BARBY ELSTER, sharp-tongued and sweet-hearted “help” in the Rossiter family in Susan Warner’s Queechy.  She considers herself her employers’ more-than-equal and loses no opportunity of expressing the conviction.—­(1852.)

BARCLAY OF URY, an Aberdeen laird, persecuted as a “Quaker coward” by a mob of former friends and dependents, offers no resistance and
  refuses defence from the sword of an ancient henchman.

  “Is the sinful servant more
  Than his gracious Lord who bore
  Bonds and stripes in Jewry?”

  J.G.  Whittier, Barclay of Ury.

BARCO’CHEBAH, an antichrist.

  Shared the fall of the antichrist Barcochebar.—­Professor
  Selwin, Ecce Homo.

BARD OF AVON, Shakespeare, born and buried at Stratford-upon-Avon (1564-1616).

Bard of Ayrshire, Robert Burns, a native of Ayrshire (1759-1796).

Bard of Hope, Thomas Campbell, author of The Pleasures of Hope (1777-1844).

Bard of the Imagination, Mark Akenside, author of The Pleasures of the Imagination (1721-1770).

Bard of Memory, S. Rogers, author of The Pleasures of Memory (1762-1855).

Bard of Olney, W. Cowper [Coo’-per], who lived for many years at Olney, in Bucks (1731-1800).

Bard of Prose, Boccaccio.

  He of the hundred tales of love.

  Byron, Childe Harold, iv. 56 (1818).

Bard of Rydal Mount, William Wordsworth, who lived at Rydal Mount; also called “Poet of the Excursion,” from his principal poem (1770-1850).

Bard of Twickenham, Alexander Pope, who lived at Twickenham (1688-1744).

BARDELL (Mrs.), landlady of “apartments for single gentlemen” in Groswell Street.  Here Mr. Pickwick lodged for a time.  She persuaded herself that he would make her a good second husband, and on one occasion was seen in his arms by his three friends.  Mrs. Bardell put herself in the hands of Messrs. Dodson and Fogg (two unprincipled lawyers), who vamped up a case against Mr. Pickwick of “breach of promise,” and obtained a verdict against the defendant.  Subsequently Messrs. Dodson and Fogg arrested their own client, and lodged her in the Fleet.—­C.  Dickens, The Pickwick Papers (1836).

BARDE’SANIST (4 syl.), a follower of Barde’san, founder of a Gnostic sect in the second century.

BARDO BARDI, aged blind scholar, father of Romola.  She is his colaborer in the studies he pursues despite his infirmity.—­George Eliot, Romola.

BAR’DOLPH, corporal of captain sir John Falstaff, in 1 and 2 Henry IV. and in The Merry Wives of Windsor.  In Henry V. he is promoted to lieutenant, and Nym is corporal.  Both are hanged.  Bardolph is a bravo, but great humorist; he is a lowbred, drunken swaggerer, wholly without principle, and always poor.  His red, pimply nose is an everlasting joke with sir John and others.  Sir John in allusion thereto calls Bardolph “The Knight of the Burning Lamp.”  He says to him, “Thou art our admiral, and bearest the lantern in the poop.”  Elsewhere he tells the corporal he had saved him a “thousand marks in links and torches, walking with him in the night betwixt tavern and tavern.”—­Shakespeare.