BERENI’CE (4 syl.), sister-wife of Ptolemy III.  She vowed to sacrifice her hair to the gods if her husband returned home the vanquisher of Asia.  On his return, she suspended her hair in the temple of the war-god, but it was stolen the first night, and Conon of Samos told the king that the winds had carried it to heaven, where it still forms the seven stars near the tail of Leo, called Coma Berenices.

Pope, in his Rape of the Lock, has borrowed this fable to account for the lock of hair cut from Belinda’s head, the restoration of which the young lady insisted upon.

Bereni’ce (4 syl.), a Jewish princess, daughter of Agrippa.  She married Herod king of Chalcis, then Polemon king of Cilicia, and then went to live with Agrippa II. her brother.  Titus fell in love with her and would have married her, but the Romans compelled him to renounce the idea, and a separation took place.  Otway (1672) made this the subject of a tragedy called Titus and Berenice; and Jean Racine (1670), in his tragedy of Berenice, has made her a sort of Henriette d’Orleans.

(Henriette d’Orleans, daughter of Charles I. of England, married Philippe due d’Orleans, brother of Louis XIV.  She was brilliant in talent and beautiful in person, but being neglected by her husband, she died suddenly after drinking a cup of chocolate, probably poisoned.)

Berenice, heroine of a tragic-comic fantasy by Edgar Allan Poe, in which Berenice’s teeth hold a position as conspicuous as ghastly (1845).

BERINGHEN (The Sieur de), an old gourmand, who preferred patties to treason; but cardinal Richelieu banished him from France, saying: 

  Sleep not another night in Paris,
  Or else your precious life may be in danger.

  Lord Lytton, Richelieu (1839).

BERIN’THIA, cousin of Amanda; a beautiful young widow attached to colonel Townly.  In order to win him she plays upon his jealousy by coquetting with Loveless.—­Sheridan, A Trip to Scarborough (1777).

BERKE’LEY (The Old Woman of), a woman whose life had been very wicked.  On her death-bed she sent for her son who was a monk, and for her daughter who was a nun, and bade them put her in a strong stone coffin, and to fasten the coffin to the ground with strong bands of iron.  Fifty priests and fifty choristers were to pray and sing over her for three days, and the bell was to toll without ceasing.  The first night passed without much disturbance.  The second night the candles burnt blue and dreadful yells were heard outside the church.  But the third night the devil broke into the church and carried off the old woman on his black horse.—­R.  Southey, The Old Woman of Berkeley (a ballad from Olaus Magnus).

Dr. Sayers pointed out to us in conversation a story related by Olaus Magnus of a witch whose coffin was confined by three chains, but nevertheless was carried off by demons.  Dr. Sayers had made a ballad on the subject; so had I; but after seeing The Old Woman of Berkeley, we awarded it the preference.—­W.  Taylor.