owing him, confides to him
every item of his amour, and tells him how cleverly he has duped
Ford by being carried out in a buck-basket before his very
face.--Shakespeare, _Merry Wives of Windsor_ (1601).

BROOKE (_Dorothea_), calm, queenly heroine of _Middlemarch_, by George
Eliot.

BROO'KER, the man who stole the son of Ralph Nickleby out of revenge,
called him "Smike," and put him to school at Dotheboy's Hall,
Yorkshire.--C. Dickens, _Nicholas Nickleby_ (1838).

BROOKS OF SHEFFIELD, name by which Murdstone alludes to David
Copperfield in novel of that name.

BROTHER JON'ATHAN. When Washington was in want of ammunition, he
called a council of officers; but no practical suggestion being
offered, he said, "We must consult brother Jonathan," meaning his
excellency Jonathan Trumbull, the elder governor of the state of
Connecticut. This was done, and the difficulty surmounted. "To consult
brother Jonathan" then became a set phrase, and "Brother Jonathan"
became the "John Bull" of the United States.--J. R. Bartlett,
_Dictionary of Americanisms_.

BROTHER SAM, the brother of lord Dundreary, the hero of a comedy based
on a German drama, by John Oxenford, with additions and alterations by
E. A. Sothern and T. B. Buckstone.--Supplied by T. B. Buckstone, Esq.

BROWDIE (_John_), a brawny, big-made Yorkshire corn-factor, bluff,
brusque, honest, and kind-hearted. He befriends poor Smike, and is
much, attached to Nicholas Nickleby. John Browdie marries Matilda
Price, a miller's daughter.--C. Dickens, _Nicholas Nickleby_ (1838).

BROWN (_Hablot_) illustrated some of Dickens's novels and took the
pseudonym of "Phiz" (1812-).

_Brown (Jonathan)_, landlord of the Black Bear at Darlington. Here
Frank Osbaldistone meets Rob Roy at dinner.--Sir W. Scott, _Rob Roy_
(time, George I.).

_Brown (Mrs.)_, the widow of the brother-in-law of the Hon. Mrs.
Skewton. She had one daughter, Alice Marwood, who was first cousin to
Edith (Mr. Dombey's second wife). Mrs. Brown lived in great poverty,
her only known vocation being to "strip children of their clothes,
which she sold or pawned."--C. Dickens, _Dombey and Son_ (1846).

_Brown (Mrs.)_, a "Mrs. John Bull," with all the practical sense,
kind-heartedness, absence of conventionality, and the prejudices of a
well-to-do but half-educated Englishwoman of the middle shop class.
She passes her opinions on all current events, and travels about,
taking with her all her prejudices, and despising