iii. Thus the bishoppe wound hym self fro the duke when he had moste nede of his ayde, for if he had taried still ye duke had not made so many blabbes of his counsaill, nor put so

muche confidens in the Welshmen, nor yet so temerariously set forwarde without knowledge of his frendes as he dyd, whiche thinges were his sodaine ouerthrowe as they that knew it dyd reporte.-Hall. Rich. III. an. 2.

But the mother agayne on her part forasmuche as she perceyued and founde a certayne power of the goddeheade to glitter and shewe furthe in hym, was well contente to

followe the minde and ordering of her sonne: and being myndfull of her owne wise and discrete sobrenesse, dyd as yet make no blabbyng out abroade of any thing.

Udal. Luke, c. 2.

Whan the tounge lyeth still, if the mynde be not occupyed well, it were less euil saue for worldleye rebuke, to blabber on trifles somewhat sottishlye, than whyle they seeme sage, in kepyng silence, secretely paraduenture the meane whyle to fantasye wyth themself, fylthy sinful deuises.

Sir T. More. Workes, p. 75. Apel. (alone.) I fear me, Apelles, that thine eyes have blabbed that which thy tongue durst not.

Lyly. Alexander & Campaspe, Act. v. sc. 2. Such be his chance that to his love doth wrong; Unworthy he to have so worthy place, That cannot hold his peace and blabbing tongue; Light ioyes float on his lips, but rightly grace Sinckes deepe, and th' heart's low center doth imbrace. Spenser. Brittain's Ida, c. 6. To have reveal'd Secrets of men, the secrets of a friend, How hainous had the fact been, how deserving Contempt, and scorn of all, to be excluded All friendship and avoided as a blab, The mark of fool set on his front?

Milton. Samson Agonistes.

Loth to betray a husband and a prince, But she must burst, or blab; and no pretence Of honour ty'd her tongue from self-defence. Dryden. Wife of Bath's Tale. Tell us, you dead; will none of you, in pity To those you left behind, disclose the secret? Oh! that some courteous ghost would blab it out; What 'tis you are, and we must shortly be.-Blair. Grave. BLACK, v. Dut. & Ger. Black. Lve BLACK, N. says, the A. S. Blac, blac, BLACK, adj. bleck, is niger, bleak; that BLACKEN. Blac-ian, is pallere, nigrescere, BLACKING, n. and albescere, to be pale, to grow BLACKISH. or to become black; and also BLACKLY. to grow or become white. That BLACKNESS. Blac-an, is PALLIDUM colorem BLACKGUARD. inducere; nigrescere, denigrare, BLACKMOOR. to bleach; to put on a pale colour, to grow or become black, to blacken; to bleach. And that Blic-an, ablic-an, is, dealbare, fulgere, corruscare; (Blice, candidatus,) to whiten or be white, to shine, to glitter. Bleak and bleach, are used by our elder writers in correspondence with pale; and they seem to be applied when, by some withering, blighting (blicht-ing), agency (e. g. of weather), a chill and sterile paleness is produced; but we should not and do not hesitate to apply bleak, to a chill, and sterile blackness, effected by a similar withering and blighting agency; when verdure or fruitfulness are withered away, blight-ed (or blicht-ed); where these genial appearances of nature are lacking; and hence it admits of conjecture that Blac-an and Blic-an owe their origin to some northern word still preserved in the Dut. Leycken, and Eng. Lack, to lessen, to decrease, to wane or be wanting, to fade, to decay; to wither, or waste away. The common prefix Be, would form Beleyck-en, bleyck-en, to bleach; Bleyck, bleached or bicaked, pale: and by a mere difference of vowel, Blac, black, bleaked or blacked, dark; the application of black and bleach being to appearances differing in colour, though effected by the same or similar causes. See BLEACH, BLEAK, BLANCH, BLANK, BLENCH, BLINK. To blacken (met.) is to darken, obscure, overcloud, (sc.) the fairness of a character or reputation; to pollute, or soil, or sully its purity, its integrity.

Black is applied to that which has the dismalness, the gloominess, the forbiddingness of darkto that which is dark, dismal, gloomy, forbidding, fearful, dreadful.

ness;

a

Blackguard." In all great houses, but particularly in the royal residences, there were number of mean and dirty dependents, whose office it was to attend the wood-yard, sculleries, &c.; of these the most forlorn wretches seem to have been selected to carry coals to the kitchens, halls, &c. To this smutty regiment, who attended the progresses, and rode in the carts with the pots and kettles, the people, in derision, gave the name of blackguards." (B. Jonson's Works, by Gifford, ii. 169, note 5.)