BAKER (The), and the “Baker’s Wife.”  Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette were so called by the revolutionary party, because on the 6th October, 1789, they ordered a supply of bread to be given to the mob which surrounded the palace at Versailles, clamoring for bread.

BALAAM (2 syl.), the earl of Huntingdon, one of the rebels in the army of the duke of Monmouth.

  And, therefore in the name of dulness, be
  The well-hung Balaam.

  Dryden, Absalom and Achitophel.

Balaam, a “citizen of sober fame,” who lived near the monument of London.  While poor he was “religious, punctual, and frugal;” but when he became rich and got knighted, he seldom went to church, became a courtier, “took a bribe from France,” and was hung for treason.—­Pope, Moral Essays, iii.

BALAAM AND JOSAPHAT, a religious novel by Johannes Damascenus, son of Almansur. (For plot, see JOSAPHAT.)

BALACK, Dr. Burnet, bishop of Salisbury, who wrote a history called Burnet’s Own Time, and History of the Reformation.—­Dryden and Tate, Absalom and Achitophel, ii.

BALAFRE (Le), alias Ludovic Lesly, an old archer of the Scottish Guard at Plessis les Tours, one of the castle palaces of Louis XI.  Le Balafre is uncle to Quentin Durward.—­Sir W. Scott, Quentin Durward (time, Edward IV.).

Henri, son of Francois second duke of Gruise, was called Le Balafre ("the gashed"), from a frightful scar in the face from a sword-cut in the battle of Dormans (1575).

BALAM, the ox on which the faithful feed in paradise.  The fish is called Nun, the lobes of whose liver will suffice for 70,000 men.

BALAN, brother of Balyn or Balin le Savage, two of the most valiant knights that the world ever produced.—­Sir T. Malory, History of Prince Arthur, i. 31 (1470).

Balan, “the bravest and strongest of all the giant race.”  Amadis de Gaul rescued Gabrioletta from his hands.—­Vasco de Lobeira, Amadis de Gaul, iv. 129 (fourteenth century).

BALANCE (Justice), father of Sylvia.  He had once been in the army, and as he had run the gauntlet himself, he could make excuses for the wild pranks of young men.—­G.  Farquhar, The Recruiting Officer (1704).

BALAND OF SPAIN, a man of gigantic strength, who called himself Fierabras.—­Mediaeval Romance.

BALATSU-USUR, the name given to the captive Jew Daniel in Babylon, meaning “May Bel protect his life!”

Prostrate upon his royal face, prostrate before the court, the queen, the people—­down like a pleading conscience or a suppliant faith, Nebuchadrezzar the Great lay in the dust, and worshipped him right royally.

“Thou art the Master of the Magicians!” said the king.  “For thou commandest the power of thy God and thou controllest the spirit of man!” ...