BELTEN’EBROS (4 syl.).  Amadis of Graul assumes the name when he retires to the Poor Rock, after receiving a cruel letter from Oria’na his lady-love.—­Vasco de Lobeira, Amadis de Gaul, ii. 6 (before 1400).

One of the most distinguishing testimonies which that hero gave of his fortitude, constancy, and love, was his retiring to the Poor Rock when in disgrace with his mistress Oriana, to do penance under the name of Beltenebros or the Lovely Obscure.—­Cervantes, Don Quixote, I. iii. 11 (1605).

BELVIDE’RA, daughter of Priu’li a senator of Venice.  She was saved from the sea by Jaffier, eloped with him, and married him.  Her father then discarded her, and her husband joined the conspiracy of Pierre to murder the senators.  He tells Belvidera of the plot, and Belvidera, in order to save her father, persuades Jaffier to reveal the plot to Priuli, if he will promise a general free pardon.  Priuli gives the required promise, but notwithstanding, all the conspirators, except Jaffier, are condemned to death by torture.  Jaffier stabs Pierre to save him from the dishonor of the wheel, and then kills himself.  Belvidera goes mad and dies.—­Otway, Venice Preserved (1682).

BEN [LEGEND], sir Sampson Legend’s younger son, a sailor and a “sea-wit,” in whose composition there enters no part of the conventional generosity and open frankness of a British tar.  His slang phrase is “D’ye see,” and his pet oath “Mess!”—­W.  Congreve, Love for Love (1695).  I cannot agree with the following sketch:—­

What is Ben—­the pleasant sailor which Bannister gives us—­but a piece of satire ... a dreamy combination of all the accidents of a sailor’s character, his contempt of money, his credulity to women, with that necessary estrangement from home?...  We never think the worse of Ben for it, or feel it as a stain upon his character.—­C.  Lamb.

C. Dibdin says:  “If the description of Thom.  Doggett’s performance of this character be correct, the part has certainly never been performed since to any degree of perfection.”

BEN BOLT, old schoolmate with whom Thomas Dunn English exchanges reminiscences in the ballad, Ben Bolt, beginning: 

  Don’t you remember sweet Alice, Ben Bolt? 
  Sweet Alice, whose hair was so brown;
  Who wept with delight when you gave her a smile,
  And trembled with fear at your frown. (1845.)

BEN-HUR, a young Jew, who, for accidentally injuring a Roman soldier, is condemned to the galleys for life.  Escaping, after three years of servitude, through the favor of Arrius, a Roman Tribune, he seeks his mother and sister to find both lepers.  They are healed by Christ, whose devoted followers they become.—­Lew Wallace, Ben-Hur:  A Tale of the Christ (1880).

BEN ISRAEL (Nathan) or NATHAN BEN SAMUEL, the physician and friend of Isaac the Jew.—­Sir W. Scott, Ivanhoe (time, Richard I.).