BELIA’NIS OF GREECE (Don), the hero of an old romance of chivalry on the model of Am’adis de Gaul.  It was one of the books in don Quixote’s library, but was not one of those burnt by the cure as pernicious and worthless.

“Don Belianis,” said the cure, “with its two, three, and four parts, hath need of a dose of rhubarb to purge off that mass of bile with which he is inflamed.  His Castle of Fame and other impertinences should be totally obliterated.  This done, we would show him lenity in proportion as we found him capable of reform.  Take don Belianis home with you, and keep him in close confinement.”—­Cervantes, Don Quixote, I. i. 6 (1605).

BELINDA, niece and companion of lady John Brute.  Young, pretty, full of fun, and possessed of L10,000.  Heartfree marries her.—­Vanbrugh, The Provoked Wife (1697).

Belin’da, the heroine of Pope’s Rape of the Lock.  This mock heroic is founded on the following incident:—­Lord Petre cut a lock of hair from the head of Miss Arabella Fermor, and the young lady resented the liberty as an unpardonable affront.  The poet says Belinda wore on her neck two curls, one of which the baron cut off with a pair of scissors borrowed of Clarissa, and when Belinda angrily demanded that it should be delivered up, it had flown to the skies and become a meteor there.  (See BERENICE.)

Belinda, daughter of Mr. Blandford, in love with Beverley the brother of Clarissa.  Her father promised sir William Bellmont that she should marry his son George, but George was already engaged to Clarissa.  Belinda was very handsome, very independent, most irreproachable, and devotedly attached to Beverley.  When he hinted suspicions of infidelity, she was too proud to deny their truth, but her pure and ardent love instantly rebuked her for giving her lover causeless pain.—­A.  Murphy, All in the Wrong (1761).

Belin’da, the heroine of Miss Edgeworth’s novel of the same name.  The object of the tale is to make the reader feel what is good, and pursue it (1803).

Belin’da, a lodging-house servant-girl, very poor, very dirty, very kind-hearted, and shrewd in observation.  She married, and Mr. Middlewick the butter-man set her husband up in business in the butter line.—­H.  J. Byron, Our Boys (1875).

BELINE (2 syl.), second wife of Argan the malade imaginaire, and step-mother of Angelique, whom she hates.  Beline pretends to love Argan devotedly, humors him in all his whims, calls him “mon fils,” and makes him believe that if he were to die it would be the death of her.  Toinette induces Argan to put these specious protestations to the test by pretending to be dead.  He does so, and when Beline enters the room, instead of deploring her loss, she cries in ecstasy: 

“Le ciel en soit loue!  Me voila delivree d’un pesant fardeau!... de quoi servait-il sur la terre?  Un homme incommode a tout le monde, malpropre, degoutant ... mouchant, toussant, crachant toujours, sans esprit, ennuyeux, de manvaise humeur, fatiguant sans cesse les gens, et grondant jour et nuit servantes et valets.”—­(iii. 18).