Chapter Bead-house to Bear of B by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

iii. p. 128.

    “Blue beans” are bullets or shot. Three small bullets or large shot in a bladder would make a very good rattle for a child. (See Blue Beans.)
    Full of beans. Said of a fresh and spirited horse.
   To get beans. To incur reproof.
   I'll give him beans. A licking; a jolly good hiding. A very common phrase. Probably from the French referred to above, meaning as good as I got; “beans for his peas.”

Bean Feast Much the same as wayz-goose (q.v.). A feast given by an employer to those he employs.

Bean Goose (The). A migratory bird which appears in England in the autumn of the year, and is so named from a mark on its bill like a horse-bean. It is next in size to the Grey Lag-goose. The term comes from the northern counties where the bean (goose) is common.

“Espèce d'oie dont les mandibules sont taillées en forme de feéveroles.”- Royal Dictionnaire.

Bean-king (The). Rey de Habas, the child appointed to play the part of king on twelfth-night. In France it was at one time customary to hide a bean in a large cake, and he to whom the bean fell, when the cake was distributed, was for the nonce the bean king, to whom all the other guests showed playful reverence. The Greeks used beans for voting by ballot.
   Bean-King's festival. Twelfth-night. (See above.

Bear (A). (Stock Exchange), a fall, or a speculator for a fall. To operate for a bear. To realise a profitable bear.
   Bearing the market is using every effort to depress the price of stocks in order to buy it.
   The arena of bears and bulls, i.e. the Stock Exchange.
    Dr. Warton says the term bear came from the proverb of “Selling the skin before you have caught the bear,” and referred to those who entered into contracts in the South Sea Scheme to transfer stock at a stated price. (See Bull.)

“So was the huntsman by the bear oppressed,
Whose hide he sold before he caught the beast.”
Waller: Battle of the Summer Islands, c. ii.

   A Bear account. A speculation in stocks on the chance of a fall in the price of the stock sold, with a view of buying it back at a lower price or receiving the difference. (See Bulls.)

Bear (The). Albert, margrave of Brandenburg. He was also called “The Fair” (1106-1170).
   The bloody Bear, in Dryden's poem called The Hind and Panther, means the Independents.

“The bloody bear, an independent beast,
Unlicked to form, in groans her hate expressed.” Pt. i. 35, 36.

   The Great Bear and Little Bear. The constellations so called are specimens of a large class of blunders founded on approximate sounds. The Sanskrit rakh means “to be bright;” the Greeks corrupted the word into arktos, which means a bear; so that the “bear” should in reality be the “bright ones.” The fable is that Calisto, a nymph of Diana, had two sons by Jupiter, which Juno changed into bears, and Jupiter converted into constellations.

“The wind-shaked surge, with high and monstrous mane,
Seems to cast water on the burning bear,
And quench the guards of th'ever-fixed pole.”
Shakespeare: Othello, ii. 1.

“'Twas here we saw Calisto's star retire
Beneath the waves, unawed by Juno's ire.”
Camoens: Lusiad, book v.

   The Bear or Northern Bear. Russia.

“France turns from her abandoned friends a fresh,
And soothes the bear that growls for patriot flesh.” Campbell: Poland, Stanza 5.

   A Bridled Bear. A young nobleman under the control of a travelling tutor. (See Bear-Leader.)
   The Bear and Ragged Staff. A public-house sign in compliment to Warwick, the king-maker, whose cognisance it was. The first earl was Arth or Arthgal, of the Round Table, whose cognisance was a bear, because artk means a bear (Latin, urs'). Morvid, the second earl, overcame, in single combat, a mighty giant, who came against him with a club, which was a tree pulled up by the roots, but stripped of its branches. In remembrance of his victory over the giant he added “the ragged staff.”
   The Bear and the Tea-kettle (Kamschatka). Said of a person who injures himself by foolish rage. One day a bear entered a hut in Kamschatka, where a kettle was on the fire. Master Bruin went to the kettle, and smelling at it burnt his nose, being greatly irritated, he seized the kettle with his paws, and