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); thence he leaped a second mile, but in so doing "burst all" his girths, whence the spot was called Burst-all; in the third leap he was killed, and the spot received the name of Bellegrave. BELLEUR', companion of Pinac and Mirabel ("the wild goose"), of stout blunt temper; in love with Rosalu'ra, a daughter of Nantolet.--Beaumont and Fletcher, _The Wild Goose Chase_ (1652). BELL HAMLYN, young American girl, engaged to one man and in love with another, in _Kismet_, by George Fleming (Julia C. Fletcher, 1877). BELLICENT, daughter of Gorloïs lord of Tintag'il and his wife Ygernê or Igerna. As the widow married Uther the pen-dragon, and was then the mother of king Arthur, it follows that Bellicent was half-sister of Arthur. Tennyson in _Gareth and Lynette_ says that Bellicent was the wife of Lot king of Orkney, and mother of Gaw'ain and Mordred, but this is not in accordance either with the chronicle or the history, for Geoffrey in his _Chronicle_ says that Lot's wife was Anne, the sister (not half-sister) of Arthur (viii. 20, 21), and sir T. Malory, in his _History of Prince Arthur_ says: King Lot of Lothan and Orkney wedded Margawse; Nentres, of the land of Carlot, wedded Elain; and that Morgan le Fay was [_Arthurs_] third sister.--Pt. i. 2, 35, 36. BEL'LIN, the ram, in the beast-epic of _Reynard the Fox_. The word means "gentleness" (1498). BELLINGHAM, a man about town.--D. Boucicault, _After Dark_. BEL'LISANT, sister of king Pepin of France, and wife of Alexander emperor of Constantinople. Being accused of infidelity, the emperor banished her, and she took refuge in a vast forest, where she became the mother of Valentine and Orson.--_Valentine and Orson_.