E. Cobham Brewer 1810–1897. Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. 1898.
Bramble (Matthew).
A testy, gouty, benevolent, country squire, in Smollett’s novel of Humphrey Clinker. Colman has introduced the same character as Sir Robert Bramble in his Poor Gentleman. Sheridan’s “Sir Anthony Absolute” is of the same type.
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“A’n’t I a baronet? Sir Robert Bramble at Blackberry Hall, in the county of Kent? ’Tis time you should know it, for you have been my clumsy, two-flsted valet-de-chambre these thirty years.”—The Poor Gentleman, iii. 1.
