Tower
of Tillietudlem.

_Old major Miles Bellenden_, brother of lady Margaret.

_Miss Edith Bellenden_, granddaughter of lady Margaret, betrothed to
lord Evendale, of the king's army, but in love with Morton (a leader
of the covenanters and the hero of the novel). After the death of
lord Evendale, who is shot by Balfour, Edith marries Morton, and this
terminates the tale.--Sir W. Scott, _Old Mortality_ (time, Charles
II.).

BELLERO'PHON was falsely accused by Antea, wife of Proetos, King of
Argos, and the enraged husband sent him to Lycia, to King Iobates, the
father of Antea, with sealed tablets, asking that the bearer might be
put to death. Iobates sent the youth on dangerous errands, but he came
off unharmed from all. Among other exploits he killed the Chimaera and
slew the Amazons. Later, he tried to mount to Olympus on the winged
horse Pegasus, but he fell and wandered about in melancholy madness
on the Aleian field until he died. This peculiar form of madness is
called _morbus Bellerophonteus_. Homer tells the story of Bellerophon
in the Iliad, Book VI. Milton alludes to him, _Paradise Lost_, VII.
15-20. Hawthorne has told the story of the Chimaera in _A Wonder Book._

BELLE'RUS is the name of a personage invented by Milton as the
supposed guardian of Land's End in Cornwall, the Bellerium of the
Romans. In questioning as to where the body of the drowned Lycidas
q.v. has been carried by the waves, he asks:

Or whether thou to our moist vows denied
Sleep'st by the fable of Bellerus old.

_Lycidas_, 159-60.

BELLE'S STRATAGEM (_The_). The "belle" is Letitia Hardy, and her
stratagem was for the sake of winning the love of Doricourt, to whom
she had been betrothed. The very fact of being betrothed to Letitia
sets Doricourt against her, so she goes unknown to him to a
masquerade, where Doricourt falls in love with "the beautiful
stranger." In order to accomplish the marriage of his daughter, Mr.
Hardy pretends to be "sick unto death," and beseeches Doricourt to wed
Letitia before he dies. Letitia meets her betrothed in her masquerade
dress, and unbounded is the joy of the young man to find that "the
beautiful stranger" is the lady to whom he has been betrothed.--Mrs.
Cowley, _The Belle's Stratagem_ (1780).

BELLE THE GIANT. It is said that the giant Belle mounted on his sorrel
horse at a place since called mount Sorrel. He leaped one mile, and
the spot on which he lighted was called Wanlip (one-leap); the