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Title: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Slice 2 - "Bohemia" to "Borgia, Francis"
Author: Various
Language: English
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Transcriber's notes:
(1) Numbers following letters (without space) like C2 were originally
printed in subscript. Letter subscripts are preceded by an
underscore, like C_n.
(2) Characters following a carat (^) were printed in superscript.
(3) Side-notes were relocated to function as titles of their respective
paragraphs.
(4) Macrons and breves above letters and dots below letters were not
inserted.
(5) The following typographical errors have been corrected:
ARTICLE BOMB: "It is probable that here the acid magma was expelled
in a very viscous condition, and the crust which formed on cooling
was burst by the steam from the occluded water." 'magma' amended
from 'magna'.
ARTICLE BONE: "If the surgeon is prompt in operating he may find
the disease limited to that spot." 'If' amended from 'It'.
ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA
A DICTIONARY OF ARTS, SCIENCES, LITERATURE
AND GENERAL INFORMATION
ELEVENTH EDITION
VOLUME IV, SLICE II
Bohemia to Borgia, Francis
ARTICLES IN THIS SLICE:
BOHEMIA BONER, ULRICH
BOHEMUND BO'NESS
BÖHMER, JOHANN FRIEDRICH BONFIGLI, BENEDETTO
BOHN, HENRY GEORGE BONFIRE
BÖHTLINGK, OTTO VON BONGARS, JACQUES
BOHUN BONGHI, RUGGERO
BOIARDO, MATTEO MARIA BONGO (tribe of Sudan)
BOIE, HEINRICH CHRISTIAN BONGO (West African bushbuck)
BOIELDIEU, FRANÇOIS ADRIEN BONHAM
BOIGNE, BENOÎT DE BONHEUR, ROSA
BOII BONHEUR DU JOUR
BOIL BONI
BOILEAU-DESPRÉAUX, NICOLAS BONIFACE, SAINT
BOILER BONIFACE
BOILING TO DEATH BONIFACE OF SAVOY
BOIS BRÛLÉS BONIFACIO
BOISÉ BONIFACIUS
BOISGOBEY, FORTUNÉ DU BONIN ISLANDS
BOISGUILBERT, PIERRE LE PESANT BONITZ, HERMANN
BOISROBERT, FRANÇOIS DE BONIVARD, FRANÇOIS
BOISSARD, JEAN JACQUES BONN
BOISSIER, MARIE LOUIS GASTON BONNAT, LÉON JOSEPH FLORENTIN
BOISSONADE DE FONTARABIE BONNE-CARRÈRE, GUILLAUME DE
BOISSY D'ANGLAS, FRANÇOIS DE BONNER, EDMUND
BOITO, ARRIGO BONNET, CHARLES
BOIVIN, FRANÇOIS DE BONNET
BOKENAM, OSBERN BONNEVAL, CLAUDE ALÉXANDRE
BOKHARA (state) BONNEVILLE, BENJAMIN L. E.
BOKHARA (capital of Bokhara) BONNEY, THOMAS GEORGE
BOKSBURG BONNIER, ANGE ELISABETH LOUIS ANTOINE
BOLAN PASS BONNIVET, GUILLAUME GOUFFIER
BOLAS BONOMI, GIUSEPPI
BOLBEC BONONCINI, GIOVANNI BATTISTA
BOLE BONONIA
BOLESLAUS I. BONPLAND, AIMÉ JACQUES ALEXANDRE
BOLESLAUS II. BONSTETTEN, CHARLES VICTOR DE
BOLESLAUS III. BONUS
BOLETUS BONZE
BOLEYN, ANNE BOOK
BOLGARI BOOKBINDING
BOLI BOOKCASE
BOLINGBROKE, HENRY ST JOHN BOOK-COLLECTING
BOLIVAR, SIMON BOOK-KEEPING
BOLÍVAR (Colombia) BOOK-PLATES
BOLÍVAR (state of Venezuela) BOOK-SCORPION
BOLIVIA BOOKSELLING
BOLKHOV BOOLE, GEORGE
BOLL BOOM
BOLLANDISTS BOOMERANG
BOLOGNA, GIOVANNI DA BOONE, DANIEL
BOLOGNA BOONE
BOLSENA BOONVILLE
BOLSOVER BOORDE, ANDREW
BOLSWARD BOOS, MARTIN
BOLT BOOT
BOLTON, DUKES OF BOÖTES
BOLTON, EDMUND BOOTH, BARTON
BOLTON (county of England) BOOTH, CHARLES
BOLTON ABBEY BOOTH, EDWIN [THOMAS]
BOLZANO, BERNHARD BOOTH, WILLIAM
BOMA BOOTH
BOMB BOOTHIA
BOMBARD BOOTLE
BOMBARDIER BOOTY
BOMBARDMENT BOPP, FRANZ
BOMBARDON BOPPARD
BOMBAY CITY BORA
BOMBAY FURNITURE BORACITE
BOMBAY PRESIDENCY BORAGE
BOMBAZINE BORAGINACEAE
BOMBELLES, MARC MARIE BORÅS
BOMBERG, DANIEL BORAX
BONA, JOHN BORDA, JEAN CHARLES
BONA BORDAGE
BONA DEA BORDEAUX
BONA FIDE BORDEN, SIR FREDERICK WILLIAM
BONALD, LOUIS GABRIEL AMBROISE BORDEN, ROBERT LAIRD
BONAPARTE BORDENTOWN
BONAR, HORATIUS BORDERS, THE
BONAVENTURA, SAINT BORDIGHERA
BONCHAMPS, CHARLES ARTUS BORDONE, PARIS
BOND, SIR EDWARD AUGUSTUS BORE
BOND BOREAS
BONDAGER BOREL, PETRUS
BONDE, GUSTAF BORELLI, GIOVANNI ALFONSO
BONDED WAREHOUSE BORGÅ
BONDU BORGHESE
BONE, HENRY BORGHESI, BARTOLOMMEO
BONE BORGIA, CESARE
BONE BED BORGIA, FRANCIS
BONE-LACE
BOHEMIA[1] (Ger. _Böhmen_, Czech _Cechy_, Lat. _Bohemia_), a kingdom and
crownland of Austria, bounded N.E. by Prussian Silesia, S.E. by Moravia
and Lower Austria, S. by Upper Austria, S.W. by Bavaria and N.W. by
Saxony. It has an area of 20,060 sq. m., or about two-thirds the size of
Scotland, and forms the principal province of the Austrian empire.
Situated in the geographical centre of the European continent, at about
equal distance from all the European seas, enclosed by high mountains,
and nevertheless easily accessible through Moravia from the Danubian
plain and opened by the valley of the Elbe to the German plain, Bohemia
was bound to play a leading part in the cultural development of Europe.
It became early the scene of important historical events, the avenue and
junction of the migration of peoples; and it forms the borderland
between the German and Slavonic worlds.
_Geography._--Bohemia has the form of an irregular rhomb, of which the
northernmost place, Buchberg, just above Hainspach, is at the same time
the farthest north in the whole Austro-Hungarian monarchy. From an
orographic point of view, Bohemia constitutes amongst the Austrian
provinces a separate massif, bordered on three sides by mountain ranges:
on the S.W. by the Böhmerwald or Bohemian Forest; on the N.W. by the
Erzgebirge or Ore Mountains; and on the N.E. by the Riesengebirge or
Giant Mountains and other ranges of the Sudetes. The Böhmerwald, which,
like its parallel range, the Sudetes, has a general direction from S.E.
to N.W., is divided by the pass of Neumark into two parts. The northern
part (Czech _Cesky Les_) attains in the massif of Czerkov an altitude of
3300 ft., but the southern part (Czech _Sumava_) is at the same time the
highest and the most picturesque part of the range, including on the
Bohemian side the Osser (4053 ft.) and the Plöckenstein (4513 ft.),
although the highest peak, the Arber (4872), is in Bavaria. The beauty
of this range of mountains consists in its pure crystalline torrents, in
the numerous blue lakes of its valleys, and above all in the magnificent
forests of oak and pine with which its sides are covered. The pass of
Neumark, called also the pass of Neugedein, has always been the
principal approach to Bohemia from Germany. It stretches towards the
east, above the small town of Taus (Czech _Domazlice_, once called
_Tuhost_, i.e. the Fortress), and is the place where some of the
bloodiest battles in the history of Bohemia were fought. Here in the
first half of the 7th century Samo repulsed the invading hordes of the
Avars, which threatened the independence of the newly-settled Slavonic
inhabitants; here also Wratislas II. defeated the German emperor Henry
III. in a two-days' battle (August 22 and 23, 1040). It was in the same
place that the Hussites gained in 1431 one of their greatest victories
against a German army of crusaders, and another similar German army was
vanquished here by George of Podebrad.
The Erzgebirge (Czech _Rudo Horí_), which form the north-west frontier,
have an average altitude of 2600 ft., and as their highest point, the
Keilberg (4080 ft.). The numerous mining villages, the great number of
cultivated areas and the easy passes, traversed by good roads, give
those mountains in many places the aspect of a hilly undulating plain.
Several of the villages are built very near the summit of the mountains,
and one of them, Gottesgab (pop. about 1500), lies at an altitude of
3345 ft., the highest place in Bohemia and central Germany. To the west
the Erzgebirge combine through the Elstergebirge with the
Fichtelgebirge, which in their turn are united with the Böhmerwald
through the plateau of Waldsassen. To the east the Erzgebirge are
separated from the Elbsandsteingebirge by the Nollendorf pass, traversed
by the ancient military route to Saxony; it was the route followed by
Napoleon I. after the battle of Dresden (1813). To the south stretches
the "Thermopylae of Bohemia," the scene of the battle of Kulm and
Arbesau. A little farther to the east the Elbe escapes into Saxony at
the lowest point in Bohemia (alt. 367 ft.). The north-east frontier is
formed by the Sudetes, which comprise the Lausitzergebirge (2500 ft.),
the Isergebirge (with the highest peak, the Tafelfichte, 3683 ft.), the
Jeschkengebirge (3322 ft.), and the Riesengebirge. The Riesengebirge
(Czech _Kroknose_) are, after the Alps, among the highest mountains of
central Europe, and attain in the Schneekoppe an altitude of 5264 ft.
The last groups of the Sudetes in Bohemia are the Heuscheuergebirge
(2532 ft.) and the Adlergebirge (3664 ft.). The fourth side of the rhomb
is formed by the so-called Bohemian-Moravian Hills, a plateau or broad
series of low hills, composed of primitive rocks, and attaining in some
places an altitude of 2500 ft.
The interior of Bohemia has sometimes been compared to a deep basin; but
for the most part it is an undulating plateau, over 1000 ft. high,
formed by a succession of terraces, which gradually slope down from
south to north. Its lowest-lying points are not in the middle but in the
north, in the valley of the Elbe, and the country can be divided into
two parts by a line passing through Hohenmauth-Prague-Komotau. The part
lying to the south of this line can be designated as highland, and only
the part north of it as lowland. The mountain-ranges of the interior of
Bohemia are the Brdywald (2798 ft.) in the middle; the Tepler Gebirge
(2657 ft.), the Karsbader Gebirge (3057 ft.) and the Kaiserwald (3238
ft.), in the north-west part; while the northern corner is occupied by
the Mittelgebirge (2739 ft.), a volcanic massif, stretching on both
sides of the Elbe.
Bohemia belongs to the watershed of the Elbe, which rises within the
territory and receives on the right the Iser and the Polzen, and on the
left the Adler; the Eger with its affluent the Tepl; the Biela and the
Moldau. But the principal river of ~~ Bohemia, from every point of
view, is the Moldau (Czech _Vltava_), not the Elbe. A glance at the
hydrographic structure of Bohemia, which is of such a striking
regularity, shows us that the Moldau is the main stem, while the Elbe
and the other rivers are only lateral branches; moreover, the Elbe below
Melnik, the point of its confluence with the Moldau, follows the general
direction of the Moldau. Besides, the Moldau is the principal commercial
artery of the country, being navigable below Budweis, while the
Upper-Elbe is not navigable; its basin (11,890 sq. m.) is twice as great
as that of the Elbe, and its width and depth are also greater. It has a
length of 270 m., 47 m. longer than the Upper-Elbe, but it runs through
a deep and narrow valley, in which there is neither road nor railway,
extending from above Budweis to about 15 m. south of Prague. The Moldau
receives on the right the Luzniza and the Sazawa and on the left the
Wottawa and the Beraun. The Beraun is formed by the union of the Mies
with the Radbusa, Angel and Uslawa, and is the third most important
river of the country. There are only a few lakes, which are mostly found
at high altitudes.
_Climate._--Bohemia has a continental, generally healthy climate, which
varies much in different parts of the country. It is mildest in the
centre, where, e.g. at Prague, the mean annual temperature is 48.5° F.
The rainfall varies also according to the districts, the rainy season
being the summer. Thus the mean annual rainfall in the interior of
Bohemia is 18 in., in the Riesengebirge 40 in., while in the Böhmerwald
it reaches 60 to 70 in.
_Agriculture._--Favoured with a suitable climate and inhabited by a
thriving rural population, Bohemia is very highly developed in the
matter of agriculture. Over 50% of the whole area is under cultivation
and the soil is in many parts very fertile, the best-known regions being
the "Golden Road" round Königgrätz, the "Paradise" round Teplitz, and
the "Garden of Bohemia" round Leitmeritz. The principal products are
oats, rye, barley and wheat, but since the competition of Hungarian
wheat large tracts of land have been converted to the cultivation of
beetroot. The potato crop, which forms the staple food of the people, is
great; the Saaz district is celebrated for hops, and the flax is also of
a good quality. Fruit, especially plums, is very abundant and
constitutes a great article of export. The forests cover 29.01% of the
total area; meadows, 10.05, pastures 5.05, and gardens 1.35%.
Cattle-rearing is not so well developed as agriculture, but great flocks
of geese are reared, especially in the south, and bee-cultivation
constitutes another important industry. Pisciculture has been for
centuries successfully pursued by the Bohemian peasants, and the
attempts recently made for the rearing of silkworms have met with fair
success.
_Minerals_.--Except salt, which is entirely absent, almost every useful
metal and mineral is to be found. First in importance, both in quantity
and in value, come lignite and coal. Some of the richest lignite fields
in Europe are found in the north-east corner of Bohemia round Brüx, Dux,
Falkenau, Ossegg and Teplitz. Coal is mined round Kladno, Buschtehrad,
Pilsen, Schlan, Rakonitz, Nürschan and Radnitz, the last-named place
containing the oldest coal mines of Bohemia (17th century). Iron ores
are found at Krusnahora and Nucic, and the principal foundries are round
Kladno and Königshof. Owing to the improvements in refining, Bohemia has
become an important centre of the iron industry. Silver is extracted at
Pribram and Joachimsthal, but the silver mines near Kuttenberg, famous
in the middle ages, are now abandoned. Lead is extracted at Pribram, tin
at Graupen in the Erzgebirge, the only place in Austria where this metal
is found. Antimony is extracted at Milleschau near Tabor; uranium and
radium near Joachimsthal; graphite near Krumau and Budweis;
porcelain-earth near Carlsbad. Other minerals found in various places of
Bohemia are copper, sulphur, cobalt, alum, nickel, arsenic and various
sorts of precious stone, like the Bohemian garnet (pyrope), and building
stone. A large amount of peat is collected, especially in the south-west
of Bohemia, as well as a great quantity of asphalt.
Bohemia possesses over two hundred mineral springs, but only a few are
used for medicinal purposes. Among them are some of the most celebrated
mineral springs in the world, such as Carlsbad, Marienbad, Franzensbad,
Teplitz-Schönau and Bilin. Other springs of importance are Püllna,
Sedlitz and Seidschitz near Brüx; Giesshübl near Carlsbad; Liebwerda,
Königswart, Sangerberg, Neudorf, Tetschen, Johannisbad, situated at the
foot of the Schneekoppe, &c.
_Manufactures and Commerce._--From an industrial point of view, Bohemia
takes the first rank amongst the Austrian provinces, and at the same
time is one of the greatest manufacturing centres of Europe. Rich as the
country is in coal and iron, and in water supplies which can be
transformed into motive power, the inhabitants were not slow to utilize
these advantages, so that the industry of Bohemia made enormous strides
during the last half of the 19th century. The glass industry was
introduced from Venice in the 13th century and soon attained a vast
importance; the factories are in the neighbourhood of the mountains,
where minerals, and especially silica and fuel, are plentiful. The
finest product, the crystal-glass, is made round Haida and Steinschönau.
The very extensive porcelain industry is concentrated in and around
Carlsbad. The textile industry stands in the front rank and is mostly
concentrated in the north-east corner of Bohemia, round Reichenberg, and
in the valley of the Lower Elbe. The cloth manufacture is located at
Reichenberg; Rumburg and Trautenau are the centre of the linen industry;
woollen yarns are made at Aussig and Asch. Lace, which is pursued as a
home-industry in the Erzgebirge region, has its principal centre at
Weipert, while Strakonitz has the speciality of the manufacture of red
fezes (Turkish caps). The metallurgic industries, favoured by the
abundance of coal and iron, are concentrated round the mines. Industrial
and agricultural machinery are manufactured at Reichenberg, Pilsen and
Prague, and at the last-named place is also to be found a great
establishment for the production of railway rolling-stock. Sugar
refining is another industry, which, although of recent date, has had a
very great development, and the breweries produce a beer which is
appreciated all over the world. Other important branches of industry
are:--the manufacture of chemicals at Prague and Aussig; pencils at
Budweis; musical instruments at Graslitz and Schönbach; paper, leather,
dyeing and calico-printing. Hand-in-hand with the industrial activity of
the country goes its commercial development, which is stimulated by an
extensive railway system, good roads and navigable rivers. The centre of
the railway system, which had in 1898 a length of some 3500 m., or 30%
of the total length of the Austrian railways, is Prague; and through the
Elbe Bohemia has easy access to the sea for its export trade.
_Population and Administration._--Bohemia had in 1900 a population of
6,318,280, which corresponds to 315 inhabitants per square mile. As
regards numbers, it occupies the second place amongst the Austrian
provinces, coming after Galicia, and as regards density of population it
stands third, Silesia and Lower Austria, which contains Vienna, standing
higher. In 1800 the population was a little over 3,000,000. According to
nationality, about 35% are Germans and 65% Czechs. The Czechs occupy the
middle of the country, as well as its south and south-east region, while
the Germans are concentrated near its borders, especially in the north
and west, and are also found all over the country in the large towns.
Besides, there are numerous German-speaking enclaves situated in purely
Czech districts; on the other hand, the Czechs have shown a tendency to
invade the purely German mining and manufacturing districts.
Notwithstanding its rich natural resources and its great industrial
development, Bohemia sends out a steady flow of emigrants, who either
settle in the other provinces of the monarchy, in Germany and in Russia,
or cross the Atlantic to America. To the Roman Catholic Church belong
96% of the total population; Bohemia is divided into the archbishopric
of Prague, and the three bishoprics of Budweis, Königgrätz and
Leitmeritz.
Education is well advanced, and Bohemia has the lowest proportion of
illiterates amongst the Austrian provinces. At the head of the
educational establishments stand the two universities at Prague, one
German and the other Czech.
Bohemia sends 130 deputies to the Reichsrat at Vienna; the local diet,
to which belong _ex officio_ the archbishop, the three bishops, and the
two rectors of the universities, consists of 242 members. For
administrative purposes Bohemia is divided into ninety-four districts
and two autonomous municipalities, Prague (pop. 204,478), the capital,
and Reichenberg (34,204). Other important towns are Pilsen (68,292),
Budweis (39,360), Aussig (37,255), Schönau (24,110), Eger (23,665),
Warnsdorf (21,150), Brüx (21,525), Gablonz (21,086), Asch (18,675),
Kladno (18,600), Pardubitz (17,029), Saaz (16,168), Komotau (15,925),
Kolin (15,025), Kuttenberg (14,799), Trautenau (14,777), Carlsbad
(14,640), Pribram (13,576), Jungbunzlau (13,479), Leitmeritz (13,075),
Chrudim (13,017), Dux (11,921), Bodenbach (10,782), Tabor (10,692),
Bohmisch-Leipa (10,674), Rumburg (10,382), Weipert (10,037).
See F. Umlauft, _Die Länder Österreich-Ungarns in Wort und Bild_, (15
vols., Vienna, 1881-1889), vol. vii.; Mikowec, _Altertümer und
Denkwürdigkeiten Bohmen's_ (2 vols., Prague, 1859-1865); F. Rivnác,
_Reisehandbuch fur das Konigreich Bohmen_ (Prague, 1882), very useful
for its numerous and detailed historical notes. (O. Br.)
HISTORY
Slav Conquest.
The country derives its name from the Boii, a Celtic tribe which in the
earliest historical period inhabited part of the land. According to very
ancient traditions accepted by the modern historians of Bohemia, the
Boii, whose capital was called Boiohemum, were weakened by continual
warfare with neighbouring tribes, and finally subdued by the Teutonic
tribe of the Marcomanni (about 12 B.C.). The Marcomanni were afterwards
expelled by other Teutonic tribes, and eventually Bohemia was conquered
by Slavic tribes, of whom the Cechs (see CZECH) were the most important.
The date of the arrival of the Cechs in Bohemia is very uncertain, and
the scanty references to the country in classical and Byzantine writers
are rather misleading than otherwise. Recent archaeological research has
proved the existence of Slavic inhabitants in Bohemia as far back as the
beginning of the Christian era. The Cechs appear to have become the
masters of the country in the 5th century. The first of their rulers
mentioned in history is Samo, who is stated to have defeated the Avars,
a Turanian tribe which had for a time obtained the overlordship over
Bohemia. Samo also defeated the Franks in a great battle that took place
at Wogatisburg (630), probably near the site of the present town of
Eger. After the death of Samo the history of Bohemia again becomes
absolutely obscure for about 130 years. The next events that are
recorded by the oldest chroniclers, such as Cosmas, refer to the
foundation of a Bohemian principality by Krok (or Crocus) and his
daughter Libussa. The latter is said to have married Premysl, a peasant
who was found ploughing his field--a legend that is common in most
Slavic countries. Beginning with this semi-mythic ruler, the ancient
chroniclers have constructed a continuous list of Premyslide princes.
Neither the deeds attributed to these princes nor the dates of their
reigns can be considered as historical.
Christianity.
Wenceslas
Boleslav.
Vladivoj.
Bretislav I.
From the time of the introduction of Christianity into Bohemia the
history of the country becomes less obscure. The first attempts to
introduce Christianity undoubtedly came from Germany. They met with
little success, as innate distrust of the Germans naturally rendered the
Bohemians unfavourable to a creed which reached them from the realm of
their western neighbours. Matters were different when Christianity
approached them from Moravia, where its doctrine had been taught by
Cyrillus and Methodius--Greek monks from Thessalonica. About the year
873 the Bohemian prince Borivoj was baptized by Methodius, and the
Bohemians now rapidly adopted the Christian faith. Of the rulers of
Bohemia the most famous at this period was Wenceslas, surnamed the Holy,
who in 935 was murdered by his brother Boleslav, and who was afterwards
canonized by the Church of Rome. As Wenceslas had been an ally of
Germany, his murder resulted in a war with that country, in which, as
far as we can judge by the scanty records of the time. Boleslav, the
brother and successor of Wenceslas, was on the whole successful. During
the reigns of Boleslav and his son, Boleslav II., Bohemia extended its
frontiers in several directions. Boleslav II. indeed established his
rule not only over Bohemia and Moravia, but also over a large part of
Silesia, and over that part of Poland which is now the Austrian province
of Galicia. Like most Slavic states at this and even a later period, the
great Bohemian empire of Boleslav II. did not endure long. Boleslav
III., son of Boleslav II., lost all his foreign possessions to Boleslav
the Great, king of Poland. During his reign Bohemia was involved in
constant civil war, caused by the dissensions between Boleslav III. and
his brothers Jaromir and Ulrick. Though the prince succeeded in
expelling his brothers from the country, his cruelty induced the
Bohemians to dethrone him and to choose as their ruler the Polish prince
Vladivoj. Vladivoj, brother of Boleslav the Great, and son of the
Bohemian princess Dubravka (Dobrawa). Vladivoj attempted to strengthen
his hold over Bohemia by securing the aid of Germany. He consented not
only to continue to pay the tribute which the Germans had already
obtained from several previous rulers of Bohemia, but also to become a
vassal of the German empire and to receive the German title of duke.
This state continued when after the death of Vladivoj the Premyslide
dynasty was restored. The Premyslide prince Bretislav I (1037-1055)
restored the former power of Bohemia, and again added Moravia, Silesia
and a considerable part of Poland to the Bohemian dominions. To obviate
the incessant struggles which had endangered the land at every vacancy
of the throne, Bretislav, with the consent of the nobles, decreed that
the oldest member of the house of Premysl should be the ruler of
Bohemia. Bretislav was therefore succeeded first by his eldest son
Spitihnev, and then by his second son Vratislav.
Vratislav becomes "king".
In 1088 Vratislav obtained the title of king from the emperor Henry IV.,
whom he had assisted in the struggle with the papal see which is known
as the contest about investitures. Though the title of king was only
conferred on Vratislav personally, the German king, Conrad III.,
conferred on the Bohemian prince Sobeslav (1125-1140) the title of
hereditary cupbearer of the Empire, thus granting a certain influence on
the election of the emperors to Bohemia, which hitherto had only
obligations towards the Empire but no part in its government. In 1156
the emperor Frederick I. Barbarossa ceded Upper Lusatia to the Bohemian
prince Vladislav II., and conferred on him the title of king on
condition of his taking part in Frederick's Italian campaigns. It was
intended that that title should henceforth be hereditary, but it again
fell into abeyance during the struggles between the Premyslide princes
which followed the abdication of Vladislav in 1173.
Ottakar II.
The consequences of these constant internal struggles were twofold; the
German influence became stronger, and the power of the sovereign
declined, as the nobility on whose support the competitors for the crown
were obliged to rely constantly obtained new privileges. In 1197 Premysl
Ottakar became undisputed ruler of Bohemia, and he was crowned as king
in the following year. The royal title of the Bohemian sovereigns was
continued uninterruptedly from that date. Wenceslas I. (1230-1253)
succeeded his father as king of Bohemia without opposition. The last
years of his reign were troubled by internal discord. Wenceslas's son,
Premysl Ottakar II., who under the sovereignty of his father ruled
Moravia, became for a time the chief leader of the malcontents. A
reconciliation between son and father, however, took place before the
latter's death. Premysl Ottakar II. was one of the greatest of Bohemia's
kings. He had during the lifetime of his father obtained possession of
the archduchies of Austria, and, about the time of his accession to the
Bohemian throne, the nobility of Styria also recognized him as their
ruler. These extensions of his dominions involved Premysl Ottakar II. in
repeated wars with Hungary. In 1260 he decisively defeated Bela, king of
Hungary, in the great battle of Kressenbrunn. After this victory
Ottakar's power rose to its greatest height. He now obtained possession
of Carinthia, Istria and parts of northern Italy. His possessions
extended from the Giant Mountains in Bohemia to the Adriatic, and
included almost all the parts of the present Habsburg empire west of the
Leitha. His contemporaries called Ottakar "the man of gold" because of
his great wealth, or "the man of iron" because of his military power.
From political rather than racial causes Ottakar favoured the
immigration of Germans into his dominions. He hoped to find in the
German townsmen a counterpoise to the overwhelming power of the Bohemian
nobility. In 1273 Rudolph, count of Habsburg, was elected king of the
Romans. It is very probable that the German crown had previously been
offered to Ottakar, but that he had refused it. Several causes, among
others his Slavic nationality, which was likely to render him obnoxious
to the Germans, contributed to his decision. As Rudolph immediately
claimed as vacant fiefs of the Empire most of the lands held by Ottakar,
war was inevitable. Ottakar was deserted by many of his new subjects,
and even by part of the Bohemian nobility. He was therefore unable to
resist the German king, and was obliged to surrender to him all his
lands except Bohemia and Moravia, and to recognize Rudolph as his
overlord. New dissensions between the two sovereigns broke out almost
immediately. In 1278 Ottakar invaded the Austrian duchies, now under the
rule of Rudolph, but was defeated and killed at the battle of Durnkrut
on the Marchfeld.
Wenceslas II.
Ottakar's son, Wenceslas II., was only seven years of age at the death
of his father, and Otto of Brandenburg, a nephew of Ottakar, for a time
governed Bohemia as guardian of the young sovereign. Otto's rule was
very unpopular, an insurrection broke out against him, and Bohemia was
for a time in a state of complete anarchy. The country was at last
pacified through the intervention of Rudolph of Habsburg, and at the age
of twelve Wenceslas became nominal ruler of the country. All power was,
however, in the hands of Zavis of Falkenstein, one of the great Bohemian
nobles, who had married the king's mother, Kunegunda. The power of Zavis
at last became invidious to the king, by whose order he was beheaded in
1290. Wenceslas, though only nineteen years of age, henceforth governed
Bohemia himself, and his short reign was a period of great happiness for
the country. Poland also accepted the rule of Wenceslas and the
Hungarian crown was offered to him. Towards the end of his reign
Wenceslas became involved in war with Albert, archduke of Austria,
afterwards king of the Romans. While preparing to invade Austria
Wenceslas died suddenly (1305). His son and successor, Wenceslas III.,
was then only sixteen years of age, and he only ruled over Bohemia for
one year. While planning a warlike expedition against Poland, on which
country the Bohemian sovereigns now again maintained their claim, he was
murdered by unknown assassins (1306). With him ended the rule of the
Premyslide dynasty over Bohemia.
John of Luxemburg.
Albert, king of the Romans, declared that Bohemia was a vacant fief of
the Empire, and, mainly by intimidation, induced the Bohemians to elect
his son Rudolph as their sovereign; but Rudolph died after a reign of
only one year. Though the Habsburg princes at this period already
claimed a hereditary right to the Bohemian throne, the Bohemians
determined to maintain their right of electing their sovereign, and they
chose Henry, duke of Carinthia, who had married a daughter of King
Wenceslas II. Henry soon became unpopular, as he was accused of unduly
favouring the German settlers in Bohemia. It was decided to depose him,
and the choice of the Bohemians now fell on John of Luxemburg, son of
Henry, king of the Romans. The Luxemburg dynasty henceforth ruled over
Bohemia up to the time of its extinction at the death of Sigismund
(1437). Though King John, by his marriage to the princess Elizabeth, a
daughter of Wenceslas II., became more closely connected with Bohemia,
he does not appear to have felt much interest in that country. Most of
his life was spent in other lands, his campaigns ranging from Italy in
the south to Lithuania in the north. It became proverbial "that nothing
could be done in the world without the help of God and of the king of
Bohemia." The policy of John was founded on a close alliance with
France, the country for which he felt most sympathy. Fighting as an ally
of France he fell at the battle of Crécy (1346).
King Charles.
He was succeeded as king of Bohemia by his son Charles, whom the German
electors had previously elected as their sovereign at Rense (1346).
Charles proved one of the greatest rulers of Bohemia, where his memory
is still revered. Prague was his favourite residence, and by the
foundation of the nové mesto (new town) he greatly enlarged the city,
which now had three times its former extent, and soon also trebled its
population. He also added greatly to the importance of the city by
founding the famous university of Prague. Charles succeeded in
re-establishing order in Bohemia. The country had been in a very
disturbed state in consequence of feuds that were incessant during the
reign of John, who had almost always been absent from Bohemia. Charles
also attempted to codify the obscure and contradictory laws of Bohemia;
but this attempt failed through the resistance of the powerful nobility
of the country. During the reign of Charles, the first symptoms of that
movement in favour of church reform that afterwards acquired a
world-wide importance, appeared in Bohemia. As Charles has often been
accused of undue subserviency to the Church of Rome, it should be
mentioned that he granted his protection to several priests who favoured
the cause of church reform. In his foreign policy Charles differed from
his father. The relations with France gradually became colder, and at
the end of his reign Charles favoured an alliance with England; he died
in 1378 at the age of sixty-two, prematurely exhausted by arduous work.
Wenceslas IV.
Charles was succeeded by his son Wenceslas, who was then seventeen years
of age. His reign marks the decline of the rule of the house of
Luxemburg over Bohemia. He was a weak and incapable sovereign, but the
very exaggerated accusations against him, which are found principally in
the works of older historians, are mainly due to the fact that the king
and to a larger extent his queen, Sophia, for a time furthered the cause
of church reform, thus incurring the displeasure of Romanist writers.
During the earlier part of the reign of Wenceslas a continual struggle
took place between the king and the powerful Bohemian nobles, who indeed
twice imprisoned their sovereign. Wenceslas also became involved in a
dispute with the archbishop, which resulted in the death of the famous
John of Nepomuk.
Huss and the Hussites
The later part of the reign of Wenceslas is a record of incipient
religious conflict. The hold of the Church of Rome on Bohemia had
already been weakened during the reign of King Charles by attacks on the
immorality of the clergy, which proceeded from pious priests such as
Milic and Waldhauser. The church schism, during which the rival pontiffs
assailed each other with all the wild threats and objurgations of
medieval theological strife, necessarily alienated the Bohemians to a
yet greater extent. Almost the whole Bohemian nation therefore espoused
the cause of Huss (q.v.). Wenceslas on the occasion of these disputes
displayed the weakness and irresolution that always characterized him,
but Queen Sophia openly favoured the cause of Huss, who for some time
was her confessor. Huss was tried before the council of Constance
(q.v.), to which he had proceeded with a letter of safe conduct given
by Wenceslas's brother Sigismund, king of the Romans. He was declared a
heretic and burnt on the 6th of July 1415. The inevitable and immediate
result of this event was the outbreak of civil war in Bohemia, where
Huss was greatly revered by the large majority of the population. The
nobles of Bohemia and Moravia met at Prague on the 2nd of September
1415, and sent to the council the famed _Protestatio Bohemorum_, in
which they strongly protested against the execution of Huss, "a good,
just and catholic man who had for many years been favourably known in
the Kingdom by his life, conduct and fame, and who had been convicted of
no offence." They further declared that all who affirmed that heresy
existed in Bohemia were "liars, vile traitors and calumniators of
Bohemia and Moravia, the worst of all heretics, full of all evil, sons
of the devil." They finally stated "that they would defend the law of
our Lord Jesus Christ and its pious, humble and steadfast preachers at
the cost of their blood, scorning all fear and all human decrees that
might be contrary to them."[2] This protest was a declaration of war
against the Roman church, and marks the beginning of the Hussite wars.
The council, indeed, summoned the nobles before its tribunal, but they
refused to appear. A large number of the nobles and knights who had met
at Prague formed a confederacy and declared that they consented to
freedom of preaching the word of God on their estates, that they
declined to recognize the authority of the council of Constance, but
would obey the Bohemian bishops and a future pope lawfully elected.
Meanwhile they declared the university of Prague the supreme authority
in all matters of religion. The members of the confederacy attempted,
though unsuccessfully, to induce King Wenceslas to become their leader.
The Romanist nobles, who were not numerous, but some of whom owned vast
estates, now also formed a confederacy, pledging themselves to support
the pope and the council. After the closing of the council in 1418,
Sigismund, who--Wenceslas being childless--was heir to the Bohemian
throne, sent a letter to his brother, which was practically a manifesto
addressed to the Bohemian people. He threatened with the severest
penalties all who should continue to resist the authority of Rome.
Wenceslas maintained the vacillating attitude that was characteristic of
his whole reign, though Queen Sophia still extended her protection to
the reformers. By doing this, indeed, she incurred the wrath of the
Church to so great an extent that an act of accusation against her was
drawn up at the council of Constance. Intimidated by his brother,
Wenceslas now attempted to stem the current of religious enthusiasm.
Immediately after the death of Huss many priests who refused to
administer communion in the two kinds--now the principal tenet of the
adherents of Huss--had been expelled from their parishes. Wenceslas
decreed that they should be reinstated, and it was only after some
hesitation that he even permitted that religious services according to
the Utraquist doctrine should be held in three of the churches of
Prague. Some of the more advanced reformers left Prague and formed the
party known as the Taborites, from the town of Tabor which became their
centre. Troubles soon broke out at Prague. When on the 30th of July
1419, the Hussite priest, John of Zelivo, was leading a procession
through the streets of Prague, stones were thrown at him and his
followers from the town hall of the "new town." The Hussites, led by
John Zizka (q.v.), stormed the town-hall and threw the magistrates from
its windows. On receiving the news of these riots King Wenceslas was
immediately seized by an attack of apoplexy; a second fit on the 16th of
August ended his life.
Sigismund.
The news of the death of the king caused renewed rioting in Prague and
many other Bohemian cities, from which many Germans, mostly adherents of
the Church of Rome, were expelled. Finally a temporary truce was
concluded, and, early in the following year, Sigismund, who now claimed
the Bohemian crown as successor of his brother, arrived at Kutna Hora
(Kuttenberg). Pope Martin V. on the 1st of March 1420 proclaimed a
crusade against Bohemia, and crusaders from all parts of Europe joined
Sigismund's army. "On the 30th day of June the Hungarian king,
Sigismund, with a large army consisting of men of various countries, as
well as of Bohemians, occupied the castle of Prague, determined to
conquer the city, which they considered a heretical community because
they used the sacred chalice and accepted other evangelical truths."[3]
But the attempt of the crusaders to conquer Prague failed, and after an
attack by them on the Vitkov (now Zizkov) hill had been repulsed by the
desperate bravery of the Taborites, led by Zizka, Sigismund determined
to abandon the siege of Prague. An attempt of Sigismund to relieve the
besieged garrison of the Vysehrad fortress on the outskirts of Prague
also failed, as he was again entirely defeated at the battle of the
Vysehrad (November 1, 1420).
Religious War.
Royal authority now ceased in Bohemia. At a meeting of the diet at
Caslav (June 1, 1421) Sigismund was deposed. It was decided that a
Polish prince should be chosen as sovereign, and that meanwhile a
provisional government, composed of twenty men belonging to the various
parties, should be established. In 1422 Sigismund again invaded Bohemia,
but was decisively defeated by Zizka at Nêmecký Brod (Deutschbrod). The
Polish prince, Sigismund Korybutovic, now arrived in Bohemia, and was
recognized as regent by the large majority of the inhabitants; but
through the influence of the papal see he was recalled by the rulers of
Poland after a stay of only a few months. After his departure, civil war
between the moderate Hussites (Calixtines or Utraquists) and the
advanced Taborite party broke out for the first time, though there had
previously been isolated disturbances between them. The return of Prince
Korybutovic and the menace of a German invasion soon reunited the
Bohemians, who gained a decisive victory over the Germans at Aussig in
1426. Shortly afterwards Korybutovic, who had taken part in this great
victory, incurred the dislike of the extreme Hussites, and was obliged
to leave Bohemia. All hope of establishing an independent Slav dynasty
in Bohemia thus came to an end. In 1427 several German princes undertook
a new crusade against the Hussites. With the German and other invaders
were 1000 English archers, bodyguard to Henry Beaufort, bishop of
Winchester, who took part in the crusade as papal legate. The crusaders
were seized by a sudden panic, both at Mies (Stribro) and at Tachau, as
soon as they approached the Hussites, and they fled hurriedly across the
mountains into Bavaria. Though internal disturbances again broke out,
the Bohemians after this success assumed the offensive, and repeatedly
invaded Hungary and the German states.
The "Compacts."
The impossibility of conquering Bohemia had now become obvious, and it
was resolved that a council should meet at Basel (q.v.) to examine the
demands of the Hussites. The Germans, however, influenced by Sigismund,
determined to make a last attempt to subdue Bohemia by armed force. The
Bohemians, as usual united in the moment of peril, defeated the Germans
at Domazlice (Taus) on the 1st of August 1431, after a very short fight.
In the course of the same year negotiations began at Basel, the Hussites
being represented by a numerous embassy under the leadership of Prokop
the Great. The negotiations proceeded very slowly, and in 1433 the
Bohemians returned to their own country, accompanied, however, by envoys
of the council. Dissensions had meanwhile again broken out in Bohemia,
and they were now of a political rather than a religious nature. The
more aristocratic Hussites raised an armed force which was known as "the
army of the nobles." The Taborites also collected their men, who formed
"the army of the towns." The two armies met at Lipan, near Kolin, on the
30th of May 1434. The Taborites were defeated, and the two Prokops and
most of their other leaders perished on the battlefield. The victory of
the moderate party paved the way to a reconciliation with Sigismund and
the Church of Rome. The Bohemians recognized Sigismund as their
sovereign, but obtained considerable concessions with regard to
religious matters. These concessions, which were formulated in the
so-called Compacts, granted to the Bohemians the right of communion in
both kinds, and of preaching the gospel freely, and also to a certain
extent limited the power of the clergy to acquire worldly goods.
After the Compacts had been formally recognized at Iglau in Moravia,
Sigismund proceeded to Prague and was accepted as king. He died in the
following year (1437) and was succeeded by his son-in-law, Albert of
Austria, whom the estates chose as their king. Albert died after he had
reigned over Bohemia less than two years. Though it was known that
Albert's widow Elizabeth would shortly give birth to a child, the
question as to the succession to the throne again arose; for it was
only in 1627 that the question whether the Bohemian crown was elective
or hereditary was decided for ever. The nobles formed two parties, one
of which, the national one, had George of Podebrad (q.v.) as its leader.
Ulrich of Rosenberg was the leader of the Roman or Austrian division of
the nobility. The two parties finally came to an agreement known as the
"Letter of Peace" (_list mirný_). Those who signed it pledged themselves
to recognise the Compacts, and to support as archbishop of Prague, John
of Rokycan, who had been chosen by the estates in accordance with an
agreement made simultaneously with the Compacts, but whom the Church of
Rome refused to recognize. On the other hand, the national party
abandoned the candidature to the throne of Prince Casimir of Poland,
thus paving the way to the eventual succession of Albert's heir. On the
22nd of February 1440 Queen Elizabeth gave birth to a son, who received
the name of Ladislas. The Bohemians formally acknowledged him as their
king, though only after their crown had been declined by Albert, duke of
Bavaria. Ladislas remained in Austria under the guardianship of his
uncle Frederick, duke of Styria, afterwards the emperor Frederick III.,
and Bohemia, still without regular government, continued to be the scene
of constant conflicts between the rival parties of the nobility. In 1446
a general meeting of the estates of Bohemia together with those of
Moravia, Silesia and Lusatia--and so-called "lands of the Bohemian
crown"--took place. This meeting has exceptional importance for the
constitutional history of Bohemia. It was decreed that at the meeting of
the estates their members should be divided into three bodies--known as
_curiae_--representing the nobles, the knights and the towns. These
_curiae_ were to deliberate separately and only to meet for a final
decision. An attempt made at this meeting to appoint a regent was
unsuccessful. The negotiations with the papal see continued meanwhile,
but led to no result, as the members of the Roman party used their
influence at the papal court for the purpose of dissuading it from
granting any concessions to their countrymen. Shortly after the
termination of the diet of 1446 George of Podebrad therefore determined
to appeal to the fortune of war. He assembled a considerable army at
Kutna Hora and marched on Prague (1448). He occupied the town almost
without resistance and assumed the regency over the kingdom. The diet in
1451 recognized his title, which was also sanctioned by the emperor
Frederick III., guardian of the young king. Podebrad was none the less
opposed, almost from the first, by the Romanists, who even concluded an
alliance against him with their extreme opponents, Kolda of Zampach and
the other remaining Taborites. In October 1453 Ladislas arrived in
Bohemia and was crowned king at Prague; but he died somewhat suddenly on
the 23rd of November 1457. George of Podebrad has from the first
frequently been accused of having poisoned him, but historical research
has proved that this accusation is entirely unfounded. The Bohemian
throne was now again vacant, for, when electing Ladislas the estates had
reaffirmed the elective character of the monarchy. Though there were
several foreign candidates, the estates unanimously elected George of
Podebrad, who had now for some time administered the country. Though the
Romanist lords, whom Podebrad had for a time won over, also voted for
him, the election was considered a great victory of the national party
and was welcomed with enthusiasm by the citizens of Prague.
During the earlier and more prosperous part of his reign the policy of
King George was founded on a firm alliance with Matthias Corvinus, king
of Hungary, through whose influence he was crowned by the Romanist
bishop of Waitzen. The reign of King George, whose principal supporters
were the men of the smaller nobility and of the towns, was at first very
prosperous. After a certain time, however, some of the Romanist nobles
became hostile to the king, and, partly through their influence, he
became involved in a protracted struggle with the papal see. It was in
consequence of this struggle that some of George's far-reaching
plans--he endeavoured for a time to obtain the supremacy over
Germany--failed. After the negotiations with Rome had proved
unsuccessful George assembled the estates at Prague in 1452 and declared
that he would to his death remain true to the communion in both kinds,
and that he was ready to risk his life and his crown in the defence of
his faith. The Romanist party in Bohemia became yet more embittered
against the king, and at a meeting at Zelena Hora (Grünberg) in 1465
many nobles of the Roman religion joined in a confederacy against him.
In the following year Pope Paul II. granted his moral support to the
confederates by pronouncing sentence of excommunication against George
of Podebrad and by releasing all Bohemians from their oath of allegiance
to him. It was also through papal influence that King Matthias of
Hungary, deserting his former ally, supported the lords of the league of
Zelena Hora. Desultory warfare broke out between the two parties, in
which George was at first successful; but fortune changed when the king
of Hungary invaded Moravia and obtained possession of Brünn, the capital
of the country. At a meeting of the Catholic nobles of Bohemia and
Moravia at Olmütz in Moravia, Matthias was proclaimed king of Bohemia
(May 3, 1469). In the following year George obtained some successes over
his rival, but his death in 1471 for a time put a stop to the war.
George of Podebrad, the only Hussite king of Bohemia, has always, with
Charles IV., been the ruler of Bohemia whose memory has most endeared
itself to his countrymen.
Vladislav of Poland.
George of Podebrad had undoubtedly during the more prosperous part of
his reign intended to found a national dynasty. In later years, however,
hope of obtaining aid from Poland in his struggle against King Matthias
induced him to offer the succession to the Bohemian throne to Vladislav
(Wladislaus, Ladislaus), son of Casimir, king of Poland. No formal
agreement was made, and at the death of George many Bohemian nobles
supported the claim of Matthias of Hungary, who had already been
proclaimed king of Bohemia. Protracted negotiations ensued, but they
ended by the election of Prince Vladislav of Poland at Kutna Hora, the
27th of May 1471. This election was a victory of the national party, and
may be considered as evidence of the strong anti-clerical feeling which
then prevailed in Bohemia; for Matthias was an unconditional adherent of
Rome, while the Polish envoys who represented Vladislav promised that he
would maintain the Compacts. At the beginning of his reign the new king
was involved in a struggle with Matthias of Hungary, who maintained his
claim to the Bohemian throne. Prolonged desultory warfare continued up
to 1478, when a treaty concluded at Olmütz secured Bohemia to Vladislav;
Matthias was to retain the so-called "lands of the Bohemian
crown"--Moravia, Silesia and Lusatia--during his lifetime, and they were
to be restored to Bohemia after his death. Though Vladislav was faithful
to his promise of maintaining the Compacts, and did not attempt to
prevent the Bohemians from receiving the communion in both kinds, yet
his policy was on the whole a reactionary one, both as regards matters
of state and the religious controversies. The king appointed as
government officials at Prague men of that section of the Utraquist
party that was nearest to Rome, while a severe persecution of the
extreme Hussites known as the Bohemian Brethren took place (see
HUSSITES). Serious riots took place at Prague, and the more advanced
Hussites stormed the three town halls of the city. The nobles of the
same faith also formed a league to guard themselves against the menaced
reaction. A meeting of all the estates at Kutna Hora in 1485, however,
for a time restored peace. Both parties agreed to respect the religious
views of their opponents and to abstain from all violence, and the
Compacts were again confirmed.
As regards matters of state the reign of Vladislav is marked by a
decrease of the royal prerogative, while the power of the nobility
attained an unprecedented height, at the expense, not only of the royal
power, but also of the rights of the townsmen and peasants. A decree of
1487 practically established serfdom in Bohemia, where it had hitherto
been almost unknown. It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of
this measure for the future of Bohemia. The rulers of the country were
henceforth unable to rely on that numerous sturdy and independent
peasantry of which the armies of Zizka and the Prokops had mainly
consisted. Various enactments belonging to this reign also curtailed the
rights of the Bohemian townsmen. A decree known as the "regulations of
King Vladislav" codified these changes. It enumerated all the rights of
the nobles and knights, but entirely ignored those of the towns. It was
tacitly assumed that the townsmen had no inherent rights, but only such
privileges as might be granted them by their sovereign with the consent
of the nobles and knights. Civil discord was the inevitable consequence
of these enactments. Several meeting? of the diet took place at which
the towns were not represented. The latter in 1513 formed a confederacy
to defend their rights, and chose Prince Bartholomew of Münsterberg--a
grandson of King George--as their leader.
Louis.
Vladislav was elected king of Hungary in 1490 and many of the events of
his later life belong to the history of Hungary. He married in 1502 Anna
de Candale, who was connected with the royal family of France. He had
two children by her, Anna, who afterwards married the archduke Ferdinand
of Austria, and Louis. Vladislav died in Hungary in 1516. His successor
was his son Louis, who had already been crowned as king of Bohemia at
the age of three. According to the instructions of Vladislav, Sigismund,
king of Poland, and the emperor Maximilian I. were to act as guardians
of the young king. The Bohemian estates recognized this decision, but
they refused to allow the guardians any right of interference in the
affairs of Bohemia. The great Bohemian nobles, and in particular the
supreme burgrave, Zdenek Leo, lord of Rozmital, ruled the country almost
without control. The beginning of the nominal reign of King Louis is
marked by an event which had great importance for the constitutional
development of Bohemia. At a meeting of the estates in 1517 known as the
diet of St Wenceslas--as the members first assembled on the 28th of
September, the anniversary of that saint--they came to terms and settled
the questions which had been the causes of discord. The citizens
renounced certain privileges which they had hitherto claimed, while the
two other estates recognized their municipal autonomy and tacitly
sanctioned their presence at the meetings of the diet, to which they had
already been informally readmitted since 1508. At the first sitting of
this diet, on the 24th of October, it was declared that the three
estates had agreed henceforth "to live together in friendly intercourse,
as became men belonging to the same country and race." In 1522 Louis
arrived in Bohemia from Hungary, of which country he had also been
elected king. On his arrival at Prague he dismissed all the Bohemian
state officials, including the powerful Leo of Rozmital. He appointed
Charles of Münsterberg, a cousin of Prince Bartholomew and also a
grandson of King George, as regent of Bohemia during his absences, and
John of Wartenberg as burgrave. The new officials appear to have
supported the more advanced Hussite party, while Rozmital and the
members of the town council of Prague who had acted in concert with him
had been the allies of the Romanists and those Utraquists who were
nearest to the Church of Rome. The new officials thus incurred the
displeasure of King Louis, who was at that moment seeking the aid of the
pope in his warfare with Turkey. The king therefore reinstated Leo of
Rozmital in his offices in 1525. Shortly afterwards Rozmital became
involved in a feud with the lords of Rosenberg; the feud became a civil
war, in which most of the nobles and cities of Bohemia took sides.
Meanwhile Louis, who had returned to Hungary, opened his campaign
against the Turks. He requested aid from his Bohemian subjects, and this
was granted, by the Rosenberg faction, while Rozmital and his party
purposely delayed sending any forces to Hungary. There were, therefore,
but few Bohemian troops at the battle of Mohács (August 29, 1526) at
which Louis was decisively defeated and perished.
Origin of the Habsburg dynasty.
Ferdinand.
The death of Louis found Bohemia in a state of great disorder, almost of
anarchy. The two last kings had mainly resided in Hungary, and in spite
of the temporary agreement obtained at the diet of St Wenceslas, the
Bohemians had not succeeded in establishing a strong indigenous
government which might have taken the place of the absentee monarchs.
Archduke Ferdinand of Austria--afterwards the emperor Ferdinand I.--laid
claim to the Bohemian throne as husband of Anna, daughter of King
Vladislav. King Sigismund of Poland, the dukes Louis and William of
Bavaria, several other German princes, as well as several Bohemian
noblemen, of whom Leo of Rozmital was the most important, were also
candidates. The diet resolved to entrust the election to twenty-four of
their members, chosen in equal number from the three estates. These
electors, on the 23rd of October (1526), chose Ferdinand of Habsburg as
their king. This date is memorable, as it marks the permanent accession
of the Habsburg dynasty to the Bohemian throne, though the Austrian
archdukes Rudolph and Albert had previously been rulers of Bohemia for
short periods. Though Ferdinand fully shared that devotion to Rome which
is traditional in the Habsburg dynasty, he showed great moderation in
religious matters, particularly at the beginning of his reign. His
principal object was to establish the hereditary right of his dynasty to
the Bohemian throne, and this object he pursued with characteristic
obstinacy. When a great fire broke out at Prague in 1541, which
destroyed all the state documents, Ferdinand obtained the consent of the
estates to the substitution of a charter stating that he had been
recognized as king in consequence of the hereditary rights of his wife
Anna, in the place of the former one, which had stated that he had
become king by election. This caused great dissatisfaction and was one
of the principal causes of the troubles that broke out shortly
afterwards. Ferdinand had in 1531, mainly through the influence of his
brother the emperor Charles V., been elected king of the Romans and heir
to the Empire. He henceforth took a large part in the politics of
Germany, particularly after he had in 1547 concluded a treaty of peace
with Turkey, which assured the safety of the eastern frontiers of his
dominions. Charles V. about the same time concluded his war with France,
and the brothers determined to adopt a firmer policy towards the
Protestants of Germany, whose power had recently greatly increased. The
latter had, about the time of the recognition of Ferdinand as king of
the Romans, and partly in consequence of that event, formed at
Schmalkalden a league, of which John Frederick, elector of Saxony, and
Philip, landgrave of Hesse, were the leaders. War broke out in Germany
in the summer of 1546, and Charles relied on the aid of his brother,
while the German Protestants on the other hand appealed to their
Bohemian co-religionists for aid.
Struggles in the war against German Protestantism.
Since the beginning of the Reformation in Germany the views of the
Bohemian reformers had undergone a considerable change. Some of the more
advanced Utraquists differed but little from the German Lutherans, while
the Bohemian Brethren, who at this moment greatly increased in influence
through the accession of several powerful nobles, strongly sympathized
with the Protestants of Germany. Ferdinand's task of raising a Bohemian
army in support of his brother was therefore a difficult one. He again
employed his usual tortuous policy. He persuaded the estates to vote a
general levy of the forces of the country under the somewhat
disingenuous pretext that Bohemia was menaced by the Turks; for at that
period no armed force could be raised in Bohemia without the consent of
the estates of the realm. Ferdinand fixed the town of Kaaden on the
Saxon frontier as the spot where the troops were to meet, but on his
arrival there he found that many cities and nobles--particularly those
who belonged to the community of the Bohemian Brethren--had sent no men.
Of the soldiers who arrived many were Protestants who sympathized with
their German co-religionists. The Bohemian army refused to cross the
Saxon frontier, and towards the end of the year 1546 Ferdinand was
obliged to disband his Bohemian forces. Early in the following year he
again called on his Bohemian subjects to furnish an army in aid of his
brother. Only a few of the Romanists and more retrograde Utraquists
obeyed his order. The large majority of Bohemians, on the other hand,
considered the moment opportune for recovering the ancient liberties of
Bohemia, on which Ferdinand had encroached in various ways by claiming
hereditary right to the crown and by curtailing the old privileges of
the land. The estates met at Prague in March 1547, without awaiting a
royal summons,--undoubtedly an unconstitutional proceeding. The
assembly, in which the influence of the representatives of the town of
Prague and of the knights and nobles who belonged to the Bohemian
Brotherhood was predominant, had a very revolutionary character. This
became yet more marked when the news of the elector of Saxony's victory
at Rochlitz reached Prague. The estates demanded the re-establishment of
the elective character of the Bohemian kingdom, the recognition of
religious liberty for all, and various enactments limiting the royal
prerogative. It was decided to entrust the management of state affairs
to a committee of twelve members chosen in equal number from the three
estates. Of the members of the committee chosen by the knights and
nobles four belonged to the Bohemian Brotherhood. The committee decided
to equip an armed force, the command of which was conferred on Kaspar
Pflug of Rabenstein (d. 1576). According to his instructions he was
merely to march to the Saxon frontier, and there await further orders
from the estates; there seems, however, little doubt that he was
secretly instructed to afford aid to the German Protestants. Pflug
marched to Joachimsthal on the frontier, but refused to enter Saxon
territory without a special command of the estates.
Meanwhile the great victory of the imperialists at Mühlberg had for a
time crushed German Protestantism. The Bohemians were in a very
difficult position. They had seriously offended their sovereign and yet
afforded no aid to the German Protestants. The army of Pflug hastily
dispersed, and the estates still assembled at Prague endeavoured to
propitiate Ferdinand. They sent envoys to the camp of the king who, with
his brother Charles, was then besieging Wittenberg. Ferdinand received
the envoys better than they had perhaps expected. He indeed always
maintained his plan of making Bohemia a hereditary kingdom under
Habsburg rule, and of curtailing as far as possible its ancient
constitution, but he did not wish to drive to despair a still warlike
people. Ferdinand demanded that the Bohemians should renounce all
alliances with the German Protestants, and declared that he would make
his will known after his arrival in Prague. He arrived there on the 20th
of July, with a large force of Spanish and Walloon mercenaries, and
occupied the city almost without resistance. Ferdinand treated the
nobles and knights with great forbearance, and contented himself with
the confiscation of the estates of some of those who had been most
compromised. On the other hand he dealt very severely with the
towns--Prague in particular. He declared that their ancient privileges
should be revised--a measure that practically signified a broad
confiscation of lands that belonged to the municipalities. Ferdinand
also forced the townsmen to accept the control of state officials who
were to be called town-judges and in Prague town-captains. These royal
representatives were given almost unlimited control over municipal
affairs. The Bohemian Brethren were also severely persecuted, and their
bishop Augusta was imprisoned for many years.
Ferdinand's policy here was as able as it always was. The peasantry had
ceased to be dangerous since the establishment of serfdom; the power of
the cities was now thoroughly undermined. Ferdinand had only to deal
with the nobles and knights, and he hoped that the influence of his
court, and yet more that of the Jesuits, whom he established in Bohemia
about this time, would gradually render them amenable to the royal will.
If we consider the customs of his time Ferdinand cannot be considered as
having acted with cruelty in the moment of his success. Only four of the
principal leaders of the revolt--two knights, and two citizens of
Prague--were sentenced to death. They were decapitated on the square
outside the Hradcany palace where the estates met on that day (August
22). This diet therefore became known as the "Krvavy'sneem" (bloody
diet). In one of the last years of his life (1562) Ferdinand succeeded
in obtaining the coronation of his eldest son Maximilian as king of
Bohemia, thus ensuring to him the succession to the Bohemian throne. As
Ferdinand I. acceded to the Hungarian throne at the same time as to
that of Bohemia, and as he also became king of the Romans and after the
death of Charles V. emperor, many events of his life do not belong to
the history of Bohemia. He died in 1564.
Maximilian.
Abolition of the "Compacts."
Maximilian succeeded his father as king of Bohemia without any
opposition. Circumstances were greatly in his favour; he had in his
youth mainly been educated by Protestant tutors, and for a time openly
avowed strong sympathy for the party of church reform. This fact, which
became known in Bohemia, secured for him the support of the Bohemian
church reformers, while the Romanists and retrograde Utraquists were
traditionally on the side of the house of Habsburg. The reign of
Maximilian did not fulfil the hopes that met it. Though he published new
decrees against the Bohemian Brethren, he generally refused to sanction
any measures against the Protestants, in spite of the advice of the
Jesuits, who were gradually obtaining great influence in Bohemia. He did
nothing, however, to satisfy the expectations of the partisans of church
reform, and indeed after a time began again to assist at the functions
of the Roman church, from which he had long absented himself.
Indifference, perhaps founded on religious scepticism, characterized the
king during the many ecclesiastical disputes that played so large a part
in his reign. In 1567 Maximilian, who had also succeeded his father as
king of Hungary and emperor, visited the Bohemians for the first time
since his accession to the throne. Like most princes of the Habsburg
dynasty, he was constantly confronted at this period by the difficulty
of raising funds for warfare against the Turks. When he asked the
Bohemians to grant him supplies for this purpose, they immediately
retorted by bringing forward their demands with regard to matters of
religion. Their principal demand appears somewhat strange in the light
of the events of the past. The estates expressed the wish that the
celebrated Compacts should cease to form part of the laws of the
country. These enactments had indeed granted freedom of worship to the
most moderate Utraquists--men who, except that they claimed the right to
receive the communion in both kinds, hardly differed in their faith from
the Roman church. On the other hand Ferdinand I. had used the Compacts
as an instrument which justified him in oppressing the Bohemian
Brethren, and the advanced Utraquists, whose teaching now differed but
little from that of Luther. He had argued that all those who professed
doctrines differing from the Church of Rome more widely than did the
retrograde Utraquists, were outside the pale of religious toleration.
Maximilian, indifferent as usual to matters of religious controversy,
consented to the abolition of the Compacts, and these enactments, which
had once been sacred to the Bohemian people, perished unregretted by all
parties. The Romanists had always hated them, believing them not to be
in accord with the general custom of the papal church, while the
Lutherans and Bohemian Brethren considered their suppression a guarantee
of their own liberty of worship.
Confessio Bohemica.
In 1575 Maximilian, who had long been absent from Bohemia, returned
there, as the estates refused to grant subsidies to an absentee monarch.
The sittings of the diet that met in 1575 were very prolonged. The king
maintained a vacillating attitude, influenced now by the threats of the
Bohemians, now by the advice of the papal nuncio, who had followed him
to Prague. The latter strongly represented to him how great would be the
difficulties that he would encounter in his other dominions, should he
make concessions to the Protestants of Bohemia. The principal demand of
the Bohemians was that the "Confession of Augsburg"--a summary of
Luther's teaching--should be recognized in Bohemia. They further renewed
the demand, which they had already expressed at the diet of 1567, that
the estates should have the right of appointing the members of the
consistory--the ecclesiastical body which ruled the Utraquist church;
for since the death of John of Rokycan that church had had no
archbishop. After long deliberations and the king's final refusal to
recognize the confession of Augsburg, the majority of the diet,
consisting of members of the Bohemian brotherhood and advanced
Utraquists, drew up a profession of faith that became known as the
_Confessio Bohemica_. It was in most points identical with the Augsburg
confession, but differed from it with regard to the doctrine of the
sacrament of the Lord's Supper. Here the Bohemian profession agreed with
the views of Calvin rather than with those of Luther. This is
undoubtedly due to the influence of the Bohemian Brethren. The
_Confessio Bohemica_ was presented to Maximilian, who verbally expressed
his approval, but would not consent to this being made public, and also
refused his consent to the inclusion of the _Confessio_ among the
charters of the kingdom. Maximilian rejected the demand of the Bohemian
estates, that they and not the king should in future appoint the members
of the consistory. He finally, however, consented to exempt the
Lutherans and advanced Utraquists from the jurisdiction of the
consistory, and allowed them to choose fifteen defenders--five of whom
were to belong to each of the estates--who were to have supreme control
over the Lutheran church. These defenders were to appoint for each
district a superintendent (moderator), who was to maintain order and
discipline among the clergy. As the Bohemian Brotherhood had never
recognized the consistory, that body now lost whatever influence it had
still possessed. It became, indeed, subservient to the Romanist
archbishopric of Prague, which had been re-established by Ferdinand I.
Its members henceforth were men who on almost all points agreed with
Rome, and sometimes even men who had joined the Roman church, but
continued by order of their superiors to remain members of the
consistory, where it was thought that their influence might be useful to
their new creed.
Rudolph.
The results of the diet of 1575 were on the whole favourable to the
estates, and they seem to have taken this view, for almost immediately
afterwards they recognized Maximilian's eldest son Rudolph as his
successor and consented to his being crowned king of Bohemia. Maximilian
died in the following year, and Rudolph succeeded him without any
opposition. The events of the last years of the reign of Rudolph have
the greatest importance for Bohemian history, but the earlier part of
his reign requires little notice. As Rudolph had been educated in Spain
it was at first thought that he would treat the Bohemian church
reformers with great severity. The new sovereign, however, showed with
regard to the unceasing religious controversy the same apathy and
indifference with which he also met matters of state. He had been from
his early youth subject to fits of melancholia, and during several short
periods was actually insane. Rudolph was a great patron of the arts, and
he greatly contributed to the embellishment of Prague, which, as it was
his favourite residence, became the centre of the vast Habsburg
dominions. In 1600 the mental condition of Rudolph became so seriously
impaired that the princes of the house of Habsburg thought it necessary
to consider the future of the state, particularly as Rudolph had no
legitimate descendants. Matthias, the eldest of his brothers, came to
Prague and pointed out to Rudolph the necessity of appointing a
coadjutor, should he be incapacitated from fulfilling his royal duties,
and also of making arrangements concerning the succession to the throne.
These suggestions were indignantly repelled by Rudolph, whose anger was
greatly increased by a letter of Pope Clement VIII. The pope in a
forcible though formally courteous manner pointed out to him the evil
results which his neglect of his royal duties would entail on his
subjects, and called on him to appoint one of the Habsburg princes his
successor both to the imperial crown and to the thrones of Bohemia and
Hungary. It is probable that the fear that the pope might make good the
threats contained in this letter induced Rudolph, who had hitherto been
indifferent to matters of religion, to become more subservient to the
Roman church. The papal nuncio at Prague, in particular, appears for a
time to have obtained great influence over the king. Under this
influence, Rudolph in 1602 issued a decree which renewed obsolete
enactments against the Bohemian Brethren that had been published by King
Vladislav in 1508. The royal decree was purposely worded in an obscure
manner. It referred to the Compacts that had been abolished, and was
liable to an interpretation excluding from tolerance all but the
Romanists and the retrograde Utraquists. It appeared therefore as a
menace to the Lutherans--and all the more advanced Utraquists had now
embraced that creed--as well as to the Bohemian Brethren. The estates of
Bohemia met at Prague in January 1603. The discussions were very stormy.
Budovec of Budova, a nobleman belonging to the community of the Bohemian
Brethren, became the leader of all those who were opposed to the Church
of Rome. He vigorously attacked the royal decree, which he declared to
be contrary to the promises made by King Maximilian. He, however,
advised the estates to vote the supplies that King Rudolph had demanded.
Immediately after this vote had been passed, the diet was closed by
order of the king. Though the royal power was at that period very weak
in Bohemia, the open partisanship of the king encouraged the Romanist
nobles, who were not numerous, but among whom were some owners of large
estates, to attempt to re-establish the Roman creed on their
territories. Some of these nobles committed great cruelties while
attempting to obtain these forcible conversions.
Strife again broke out between Rudolph and his treacherous younger
brother Matthias, who used the religious and political controversies of
the time for the purpose of supplanting his brother. The formal cause of
the rupture between the two princes was Rudolph's refusal to sanction a
treaty of peace with Turkey, which Matthias had concluded as his
brother's representative in Hungary. The Hungarians accepted Matthias as
their ruler, and when his forces entered Moravia the estates of that
country had, by Charles, lord of Zerotin, also renounced the allegiance
of Rudolph. Matthias then invaded Bohemia, and invited the estates of
the kingdom to meet him at Caslav (Ceslau). In consequence of a sudden
revolution of feeling for which it is difficult to account, the
Bohemians declined the overtures of Matthias. The estates met at Prague
in March 1608, and, though again submitting their demands concerning
ecclesiastical matters to Rudolph, authorized him to levy troops for the
defence of Bohemia. The forces of Matthias had meanwhile entered Bohemia
and had arrived at Liben, a small town near Prague now incorporated with
that city. Here Matthias, probably disappointed by the refusal of the
Bohemians to join his standard, came to an understanding with his
brother (June 25, 1608). Rudolph formally ceded to Matthias the
government of Hungary, Moravia, and Upper and Lower Austria, but
retained his rights as king of Bohemia.
Diet of 1609. Demand for religious liberty.
Soon after the conclusion of this temporary settlement, the estates of
Bohemia again brought their demands before their king. Rudolph had
declined to discuss all religious matters during the time that the
troops of his brother occupied part of Bohemia. The diet that met on the
20th of January 1609 is one of the most important in the history of
Bohemia. Here, as so frequently in the 17th century, the religious
controversies were largely influenced by personal enmities. Rudolph
never forgave the treachery of his brother, and was secretly negotiating
(at the time when he again appeared as champion of Catholicism) with
Christian of Anhalt, the leader of the German Protestants. This was
known to the court of Spain, and the Bohemians also knew that the king
could therefore rely on no aid from that quarter. They were therefore
not intimidated when Rudolph, vacillating as ever, suddenly assumed a
most truculent attitude. The estates had at their meeting in March of
the previous year drawn up a document consisting of twenty-five
so-called Articles, which formulated their demands with regard to
matters of religion. The king now demanded that this document, which he
considered illegal, should be delivered up to him for destruction. The
"articles" expressed the wish that the _Confessio Bohemica_ should be
recognized as one of the fundamental laws of the kingdom, and that
complete religious liberty should be granted to all classes. They
further demanded that the Protestants--as it now became customary to
call jointly the Utraquists, Lutherans and Bohemian Brethren--and the
Roman Catholics should have an equal right to hold all the offices of
state, and that the power of the Jesuits to acquire land should be
limited. They finally asked for redress of several grievances caused by
the misrule of Rudolph. This document had remained in the hands of
Budova, who refused to deliver it to the king. The estates then chose
twelve of their number--among whom was Count Henry Matthias Thurn--who
were to negotiate with the king and his councillors. Protracted
discussions ensued, and the king finally stated, on the 31st of March,
that he could grant no concessions in matters of religion. On the
following day the estates met under the leadership of Budova. They
decided to arm for the defence of their rights, and when the king
immediately afterwards dissolved the diet, it was resolved to meet again
after a month, even without a royal summons. When they returned to
Prague, Adam of Sternberg, the burgrave, again informed Budova that the
king would grant no concessions in ecclesiastical matters. Bohemia
appeared to be on the verge of a revolution. It is unnecessary to record
the frequent and contradictory resolutions of the king, influenced now
by the extreme Romanists, now by those of his councillors who favoured a
peaceful solution. Finally--on the 9th of July 1609--Rudolph signed the
famed "Letter of Majesty" which gave satisfaction to all the legitimate
demands of the Bohemian Protestants. In the "Letter of Majesty" Rudolph
recognized the _Confessio Bohemica_. He further granted to the
Protestant estates the control over the university of Prague, and
authorized them to elect the members of the Utraquist consistory. They
were further empowered to elect "defenders" chosen in equal number from
the estates of the nobles, knights and citizens, who were to superintend
the execution of the enactments of the Letter of Majesty and generally
to uphold the rights of the Protestants. On the same day the Romanist
and the Protestant members of the diet also signed an agreement by which
they guaranteed to each other full liberty of religious worship and
declared that this liberty should be extended to all classes of the
population.
Matthias.
In 1611 the peace of Bohemia was again disturbed by the invasion of the
archduke Leopold of Austria, bishop of Passau, who probably acted in
connivance with his cousin King Rudolph. Leopold succeeded in obtaining
possession of part of the town of Prague, but his army was defeated by
the troops which the Bohemian estates had hurriedly raised, and he was
obliged to leave Bohemia. Matthias considered his hereditary rights
menaced by the raid of Leopold and again occupied Bohemia. Mainly at his
instigation the estates now formally deposed Rudolph, who survived his
dethronement only a few months, and died on the 20th of January 1612.
Though Matthias had allied himself with the Bohemian Protestants during
his prolonged struggle against his brother, he now adopted that policy
favourable to the Church of Rome which is traditional of the Habsburg
dynasty. His relations with the Bohemian Protestants, therefore, soon
became strained. In 1615 Matthias convoked a general diet, i.e. one that
besides the Bohemian representatives included also the representatives
of the "lands of the Bohemian crown." At the meeting of this diet the
question of nationality, which through the constant religious
controversies had receded to the background, again became predominant.
Former enactments enforcing the use of the national language were
reaffirmed, and it was decreed that Bohemian should be the "authorized"
(i.e. official) language of the country.
As Matthias was childless, the question as to the succession to the
Bohemian throne again arose. The king wished to secure the succession to
his cousin Ferdinand, duke of Styria. Ferdinand was known as a fanatical
adherent of the Church of Rome and as a cruel persecutor of the
Protestants of Styria. None the less the state officials of Bohemia, by
not very scrupulous means, succeeded in persuading the estates to accept
Ferdinand as heir to the throne and to consent to his coronation, which
took place at Prague on the 17th of June 1617. No doubt through the
influence of Ferdinand, the policy of Matthias henceforth assumed a yet
more pronouncedly ultramontane character. The king's councillors, all
adherents of the Church of Rome, openly expressed their hope that the
Catholic Church would soon recover its ancient hold over Bohemia. On the
other hand the Bohemian Protestants, led by Count Thurn, one of the few
nobles who had refused to vote for the recognition of Ferdinand as heir
to the throne, did not wish to defer what they considered an inevitable
conflict. It appeared to them more advantageous to encounter the weak
Matthias than his younger and more fanatical successor. A comparatively
unimportant incident precipitated matters. In December 1617, the
archbishop of Prague and the abbot of Brevnov (Braunau) ordered the
suppression of the Protestant religious services in churches that had
been built on their domains. This was a direct infringement of the
agreement concluded by the Romanist and Utraquist estates on the day on
which King Rudolph had signed the Letter of Majesty. The defenders took
immediate action, by inviting all Protestant members of the diet to meet
at Prague. They assembled there on 21st of May 1618, and decided to
proceed in full armour to the Hradcany palace to bring their complaints
to the knowledge of the councillors of Matthias. On the following day,
Thurn, Wenceslas of Ruppa, Ulrich of Kinsky, and other members of the
more advanced party held a secret meeting, at which it was decided to
put to death the most influential of Matthias's councillors. On the 23rd
the representatives of the Protestants of Bohemia proceeded to the
Hradcany. Violent accusations were brought forward, particularly against
Martinic and Slavata, the king's most trusted councillors, who were
accused of having advised him to oppose the wishes of the Bohemians.
Finally these two councillors, together with Fabricius, secretary of the
royal council, were thrown from the windows of the Hradcany into the
moat below--an event known in history as the Defenestration of Prague.
Both Martinic and Slavata were but little injured, and succeeded in
escaping from Prague. The Bohemians immediately established a
provisional government consisting of thirty "directors," ten of whom
were chosen by each of the estates. They also proceeded to raise an
armed force, the command of which was given to Count Thurn. Hostilities
with Austria began in July, when an imperial force entered Bohemia. The
troops of Matthias were, however, soon repulsed by the Bohemians, and in
November Thurn's army entered Austria, but was soon obliged to retire to
Bohemia because of the lateness of the season.
War with the emperor Ferdinand.
In the following March the Bohemian crown became vacant by the death of
Matthias. On the 31st of July the Bohemian estates pronounced the formal
deposition of Ferdinand, and on the 26th of August they elected as their
king Frederick, elector palatine. The new king and his queen, Elizabeth
of England, arrived in Bohemia in October, and were crowned somewhat
later at St Vitus's cathedral in Prague. Warfare with Austria continued
during this year--1619. Thurn occupied Moravia, which now threw in its
lot with Bohemia, and he even advanced on Vienna, but was soon obliged
to retreat. In the following year events took a fatal turn for Bohemia.
The powerful duke Maximilian of Bavaria joined his forces to those of
Ferdinand, who had become Matthias's successor as emperor, and who was
determined to reconquer Bohemia. Ferdinand also received aid from Spain,
Poland and several Italian states. Even the Lutheran elector of Saxony
espoused his cause. A large imperialist army, under the command of the
duke of Bavaria, Tilly and Bouquoi, entered Bohemia in September 1620.
After several skirmishes, in all of which the Bohemians were defeated,
the imperial forces arrived at the outskirts of Prague on the evening of
the 7th of November. On the following morning they attacked the Bohemian
army, which occupied a slightly fortified position on the plateau known
as the "Bila Hora" (White Hill). The Bohemians were defeated after a
struggle of only a few hours, and on the evening of battle the
imperialists already occupied the port of Prague, situated on the left
bank of the Vltava (Moldau). King Frederick, who had lost all courage,
hurriedly left Prague on the following morning.
Submission of Bohemia.
Bohemia itself, as well as the lands of the Bohemian crown, now
submitted to Ferdinand almost without resistance. The battle of the
White Hill marks an epoch in the history of Bohemia. The execution of
the principal leaders of the national movement (June 21, 1621) was
followed by a system of wholesale confiscation of the lands of all who
had in any way participated in the national movement. Almost the entire
ancient nobility of Bohemia was driven into exile, and adventurers from
all countries, mostly men who had served in the imperial army, shared
the spoils. Gradually all those who refused to recognize the creed of
the Roman church were expelled from Bohemia, and by the use of terrible
cruelty Catholicism was entirely re-established in the country. In 1627
Ferdinand published a decree, which formally suppressed the ancient free
constitution of Bohemia, though a semblance of representative government
was left to the country. The new constitution proclaimed the heredity of
the Bohemian crown in the house of Habsburg. It added a new "estate,"
that of the clergy, to the three already existing. This estate, which
was to take precedence of all the others, consisted of the Roman
archbishop of Prague and of all the ecclesiastics who were endowed with
landed estates. The diet was deprived of all legislative power, which
was exclusively vested in the sovereign. At its meetings the diet was to
discuss such matters only as were laid before it by the representatives
of the king. The estates continued to have the right of voting taxes,
but they were specially forbidden to attach any conditions to the grants
of money which they made to their sovereign. It was finally decreed that
the German language should have equal right with the Bohemian one in all
the government offices and law-courts of the kingdom. This had indeed
become a necessity, since, in consequence of the vast confiscations, the
greatest part of the land was in the hands of foreigners to whom the
national language was unknown. Though these enactments still left some
autonomy to Bohemia, the country gradually lost all individuality. Its
history from this moment to the beginning of the 19th century is but a
part of the history of Austria (q.v.).
Bohemia under Austrian domination.
Bohemia was the theatre of hostilities during a large part of the Thirty
Years' War, which had begun in its capital. In 1631 the Saxons for a
time occupied a large part of Bohemia, and even attempted to
re-establish Protestantism, During the later period of the Thirty Years'
War Bohemia was frequently pillaged by Swedish troops, and the taking of
part of Prague by the Swedish general Königsmark in 1648 was the last
event of the great war. The attempts of the Swedish envoys to obtain a
certain amount of toleration for the Bohemian Protestants proved
fruitless, as the imperial representatives were inflexible on this
point. At the beginning of the 18th century the possibility of the
extinction of the male line of the house of Habsburg arose. The estates
of Bohemia, at a meeting that took place at Prague on the 16th of
October 1720, sanctioned the female succession to the Bohemian throne
and recognized the so-called Pragmatic Sanction which proclaimed the
indivisibility of the Habsburg realm. The archduchess Maria Theresa, in
whose favour these enactments were made, none the less met with great
opposition on the death of her father the emperor Charles VI. Charles,
elector of Bavaria, raised claims to the Bohemian throne and invaded the
country with a large army of Bavarian, French and Saxon troops. He
occupied Prague, and a large part of the nobles and knights of Bohemia
took the oath of allegiance to him (December 19, 1741). The fortune of
war, however, changed shortly afterwards. Maria Theresa recovered
Bohemia and the other lands that had been under the rule of the house of
Habsburg. During the reign of Maria Theresa, and to a greater extent
during that of her son Joseph II., many changes in the internal
administration of the Habsburg realm took place which all tended to
limit yet further the autonomy of Bohemia. A decree of 1749 abolished
the separate law-courts that still existed in Bohemia, and a few years
later an Austro-Bohemian chancellor was appointed who was to have the
control of the administration of Bohemia, as well as of the German
domains of the house of Habsburg. The power of the royal officials who
constituted the executive government of Bohemia was greatly curtailed,
and though the chief representative of the sovereign in Prague continued
to bear the ancient title of supreme burgrave, he was instructed to
conform in all matters to the orders of the central government of
Vienna. Yet more extreme measures tending to centralization were
introduced by the emperor Joseph, who refused to be crowned at Prague as
king of Bohemia. The powers of the Bohemian diet and of the royal
officials at Prague were yet further limited, and the German language
was introduced into all the upper schools of Bohemia. Some of the
reforms introduced by Joseph were, incidentally and contrary to the
wishes of their originator, favourable to the Bohemian nationality. Thus
the greater liberty which he granted to the press enabled the Bohemians
to publish a newspaper in the national language. After the death of
Joseph in 1790 the Bohemian estates, whose meetings had been suspended
during his reign, again assembled, but they at first made but scanty
attempts to reassert their former rights. During the long Napoleonic
wars, in which the house of Habsburg was almost continuously engaged,
Bohemia continued in its previous lethargic state. In 1804 a merely
formal change in the constitutional position of Bohemia took place when
Francis I. assumed the hereditary title of emperor of Austria. It was
stated in an imperial decree that the new title of the sovereign should
in no way prejudice the ancient rights of Bohemia and that the
sovereigns would continue to be crowned as kings of Bohemia.
Revival of national aspirations.
Collapse in 1848.
After the re-establishment of European peace in 1815 the long-suppressed
national aspirations of Bohemia began to revive. The national movement,
however, at first only found expression in the revival of Bohemian
literature. The arbitrary and absolutist government of Prince Metternich
rendered all political action impossible in the lands ruled by the house
of Habsburg. In spite of this pressure the estates of Bohemia began in
1845 to assume an attitude of opposition to the government of Vienna.
They affirmed their right of voting the taxes of the country--a right
that was due to them according to the constitution of 1627. To obtain
the support of the wider classes of the population, they determined in
1847 to propose at their session of the following year that the towns
should have a more extensive representation at the diet, that the
control of the estates over the finances of the country should be made
more stringent, and that the Bohemian language should be introduced into
all the higher schools of the country. The revolutionary outbreak of
1848 prevented this meeting of the estates. When the news of the
February revolution in Paris reached Prague the excitement there was
very great. On the 11th of March a vast public meeting voted a petition
to the government of Vienna which demanded that the Bohemian language
should enjoy equal rights with the German in all the government offices
of the country, that a general diet comprising all the Bohemian lands,
but elected on an extensive suffrage, should be convoked, and that
numerous liberal reforms should be introduced. The deputation which
presented these demands in Vienna received a somewhat equivocal answer.
In reply, however, to a second deputation, the emperor Ferdinand
declared on the 8th of April that equality of rights would be secured to
both nationalities in Bohemia, that the question of the reunion of
Moravia and Silesia to Bohemia should be left to a general meeting of
representatives of all parts of Austria, and that a new meeting of the
estates of Bohemia, which would include representatives of the principal
towns, would shortly be convoked. This assembly, which was to have had
full powers to create a new constitution, and which would have
established complete autonomy, never met, though the election of its
members took place on the 17th of May. In consequence of the general
national movement which is so characteristic of the year 1848, it was
decided to hold at Prague a "Slavic congress" to which Slavs of all
parts of the Austrian empire, as well as those belonging to other
countries, were invited. The deliberations were interrupted by the
serious riots that broke out in the streets of Prague on the 12th of
June. They were suppressed after prolonged fighting and considerable
bloodshed. The Austrian commander, Prince Windischgrätz, bombarded the
city, which finally capitulated unconditionally. The nationalist and
liberal movement in Bohemia was thus suddenly checked, though the
Bohemians took part in the Austrian constituent assembly that met at
Vienna, and afterwards at Kromeriz (Kremsier).
By the end of the year 1849 all constitutional government had ceased in
Bohemia, as in all parts of the Habsburg empire. The reaction that now
ensued was felt more severely than in any other part of the monarchy;
for not only were all attempts to obtain self-government and liberty
ruthlessly suppressed, but a determined attempt was made to exterminate
the national language. The German language was again exclusively used in
all schools and government offices, all Bohemian newspapers were
suppressed, and even the society of the Bohemian museum--a society
composed of Bohemian noblemen and scholars--was for a time only allowed
to hold its meetings under the supervision of the police.
Austrian constitutional changes.
The events of the Italian campaign of 1859 rendered the continuation of
absolutism in the Austrian empire impossible. It was attempted to
establish a constitutional system which, while maintaining to a certain
extent the unity of the empire, should yet recognize the ancient
constitutional rights of some of the countries united under the rule of
the house of Habsburg. A decree published on the 20th of October 1860
established diets with limited powers. The composition of these
parliamentary assemblies was to a certain extent modelled on that of the
ancient diets of Bohemia and other parts of the empire. This decree was
favourably received in Bohemia, but the hopes which it raised in the
country fell when a new imperial decree appeared on the 26th of February
1861. This established a central parliament at Vienna with very
extensive powers, and introduced an electoral system which was grossly
partial to the Germans. The Bohemians indeed consented to send their
representatives to Vienna, but they left the parliament in 1863, stating
that the assembly had encroached on the power which constitutionally
belonged to the diet of Prague. Two years later the central parliament
of Vienna was suspended, and in the following year--1866--the
Austro-Prussian war caused a complete change in the constitutional
position of Bohemia. The congress of Vienna in 1815 had declared that
that country should form part of the newly formed Germanic
Confederation; this was done without consulting the estates of the
country, as had been customary even after the battle of the White Hill
on the occasion of serious constitutional changes. The treaty with
Prussia, signed at Prague on the 23rd of August 1866, excluded from
Germany all lands ruled by the house of Habsburg. As a natural
consequence German influence declined in the Austrian empire, and in
Bohemia in particular. While Hungary now obtained complete independence,
the new constitution of 1867, which applied only to the German and
Slavic parts of the Habsburg empire, maintained the system of
centralization and attempted to maintain the waning German influence.
The Bohemians energetically opposed this new constitution and refused to
send representatives to Vienna.
Renewed struggles of Bohemian nationalism.
In 1871 it appeared probable for a moment that the wishes of the
Bohemians, who desired that their ancient constitution should be
re-established in a modernized form, would be realized. The new Austrian
prime minister, Count Karl Hohenwart, took office with the firm
intention of accomplishing an agreement between Bohemia and the other
parts of the Habsburg empire. Prolonged negotiations ensued, and an
attempt was made to establish a constitutional system which, while
satisfying the claims of the Bohemians, would yet have firmly connected
them with the other lands ruled by the house of Habsburg. An imperial
message addressed to the diet of Prague (September 14, 1871) stated that
the sovereign "in consideration of the former constitutional position of
Bohemia and remembering the power and glory which its crown had given to
his ancestors, and the constant fidelity of its population, gladly
recognized the rights of the kingdom of Bohemia, and was willing to
confirm this assurance by taking the coronation oath." Various
influences caused the failure of this attempt to reconcile Bohemia with
Austria. In 1872 a government with a pronounced German tendency took
office in Vienna, and the Bohemians for a time again refused to attend
the parliamentary assemblies of Vienna and Prague. In 1879 Count Eduard
Taaffe became Austrian prime minister, and he succeeded in persuading
the representatives of Bohemia to take part in the deliberations of the
parliament of Vienna. They did so, after stating that they took this
step without prejudice to their view that Bohemia with Moravia and
Silesia constituted a separate state under the rule of the same
sovereign as Austria and Hungary. The government of Count Taaffe, in
recognition of this concession by the Bohemians, consented to remove
some of the grossest anomalies connected with the electoral system of
Bohemia, which had hitherto been grossly partial to the German minority
of the population. The government of Count Taaffe also consented to the
foundation of a Bohemian university at Prague, which greatly contributed
to the intellectual development of the country. On the fall of the
government of Count Taaffe, Prince Alfred Windischgrätz became prime
minister. The policy of his short-lived government was hostile to
Bohemia and he was soon replaced by Count Badeni.
The language question.
Badeni again attempted to conciliate Bohemia. He did not indeed consider
it feasible to reopen the question of its autonomy, but he endeavoured
to remedy some of the most serious grievances of the country. In the
beginning of 1897 Count Badeni issued a decree which stated that after a
certain date all government officials who wished to be employed in
Bohemia would have to prove a certain knowledge of the Bohemian as well
as of the German language. This decree met with violent opposition on
the part of the German inhabitants of Austria, and caused the fall of
Count Badeni's cabinet at the end of the year 1897. After a brief
interval he was succeeded by Count Thun and then by Count Clary, whose
government repealed the decrees that had to a certain extent granted
equal rights to the Bohemian language. In consequence troubles broke out
in Prague, and were severely repressed by the Austrian authorities.
During the subsequent ministries of Körber and Gautsch the Bohemians
continued to oppose the central government of Vienna, and to assert
their national rights.
See generally Count Lützow, _Bohemia, a Historical Sketch_ (London,
1896). The valuable collection of historical documents entitled
_Fontes Rerum Bohemicarum_, published at Prague in the latter part of
the 19th century, has superseded earlier ones such as Freherus
(Marquard Freher), _Rerum Bohemicarum Antiqui Scriptores_. Similarly,
the earlier historical works of Pubitschka, Pelzl and De Florgy are
superseded by Frantisek Palacký's _Geschichte von Bohmen_ (Prague,
1844-1867), which, however, ends with the year 1526. Rezek, Gindely
and others have dealt with the history of Bohemia posterior to the
year 1526. Professor Adolf Bachmann published (vol. i. in 1899, vol.
ii. 1905) a _Geschichte Bohmens_ up to 1526, which has a strongly
marked German tendency. Of French works Professor Ernest Denis's _Jean
Hus, et la guerre des Hussites_ (Paris, 1878), _Fin de l'independance
bohème_ (2 vols., 1890), and _La Bohême depuis la Montagne Blanche_ (2
vols., 1903), give a continuous account of Bohemian history from the
beginning of the 15th century. (L.)
LITERATURE
The earliest records of the Bohemian or Czech language are very ancient,
though the so-called MSS. of Zelena Hora (Grüneberg) and Kralodvur
(Königinhof) are almost certainly forgeries of the early part of the
19th century. The earliest genuine documents of the Bohemian language
comprise several hymns and legends; of the latter the legend of St
Catherine and that of St Dorothy have the greatest value. Several
ancient epic fragments have also been preserved, such as the
_Alexandreis_ and _Tandarias a Floribella_. These and other early
Bohemian writings have been printed since the revival of Bohemian
literature in the 19th century. Of considerable historical value is the
rhymed chronicle generally though wrongly known as the chronicle of
Dalimil. The author, who probably lived during the reign of King John
(1310-1346), records the events of Bohemian history from the earliest
period to the reign of King Henry of Carinthia, the immediate
predecessor of John. A strong feeling of racial antipathy to the
Germans pervades the chronicle.
Old Czech literature.
It is undoubtedly to be attributed to the high intellectual level which
Bohemia attained in the 14th century that at that period we already find
writers on religious and philosophical subjects who used the national
language. Of these the most important is Thomas of Stitný (c.
1331-1401). Of his works, which contain many ideas similar to those of
his contemporary Wycliffe, those entitled _O obecnych vecech
Krestanskych_ (on general Christian matters) and _Besedni reci_ (in a
rough translation "learned entertainments") have most value. Stitný and
some of his contemporaries whose Bohemian writings have perished are
known as the forerunners of Huss. Huss, like many of his contemporaries
in Bohemia, wrote both in Bohemian and in Latin. Of the Bohemian
writings of Huss, who contributed greatly to the development of his
native language, the most important is his _Výklad viry, desatera Boziho
prikazani, a patere_ (exposition of the creed, the ten commandments and
the Lord's Prayer) written in 1412. Of his numerous other Bohemian works
we may mention the _Postilla_ (collection of sermons), the treatises _O
poznani cesty prave k spaseni_ (the true road to salvation) and _O
svatokupectvi_ (on simony), and a large collection of letters; those
written in prison are very touching.
The years that followed the death of Huss formed in Bohemia a period of
incessant theological strife. The anti-Roman or Hussite movement was
largely a democratic one, and it is therefore natural that the national
language rather than Latin should have been used in the writings that
belong to this period. Unfortunately in consequence of the systematic
destruction of all Bohemian writings which took place through the agency
of the Jesuits, after the battle of the White Hill (1620), a large part
of this controversial literature has perished. Thus the writings of the
members of the extreme Hussite party, the so-called Taborites, have been
entirely destroyed. Of the writings of the more moderate Hussites, known
as the Calixtines or Utraquists, some have been preserved. Such are the
books entitled _Of the Great Torment of the Holy Church_ and the _Lives
of the Priests of Tabor_, written in a sense violently hostile to that
community. A Bohemian work by Archbishop John of Rokycan has also been
preserved; it is entitled _Postilla_ and is similar though inferior to
the work of Huss that bears the same name.
A quite independent religious writer who belongs to the period of the
Hussite wars is Peter Chelcicky (born in the last years of the 14th
century, died 1460), who may be called the Tolstoy of the 15th. His
dominant ideas were horror of bloodshed and the determination to accept
unresistingly all, even unjust, decrees of the worldly authorities.
Though a strenuous enemy of the Church of Rome, Chelcicky joined none of
the Hussite parties. His masterpiece is the _Sít viry_ (the net of
faith). Among his other works his _Postilla_ and polemical writings in
the form of letters to Archbishop John of Rokycan and Bishop Nicolas of
Pelhrimov deserve mention.
The Hussite period is rather poor in historical works written in the
language of the country. We should, however, mention some chroniclers
who were contemporaries and sometimes eye-witnesses of the events of the
Hussite wars. Their writings have been collected and published by
Frantisek Palacký under the title of _Stare ceske letopisy_.
In the 16th century when Bohemia was in a state of comparative
tranquillity, the native literature was largely developed. Besides the
writers of the community of the Bohemian Brethren, we meet at this
period with three historians of merit. Of these far the best-known is
Wenceslas Hajek of Libocan. The year of his birth is uncertain, but we
read of him as a priest in 1524; he died in 1553. His great work
_Kronika ceska_ was dedicated to the emperor Ferdinand I., king of
Bohemia, and appeared under the auspices of government officials. It has
therefore a strong dynastic and Romanist tendency, and its circulation
was permitted even at the time when most Bohemian books were prohibited
and many totally destroyed. Hajek's book was translated into several
languages and frequently quoted. We find such second-hand quotations
even in the works of many writers who had probably never heard of Hajek.
His book is, however, inaccurate and grossly partial. Very little known
on the other hand are the works of Bartos, surnamed "pisár" (the
writer), as he was for many years employed as secretary by the city of
Prague, and those of Sixt of Ottersdorf. The work of Bartos (or
Bartholomew) entitled the _Chronicle of Prague_ has great historical
value. He describes the troubles that befell Prague and Bohemia
generally during the reign of the weak and absentee sovereign King
Louis. The year of the birth of Bartos is uncertain, but it is known
that he died in 1539. The somewhat later work of Sixt of Ottersdorf
(1500-1583) deals with a short but very important episode in the history
of Bohemia. It is entitled _Memorials of the Troubled Years 1546 and
1547_. The book describes the unsuccessful rising of the Bohemians
against Ferdinand I. of Austria. Sixt took a considerable part in this
movement, a fact that greatly enhances the value of his book.
Though the life of Chelcicky, who has already been mentioned, was an
isolated one, he is undoubtedly the indirect founder of the community of
the "Bohemian Brethren," who greatly influenced Bohemian literature.
Almost all their historical and theological works were written in the
national language, which through their influence became far more refined
and polished. Before referring to some of the writings of members of the
community we should mention the famed translation of the Scriptures
known as the _Bible of Kralice_. It was the joint work of several
divines of the brotherhood, and was first printed at Kralice in Moravia
in 1593. Brother Gregory, surnamed the patriarch of the brotherhood, has
left a large number of writings dealing mainly with theological matters.
Most important are the _Letters to Archbishop Rokycan_ and the book _On
good and evil priests_. After the death of Brother Gregory in 1480
discord broke out in the community, and it resulted in very great
literary activity. Brothers Lucas, Blahoslav and Jaffet, as well as
Augusta, a bishop of the community, have left us numerous controversial
works. Very interesting is the account of the captivity of Bishop
Augusta, written by his companion the young priest Jan Bilek. We have
evidence that numerous historical works written by members of the
brotherhood existed, but most of them perished in the 17th century when
nearly all anti-Roman books written in Bohemia were destroyed. Thus only
fragments of Blahoslav's _History of the Unity_ (i.e. the brotherhood)
have been preserved. One of the historians of the brotherhood, Wenceslas
Brezan, wrote a _History of the House of Rosenberg_, of which only the
biographies of William and Peter of Rosenberg have been preserved. The
greatest writer of the brotherhood is John Amos Komensky or Comenius
(1592-1670). Of his many works written in his native language the most
important is his _Labyrinth of the World_, an allegorical tale which is
perhaps the most famous work written in Bohemian.[4] Many of the
numerous devotional and educational writings of Comenius,--his works
number 142,--are also written in his native tongue.
The year 1620, which witnessed the downfall of Bohemian independence,
also marks the beginning of a period of decline of the national tongue,
which indeed later, in the 18th century, was almost extinct as a written
language. Yet we must notice besides Comenius two other writers, both
historians, whose works belong to a date later than 1620. Of these one
was an adherent of the nationalist, the other of the imperialist party.
Paul Skála ze Zhore (1582-c. 1640) was an official in the service of the
"winter king" Frederick of the Palatinate. He for a time followed his
sovereign into exile, and spent the last years of his life at Freiberg
in Saxony. It was at this period of his life, after his political
activity had ceased, that he wrote his historical works. His first work
was a short book which is a mere series of chronological tables.
Somewhat later he undertook a vast work entitled _Histoire cirkevni_
(history of the church). In spite of its title the book, which consists
of ten enormous MS. volumes, deals as much with political as with
ecclesiastical matters. The most valuable part, that dealing with events
of 1602 to 1623, of which Skála writes as a contemporary and often as an
eye-witness, has been edited and published by Prof. Tieftrunk. A
contemporary and a political opponent of Skála was William Count Slavata
(1572-1652). He was a faithful servant of the house of Habsburg, and one
of the government officials who were thrown from the windows of the
Hradcany palace in 1618, at the beginning of the Bohemian uprising. In
1637 Slavata published his _Pamety_ (memoirs) which deal exclusively
with the events of the years 1618 and 1619, in which he had played so
great a part. During the leisure of the last years of his long life
Slavata composed a vast work entitled _Historické Spisovani_ (historical
works). It consists of fourteen large MS. volumes, two of which contain
the previously-written memoirs. These two volumes have recently been
edited and published by Dr Jos. Jirecek.
19th-century revival.
After the deaths of Skála, Slavata and Comenius, no works of any
importance were written in the Bohemian language for a considerable
period, and the new Austrian government endeavoured in every way to
discourage the use of that language. A change took place when the
romantic movement started at the beginning of the 19th century. The
early revival of the Bohemian language was very modest, and at first
almost exclusively translations from foreign languages were published.
The first writer who again drew attention to the then almost forgotten
Bohemian language was Joseph Dobrovský (1753-1829). His works, which
include a grammar of the Bohemian language and a history of Bohemian
literature, were mostly written in German or Latin, and his only
Bohemian works are some essays which he contributed to the early numbers
of the _Casopis Musea Království Ceského_ (Journal of the Bohemian
Museum) and a collection of letters.
It is, however, to four men belonging to a time somewhat subsequent to
that of Dobrovský that the revival of the language and literature of
Bohemia is mainly due. They are Jungmann, Kolar, Safarik and Palacký.
Joseph Jungmann (1773-1847) published early in life numerous Bohemian
translations of German and English writers. His most important works are
his _Dejepes literatury ceska_ (history of Bohemian literature), and his
monumental German and Bohemian dictionary, which largely contributed to
the development of the Bohemian language. John Kolar (1793-1852) was the
greatest poet of the Bohemian revival, and it is only in quite recent
days that Bohemian poetry has risen to a higher level. Kolar's principal
poem is the _Slavy dcera_ (daughter of Slavia), a personification of the
Slavic race. Its principal importance at the present time consists
rather in the part it played in the revival of Bohemian literature than
in its artistic value. Kolar's other works are mostly philological
studies. Paul Joseph Safarik (1795-1861) was a very fruitful writer. His
_Starozitnosti Slovanské_ (Slavic antiquities), an attempt to record the
then almost unknown history and literature of the early Slavs, has still
considerable value. Francis Palacký (1798-1876) is undoubtedly the
greatest of Bohemian historians. Among his many works his history of
Bohemia from the earliest period to the year 1526 is the most important.
Other Bohemian writers whose work belongs mainly to the earlier part of
the 19th century are the poets Francis Ladislav Celakovský, author of
the _Ruze stolistova_ (the hundred-leaved rose), Erben, Macha, Tyl, to
mention but a few of the most famous writers. The talented writer Karel
Havlicek, the founder of Bohemian journalism, deserves special notice.
During the latter part of the 19th century, and particularly after the
foundation of the national university in 1882, Bohemian literature has
developed to an extent that few perhaps foresaw. Of older writers Bozena
Nemceva, whose _Babicka_ has been translated into many languages, and
Benes Trebizky, author of many historical novels, should be named. John
Neruda (1834-1891) was a very fruitful and talented writer both of
poetry and of prose. Perhaps the most valuable of his many works is his
philosophical epic entitled _Kosmicke basne_ (cosmic poems). Julius
Zeyer (1841-1901) also wrote much both in prose and in verse. His epic
poem entitled _Vysehrad_, which celebrates the ancient glory of the
acropolis of Prague, has great value, and of his many novels _Jan Maria
Plojhar_ has had the greatest success. Of later Bohemian poets the best
are Adolf Heyduk, Svatopluk Cech and Jaroslav Vrchlický (b. 1853). Of
Svatopluk Cech's many poems, which are all inspired by national
enthusiasm, _Václav z Michalovic, Lesetinsky Kovar_ (the smith of
Lesetin) and _Basne otroka_ (the songs of a slave) are the most notable.
While Vrchlický (pseudonym of Emil Frida) has no less strong patriotic
feelings, he has been more catholic in the choice of the subjects of his
many works, both in poetry and in prose. Of his many collections of
lyric poems _Rok na jihu_ (a year in the south), _Poute k Eldoradu_
(pilgrimages to Eldorado) and _Sonety Samotare_ (sonnets of a recluse)
have particular value. Vrchlický is also a very brilliant dramatist.
Bohemian novelists have become very numerous. Mention should be made of
Alois Jirásek, also a distinguished dramatic author; Jacob Arbes, whose
_Romanetta_ have great merit; and Václav Hladík, whose _Evzen Voldan_ is
a very striking representation of the life of modern Prague. Like so
many Bohemian authors, Hladík also is a copious dramatic author.
Bohemia has been very fruitful in historic writers. Wenceslas Tomek
(1818-1905) left many historical works, of which his _Dêjepis miêsta
Prahy_ (history of the town of Prague) is the most important. Jaroslav
Goll (b. 1846) is the author of many historical works, especially on the
community of the Bohemian Brethren. Professor Joseph Kalousek has
written much on the early history of Bohemia, and is also the author of
a very valuable study of the ancient constitution (_Statni pravo_) of
Bohemia. Dr Anton Rezek is the author of important historical studies,
many of which appeared in the Journal of the Bohemian Museum and in the
_Cesky Casopis Historický_ (Bohemian Historical Review), which he
founded in 1895 jointly with Professor Jaroslav Goll. More recently Dr
Václav Flajshans has published some excellent studies on the life and
writings of John Huss, and Professors Pic and Niederle have published
learned archaeological studies on the earliest period of Bohemian
history.
See Count Lützow, _A History of Bohemian Literature_ (London, 1899);
W.R. Morfill, _Slavonic Literature_ (1883); A.N. Pypin and V.D.
Spasovic, _History of Slavonic Literature_ (written in Russian,
translated into German by Trangott Pech, _Gesch. der slav.
Literaturen_, 2 vols., Leipzig, 1880-1884). There are modern histories
of Bohemian literature written in the national language by Dr Karel
Tieftrunk, Dr Václav Flajshans and Mr Jaroslav Vlaek. (L.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] As a guide to the English-speaking reader, the following notes on
the pronunciation of Bohemian names are appended. The Czech (Cech)
alphabet is the same as the English, with the omission of the letters
q, w and x. Certain letters, however, vary in pronunciation, and are
distinguished by diacritical marks, a device orginated by John Huss.
The vowels a, e, i, (y), o, u, are pronounced as in Italian; but e =
Eng. ye in "yet," and [ou] = Eng. oo.
The consonants, b, d, f, k, l, m, n, p, r, v, z, are as in English; g
= Eng. g in "gone"; s = Eng. initial s. But n = Span. ñ (in _cañon_);
r = rsh; s = sh; z = zh (i.e. the French j); k before d = g; v before
k, p, s, t = f. Of the other consonants c = Eng. ts; c = ch; ch =
Germ. ch; j = Eng. y, but is not pronounced before d, m, s. Accents
on vowels lengthen them; on d and t they are softening marks. H is
always pronounced in Czech. At the end of words and before k and t it
= Germ, ch; in other places, as in _bahno_ (morass) its pronunciation
is somewhat softer.
[2] _Protestatio Bohemorum_, frequently printed in English and
German, as well as in the Latin original.
[3] Laurence of Brezova's (contemporary) _Kronika Husitská_.
[4] This work has been translated into English by Count Lützow for
the "Temple Classics."
BOHEMUND, the name of a series of princes of Antioch, afterwards counts
of Tripoli. Their connexion is shown in the following table:--
Robert Guiscard = (1)Alberida: (2)Sicelgaeta.
¦
Bohemund I. = Constance, daughter of Philip I. of France.
¦
Bohemund II. = Alice, daughter of Baldwin II. of
¦ Jerusalem.
(1)Raymund = Constance = (2)Raynald of Châtillon.
¦
Bohemund III. = (2)Orguilleuse.
¦
Bohemund IV. = (1)Plaisance.
¦ (2)Melisinda, daughter of Amalric II.
¦
Bohemund V. = (1)Alice, widow of Hugh of Cyprus.
= (2)Luciana, daughter of count of
¦_________ Segni.
¦ ¦
Henry I. = Plaisance Bohemund VI. = Sibylla,
of Cyprus ¦ ¦ sister of Leo
¦ ¦of Armenia. III.
Hugh II. Bohemund VII.--_o.s.p._
BOHEMUND I. (c. A.D. 1058-1111), prince of Otranto and afterwards of
Antioch, whose first name was Marc, was the eldest son of Robert
Guiscard, _dux Apuliae et Calabriae_, by an early marriage contracted
before 1059. He served under his father in the great attack on the East
Roman empire (1080-1085), and commanded the Normans during Guiscard's
absence (1082-1084), penetrating into Thessaly as far as Larissa, but
being repulsed by Alexius Comnenus. This early hostility to Alexius had
a great influence in determining the course of his future career, and
thereby helped to determine the history of the First Crusade, of which
Bohemund may be regarded as the leader. On the death of Guiscard in
1085, his younger son Roger, born "in the purple" of a Lombard princess
Sicelgaeta, succeeded to the duchy of Apulia and Calabria, and a war
arose between Bohemund (whom his father had destined for the throne of
Constantinople) and Duke Roger. The war was finally composed by the
mediation of Urban II. and the award of Otranto and other possessions to
Bohemund. In 1096 Bohemund, along with his uncle the great count of
Sicily, was attacking Amalfi, which had revolted against Duke Roger,
when bands of crusaders began to pass, on their way through Italy to
Constantinople. The zeal of the crusader came upon Bohemund: it is
possible, too, that he saw in the First Crusade a chance of realizing
his father's policy (which was also an old Norse instinct) of the _Drang
nach Osten_, and hoped from the first to carve for himself an eastern
principality. He gathered a fine Norman army (perhaps the finest
division in the crusading host), at the head of which he crossed the
Adriatic, and penetrated to Constantinople along the route he had tried
to follow in 1082-1084. He was careful to observe a "correct" attitude
towards Alexius, and when he arrived at Constantinople in April 1097 he
did homage to the emperor. He may have negotiated with Alexius about a
principality at Antioch; if he did so, he had little encouragement. From
Constantinople to Antioch Bohemund was the real leader of the First
Crusade; and it says much for his leading that the First Crusade
succeeded in crossing Asia Minor, which the Crusades of 1101, 1147 and
1189 failed to accomplish. A _politique_, Bohemund was resolved to
engineer the enthusiasm of the crusaders to his own ends; and when his
nephew Tancred left the main army at Heraclea, and attempted to
establish a footing in Cilicia, the movement may have been already
intended as a preparation for Bohemund's eastern principality. Bohemund
was the first to get into position before Antioch (October 1097), and he
took a great part in the siege, beating off the Mahommedan attempts at
relief from the east, and connecting the besiegers on the west with the
port of St Simeon and the Italian ships which lay there. The capture of
Antioch was due to his connexion with Firuz, one of the commanders in
the city; but he would not bring matters to an issue until the
possession of the city was assured him (May 1098), under the terror of
the approach of Kerbogha with a great army of relief, and with a
reservation in favour of Alexius, if Alexius should fulfil his promise
to aid the crusaders. But Bohemund was not secure in the possession of
Antioch, even after its surrender and the defeat of Kerbogha; he had to
make good his claims against Raymund of Toulouse, who championed the
rights of Alexius. He obtained full possession in January 1099, and
stayed in the neighbourhood of Antioch to secure his position, while the
other crusaders moved southward to the capture of Jerusalem. He came to
Jerusalem at Christmas 1099, and had Dagobert of Pisa elected as
patriarch, perhaps in order to check the growth of a strong Lotharingian
power in the city. It might seem in 1100 that Bohemund was destined to
found a great principality in Antioch, which would dwarf Jerusalem; he
had a fine territory, a good strategical position and a strong army. But
he had to face two great forces--the East Roman empire, which claimed
the whole of his territories and was supported in its claim by Raymund
of Toulouse, and the strong Mahommedan principalities in the north-east
of Syria. Against these two forces he failed. In 1100 he was captured by
Danishmend of Sivas, and he languished in prison till 1103. Tancred took
his place; but meanwhile Raymund established himself with the aid of
Alexius in Tripoli, and was able to check the expansion of Antioch to
the south. Ransomed in 1103 by the generosity of an Armenian prince,
Bohemund made it his first object to attack the neighbouring Mahommedan
powers in order to gain supplies. But in heading an attack on Harran, in
1104, he was severely defeated at Balich, near Rakka on the Euphrates.
The defeat was decisive; it made impossible the great eastern
principality which Bohemund had contemplated. It was followed by a Greek
attack on Cilicia; and despairing of his own resources, Bohemund
returned to Europe for reinforcements in order to defend his position.
His attractive personality won him the hand of Constance, the daughter
of the French king, Philip I., and he collected a large army. Dazzled by
his success, he resolved to use his army not to defend Antioch against
the Greeks, but to attack Alexius. He did so; but Alexius, aided by the
Venetians, proved too strong, and Bohemund had to submit to a
humiliating peace (1108), by which he became the vassal of Alexius,
consented to receive his pay, with the title of _Sebastos_, and promised
to cede disputed territories and to admit a Greek patriarch into
Antioch. Henceforth Bohemund was a broken man. He died without returning
to the East, and was buried at Canossa in Apulia, in 1111.
LITERATURE.--The anonymous _Gesta Francorum_ (edited by H. Hagenmeyer)
is written by one of Bohemund's followers; and the _Alexiad_ of Anna
Comnena is a primary authority for the whole of his life. His career
is discussed by B. von Kügler, _Bohemund und Tancred_ (Tübingen,
1862); while L. von Heinemann, _Geschichte der Normannen in Sicilien
und Unteritalien_ (Leipzig, 1894), and R. Röhricht, _Geschichte des
ersten Kreuzzuges_ (Innsbruck, 1901), and _Geschichte des Königreichs
Jerusalem_ (Innsbruck, 1898), may also be consulted for his history.
BOHEMUND II. (1108-1131), son of the great Bohemund by his marriage with
Constance of France, was born in 1108, the year of his father's defeat
at Durazzo. In 1126 he came from Apulia to Antioch (which, since the
fall of Roger, the successor of Tancred, in 1119, had been under the
regency of Baldwin II.); and in 1127 he married Alice, the younger
daughter of Baldwin. After some trouble with Joscelin of Edessa, and
after joining with Baldwin II. in an attack on Damascus (1127), he was
defeated and slain on his northern frontier by a Mahommedan army from
Aleppo (1131). He had shown that he had his father's courage: if time
had sufficed, he might have shown that he had the other qualities of the
first Bohemund.
BOHEMUND III. was the son of Constance, daughter of Bohemund II., by her
first husband, Raymund of Antioch. He succeeded his mother in the
principality of Antioch in 1163, and first appears prominently in 1164,
as regent of the kingdom of Jerusalem during the expedition of Amalric
I. to Egypt. During the absence of Amalric, he was defeated and captured
by Nureddin (August 1164) at Harenc, to the east of Antioch. He was at
once ransomed by his brother-in-law, the emperor Manuel, and went to
Constantinople, whence he returned with a Greek patriarch. In 1180 he
deserted his second wife, the princess Orguilleuse, for a certain
Sibylla, and he was in consequence excommunicated. By Orguilleuse he had
had two sons, Raymund and Bohemund (the future Bohemund IV.), whose
relations and actions determined the rest of his life. Raymund married
Alice, a daughter of the Armenian prince Rhupen (Rupin), brother of Leo
of Armenia, and died in 1197, leaving behind him a son, Raymund Rhupen.
Bohemund, the younger brother of Raymund, had succeeded the last count
of Tripoli in the possession of that county, 1187; and the problem which
occupied the last years of Bohemund III. was to determine whether his
grandson, Raymund Rhupen, or his younger son, Bohemund, should succeed
him in Antioch. Leo of Armenia was naturally the champion of his
great-nephew, Raymund Rhupen; indeed he had already claimed Antioch in
his own right, before the marriage of his niece to Raymund, in 1194,
when he had captured Bohemund III. at Gastin, and attempted without
success to force him to cede Antioch.[1] Bohemund the younger, however,
prosecuted his claim with vigour, and even evicted his father from
Antioch about 1199: but he was ousted by Leo (now king of Armenia by
the grace of the emperor, Henry VI.), and Bohemund III. died in
possession of his principality (1201).
BOHEMUND IV., younger son of Bohemund III. by his second wife
Orguilleuse, became count of Tripoli in 1187, and succeeded his father
in the principality of Antioch, to the exclusion of Raymund Rhupen, in
1201. But the dispute lasted for many years (Leo of Armenia continuing
to champion the cause of his great-nephew), and long occupied the
attention of Innocent III. Bohemund IV. enjoyed the support of the
Templars (who, like the Knights of St John, had estates in Tripoli) and
of the Greek inhabitants of Antioch, to whom he granted their own
patriarch in 1207, while Leo appealed (1210-1211) both to Innocent III.
and the emperor Otto IV., and was supported by the Hospitallers. In 1216
Leo captured Antioch, and established Raymund Rhupen as its prince; but
he lost it again in less than four years, and it was once more in the
possession of Bohemund IV. when Leo died in 1220. Raymund Rhupen died in
1221; and after the event Bohemund reigned in Antioch and Tripoli till
his death, proving himself a determined enemy of the Hospitallers, and
thereby incurring excommunication in 1230. He first joined, and then
deserted, the emperor Frederick II., during the crusade of 1228-29; and
he was excluded from the operation of the treaty of 1229. When he died
in 1233, he had just concluded peace with the Hospitallers, and Gregory
IX. had released him from the excommunication of 1230.
BOHEMUND V., son of Bohemund IV. by his wife Plaisance (daughter of Hugh
of Gibelet), succeeded his father in 1233. He was prince of Antioch and
count of Tripoli, like his father; and like him he enjoyed the alliance
of the Templars and experienced the hostility of Armenia, which was not
appeased till 1251, when the mediation of St Louis, and the marriage of
the future Bohemund VI. to the sister of the Armenian king, finally
brought peace. By his first marriage in 1225 with Alice, the widow of
Hugh I. of Cyprus, Bohemund V. connected the history of Antioch for a
time with that of Cyprus. He died in 1251. He had resided chiefly at
Tripoli, and under him Antioch was left to be governed by its bailiff
and commune.
BOHEMUND VI. was the son of Bohemund V. by Luciana, a daughter of the
count of Segni, nephew of Innocent III. Born in 1237, Bohemund VI.
succeeded his father in 1251, and was knighted by St Louis in 1252. His
sister Plaisance had married in 1250 Henry I. of Cyprus, the son of Hugh
I.; and the Cypriot connexion of Antioch, originally formed by the
marriage of Bohemund V. and Alice, the widow of Hugh I., was thus
maintained. In 1252 Bohemund VI. established himself in Antioch, leaving
Tripoli to itself, and in 1257 he procured the recognition of his
nephew, Hugh II., the son of Henry I. by Plaisance, as king of
Jerusalem. He allied himself to the Mongols against the advance of the
Egyptian sultan; but in 1268 he lost Antioch to Bibars, and when he died
in 1275 he was only count of Tripoli.
BOHEMUND VII., son of Bohemund VI. by Sibylla, sister of Leo III. of
Armenia, succeeded to the county of Tripoli in 1275, with his mother as
regent. In his short and troubled reign he had trouble with the Templars
who were established in Tripoli; and in the very year of his death
(1287) he lost Laodicea to the sultan of Egypt. He died without issue;
and as, within two years of his death, Tripoli was captured, the county
of Tripoli may be said to have become extinct with him.
LITERATURE.--The history of the Bohemunds is the history of the
principality of Antioch, and, after Bohemund IV., of the county of
Tripoli also. For Antioch, we possess its _Assises_ (Venice, 1876);
and two articles on its history have appeared in the _Revue de
l'Orient Latin_ (Paris, 1893, fol.), both by E. Rey ("Resumé
chronologique de l'histpire des princes d'Antioche," vol. iv., and
"Les dignitaires de la principauté d'Antioche," vol. viii.). R.
Röhricht, _Geschichte des Königreichs Jerusalem_ (Innsbruck, 1898),
gives practically all that is known about the history of Antioch and
Tripoli. (E. Br.)
FOOTNOTE:
[1] During the captivity of Bohemund III. the patriarch of Antioch
helped to found a commune, which persisted, with its mayor and
_jurats_, during the 13th century.
BÖHMER, JOHANN FRIEDRICH (1795-1863), German historian, son of Karl
Ludwig Böhmer (d. 1817), was born at Frankfort-on-Main on the 22nd of
April 1795. Educated at the universities of Heidelberg and Göttingen, he
showed an interest in art and visited Italy; but returning to Frankfort
he turned his attention to the study of history, and became secretary
of the _Gesellschaft für ältere deutsche Geschichtskunde_. He was also
archivist and then librarian of the city of Frankfort. Böhmer had a
great dislike of Prussia and the Protestant faith, and a corresponding
affection for Austria and the Roman Catholic Church, to which, however,
he did not belong. His critical sense was, perhaps, somewhat warped; but
his researches are of great value to students. He died unmarried, at
Frankfort, on the 22nd of October 1863. Böhmer's historical work was
chiefly concerned with collecting and tabulating charters and other
imperial documents of the middle ages. First appeared an abstract, the
_Regesta chronologico-diplomatica regum atque imperatorum Romanorum
911-1313_ (Frankfort, 1831), which was followed by the _Regesta
chronologico-diplomatica Karolorum. Die Urkunden sämtlicher Karolinger
in kurzen Auszügen_ (Frankfort, 1833), and a series of _Regesta
imperii_. For the period 1314-1347 (Frankfort, 1839) the _Regesta_ was
followed by three, and for the period 1246-1313 (Frankfort, 1844) by two
supplementary volumes. The remaining period of the _Regesta_, as edited
by Böhmer, is 1198-1254 (Stuttgart, 1849). These collections contain
introductions and explanatory passages by the author. Very valuable also
is the _Fontes rerum Germanicarum_ (Stuttgart, 1843-1868), a collection
of original authorities for German history during the 13th and 14th
centuries. The fourth and last volume of this work was edited by A.
Huber after the author's death. Other collections edited by Böhmer are:
_Die Reichsgesetze 900-1400_ (Frankfort, 1832); _Wittelsbachische
Regesten von der Erwerbung des Herzogtums Bayern bis zu 1340_
(Stuttgart, 1854); and _Codex diplomaticus Moeno-Francofurtanus.
Urkundenbuch der Reichsstadt Frankfurt_ (Frankfort, 1836; new edition by
F. Law, 1901). Other volumes and editions of the _Regesta imperii_,
edited by J. Ficker, E. Mühlbacher, E. Winkelmann and others, are
largely based on Böhmer's work. Böhmer left a great amount of
unpublished material, and after his death two other works were published
from his papers: _Acta imperii selecta_, edited by J. Ficker (Innsbruck,
1870); and _Regesta archiepiscoporum Maguntinensium_, edited by C. Will
(Innsbruck, 1877-1886).
See J. Janssen, _J.F. Böhmers Leben, Briefe und kleinere Schriften_
(Freiburg, 1868).
BOHN, HENRY GEORGE (1796-1884), British publisher, son of a German
bookbinder settled in England, was born in London on the 4th of January
1796. In 1831 he started as a dealer in rare books and "remainders." In
1841 he issued his "Guinea" Catalogue of books, a monumental work
containing 23,208 items. Bohn was noted for his book auction sales: one
held in 1848 lasted four days, the catalogue comprising twenty folio
pages. Printed on this catalogue was the information: "Dinner at 2
o'clock, dessert at 4, tea at 5, and supper at 10." The name of Bohn is
principally remembered by the important _Libraries_ which he
inaugurated: these were begun in 1846 and comprised editions of standard
works and translations, dealing with history, science, classics,
theology and archaeology, consisting in all of 766 volumes. One of
Bohn's most useful and laborious undertakings was his revision (6 vols.
1864) of _The Bibliographer's Manual of English Literature_ (1834) of
W.T. Lowndes. The plan includes bibliographical and critical notices,
particulars of prices, &c., and a considerable addition to the original
work. It had been one of Bohn's ambitions to found a great publishing
house, but, finding that his sons had no taste for the trade, he sold
the _Libraries_ in 1864 to Messrs. Bell and Daldy, afterwards G. Bell &
Sons. Bohn was a man of wide culture and many interests. He himself made
considerable contributions to his _Libraries_: he collected pictures,
china and ivories, and was a famous rose-grower. He died at Twickenham
on the 22nd of August 1884.
BÖHTLINGK, OTTO VON (1815-1004) German Sanskrit scholar, was born on the
30th of May (11th of June O.S.) 1815 at St Petersburg. Having studied
(1833-1835) Oriental languages, particularly Arabic, Persian and
Sanskrit, at the university of St Petersburg, he continued his studies
in Germany, first in Berlin and then (1839-1842) in Bonn. Returning to
St Petersburg in 1842, he was attached to the Royal Academy of Sciences,
and was elected an ordinary member of that society in 1855. In 1860 he
was made "Russian state councillor," and later "privy councillor" with a
title of nobility. In 1868 he settled at Jena, and in 1885 removed to
Leipzig, where he resided until his death there on the 1st of April
1904. Böhtlingk was one of the most distinguished scholars of the 19th
century, and his works are of pre-eminent value in the field of Indian
and comparative philology. His first great work was an edition of
Panini's _Acht Bücher grammatischer Regeln_ (Bonn, 1839-1840), which was
in reality a criticism of Franz Bopp's philological methods. This book
Böhtlingk again took up forty-seven years later, when he republished it
with a complete translation under the title _Paninis Grammatik mit
Übersetzung_ (Leipzig, 1887). The earlier edition was followed by
_Vopadevas Grammatik_ (St Petersburg, 1847); _Über die Sprache der
Jakuten_ (St Petersburg, 1851); _Indische Spruche_ (2nd ed. in 3 parts,
St Petersburg, 1870-1873, to which an index was published by Blau,
Leipzig, 1893); a critical examination and translation of
_Chhandogya-upanishad (St Petersburg, 1889) and a translation of
Brihadaranyaka-upanishad_ (St Petersburg, 1889). In addition to these he
published several smaller treatises, notably one on the Sanskrit
accents, _Über den Accent im Sanskrit_ (1843). But his _magnum opus_ is
his great Sanskrit dictionary, _Sanskrit-Wörterbuch_ (7 vols., St
Petersburg, 1853-1875; new ed. 7 vols., St Petersburg, 1879-1889), which
with the assistance of his two friends, Rudolf Roth (1821-1895) and
Albrecht Weber (b. 1825), was completed in twenty-three years.
BOHUN, the name of a family which plays an important part in English
history during the 13th and 14th centuries; it was taken from a village
situated in the Cotentin between Coutances and the estuary of the Vire.
The Bohuns came into England at, or shortly after, the Norman Conquest;
but their early history there is obscure. The founder of their greatness
was Humphrey III., who in the latter years of Henry I., makes his
appearance as a _dapifer_, or steward, in the royal household. He
married the daughter of Milo of Gloucester, and played an ambiguous part
in Stephen's reign, siding at first with the king and afterwards with
the empress. Humphrey III. lived until 1187, but his history is
uneventful. He remained loyal to Henry II. through all changes, and
fought in 1173 at Farnham against the rebels of East Anglia. Outliving
his eldest son, Humphrey IV., he was succeeded in the family estates by
his grandson Henry. Henry was connected with the royal house of Scotland
through his mother Margaret, a sister of William the Lion; an alliance
which no doubt assisted him to obtain the earldom of Hereford from John
(1199). The lands of the family lay chiefly on the Welsh Marches, and
from this date the Bohuns take a foremost place among the Marcher
barons. Henry de Bohun figures with the earls of Clare and Gloucester
among the twenty-five barons who were elected by their fellows to
enforce the terms of the Great Charter. In the subsequent civil war he
fought on the side of Louis, and was captured at the battle of Lincoln
(1217). He took the cross in the same year and died on his pilgrimage
(June 1, 1220). Humphrey V., his son and heir, returned to the path of
loyalty, and was permitted, some time before 1239, to inherit the
earldom of Essex from his maternal uncle, William de Mandeville. But in
1258 this Humphrey fell away, like his father, from the royal to the
baronial cause. He served as a nominee of the opposition on the
committee of twenty-four which was appointed, in the Oxford parliament
of that year, to reform the administration. It was only the alliance of
Montfort with Llewelyn of North Wales that brought the earl of Hereford
back to his allegiance. Humphrey V. headed the first secession of the
Welsh Marchers from the party of the opposition (1263), and was amongst
the captives whom the Montfortians took at Lewes. The earl's son and
namesake was on the victorious side, and shared in the defeat of
Evesham, which he did not long survive. Humphrey V. was, therefore,
naturally selected as one of the twelve arbitrators to draw up the ban
of Kenilworth (1266), by which the disinherited rebels were allowed to
make their peace. Dying in 1275, he was succeeded by his grandson
Humphrey VII. This Bohun lives in history as one of the recalcitrant
barons of the year 1297, who extorted from Edward I. the _Confirmatio
Cartarum_. The motives of the earl's defiance were not altogether
disinterested. He had suffered twice from the chicanery of Edward's
lawyers; in 1284 when a dispute between himself and the royal favourite,
John Giffard, was decided in the latter's favour; and again in 1292 when
he was punished with temporary imprisonment and sequestration for a
technical, and apparently unwitting, contempt of the king's court. In
company, therefore, with the earl of Norfolk he refused to render
foreign service in Gascony, on the plea that they were only bound to
serve with the king, who was himself bound for Flanders. Their attitude
brought to a head the general discontent which Edward had excited by his
arbitrary taxation; and Edward was obliged to make a surrender on all
the subjects of complaint. At Falkirk (1298) Humphrey VII. redeemed his
character for loyalty. His son, Humphrey VIII., who succeeded him in the
same year, was allowed to marry one of the king's daughters, Eleanor,
the widowed countess of Holland (1302). This close connexion with the
royal house did not prevent him, as it did not prevent Earl Thomas of
Lancaster, from joining the opposition to the feeble Edward II. In 1310
Humphrey VIII. figured among the Lords Ordainers; though, with more
patriotism than some of his fellow-commissioners, he afterwards followed
the king to Bannockburn. He was taken captive in the battle, but
exchanged for the wife of Robert Bruce. Subsequently he returned to the
cause of his order, and fell on the side of Earl Thomas at the field of
Boroughbridge (1322). With him, as with his father, the politics of the
Marches had been the main consideration; his final change of side was
due to jealousy of the younger Despenser, whose lordship of Glamorgan
was too great for the comfort of the Bohuns in Brecon. With the death of
Humphrey VIII. the fortunes of the family enter on a more peaceful
stage. Earl John (d. 1335) was inconspicuous; Humphrey IX. (d. 1361)
merely distinguished himself as a captain in the Breton campaigns of the
Hundred Years' War, winning the victories of Morlaix (1342) and La Roche
Derrien (1347). His nephew and heir, Humphrey X., who inherited the
earldom of Northampton from his father, was territorially the most
important representative of the Bohuns. But the male line was
extinguished by his death (1373). The three earldoms and the broad lands
of the Bohuns were divided between two co-heiresses. Both married
members of the royal house. The elder, Eleanor, was given in 1374 to
Thomas of Woodstock, seventh son of Edward III.; the younger, Mary, to
Henry, earl of Derby, son of John of Gaunt and afterwards Henry IV., in
1380 or 1381. From these two marriages sprang the houses of Lancaster
and Stafford.
See J.E. Doyle's _Official Baronage of England_ (1886), the _Complete
Peerage_ of G. E. C(okayne), (1867-1898); T.F. Tout's "Wales and the
March during the Barons' War," in Owens College Historical Essays, pp.
87-136 (1902); J.E. Morris' _Welsh Wars of King Edward I._, chs. vi.,
viii. (1901). (H. W. C. D.)
BOIARDO, MATTEO MARIA, COUNT (1434-1404), Italian poet, who came of a
noble and illustrious house established at Ferrara, but originally from
Reggio, was born at Scandiano, one of the seignorial estates of his
family, near Reggio di Modena, about the year 1434, according to
Tiraboschi, or 1420 according to Mazzuchelli. At an early age he entered
the university of Ferrara, where he acquired a good knowledge of Greek
and Latin, and even of the Oriental languages, and was in due time
admitted doctor in philosophy and in law. At the court of Ferrara, where
he enjoyed the favour of Duke Borso d'Este and his successor Hercules,
he was entrusted with several honourable employments, and in particular
was named governor of Reggio, an appointment which he held in the year
1478. Three years afterwards he was elected captain of Modena, and
reappointed governor of the town and citadel of Reggio, where he died in
the year 1494, though in what month is uncertain.
Almost all Boiardo's works, and especially his great poem of the
_Orlando Inamorato_, were composed for the amusement of Duke Hercules
and his court, though not written within its precincts. His practice, it
is said, was to retire to Scandiano or some other of his estates, and
there to devote himself to composition; and Castelvetro, Vallisnieri,
Mazzuchelli and Tiraboschi all unite in stating that he took care to
insert in the descriptions of his poem those of the agreeable environs
of his chateau, and that the greater part of the names of his heroes, as
Mandricardo, Gradasse, Sacripant, Agramant and others, were merely the
names of some of his peasants, which, from their uncouthness, appeared
to him proper to be given to Saracen warriors. Be this as it may, the
_Orlando Inamorato_ deserves to be considered as one of the most
important poems in Italian literature, since it forms the first example
of the romantic epic worthy to serve as a model, and, as such,
undoubtedly produced Ariosto's _Orlando Furioso_. Gravina and Mazzuchell
have said, and succeeding writers have repeated on their authority, that
Boiardo proposed to himself as his model the _Iliad_ of Homer; that
Paris is besieged like the city of Troy; that Angelica holds the place
of Helen; and that, in short, the one poem is a sort of reflex image of
the other. In point of fact, however, the subject-matter of the poem is
derived from the _Fabulous Chronicle_ of the pseudo-Turpin; though, with
the exception of the names of Charlemagne, Roland, Oliver, and some
other principal warriors, who necessarily figure as important characters
in the various scenes, there is little resemblance between the detailed
plot of the one and that of the other. The poem, which Boiardo did not
live to finish, was printed at Scandiano the year after his death, under
the superintendence of his son Count Camillo. The title of the book is
without date; but a Latin letter from Antonia Caraffa di Reggio,
prefixed to the poem, is dated the kalends of June 1495. A second
edition, also without date, but which must have been printed before the
year 1500, appeared at Venice; and the poem was twice reprinted there
during the first twenty years of the 16th century. These editions are
the more curious and valuable since they contain nothing but the text of
the author, which is comprised in three books, divided into cantos, the
third book being incomplete. But Niccolo degli Agostini, an indifferent
poet, had the courage to continue the work commenced by Boiardo, adding
to it three books, which were printed at Venice in 1526-1531, in 4to;
and since that time no edition of the _Orlando_ has been printed without
the continuation of Agostini, wretched as it unquestionably is.
Boiardo's poem suffers from the incurable defect of a laboured and heavy
style. His story is skilfully constructed, the characters are well drawn
and sustained throughout; many of the incidents show a power and
fertility of imagination not inferior to that of Ariosto, but the
perfect workmanship indispensable for a great work of art is wanting.
The poem in its original shape was not popular, and has been completely
superseded by the _Rifacimento_ of Francesco Berni (q.v.).
The other works of Boiardo are--(1) _Il Timone_, a comedy, Scandiano,
1500, 4to; (2) _Sonnetti e Canzoni_, Reggio, 1499, 4to; (3) _Carmen
Bucolicon_, Reggio, 1500, 4to; (4) _Cinque Capitoli in terza rima_,
Venice, 1523 or 1533; (5) _Apulejo dell' Asino d'Oro_, Venice, 1516,
1518; (6) _Asino d'Oro de Luciano tradolto in volgare_, Venice, 1523,
8vo; (7) _Erodoto Alicarnasseo istorico, tradotto di Greco in Lingua
Italiana_, Venice, 1533 and 1538, 8vo; (8) _Rerum Italicarum
Scriptores_.
See Panizzi's _Boiardo_ (9 vols., 1830-1831).
BOIE, HEINRICH CHRISTIAN (1744-1806), German author, was born at Meldorf
in the then Danish province of Schleswig-Holstein on the 19th of July
1744. After studying law at Jena, he went in 1769 to Göttingen, where he
became one of the leading spirits in the Göttingen "Dichterbund" or
"Hain." Boie's poetical talent was not great, but his thorough knowledge
of literature, his excellent taste and sound judgment, made him an ideal
person to awake the poetical genius of others. Together with F.W. Gotter
(q.v.) he founded in 1770 the Göttingen _Musenalmanach_, which he
directed and edited until 1775, when, in conjunction with C.W. von Dohm
(1751-1820), he brought out _Das deutsche Museum_, which became one of
the best literary periodicals of the day. In 1776 Boie became secretary
to the commander-in-chief at Hanover, and in 1781 was appointed
administrator of the province of Süderditmarschen in Holstein. He died
at Meldorf on the 3rd of March 1806.
See K. Weinhold, _Heinrich Christian Boie_ (Halle, 1868).
BOIELDIEU, FRANÇOIS ADRIEN (1775-1834), French composer of comic opera,
was born at Rouen on the 15th of December 1775. He received his first
musical education from M. Broche, the cathedral organist, who appears to
have treated him very harshly. He began composing songs and chamber
music at a very early age-his first opera, _La Fille coupable_ (the
libretto by his father), and his second opera, _Rosalie et Myrza_, being
produced on the stage of Rouen in 1795. Not satisfied with his local
success he went to Paris in 1795. His scores were submitted to
Cherubini, Méhul and others, but met with little approbation. Grand
opera was the order of the day. Boieldieu had to fall back on his talent
as a pianoforte-player for a livelihood. Success came at last from an
unexpected source. P.J. Garat, a fashionable singer of the period,
admired Boieldleu's touch on the piano, and made him his accompanist. In
the drawing-rooms of the Directoire Garat sang the charming songs and
ballads with which the young composer supplied him. Thus Boieldieu's
reputation gradually extended to wider circles. In 1796 _Les Deux
lettres_ was produced, and in 1797 _La Famille suisse_ appeared for the
first time on a Paris stage, and was well received. Several other operas
followed in rapid succession, of which only _Le Calife de Bagdad_ (1800)
has escaped oblivion. After the enormous success of this work, Boieldieu
felt the want of a thorough musical training and took lessons from
Cherubini, the influence of that great master being clearly discernible
in the higher artistic finish of his pupil's later compositions. In 1802
Boieldieu, to escape the domestic troubles caused by his marriage with
Clotilde Aug. Mafleuroy, a celebrated ballet-dancer of the Paris opera,
took flight and went to Russia, where he was received with open arms by
the emperor Alexander. During his prolonged stay at St Petersburg he
composed a number of operas. He also set to music the choruses of
Racine's _Athalie_, one of his few attempts at the tragic style of
dramatic writing. In 1811 he returned to his own country, where the
following year witnessed the production of one of his finest works,
_Jean de Paris_, in which he depicted with much felicity the charming
coquetry of the queen of Navarre, the chivalrous _verve_ of the king,
the officious pedantry of the seneschal, and the amorous tenderness of
the page. He succeeded Méhul as professor of composition at the
Conservatoire in 1817. _Le Chapeau rouge_ was produced with great
success in 1818. Boieldieu's second and greatest masterpiece was his
_Dame blanche_ (1825). The libretto, written by Scribe, was partly
suggested by Walter Scott's _Monastery_, and several original Scottish
tunes cleverly introduced by the composer add to the melodious charm and
local colour of the work. On the death of his wife in 1825, Boieldieu
married a singer. His own death was due to a violent attack of pulmonary
disease. He vainly tried to escape the rapid progress of the illness by
travel in Italy and the south of France, but returned to Paris only to
die on the 8th of October 1834.
Lives of Boieldieu have been written by Pougin (Paris, 1875), J.A.
Refeuvaille (Rouen, 1836), Hequet (Paris, 1864), Emile Duval (Geneva,
1883). See also Adolphe Charles Adam, _Derniers souvenirs d'un
musicien_.
BOIGNE, BENOÎT DE, COUNT (1751-1830), the first of the French military
adventurers in India, was born at Chambéry in Savoy on the 8th of March
1751, being the son of a fur merchant. He joined the Irish Brigade in
France in 1768, and subsequently he entered the Russian service and was
captured by the Turks. Hearing of the wealth of India, he made his way
to that country, and after serving for a short time in the East India
Company, he resigned and joined Mahadji Sindhia in 1784 for the purpose
of training his troops in the European methods of war. In the battles of
Lalsot and Chaksana Boigne and his two battalions proved their worth by
holding the field when the rest of the Mahratta army was defeated by the
Rajputs. In the battle of Agra (1788) he restored the Mahratta fortunes,
and made Mahadji Sindhia undisputed master of Hindostan. This success
led to his being given the command of a brigade of ten battalions of
infantry, with which he won the victories of Patan and Merta in 1790. In
consequence Boigne was allowed to raise two further brigades of
disciplined infantry, and made commander-in-chief of Sindhia's army. In
the battle of Lakhairi (1793) he defeated Holkar's army. On the death of
Mahadji Sindhia in 1794, Boigne could have made himself master of
Hindostan had he wished it, but he remained loyal to Daulat Rao Sindhia.
In 1795 his health began to fail, and he resigned his command, and in
the following year returned to Europe with a fortune of £400,000. He
lived in retirement during the lifetime of Napoleon, but was greatly
honoured by Louis XVIII. He died on the 21st of June 1830.
See H. Compton, _European Military Adventurers of Hindustan_ (1892).
BOII (perhaps = "the terrible"), a Celtic people, whose original home
was Gallia Transalpina. They were known to the Romans, at least by name,
in the time of Plautus, as is shown by the contemptuous reference in the
_Captivi_ (888). At an early date they split up into two main groups,
one of which made its way into Italy, the other into Germany. Some,
however, appear to have stayed behind, since, during the Second Punic
War, Magalus, a Boian prince, offered to show Hannibal the way into
Italy after he had crossed the Pyrenees (Livy xxi. 29). The first group
of immigrants is said to have crossed the Pennine Alps (Great St
Bernard) into the valley of the Po. Finding the district already
occupied, they proceeded over the river, drove out the Etruscans and
Umbrians, and established themselves as far as the Apennines in the
modern Romagna. According to Cato (in Pliny, _Nat. Hist._ iii. 116) they
comprised as many as 112 different tribes, and from the remains
discovered in the tombs at Hallstatt, La Tène and other places, they
appear to have been fairly civilized. Several wars took place between
them and the Romans. In 283 they were defeated, together with the
Etruscans, at the Vadimonian lake; in 224, after the battle of Telamon
in Etruria, they were forced to submit. But they still cherished a
hatred of the Romans, and during the Second Punic War (218), irritated
by the foundation of the Roman colonies of Cremona and Placentia, they
rendered valuable assistance to Hannibal. They continued the struggle
against Rome from 201 to 191, when they were finally subdued by P.
Cornelius Scipio Nasica, and deprived of nearly half their territory.
According to Strabo (v. p. 213) the Boii were driven back across the
Alps and settled on the land of their kinsmen, the Taurisci, on the
Danube, adjoining Vindelicia and Raetia. Most authorities, however,
assume that there had been a settlement of the Boii on the Danube from
very early times, in part of the modern Bohemia (anc. _Boiohemum_, "land
of the Boii"). About 60 B.C. some of the Boii migrated to Noricum and
Pannonia, when 32,000 of them joined the expedition of the Helvetians
into Gaul, and shared their defeat near Bibracte (58). They were
subsequently allowed by Caesar to settle in the territory of the Aedui
between the Loire and the Allier. Their chief town was Gorgobina (site
uncertain). Those who remained on the Danube were exterminated by the
Dacian king, Boerebista, and the district they had occupied was
afterwards called the "desert of the Boii" (Strabo vii. p. 292). In A.D.
69 a Boian named Mariccus stirred up a fanatical revolt, but was soon
defeated and put to death. Some remnants of the Boii are mentioned as
dwelling near Bordeaux; but Mommsen inclines to the opinion that the
three groups (in Bordeaux, Bohemia and the Po districts) were not really
scattered branches of one and the same stock, but that they are
instances of a mere similarity of name.
The Boii, as we know them, belonged almost certainly to the Early Iron
age. They probably used long iron swords for dealing cutting blows, and
from the size of the handles they must have been a race of large men
(cf. Polybius ii. 30). For their ethnological affinities and especially
their possible connexion with the Homeric Achaeans see W. Ridgeway's
_Early Age of Greece_ (vol. i., 1901).
See L. Contzen, _Die Wanderungen der Kelten_ (Leipzig, 1861); A.
Desjardins, _Géographie historique de la Gaule romaine_, ii.
(1876-1893); T.R. Holmes, _Caesar's Conquest of Gaul_ (1899), pp.
426-428; T. Mommsen, _Hist. of Rome_, ii. (Eng. trans. 5 vols., 1894),
p. 373 note; M. Ihm in Pauly-Wissowa's _Realencyclopadie_, iii. pt. 1
(1897); A. Holder, _Alt-celtischer Sprachschatz_.
BOIL, in medicine, a progressive local inflammation of the skin, taking
the form of a hard suppurating tumour, with a core of dead tissue,
resulting from infection by a microbe, _Staphylococcus pyogenes_, and
commonly occurring in young persons whose blood is disordered, or as a
complication in certain diseases. Treatment proceeds on the lines of
bringing the mischief out, assisting the evacuation of the boil by the
lancet, and clearing the system. In the English Bible, and also in
popular medical terminology, "boil" is used of various forms of ulcerous
affection. The boils which were one of the plagues in Egypt were
apparently the bubonic plague. The terms Aleppo boil (or button), Delhi
boil, Oriental boil, Biskra button, &c., have been given to a tropical
epidemic, characterized by ulcers on the face, due to a diplococcus
parasite.
BOILEAU-DESPRÉAUX, NICOLAS (1636-1711), French poet and critic, was born
on the 1st of November 1636 in the rue de Jérusalem, Paris. The same
Despréaux was derived from a small property at Crosne near Villeneuve
Saint-Georges. He was the fifteenth child of Gilles Boileau, a clerk in
the parlement. Two of his brothers attained some distinction: Gilles
Boileau (1631-1669), the author of a translation of Epictetus; and
Jacques Boileau, who became a canon of the Sainte-Chapelle, and made
valuable contributions to church history. His mother died when he was
two years old; and Nicolas Boileau, who had a delicate constitution,
seems to have suffered something from want of care. Sainte-Beuve puts
down his somewhat hard and unsympathetic outlook quite as much to the
uninspiring circumstances of these days as to the general character of
his time. He cannot be said to have been early disenchanted, for he
never seems to have had any illusions; he grew up with a single passion,
"the hatred of stupid books." He was educated at the Collège de
Beauvais, and was then sent to study theology at the Sorbonne. He
exchanged theology for law, however, and was called to the bar on the
4th of December 1656. From the profession of law, after a short trial,
he recoiled in disgust, complaining bitterly of the amount of chicanery
which passed under the name of law and justice. His father died in 1657,
leaving him a small fortune, and thenceforward he devoted himself to
letters.
Such of his early poems as have been preserved hardly contain the
promise of what he ultimately became. The first piece in which his
peculiar powers were displayed was the first satire (1660), in imitation
of the third satire of Juvenal; it embodied the farewell of a poet to
the city of Paris. This was quickly followed by eight others, and the
number was at a later period increased to twelve. A twofold interest
attaches to the satires. In the first place the author skilfully
parodies and attacks writers who at the time were placed in the very
first rank, such as Jean Chapelain, the abbé Charles Cotin, Philippe
Quinault and Georges de Scudéry; he openly raised the standard of revolt
against the older poets. But in the second place he showed both by
precept and practice what were the poetical capabilities of the French
language. Prose in the hands of such writers as Descartes and Pascal had
proved itself a flexible and powerful instrument of expression, with a
distinct mechanism and form. But except with Malherbe, there had been no
attempt to fashion French versification according to rule or method. In
Boileau for the first time appeared terseness and vigour of expression,
with perfect regularity of verse structure. His admiration for Molière
found expression in the stanzas addressed to him (1663), and in the
second satire (1664). In 1664 he composed his prose _Dialogue des héros
de roman_, a satire on the elaborate romances of the time, which may be
said to have once for all abolished the lucubrations of La Calprenède,
Mlle de Scudéry and their fellows. Though fairly widely read in
manuscript, the book was not published till 1713, out of regard, it is
said, for Mlle de Scudéry. To these early days belong the reunions at
the _Moulon Blanc_ and the _Pomme du Pin_, where Boileau, Molière,
Racine, Chapelle and Antoine Furetière met to discuss literary
questions. To Molière and Racine he proved a constant friend, and
supported their interests on many occasions.
In 1666, prompted by the publication of two unauthorized editions, he
published _Satires du Sieur D...._, containing seven satires and the
_Discours au roi_. From 1669 onwards appeared his epistles, graver in
tone than the satires, maturer in thought, more exquisite and polished
in style. The _Épitres_ gained for him the favour of Louis XIV., who
desired his presence at court. The king asked him which he thought his
best verses. Whereupon Boileau diplomatically selected as his "least
bad" some still unprinted lines in honour of the grand monarch and
proceeded to recite them. He received forthwith a pension of 2000
livres. In 1674 his two masterpieces, _L'Art poétique_ and _Le Lutrin_,
were published with some earlier works as the _Oeuvres diverses du sieur
D_.... The first, in imitation of the _Ars Poetica_ of Horace, lays down
the code for all future French verse, and may be said to fill in French
literature a parallel place to that held by its prototype in Latin. On
English literature the maxims of Boileau, through the translation
revised by Dryden, and through the magnificent imitation of them in
Pope's _Essay on Criticism_, have exercised no slight influence. Boileau
does not merely lay down rules for the language of poetry, but analyses
carefully the various kinds of verse composition, and enunciates the
principles peculiar to each. Of the four books of _L'Art poétique_, the
first and last consist of general precepts, inculcating mainly the great
rule of _bon sens_; the second treats of the pastoral, the elegy, the
ode, the epigram and satire; and the third of tragic and epic poetry.
Though the rules laid down are of value, their tendency is rather to
hamper and render too mechanical the efforts of poetry. Boileau himself,
a great, though by no means infallible critic in verse, cannot be
considered a great poet. He rendered the utmost service in destroying
the exaggerated reputations of the mediocrities of his time, but his
judgment was sometimes at fault. The _Lutrin_, a mock heroic poem, of
which four cantos appeared in 1674, furnished Alexander Pope with a
model for the _Rape of the Lock_, but the English poem is superior in
richness of imagination and subtlety of invention. The fifth and sixth
cantos, afterwards added by Boileau, rather detract from the beauty of
the poem; the last canto in particular is quite unworthy of his genius.
In 1674 appeared also his translation of Longinus _On the Sublime_, to
which were added in 1693 certain critical reflections, chiefly directed
against the theory of the superiority of the moderns over the ancients
as advanced by Charles Perrault.
Boileau was made historiographer to the king in 1677. From this time the
amount of his production diminished. To this period of his life belong
the satire, _Sur les femmes_, the ode, _Sur la prise de Namur_, the
epistles, _À mes vers_ and _Sur l'amour de Dieu_, and the satire _Sur
l'homme_. The satires had raised up a crowd of enemies against Boileau.
The 10th satire, on women, provoked an _Apologie des femmes_ from
Charles Perrault. Antoine Arnauld in the year of his death wrote a
letter in defence of Boileau, but when at the desire of his friends he
submitted his reply to Bossuet, the bishop pronounced all satire to be
incompatible with the spirit of Christianity, and the 10th satire to be
subversive of morality. The friends of Arnauld had declared that it was
inconsistent with the dignity of a churchman to write on any subject so
trivial as poetry. The epistle, _Sur l'amour de Dieu_, was a triumphant
vindication on the part of Boileau of the dignity of his art. It was not
until the 15th of April 1684 that he was admitted to the Academy, and
then only by the king's wish. In 1687 he retired to a country-house he
had bought at Auteuil, which Racine, because of the numerous guests,
calls his _hôtellerie d'Auteuil_. In 1705 he sold his house and returned
to Paris, where he lived with his confessor in the cloisters of Notre
Dame. In the 12th satire, _Sur l'équivoque_, he attacked the Jesuits in
verses which Sainte-Beuve called a recapitulation of the _Lettres
provinciales_ of Pascal. This was written about 1705. He then gave his
attention to the arrangement of a complete and definitive edition of his
works. But the Jesuit fathers obtained from Louis XIV. the withdrawal of
the privilege already granted for the publication, and demanded the
suppression of the 12th satire. These annoyances are said to have
hastened his death, which took place on the 13th of March 1711.
Boileau was a man of warm and kindly feelings, honest, outspoken and
benevolent. Many anecdotes are told of his frankness of speech at court,
and of his generous actions. He holds a well-defined place in French
literature, as the first who reduced its versification to rule, and
taught the value of workmanship for its own sake. His influence on
English literature, through Pope and his contemporaries, was not less
strong, though less durable. After much undue depreciation Boileau's
critical work has been rehabilitated by recent writers, perhaps to the
extent of some exaggeration in the other direction. It has been shown
that in spite of undue harshness in individual cases most of his
criticisms have been substantially adopted by his successors.
Numerous editions of Boileau's works were published during his
lifetime. The last of these, _Oeuvres diverses_ (1701), known as the
"favourite" edition of the poet, was reprinted with variants and notes
by Alphonse Pauly (2 vols., 1894). The critical text of his works was
established by Berriat Saint-Prix, _Oeuvres de Boileau_ (4 vols.,
1830-1837), who made use of some 350 editions. This text, edited with
notes by Paul Chéron, with the _Boloeana_ of 1740, and an essay by
Sainte-Beuve, was reprinted by Garnier _frères_ (1860).
See also Sainte-Beuve, _Causeries du lundi_, vol. vi.; F. Brunetière,
"L'Esthétique de Boileau" (_Revue des Deux Mondes_, June 1889), and an
exhaustive article by the same critic in _La Grande encyclopédie_; G.
Lanson, _Boileau_ (1892), in the series of _Grands écrivains
français_.
BOILER, a vessel in which water or other liquid is heated to the boiling
point; specifically, the apparatus by which steam is produced from
water, as one step in the process whereby the potential energy of coal
or other fuel is converted into mechanical work by means of the
steam-engine. Boilers of the latter kind must all possess certain
essential features, whilst of other qualities that are desirable some
may not be altogether compatible with the special conditions under which
the boilers are to be worked. Amongst the essentials are a receptacle
capable of containing the water and the steam produced by its
evaporation, and strong enough continuously to withstand with safety the
highest pressure of steam for which the boiler is intended. Another
essential is a furnace for burning the fuel, and a further one is the
provision of a sufficiency of heating surface for the transmission of
the heat produced by the combustion of the fuel to the water which is
required to be evaporated. Desirable qualities are that the arrangements
of the furnaces should be such that a reasonably perfect combustion of
the fuel should be possible, and that the heating surfaces should be
capable of transmitting a large proportion of the heat produced to the
water so as to obtain a high evaporative efficiency. Further, the design
generally should be compact, not too heavy or costly, and such that the
cleaning necessary to maintain the evaporative efficiency can be easily
effected. It should also be such that the cost of upkeep will be small,
and that only an average amount of skill and attention will be required
under working conditions. It is for providing these qualities in
different degrees according to the special requirements of various
circumstances that the very different designs of the various types of
boilers have been evolved.
_Classes of Boilers._--Boilers generally may be divided into two
distinct classes, one comprising those which are generally called "tank"
boilers, containing relatively large quantities of water, and the other
those which are generally called "water-tube" boilers, in which the
water is mainly contained in numerous comparatively small tubes. There
are, however, some types of boiler which combine to some extent the
properties of both these classes. Each class has its representatives
amongst both land and marine boilers. In "tank" boilers the outer shell
is wholly or partially cylindrical, this form being one in which the
necessary strength can be obtained without the use of a large number of
stays. The boilers are generally internally fired, the furnace plates
being surrounded with water and forming the most efficient portion of
the heating surfaces. On leaving the furnace the products of combustion
are led into a chamber and thence through flues or through numerous
small tubes which serve to transmit some of the heat of combustion to
the water contained in the boiler. In "water-tube" boilers the fire is
usually placed under a collection of tubes containing water and forming
the major portion of the heating surface of the boiler. Both the fire
and the tubes are enclosed in an outer casing of brickwork or other
fire-resisting substance. In some forms of water-tube boiler the fire
is entirely surrounded by water-tubes and the casing is in no part
exposed to the direct action of the fire. In "tank" boilers generally no
difficulty is experienced in keeping all the heating surfaces in close
contact with water, but in "water-tube" boilers special provision has to
be made in the design for maintaining the circulation of water through
the tubes. (For "flash" boilers see MOTOR VEHICLES, and for domestic
hot-water boilers HEATING.)
Lancashire.
_Tank Boilers._--Of large stationary boilers the forms most commonly
used are those known as the "Lancashire" boiler, and its modification
the "Galloway" boiler. These boilers are made from 26 to 30 ft. long,
with diameters from 6½ to 8 ft., and have two cylindrical furnace
flues which in the "Lancashire" boiler extend for its whole length
(see fig. 3). The working pressure is about 60 lb. per sq. in. in the
older boilers, from 100 lb. to 120 lb. per sq. in. in those supplying
steam to compound engines, and from 150 to 170 lb. where triple
expansion engines are used. In some cases they have been constructed
for a pressure of 200 lb. per sq. in. The furnace flues are usually
made in sections from 3 to 3½ ft. long. Each section consists of one
plate bent into a cylindrical form, the longitudinal joint being
welded, and is flanged at both ends, the various pieces being joined
together by an "Adamson" joint (fig. 1.). It will be seen that these
joints do not expose either rivets or double thickness of plate to the
action of the fire; they further serve as stiffening rings to prevent
collapse of the flue. In most of these boilers the heating surface is
increased by fitting in the furnace flues a number of "Galloway"
tubes. These are conical tubes, made with a flange at each end, by
means of which they are connected to the furnace plate. They are so
proportioned that the diameter of the large end of the tube is
slightly greater than that of the flange of the small end; this
enables them to be readily removed and replaced if necessary. These
tubes not only add to the heating surface, but they stiffen the flue,
promote circulation of the water in the boiler, and by mixing up the
flue gases improve the evaporative efficiency.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.--Adamson Joint.]
In the "Galloway" boiler the two furnaces extend only for about 9 or
10 ft. into the boiler, and lead into a large chamber or flue in which
a number of "Galloway" tubes are fitted, and which extends from the
furnace end to the end of the boiler. A cross section of this flue
showing the distribution of the Galloway tubes is shown in fig. 2.
When boilers less than about 6½ ft. in diameter are needed, a somewhat
similar type to the Lancashire boiler is used containing only one
furnace. This is called a "Cornish" boiler.
[Illustration: FIG. 2.--Galloway Boiler: Section beyond the Bridge.]
In all three types of boiler the brickwork is constructed to form one
central flue passing along the bottom of the boiler and two side flues
extending up the side nearly to the water-level. A cross section of
the brickwork is shown in fig. 2. The usual arrangement is for the
flue gases to be divided as they leave the internal flue; one-half
returns along each side flue to the front of the boiler, and the whole
then passes downwards into the central flue, travelling under the
bottom of the boiler until the gases again reach the back end, where
they pass into the chimney. In a few cases the arrangement is
reversed, the gases first passing along the bottom flue and returning
along the side flues. This latter arrangement, whilst promoting a more
rapid circulation of water, has the disadvantage of requiring two
dampers, and it is not suitable for those cases in which heavy
deposits form on the bottoms of the boilers.
Vertical.
Where floor space is limited and also for small installations, other
forms of cylindrical boilers are used, most of them being of the
vertical type. That most commonly used is the simple vertical boiler,
with a plain vertical fire-box, and an internal smoke stack traversing
the steam space. The fire-box is made slightly tapering in diameter,
the space between it and the shell being filled with water. In all but
the small sizes cross tubes are generally fitted. These are made about
9 in. in diameter of 3/8-in. plate flanged at each end to enable them
to be riveted to the fire-box plates. They are usually fitted with a
slight inclination to facilitate water circulation. and a hand-hole
closed by a suitable door is provided in the outer shell opposite to
each tube for cleaning purposes. A boiler of this kind is illustrated
in fig. 4. This form is often used on board ship for auxiliary
purposes. Where more heating surface is required than can be obtained
in the cross-tube boiler other types of vertical boiler are employed.
For instance, in the "Tyne" boiler (fig. 5) the furnace is
hemispherical, and the products of combustion are led into an upper
combustion chamber traversed by four or more inclined water-tubes of
about 9 in. diameter and by several vertical water-tubes of less
diameter. In the "Victoria" boiler made by Messrs Clarke, Chapman &
Co., and illustrated in fig. 6, the furnace is hemispherical; the
furnace gases are led to an internal combustion chamber, and thence
through numerous horizontal smoke-tubes to a smoke-box placed on the
side of the boiler. In the somewhat similar boiler known as the
"Cochran," the combustion chamber is made with a "dry" back. Instead
of a water space at the back of the chamber, doors lined with
firebrick are fitted. These give easy access to the tube ends.
[Illustration: FIG. 3.--Lancashire Boiler.]
[Illustration: FIG. 4.--Simple Vertical Boiler (Messrs Tinker, Ltd.).]
Marine.
The cylindrical multitubular return tube boiler is in almost universal
use in merchant steamers. It is made in various sizes ranging up to 17
ft. in diameter, the usual working pressure being from 160 to 200 lb
per sq. in., although in some few cases pressures of 265 lb. per sq.
in. are in use. These boilers are of two types, double- and
single-ended. In single-ended boilers, which are those most generally
used, the furnaces are fitted at one end only and vary in number from
one in the smallest boiler to four in the largest. Three furnaces are
the most usual practice. Each furnace generally has its own separate
combustion chamber. In four furnace boilers, however, one chamber is
sometimes made common to the two middle furnaces, and sometimes one
chamber is fitted to each pair of side furnaces. In double-ended
boilers furnaces are fitted at each end. In some cases each furnace
has a separate combustion chamber, but more usually one chamber is
made to serve for two furnaces, one at each end of the boiler. The two
types of boilers are shown in figs. 7 and 8, which illustrate boilers
made by Messrs D. Rowan & Co. of Glasgow, and which may be taken as
representing good modern practice. The furnaces used in the smaller
sizes are often of the plain cylindrical type, the thickness of plate
varying from 3/8 in. up to ¾ in. according to the diameter of the
furnace and the working pressure. Occasionally furnaces with "Adamson"
joints similar to those used in Lancashire boilers are employed, but
for large furnaces and for high pressures corrugated or ribbed
furnaces are usually adopted. Sketches of the sections of these are
shown in fig. 9. The sections of the Morison, Fox and Deighton types
are made from plates originally rolled of a uniform thickness, made
into a cylindrical form with a welded longitudinal joint and then
corrugated, the only difference between them being in the shapes of
the corrugations. In the other three types the plates from which the
furnaces are made are rolled with ribs or thickened portions at
distances of 9 in. These furnaces are stronger to resist collapse than
plain furnaces of the same thickness, and accommodate themselves more
readily to changes of temperature.
[Illustration: FIG. 5.--Vertical Boiler with Water-tubes (the "Tyne,"
by Messrs Clarke, Chapman & Co.).]
There are two distinct types of connexion between the furnaces and the
combustion chambers. In one, shown in fig. 8, the furnace is flanged
at the crown portion for riveting to the tube plate, and the lower
part of the furnace is riveted to the "wrapper" or side plate of the
combustion chamber. In the other type, shown in fig. 7, and known
generally as the "Gourlay back end," the end of the furnace is
contracted into an oval conical form, and is then flanged outwards
round the whole of its circumference. The tube plate is made to extend
to the bottom of the combustion chamber, and the furnace is riveted to
the tube plate. The advantage of the Gourlay back end is that in case
of accident to the furnace it can be removed from the boiler and be
replaced by one of the same design without disturbing the end plates,
which is not possible with the other design. The Gourlay back end,
however, is not so stiff as the other, and more longitudinal stays are
required in the boiler.
[Illustration: FIG. 6.--Vertical Boiler with internal combustion
chamber (the "Victoria," by Messrs Clarke, Chapman & Co.).]
[Illustration: FIG. 7.--Single-ended Marine Boiler.]
The flat sides and backs of the combustion chambers are stayed either
to one another or to the shell of the boiler by numerous screw stays
which are screwed through the two plates they connect, and which are
nearly always fitted with nuts inside the combustion chambers. The
tops of the chambers are usually stayed by strong girders resting upon
the tube plates and chamber back plates. In a few cases, however, they
are stayed by vertical stays attached to T bars riveted to the boiler
shell. A few boilers are made in which the chamber tops are
strengthened by heavy transverse girder plates. The end plates of the
boiler in the steam space and below the combustion chambers are stayed
by longitudinal stays passing through the whole length of the boiler
and secured by double nuts at each end. The tube plates are
strengthened by stay tubes screwed into them.
Where natural or chimney draught is used the tubes are generally made
3 or 3¼ in. outside diameter and are rarely more than 7 ft. long, but
where "forced" draught is employed they are usually made 2½ in.
diameter and 8 to 8½ ft. long. A clear space of 1¼ in. between the
tubes is almost always arranged for, irrespective of size of tubes.
[Illustration: FIG. 8.--Double-ended Marine Boiler.]
Stay tubes are screwed at both ends, the threads of the two ends being
continuous so that they can be screwed into both tube plates;
occasionally nuts are fitted to the front ends. The stay tubes are
expanded into the plates and then beaded over.
Locomotive.
The locomotive boiler consists of a cylindrical barrel attached to a
portion containing the fire-box, which is nearly rectangular both in
horizontal and vertical section. The fire-box sides are stayed to the
fire-box shell by numerous stays about 1 in. in diameter, usually
pitched 4 in. apart both vertically and horizontally. The top of the
fire-box in small boilers is stayed by means of girder stays running
longitudinally and supported at the ends upon the tube plate and the
opposite fire-box plate. In some boilers the girders are partly
supported by slings from the crown of the boiler. In larger boilers
the crown of the boiler above the fire-box is made flat and the
fire-box crown is supported by vertical stays connecting it with the
shell crown. Provision is generally made for the expansion of the tube
plate, which is of copper, by allowing the two or three cross rows of
stays nearest the tube plate to have freedom of motion upwards but not
downwards. The ordinary tubes are usually 1¾ in. diameter. The
fire-bars are generally, though not always, made to slope downwards
away from the fire door, and just below the lowest tubes a fire-bridge
or baffle is fitted, extending about half-way from the tube plate to
the fire-door side of the fire-box. In some cases water-tubes are
fitted, extending right across the fire-box. In a boiler for the
London & South-Western Railway Co., having a grate area of 31.5 sq.
ft. and a total heating surface of 2727 sq. ft., there are 112
water-tubes each 2¾ in. diameter. These are arranged in two clusters,
each containing 56, one set being placed above the fire-bridge, and
the other set nearer the fire-door end of the boiler. The water-tubes
are of seamless steel, and are expanded into the fire-box side plates.
In way of these tubes the outer shell side plates are supported by
stay bars passing right through the water-tubes. The usual pressure
of locomotive boilers is about 175 lb. to 200 lb. per sq. in.
[Illustration: FIG. 9.]
A good example of an express locomotive boiler is shown in fig. 10. In
this case the grate area is 30.9 sq. ft. and the heating surface 2500
sq. ft. The barrel is 5 ft. 6 in. diameter, 16 ft. long between tube
plates. The fire-box crown is stayed by vertical stays extending to
the shell crown, except for the three rows of stays nearest the tube
plates. These are supported by cross girders resting upon brackets
secured to the outer shell.
[Illustration: FIG. 10.--Express Locomotive Boiler, with widened
fire-box (Great Northern Railway, England).]
Babcock and Wilcox stationary.
_Water-Tube Boilers._--The "Babcock & Wilcox" boiler, as fitted for
land purposes, and illustrated in fig. 11, consists of a horizontal
cylinder forming a steam chest, having dished ends and two specially
constructed cross-boxes riveted to the bottom. Under the cylinder is
placed a sloping nest of tubes, under the upper end of which is the
fire. The sides and back of the boiler are enclosed in brickwork up to
the height of the centre of the horizontal cylinder and the front is
fitted with an iron casing lined with brick at the lower part.
Suitable brickwork baffles are arranged between the tubes themselves,
and between the nests of tubes and the cylinder, to ensure a proper
circulation of the products of combustion, which are made to pass
between the tubes three times. The nest of tubes consists of several
separate elements, each formed by a front and back header made of
wrought steel of sinuous form connected by a number of tubes. The
upper ends of the front headers are connected by short tubes to the
front cross-box of the horizontal cylinder, the lower ends being
closed. The upper ends of the back headers are connected by longer
pipes to the back cross-box, and their lower ends by short pipes to a
horizontal mud drum to which a blow-off cock and pipe are attached.
The headers are furnished with holes on two opposite sides; those on
one side form the means of connexion between the headers and tubes,
and the others allow access for fixing the tubes in position and
cleaning. The outer holes are oval, and closed by special fittings
shown in fig. 18, the watertightness of the joints being secured by
the outer cover plates. The holes being oval, the inside fitting can
be placed in position from outside, and it is so made as to cover the
opening and prevent any great outrush of steam or water should the
bolt break. Any desired working pressure can be provided for in these
boilers; in some special cases it rises as high as 500 lb. per sq. in.,
but a more usual pressure is 180 lb. Like all water-tube boilers,
they require to be frequently cleaned if impure feed-water is used,
but the straightness of their tubes enables their condition to be
ascertained at any time when the boiler is out of use, and any
accumulation of scale to be removed. The superheaters, which are
frequently fitted, consist of two cross-boxes or headers placed
transversely under the cylindrical drum and connected by numerous
C-shaped tubes. They are situated between the tubes and the
steam-chest, and are exposed to the heat of the furnace gases after
their first passage across the tubes. The steam is taken by an
internal pipe passing through the bottom of the drum into the upper
cross-box, then through the C tubes into the lower box, and thence to
the steam pipe. When steam is being raised, the superheater is flooded
with water, which is drained out through a blow-off pipe before
communication is opened with the steam-pipe. In large boilers of this
type, two steam-chests are placed side by side connected together by
two cross steam pipes and by the mud drum. Each, however, has its own
separate feed supply. The largest boiler made has two steam chests 4½
ft. diameter by 25½ ft. long, a grate surface of 85 sq. ft., and a
total heating surface of 6182 sq. ft.
Stirling.
Another type of water-tube boiler in use for stationary purposes is
the "Stirling" (fig. 12). This boiler consists of four or five
horizontal drums, of which the three upper form the steam-space, and
the one or two lower contain water. The lower drums, where two are
fitted, are connected to each other at about the middle of their
height by horizontal tubes, and to the upper drums by numerous nearly
vertical tubes which form the major portion of the heating surfaces.
The central upper drum is at a slightly higher level than the others,
and communicates with that nearest the back of the boiler by a set of
curved tubes entirely above the water-level, and with the front drum
by two sets--the upper one being above and the lower below the
water-level. The whole boiler is enclosed in brickwork, into which the
supporting columns and girders are built. Brickwork baffles compel the
furnace gases to take specified courses among the tubes. It will be
seen that the space between the boiler front and the tubes form a
large combustion chamber into which all the furnace gases must pass
before they enter the spaces between the tubes; in this chamber a
baffle-bridge is sometimes built. Another chamber is formed between
the first and second sets of tubes. The feed-water enters the back
upper drum, and must pass down the third set of tubes into the lower
drum before it reaches the other parts of the boiler. Thus the coldest
water is always where the temperature of the furnace gases is lowest;
and as the current through the lower drum is slight, the solid matters
separated from the feed-water while its temperature is being raised
have an opportunity of settling to the bottom of this drum, where the
heating is not great and where therefore their presence will not be
injurious. When superheaters are required, they are made of two drums
connected by numerous small tubes, and are somewhat similar in
construction to the boiler proper. The superheater is placed between
the first and second sets of tubes, where it is exposed to the furnace
gases before too much heat has been taken from them. Arrangements are
provided for flooding the superheater while steam is being raised, and
for draining it before the steam is passed through it.
[Illustration: FIG. 11.--Babcock & Wilcox Water-tube Boiler fitted
with Superheaters.]
Woodeson.
A somewhat similar boiler is made by Messrs. Clarke, Chapman & Co.,
and is known as the "Woodeson" boiler (fig. 13). It consists of three
upper drums placed side by side connected together by numerous short
tubes, some above and some below the water-level, and of three smaller
lower drums also connected by short cross tubes. The upper and lower
drums are connected by numerous nearly vertical straight tubes. The
whole is enclosed in firebrick casing. The design permits of the
insides of all the tubes being readily inspected, and also of any tube
being taken out and renewed without displacing any other part of the
boiler.
[Illustration: FIG. 12.--Stirling Water-tube Boiler.]
Belleville.
The earliest form of water-tube boiler which came into general use in
the British navy is the Belleville. Two views of this boiler are shown
in fig. 14. It is composed of two parts, the boiler proper and the
"economizer." Each of these consists of several sets of elements
placed side by side; those of the boiler proper are situated
immediately over the fire, and those of the economizer in the uptake
above the boiler, the intervening space being designed to act as a
combustion chamber. Each element is constructed of a number of
straight tubes connected at their ends by means of screwed joints to
junction-boxes which are made of malleable cast iron. These are
arranged vertically over one another, and except in the case of the
upper and lower ones at the front of the boiler, each connects the
upper end of one tube with the lower end of the next tube of the
element. The boxes at the back of the boiler are all close-ended, but
those at the front are provided with a small oval hole, opposite to
each tube end, closed by an internal door with bolt and cross-bar; the
purpose of these openings is to permit the inside of the tubes to be
examined and cleaned. The lower front box of each element of the
boiler proper is connected to a horizontal cross-tube of square
section, called a "feed-collector," which extends the whole width of
the boiler. When the boiler is not in use, any element can be readily
disconnected and a spare one inserted. The lower part of the
steam-chest is connected to the feed-collector by vertical pipes at
each end of the boiler, and prolongations of these pipes below the
level of the feed-collector form closed pockets for the collection of
sediment. The tubes are made of seamless steel. They are generally
about 4½ in. in external diameter: the two lower rows are 3/8 in.
thick, the next two rows 5/16 and the remainder about 1/5 in. The
construction of the economizer is similar to that of the boiler
proper, but the tubes are shorter and smaller, being generally about
2¾ in. in diameter. The lower boxes of the economizer elements are
connected to a horizontal feed pipe which is kept supplied with water
by a feed-pumping engine, and the upper boxes are connected to another
horizontal pipe from which the heated feed-water is taken into the
steam-chest. Both the boiler proper and the economizer are enclosed in
a casing which is formed of two thicknesses of thin iron separated by
non-conducting material and lined with firebrick at the part between
the fire-bar level and the lower rows of tubes. Along the front of the
boiler, above the level of the firing-doors, there is a small tube
having several nozzles directed across the fire-grate, and supplied
with compressed air at a pressure of about 10 lb. per sq. in. In this
way not only is additional air supplied, but the gases issuing from
the fire are stirred up and mixed, their combustion being thereby
facilitated before they pass into the spaces between the tubes. A
similar air-tube is provided for the space between the boiler proper
and the economizer. Any water suspended in the steam is separated in a
special separator fitted in the main steam-pipe, and the steam is
further dried by passing through a reducing-valve, which ensures a
steady pressure on the engine side of the valve, notwithstanding
fluctuations of pressure in the boiler. The boiler pressure is usually
maintained at about 50 lb. per sq. in. in excess of that at which the
engines are working, the excess forming a reservoir of energy to
provide for irregular firing or feeding.
[Illustration: FIG. 13.--Woodeson Boiler (Messrs Clarke, Chapman &
Co.).]
[Illustration: FIG. 14.--Belleville Boiler.]
Niclausse.
Another type of large-tube boiler which has been used in the British
and in other navies is the "Niclausse," shown in fig. 15. It is also
in use on land in several electric-light installations. It consists of
a horizontal steam-chest under which is placed a number of elements
arranged side by side over the fire, the whole being enclosed in an
iron casing lined with firebrick where it is exposed to the direct
action of the fire. Each element consists of a header of rectangular
cross-section, fitted with two rows of inclined close-ended tubes,
which slope downwards towards the back of the boiler with an
inclination of 6° to the horizontal. The headers are usually of
malleable cast iron with diaphragms cast in them, but sometimes steel
has been employed, the bottoms being closed by a riveted steel plate,
and the diaphragms being made of the same material. The headers are
bolted to socket-pieces which are riveted to the bottom of the
steam-chest, so that any element may be easily removed. The tube-holes
are accurately bored, at an angle to suit the inclination of the
tubes, through both the front and back of the headers and through the
diaphragm, those in the header walls being slightly conical. The tubes
themselves, which are made of seamless steel, are of peculiar
construction. The lower or back ends are reduced in diameter and
screwed and fitted with cap-nuts which entirely close them. The front
ends are thickened by being upset, and the parts where they fit into
the header walls and in the diaphragm are carefully turned to gauge.
The upper and lower parts of the tubes between these fitting portions
are then cut away, the side portions only being retained, and the end
is termed a "lanterne." A small water-circulating tube of thin sheet
steel, fitted inside each generating tube, is open at the lower end,
and at the other is secured to a smaller "lanterne," which, however,
only extends from the front of the header to the diaphragm. This
smaller "lanterne" closes the front end of the generating tube. The
whole arrangement is such that when the tubes are in place only the
small inner circulating tubes communicate with the space between the
front of the header and the diaphragm, while the annular spaces in the
generating tubes around the water-circulating tubes communicate only
with the space between the diaphragm and the back of the header. The
steam formed in the tubes escapes from them into this back space,
through which it rises into the steam-chest, whilst the space in the
front of the header always contains a down-current of water supplying
the inner circulating tubes. The tubes are maintained in position by
cross-bars, each secured by one stud-bolt screwed into the header
front wall, and each serving to fix two tubes. The products of
combustion ascend directly from the fire amongst the tubes, and the
combustion is rendered more complete by the introduction of jets of
high-pressure air immediately over the fire, as in the "Belleville"
boiler.
Dürr.
The "Dürr" boiler, in use in several vessels in the German navy, and
in a few vessels of the British navy, in some respects resembles the
"Niclausse." The separate headers of the latter, however, are replaced
by one large water-chamber formed of steel plates with welded joints,
and instead of the tubes being secured by "lanternes" to two plates
they are secured to the inner plate only by conical joints, the holes
in the outer plate being closed by small round doors fitted from the
inside. In fixing the tubes each is separately forced into its
position by means of a small portable hydraulic jack. The lower ends
of the caps are closed by cap-nuts made of a special heat-resisting
alloy of copper and manganese. Circulation is provided for by a
diaphragm in the water-chamber and by inner tubes as in the Niclausse
boiler. Baffle plates are fitted amongst the tubes to ensure a
circulation of the furnace gases amongst them. Above the main set of
tubes is a smaller set arranged horizontally, and connected directly
to the steam receiver. These are fitted with internal tubes, and an
internal diaphragm is provided so that steam from the chest circulates
through these tubes on its way to the stop-valves. This supplementary
set of tubes is intended to serve as a superheater, but the amount of
surface is not sufficient to obtain more than a very small amount of
superheat.
Yarrow.
The Yarrow boiler (fig. 16) is largely in use in the British and also
in several other navies. It consists of a large cylindrical steam
chest and two lower water-chambers, connected by numerous straight
tubes. In the boilers for large vessels all the tubes are of 1¾ in.
external diameter, but in the large express boilers the two rows
nearest to the fire on each side are of 1¼ in. and the remainder of 1
in. diameter. They are arranged with their centres forming equilateral
triangles, and are spaced so that they can be cleaned externally both
from the front of the boiler and also cross-ways in two directions. In
some boilers the lower part of the steam-chest is connected with the
water-chambers by large pipes outside the casings with the view of
improving the circulation.
The largest size of single-ended large tube boiler in use has a steam
drum 4 ft. 2 in. diameter, a grate area of 73.5 sq. ft. and 3750 sq.
ft. of heating surface, but much larger double-ended boilers have been
made, these being fired from both ends.
In most of the boilers made, access to the inside is obtained by
manholes in the steam-chest and water-chamber ends, but in the smaller
sizes fitted in torpedo boats the water-chambers are too small for
this, and they are each arranged in two parts connected by a bolted
joint, which makes all the tube ends accessible.
The Babcock & Wilcox marine boiler (fig. 17) is much used in the
American and British navies, and it has also been used in several
yachts and merchant steamers. It consists of a horizontal cylindrical
steam-chest placed transversely over a group of elements, beneath
which is the fire, the whole being enclosed in an iron casing lined
with firebrick. Each element consists of a front and back header
connected by numerous water-tubes which have a considerable
inclination to facilitate the circulation. The upper ends of the front
headers are situated immediately under the steam-chest and are
connected to it by short nipples; by a similar means they are
connected at the bottom to a pipe of square section which extends
across the width of the boiler. Additional connexions are made by
nearly vertical tubes between this cross-pipe and the bottom of the
steam-chest. The back headers are each connected at their upper ends
by means of two long horizontal tubes with the steam-chest, the bottom
ends of the headers being closed. The headers are made of wrought
steel, and except the outer pairs, which are flat on the outer
portions, they are sinuous on both sides, the sinuosities fitting into
one another. The tubes are of two sizes, the two lower rows and the
return tubes between the back headers and steam-chest being 3-15/16
in. outside diameter, and the remaining tubes 1-13/16 in. The small
tubes are arranged in groups of two or four to nearly all of the
sinuosities of the headers, the purpose of this arrangement being to
give opportunities for the furnace gases to become well mixed
together, and to ensure their contact with the heating surfaces.
Access for securing the tubes in the headers is provided by a hole
formed on the other side of the header opposite each of the tubes,
where they are grouped in fours, and by one larger hole opposite each
group of two tubes. The larger holes are oval, and are closed by
fittings similar to those used in the land boiler (fig. 18). The
smaller holes are conical, with the larger diameter on the inside,
and are closed by special conical fittings: the conical portion and
bolt are one forging, and the nut is close-ended. In case of the
breakage of the bolt, the fitting would be retained in place by the
steam-pressure. A set of firebrick baffles is placed so as to cover
rather more than half of the spaces between the upper of the two
bottom rows of large tubes, and another set of baffles covers about
two-thirds of the spaces between the upper small tubes. Vertical
baffles are also built between the smaller tubes, as shown in the
longitudinal section. These baffles compel the products of combustion
to circulate among the tubes in the direction shown by the arrows.
Experience has shown that this arrangement gives a better evaporative
efficiency than where the furnace gases are allowed to pass unbaffled
straight up between the tubes. The boilers are usually fitted in pairs
placed back to back, and one side of each is always made accessible.
On this side the casing is provided with numerous small doors, through
any of which a steam jet can be inserted for the purpose of sweeping
the tubes.
[Illustration: FIG 15.--Niclausse Boiler--transverse section.]
Express boilers.
A class of water-tube boilers largely in use in torpedo-boat
destroyers and cruisers, where the maximum of power is required in
proportion to the total weight of the installation, is generally known
as express boilers. In these the tubes are made of smaller diameter
than those used in the boilers already described, and the boilers are
designed to admit of a high rate of combustion of fuel obtained by a
high degree of "forced draught." Of these express boilers the Yarrow
is of similar construction to the large tube Yarrow boiler already
described with the exception that the tubes are smaller in diameter
and much more closely arranged.
Normand.
In the Normand boiler (fig. 19) there are three chambers as in the
Yarrow, connected together by a large number of bent tubes which form
the heating surface, and also connected at each end by large outside
circulating tubes. The two outer rows of heating tubes on each side
are arranged to touch one another to nearly their whole length so as
to form a "water-wall" for the protection of the outer casing. They
enter the steam-chest at about the water-level. The two inner rows of
tubes, which are bent to the form shown in the figure, also form a
water-wall for the larger portion of the length of the boiler, and
thus compel the products of combustion to pass in a definite course
amongst all the tubes. In the Blechynden and White-Foster boilers
there are also three chambers connected by bent tubes, the curvature
being so arranged that in the former boiler any of the tubes can be
taken out of the boiler through small doors provided in the upper part
of the steam-chest, and in the White-Foster boiler they can be taken
out through the manhole in the end of the steam-chest.
Reed.
In the Reed boiler the tubes are longer and more curved than in the
Normand boiler, and there are no "water-walls," the products of
combustion passing from the fire-grate amongst all the tubes direct to
the chimney. The special feature of the boiler is that each tube,
instead of being expanded into the tube plate, is fitted at each end
with specially designed screw and nut connexions to enable them to be
quickly taken out and replaced if necessary. At their lower ends the
tubes are reduced in diameter to enable smaller chambers to be used
than would otherwise be necessary. Provision is made for access to the
lower tube ends by means of numerous doors in the water-chambers.
Access to the top ends is obtained in the steam-chest.
Thornycroft.
Messrs John I. Thornycroft & Co. make two forms of express boiler. One
called the Thornycroft boiler consists of three chambers connected by
tubes which are straight for the major portion of their length but
bent at each end to enable them to enter the steam- and water-chambers
normally. The outer rows of tubes form "water-walls" at their lower
parts, but permit the passage of the gases between them at their upper
ends. Similarly the inner rows form "water-walls" at their upper
parts, but are open at the lower ends. The products of combustion are
thus compelled to pass over the whole of the heating surfaces. The
fire-rows of tubes in this boiler are made 1-3/8 in. outside diameter
and the remainder are made 1-3/8 in. diameter. Large outside
circulating pipes are provided at the front end of the boiler.
Thornycroft-Schulz.
In the other type of boiler, known as the Thornycroft-Schulz boiler
(fig. 20), there are four chambers, and the fire-grate is arranged in
two separate portions. The two outermost rows of tubes on each side
are arranged to form water-walls at their lower part, and permit the
gases to pass between them at the upper part. The rows nearest the
fires are arranged similarly to those in the Thornycroft boiler.
Circulation in the outer sets of tubes is arranged for by outer
circulating pipes of large diameter connecting the steam- and
water-chambers. For the middle water-chamber several nearly vertical
down-comers are provided in the centre of the boiler. Boilers of this
type are extensively used in the British and German navies.
_Material of Boilers._--In ordinary land boilers and in marine boilers
of all types the plates and stays are almost invariably made of mild
steel. For the shell plates and for long stays, a quality having a
tensile strength ranging from 28 to 32 tons per sq. in. is usually
employed, and for furnaces and flues, for plates which have to be
flanged, and for short-screwed stays, a somewhat softer steel with a
strength ranging from 26 to 30 tons per sq. in. is used. The tubes of
ordinary land and marine boilers are usually made of lap-welded wrought
iron. In water-tube boilers for naval purposes seamless steel tubes are
invariably used. In locomotive boilers the shells are generally of mild
steel, the fire-box plates of copper (in America of steel), the fire-box
side stays of copper or special bronze, and other stays of steel. The
tubes are usually of brass with a composition either of two parts by
weight of copper to one of zinc or 70% copper, 30% zinc; sometimes,
however, copper tubes and occasionally steel tubes are used. Where water
tubes are used they are made of seamless steel.
_Boiler Accessories._--All boilers must be provided with certain
mountings and accessories. The water-level in them must be kept above
the highest part of the heating surfaces. In some land boilers, and in
some of the water-tube boilers used on shipboard, the feeding is
automatically regulated by mechanism actuated by a float, but in these
cases means of regulating the feed-supply by hand are also provided. In
most boilers hand regulation only is relied upon. The actual level of
water in the boiler is ascertained by a glass water-gauge, which
consists of a glass tube and three cocks, two communicating directly
with the boiler, one above and one below the desired water-level, and
the third acting as a blow-out for cleaning the gauge and for testing
its working. Three small try-cocks are also fitted, one just at, one
above, and one below the proper water-level. The feeding of the boiler
is sometimes performed by a pump driven from the main engine, sometimes
by an independent steam-pump, and sometimes by means of an injector. The
feed-water is admitted by a "check-valve," the lift of which is
regulated by a screw and hand-wheel, and which when the feed-pump is not
working is kept on its seating by the boiler pressure.
[Illustration: FIG. 16.--Yarrow Water-tube Boiler.]
Every boiler is in addition supplied with a steam-gauge to indicate the
steam-pressure, with a stop-valve for regulating the admission of steam
to the steam-pipes, and with one or two safety-valves. These last in
stationary boilers usually consist of valves kept in their seats against
the steam-pressure in the boiler by levers carrying weights, but in
marine and locomotive boilers the valves are kept closed by means of
steel springs. One at least of the safety-valves is fitted with easing
gear by which it can be lifted at any time for blowing off the steam.
Blow-out cocks are fitted for emptying the boiler.
Openings must always be made in boilers for access for cleaning and
examination. When these are large enough to allow a man to enter the
boiler they are termed man-holes. They are usually made oval, as this
shape permits the doors by which they are closed to be placed on the
inside so that the pressure upon them tends to keep them shut. The doors
are held in place by one or two bolts, secured to cross-bars or "dogs"
outside the boiler. It is important in making these doors that they
should fit the holes so accurately that the jointing material cannot be
forced out of its proper position. In the few cases where doors are
fitted outside a boiler, so that the steam-pressure tends to open them,
they are always secured by several bolts so that the breakage of one
bolt will not allow the door to be forced off.
_Water-softening._--Seeing that the impurities contained in the
feed-water are not evaporated in the steam they become concentrated in
the boiler water. Most of them become precipitated in the boiler either
in the form of mud or else as scale which forms on the heating surfaces.
Some of the mud and such of the impurities as remain soluble may be
removed by means of the blow-off cocks, but the scale can only be
removed by periodical cleaning. Incrustations on the heating surface not
only lessen the efficiency of the boiler by obstructing the transmission
of heat through the plates and tubes, but if excessive they become a
source of considerable danger by permitting the plates to become
overheated and thereby weakened. When the feed-water is very impure,
therefore, the boilers used are those which permit of very easy
cleaning, such as the Lancashire, Galloway and Cornish types, to the
exclusion of multitubular or water-tube boilers in which thorough
cleaning is more difficult. In other cases, however, the feed-water is
purified by passing it through some type of "softener" before pumping it
into the boiler. Most of the impurities in ordinary feed-water are
either lime or magnesia salts, which although soluble in cold water are
much less so in hot water. In the "softener" measured quantities of
feed-water and of some chemical reagents are thoroughly mixed and at the
same time the temperature is raised either by exhaust steam or by other
means. Most of the impurity is thus precipitated, and some of the
remainder is converted into more soluble salts which remain in solution
in the boiler until blown out. The water is filtered before being pumped
into the boiler. The quantity and kind of chemical employed is
determined according to the nature and amount of the impurity in the
"hard" feed-water.
_Thermal Storage._--In some cases where the work required is very
intermittent, "thermal storage" is employed. Above the boiler a large
cylindrical storage vessel is placed, having sufficient capacity to
contain enough feed-water to supply the boiler throughout the periods
when the maximum output is required. The upper part of this storage
vessel is always in free communication with the steam space of the
boiler, and from the lower part of it the feed-water may be run into the
boiler when required. The feed-water is delivered into the upper part of
the vessel, and arrangements are made by which before it falls to the
bottom of the chamber it runs over very extended surfaces exposed to the
steam, its temperature being thus raised to that of the steam. At times
when less than the normal supply of steam is required for the engine
more than the average quantity of feed-water is pumped into the chamber,
and the excess accumulates with its temperature raised to the
evaporation point. When an extra supply of steam is required, the
feed-pump is stopped and the boiler is fed with the hot water stored in
the chamber. Besides the "storage" effect, it is found that many of the
impurities of the feed become deposited in the chamber, where they are
comparatively harmless and from which they are readily removable.
[Illustration: Longitudinal section.
Section at AB--Front elevation.
FIG. 17.--Bobcock & Wilcox Water-tube Boiler (marine type).]
_Oil Separators._--When the steam from the engines is condensed and used
as feed-water, as is the case with marine boilers, much difficulty is
often experienced with the oil which passes over with the steam.
Feed-filters are employed to stop the coarser particles of the oil, but
some of the oil becomes "emulsified" or suspended in the water in such
extremely minute particles that they pass through the finest filtering
materials. On the evaporation of the water in the boiler, this oil is
left as a thin film upon the heating surfaces, and by preventing the
actual contact of water with the plates has been the cause of serious
trouble. An attempt has been made to overcome the emulsion difficulty by
uniformly mixing with the water a small quantity of solution of lime. On
the water being raised in temperature the lime is precipitated, and the
minute particles separated apparently attract the small globules of oil
and become aggregated in sufficient size to deposit themselves in quiet
parts of the boiler, whence they can be occasionally removed either by
blowing out or by cleaning. Much, however, still remains to be done
before the oil difficulty will be thoroughly removed.
_Corrosion._--When chemicals of any kind are used to soften or purify
feed-water it is essential that neither they nor the products they form
should have a corrosive effect upon the boiler-plates, &c. Much of the
corrosion which occasionally occurs has been traced to the action of the
oxygen of the air which enters the boiler in solution in the feed-water,
and the best practice now provides for the delivery of the feed into the
boiler at such positions that the air evolved from it as it becomes
heated passes direct to the steam space without having an opportunity of
becoming disengaged upon the under-water surfaces of the boiler.
Where corrosion is feared it is usual to fit zinc slabs in the water
spaces of the boiler. Experience shows that it is better to make them of
rolled rather than of cast zinc, and to secure them on studs which can
be kept bright, so as to ensure a direct metallic contact between the
zinc and the boiler-plate. The function of the zinc is to set up
galvanic action; it plays the part of the negative metal, and is
dissolved while the metal of the shell is kept electro-positive. Care
must always be taken that the fragments which break off the zinc as it
wastes away cannot fall upon the heating surfaces of the boiler.
_Evaporators._--In marine boilers the waste of water which occurs from
leakages in the cycle of the evaporation in the boiler, use in the
engine, condensation in the condenser and return to the boiler as
feed-water, is made up by fresh water distilled from sea-water in
"evaporators." Of these there are many forms with different provisions
for cleaning the coils, but they are all identical in principle. They
are fed with sea-water, and means are provided for blowing out the brine
produced in them when some of the water is evaporated. The heat required
for the evaporation is obtained from live steam from the boilers, which
is admitted into coils of copper pipe. The water condensed in these
coils is returned direct to the feed-water, and the steam evaporated
from the sea-water is led either into the low-pressure receiver of the
steam-engine or into the condenser.
[Illustration: FIG. 18.--Handhole Fittings.]
_Efficiency of Boilers._--The useful work obtained from any boiler
depends upon many considerations. For a high efficiency, that is, a
large amount of steam produced in proportion to the amount of fuel
consumed, different conditions have to be fulfilled from those required
where a large output of steam from a given plant is of more importance
than economy of fuel. For a high efficiency, completeness of combustion
of fuel must be combined with sufficient heating surface to absorb so
much of the heat produced as will reduce the temperature of the funnel
gases to nearly that of steam. Completeness of combustion can only be
obtained by admitting considerably more air to the fire than is
theoretically necessary fully to oxidize the combustible portions of the
fuel, and by providing sufficient time and opportunity for a thorough
mixture of the air and furnace gases to take place before the
temperature is lowered to that critical point below which combustion
will not take place. It is generally considered that the amount of
excess air required is nearly equal to that theoretically necessary;
experience, however, tends to show that much less than this is really
required if proper means are provided for ensuring an early complete
mixture of the gases. Different means are needed to effect this with
different kinds of coal, those necessary for properly burning Welsh coal
being altogether unsuitable for use with North Country or Scottish coal.
As all the excess air has to be raised to the same temperature as that
of the really burnt gases, it follows that an excess of air passing
through the fire lowers the temperature in the fire and flues, and
therefore lessens the heat transmission; and as it leaves the boiler at
a high temperature it carries off some of the heat produced. A reduction
of the amount of air, therefore, may, by increasing the fire temperature
and lessening the chimney waste, actually increase the efficiency even
if at the same time it is accompanied by a slight incompleteness of
combustion.
[Illustration: FIG. 19.--Normand Boiler.]
_Mechanical Stoking._--Most boilers are hand-fired, a system involving
much labour and frequent openings of the furnace doors, whereby large
quantities of cold air are admitted above the fires. Many systems of
mechanical stoking have been tried, but none has been found free from
objections. That most usually employed is known as the "chain-grate"
stoker. In this system, which is illustrated in fig. 13 (Woodeson
boiler), the grate consists of a wide endless chain formed of short
cast-iron bars; this passes over suitable drums at the front and back of
the boiler, by the slow rotation of which the grate travels very slowly
from front to back. The coal, which is broken small, is fed from a
hopper over the whole width of the grate, the thickness of the fire
being regulated by a door which can be raised or lowered as desired.
Thus the volatile portions of the coal are distilled at the front of the
fire, and pass over the incandescent fuel at the back end. The speed of
travel is so regulated that by the time the remaining parts of the fuel
reach the back end the combustion is nearly complete. It will be seen
that the fire becomes thinner towards the back, and too much air is
prevented from entering the thin portion by means of vanes actuated from
the front of the boiler.
_Draught._--In most boilers the draught necessary for combustion is
"natural," i.e. produced by a chimney. For marine purposes, although
"natural" draught is the more common, many boiler installations are
fitted with "forced" draught arrangements. Two distinct systems are
used. In that known as the "closed stokehold" the stokehold compartment
of the vessel is so closed that the only exit for air from it is through
the fires. Air is driven into the stokehold by means of fans which are
made so that they can maintain an air pressure in the stokehold above
that of the outside atmosphere. This is the system almost universally
adopted in war vessels, and it is used also in some fast passenger
ships. The air pressure usually adopted in large vessels is that
corresponding to a height of from 1 to 1½ in. of water, whilst so much
as 4 in. is sometimes used in torpedo-boats and similar craft. This is,
of course, in addition to the chimney-draught due to the height of the
funnel. In the closed ashpit or Howden system, the stokehold is open,
and fans drive the air round a number of tubes, situated in the uptake,
through which the products of combustion pass on their way to the
chimney. The air thus becomes heated, and part of it is then delivered
into the ashpit below the fire and part into a casing round the furnace
front from which it enters the furnace above the fire. In locomotive
boilers the draught is produced by the blast or the exhaust steam. With
natural draught a combustion of about 15 to 20 lb. of coal per sq. ft.
of grate area per hour can be obtained. With forced draught much greater
rates can be maintained, ranging from 20 lb. to 35 lb. in the larger
vessels with a moderate air pressure, to as much as 70 and even 80 lb
per sq. ft. in the express types of boiler used in torpedo boats and
similar craft.
_Performance of Boilers._--The makers of several types of boilers have
published particulars regarding the efficiency of the boilers they
construct, but naturally these results have been obtained under the most
favourable circumstances which may not always represent the conditions
of ordinary working. The following table of actual results of marine
boiler trials, made at the instance of the British admiralty, is
particularly useful because the trials were made with great care under
working conditions, the whole of the coal being weighed and the
feed-water measured throughout the trials by skilled observers. The
various trials can be compared amongst themselves as South Welsh coal of
excellent quality was used in all cases.
In experimental tests such as those above referred to, many conditions
have to be taken into account, the principal being the duration of the
trial. It is essential that the condition of the boiler at the
conclusion of the test should be precisely the same as at the
commencement, both as regards the quantity of unconsumed coals on the
fire-grate and the quantity of water and the steam-pressure in the
boiler. The longer the period over which the observations are taken the
less is the influence of errors in the estimation of these particulars.
Further, in order properly to represent working conditions, the rate of
combustion of the fuel throughout the trial must be the same as that
intended to be used in ordinary working, and the duration of the test
must be sufficient to include proportionately as much cleaning of fires
as would occur under the normal working conditions. The tests should
always be made with the kind of coal intended to be generally used, and
the records should include a test of the calorific value of a sample of
the fuel carefully selected so as fairly to represent the bulk of the
coal used during the trial. The periodic records taken are the weights
of the fuel used and of the ashes, &c., produced, the temperature and
quantity of the feed-water, the steam pressure maintained, and the
wetness of the steam produced. This last should be ascertained from
samples taken from the steam pipe at a position where the full pressure
is maintained. In order to reduce to a common standard observations
taken under different conditions of feed temperatures and steam
pressures, the results are calculated to an equivalent evaporation at
the atmospheric pressure from a feed temperature of 212° F. (J. T. Mi.)
TRIALS OF VARIOUS TYPES OF MARINE BOILERS
+----------------------------+-------+--------+--------+-----------+---------+---------+----------------+----------+---------+------+
| | | | | | Air | |Water Evaporated| Water | | |
| | | | | Coal |Pressure |Chimney |per lb. of Coal.| Evapor- | Thermal |Effic-|
| | Grate |Heating |Duration| burned |in Stoke-|Draught--+-------+--------+ated per |Units per|iency |
| Description of Boiler. | Area |Surface |of Trial|Per sq. ft.| hold-- |Inches of| |From and|sq. ft. of| lb. of | of |
| |sq. ft.|sq. ft. | Hours. | of Grate |Inches of| Water |Actual | at | Heating | coal. |Boiler|
| | | | | per Hour. | Water. | | | 212° F.| Surface. | | %. |
+----------------------------+-------+--------+--------+-----------+---------+---------+-------+--------+----------+---------+------+
|Ordinary cylindrical single-| 81 | 2308 | 25 | 14.2 | Nil | 0.36 | 8.56 | 10.26 | 4.26 | 14,267 | 69.7 |
| ended; 3 furnaces; 155 lb. | " | " | 24 | 13.9 | " | 0.50 | 8.84 | 10.33 | 4.32 | 14,697 | 68.0 |
| working pressure; closed | " | " | 9 | 30.3 | 0.81 | 0.39 | 7.93 | 9.27 | 8.46 | 14,686 | 61.4 |
| stokehold system.[1] | " | " | 8½ | 29.1 | 0.65 | 0.32 | 8.84 | 10.34 | 9.05 | 14,612 | 68.4 |
+----------------------------+-------+--------+--------+-----------+---------+---------+-------+--------+----------+---------+------+
|Ordinary cylindrical single-| |2876 in | | | | | | | | | |
| ended; 3 furnaces; 210 lb. | |boiler, | | | In Ash- | | | | | | |
| working pressure; closed | 63.2 |766 in | 13 | 20.6 | pit | 0.58 | 11.30 | 12.33 | 5.14 | 14,475 | 82.3 |
| ashpit, Howden system.[2] | | air | | | 1.53 | | | | | | |
| | |heaters | | | | | | | | | |
+----------------------------+-------+--------+--------+-----------+---------+---------+-------+--------+----------+---------+------+
|Niclausse water-tube; 160 | 46 | 1322 | 8 | 12.8 | Nil | 0.20 | 8.41 | 10.15 | 3.75 | 14,680 | 66.9 |
| lb. working pressure. | " | " | 8 | 21.9 | " | 0.20 | 8.01 | 9.40 | 6.11 | 14,760 | 62.1 |
| | " | " | 37 | 20.2 | " | 0.29 | 7.62 | 9.00 | 5.44 | 14,600 | 60.5 |
+----------------------------+-------+--------+--------+-----------+---------+---------+-------+--------+----------+---------+------+
|Niclausse water-tube; | 34 | 990 | 9 | 14.0 | 0.10 | 0.23 | 8.77 | 10.50 | 4.17 | 14,640 | 69.8 |
| 250 lb. working pressure. | " | " | 9 | 22.0 | 0.27 | 0.23 | 7.68 | 9.06 | 5.74 | 14,640 | 60.4 |
| | " | " | 90 | 15.4 | Nil |Not asce-| 7.61 | 9.08 | 4.00 | 14,630 | 59.9 |
| | | | | | | rtained | | | | | |
+----------------------------+-------+--------+--------+-----------+---------+---------+-------+--------+----------+---------+------+
|Babcock water-tube; 3-3/16 | 36 | 1010 | 9 | 13.0 | " | 0.26 | 9.31 | 11.02 | 4.30 | 14,590 | 73.2 |
| in. tubes; 260 lb. working | " | " | 9 | 20.0 | 0.18 | 0.20 | 8.58 | 10.11 | 6.13 | 14,590 | 67.0 |
| pressure. | " | " | 90 | 14.5 | Nil |Not asce-| 8.09 | 9.53 | 4.18 | · · | 63.1 |
| | | | | | | rtained | | | | | |
+----------------------------+-------+--------+--------+-----------+---------+---------+-------+--------+----------+---------+------+
|Babcock water-tube; 1-13/16 | 62 | 2167 | 28 | 18.4 | " | 0.45 | 8.94 | 10.61 | 4.61 | 14,520 | 70.7 |
| in. tubes; 270 lb. working | " | " | 24 | 19.2 | " | 0.47 | 8.93 | 10.59 | 4.82 | 14,390 | 71.1 |
| pressure.[3] | " | " | 12 | 20.5 | " | 0.42 | 9.42 | 11.04 | 5.41 | 14,080 | 75.8 |
| | " | " | 7 | 28.9 | 0.50 |Not asce-| 8.54 | 9.88 | 6.91 | 14,390 | 66.3 |
| | | | | | | rtained | | | | | |
| | " | " | 30 | 19.9 | Nil | 0.38 | 10.11 | 12.00 | 6.01 | 14,530 | 79.9 |
| | " | " | 29 | 27.1 | 0.66 | 0.23 | 9.96 | 11.67 | 8.05 | 14,630 | 77.1 |
+----------------------------+-------+--------+--------+-----------+---------+---------+-------+--------+----------+---------+------+
|Belleville water-tube with | 44 | 910 in | 24½ | 15.8 | Nil | 0.36 | 9.65 | 11.46 | 4.94 | 14,697 | 77.2 |
| economizers; 320 lb. | " | boiler;| 24 | 17.4 | " | 0.39 | 9.33 | 11.00 | 5.30 | 14,805 | 71.8 |
| working pressure. | " | 447 in | 11 | 19.8 | " | 0.43 | 9.39 | 11.03 | 6.38 | 14,578 | 73.3 |
| | " |economi-| 8 | 27.2 | " | 0.39 | 8.28 | 9.79 | 7.78 | 14,611 | 65.0 |
| | |zer;1357| | | | | | | | | |
| | | total. | | | | | | | | | |
+----------------------------+-------+--------+--------+-----------+---------+---------+-------+--------+----------+---------+------+
|Yarrow water tube; 1¾ in. | 56 | 2896 | 26 | 16.9 | Nil | 0.31 | 9.57 | 11.45 | 3.12 | 14,750 | 75.0 |
| tubes; 250 lb. working | " | " | 26 | 18.2 | " | 0.31 | 9.37 | 11.33 | 3.30 | 14,500 | 75.7 |
| pressure. | " | " | 25 | 21.3 | " | 0.31 | 8.83 | 10.45 | 3.63 | 13,500 | 75.2 |
| | " | " | 30 | 35.4 | 0.53 | 0.26 | 8.82 | 10.59 | 6.04 | 14,430 | 70.9 |
| | " | " | 8 | 41.9 | 0.86 | 0.31 | 8.24 | 9.94 | 6.69 | 14,500 | 66.3 |
| | " | " | 8 | 33.7 | 0.31 | 0.30 | 8.39 | 9.93 | 5.47 | 14,680 | 65.4 |
| | " | " | 8 | 39.8 | 0.82 | 0.24 | 8.85 | 10.43 | 6.81 | 14,530 | 69.5 |
+----------------------------+-------+--------+--------+-----------+---------+---------+-------+--------+----------+---------+------+
|Dürr water-tube; 250 lb. | 71 |2671 in | 26 | 16.1 | Nil | 0.39 | 7.95 | 9.50 | 3.24 | 14,500 | 63.8 |
| working pressure. | " | boiler;| 26 | 17.7 | " | 0.30 | 7.06 | 9.28 | 3.43 | 14,620 | 61.7 |
| | " | 140 in | 25 | 21.1 | " | 0.31 | 7.62 | 9.08 | 4.05 | 14,650 | 60.3 |
| | " | super- | 7 | 33.8 | 0.70 | 0.36 | 7.72 | 9.29 | 6.59 | 14,570 | 62.7 |
| | " | heater;| 8 | 26.7 | 0.33 | 0.35 | 7.86 | 9.26 | 5.30 | 14,320 | 63.1 |
| | " | 2811 | 8 | 34.6 | 1.11 | 0.20 | 8.02 | 9.53 | 7.02 | 14,230 | 64.8 |
| | " | total. | 22 | 34.8 | 0.73 | 0.16 | 6.84 | 8.06 | 6.02 | 14,430 | 54.0 |
| | " | | 24 | 29.9 | 0.35 | 0.12 | 7.62 | 9.00 | 5.75 | 14,240 | 61.2 |
| | " | | 20 | 19.9 | Nil | 0.21 | 7.30 | 8.33 | 3.66 | 14,240 | 58.6 |
+----------------------------+-------+--------+--------+-----------+---------+---------+-------+--------+----------+---------+------+
[1] In the first three trials no retarders were used in the tubes. In
the last trial retarders were used.
[2] In this trial retarders were used in the tubes.
[3] The first four trials were made with horizontal baffles above the
tubes; the last two trials with the baffling described in the text.
BOILER MAKING.
The practice of the boiler, bridge and girder shops may here be
conveniently treated together, because similar materials and methods are
employed in each, notwithstanding that many points of divergence in
practice generally relegate them to separate departments. The materials
used are chiefly iron and steel. The methods mostly adopted are those
involved in the working of plates and rolled sections, which vastly
predominate over the bars and rods used chiefly in the smithy. But there
are numerous differences in methods of construction. Flanging occupies a
large place in boilermaking, for end-plates, tube-plates, furnace flues,
&c., but is scarcely represented in bridge and girder work. Plates are
bent to cylindrical shapes in boilermaking, for shells and furnaces, but
not in girder work. Welding is much more common in the first than in the
second, furnace flues being always welded and stand pipes frequently. In
boiler work holes are generally drilled through the seams of adjacent
plates. In bridge work each plate or bar is usually drilled or punched
apart from its fellows. Boilers, again, being subject to high
temperatures and pressures, must be constructed with provisions to
ensure some elasticity and freedom of movement under varying
temperatures to prevent fractures or grooving, and must be made of
materials that combine high ductility with strength when heated to
furnace temperatures. Flanging of certain parts, judicious staying,
limitation of the length of the tubes, the forms of which are
inherently weak, provide for the first; the selection of steel or iron
of high percentage elongation, and the imposition of temper, or bending
tests, both hot and cold, provide for the second.
The following are the leading features of present-day methods.
It might be hastily supposed that, because plates, angles, tees,
channels and joist sections are rolled ready for use, little work
could be left for the plater and boilermaker. But actually so much is
involved that subdivisions of tasks are numerous; the operations of
templet-making, rolling, planing, punching and shearing, bending,
welding and forging, flanging, drilling, riveting, caulking, and
tubing require the labours of several groups of machine attendants,
and of gangs of unskilled labourers or helpers. Some operations also
have to be done at a red or white heat, others cold. To the first
belong flanging and welding, to the latter generally all the other
operations. Heating is necessary for the rolling of tubes of small
diameter; bending is done cold or hot according to circumstances.
[Illustration: FIG. 20.--Thornycroft-Schulz Water-tube Boiler.]
The fact that some kinds of treatment, as shearing and punching,
flanging and bending, are of a very violent character explains why
practice has changed radically in regard to the method of performing
these operations in cases where safety is a cardinal matter. Shearing
and punching are both severely detrusive operations performed on cold
metal; both leave jagged edges and, as experience has proved, very
minute cracks, the tendency of which is to extend under subsequent
stress, with liability to produce fracture. But it has been found
that, when a shorn edge is planed and a punched hole enlarged by
reamering, no harm results, provided not less than about 1/16 in. is
removed. A great advance was therefore made when specifications first
insisted on the removal of the rough edges before the parts were
united.
In the work of riveting another evil long existed. When holes are
punched it is practically impossible to ensure the exact coincidence
of holes in different plates which have to be brought together for the
purpose of riveting. From this followed the use of the drift,--a
tapered rod driven forcibly by hammer blows through corresponding
holes in adjacent plates, by which violent treatment the holes were
forcibly drawn into alignment. This drifting stressed the plates,
setting up permanent strains and enlarging incipient cracks, and many
boiler explosions have been clearly traceable to the abuse of this
tool. Then, next, specifications insisted that all holes should be
enlarged by reamering _after_ the plates were in place. But even that
did not prove a safeguard, because it often happened that the metal
reamered was nearly all removed from one side of a hole, so leaving
the other side just as the punch had torn it. Ultimately came the era
of drilling rivet-holes, to which there is no exception now in
high-class boiler work. For average girder and bridge work the
practice of punching and reamering is still in use, because the
conditions of service are not so severe as are those in steam boilers.
Flanging signifies the turning or bending over of the edges of a
plate to afford a means of union to other plates. Examples occur in
the back end-plates of Lancashire and Cornish boilers, the front and
back plates of marine boilers, the fire-boxes of locomotive boilers,
the crowns of vertical boilers, the ends of conical cross-tubes, and
the Adamson seams of furnace flues. This practice has superseded the
older system of effecting union by means of rings forming two sides of
a rectangular section (angle iron rings). These were a fruitful source
of grooving and explosions in steam boilers, because their sharp
angular form lacked elasticity; hence the reason for the substitution
of a flange turned with a large radius, which afforded the elasticity
necessary to counteract the effects of changes in temperature. In
girder work where such conditions do not exist, the method of union
with angles is of course retained. In the early days of flanging the
process was performed in detail by a skilled workman (the angle
ironsmith), and it is still so done in small establishments. A length
of edge of about 10 in. or a foot is heated, and bent by hammering
around the edge of a block of iron of suitable shape. Then another
"heat" is taken and flanged, and another, until the work is complete.
But in modern boiler shops little hand work is ever done; instead,
plates 4 ft., 6 ft., or 8 ft. in diameter, and fire-box plates for
locomotive boilers, have their entire flanges bent at a single squeeze
between massive dies in a hydraulic press. In the case of the ends of
marine boilers which are too large for such treatment, a special form
of press bends the edges over in successive heats. The flanges of
Adamson seams are rolled over in a special machine. A length of flue
is rotated on a table, while the flange is turned over within a minute
between revolving rollers. There is another advantage in the adoption
of machine-flanging, besides the enormous saving of time, namely, that
the material suffers far less injury than it does in hand-flanging.
These differences in practice would not have assumed such magnitude
but for the introduction of mild steel in place of malleable iron.
Iron suffers less from overheating and irregular heating than does
steel. Steel possesses higher ductility, but it is also more liable to
develop cracks if subjected to improper treatment. All this and much
more is writ large in the early testing of steel, and is reflected in
present-day practice.
A feature peculiar to the boiler and plating shops is the enormous
number of rivet holes which have to be made, and of rivets to be
inserted. These requirements are reflected in machine design. To punch
or drill holes singly is too slow a process in the best practice, and
so machines are made for producing many holes simultaneously. Besides
this, the different sections of boilers are drilled in machines of
different types, some for shells, some for furnaces, some peculiar to
the shells or furnaces of one type of boilers, others to those of
another type only. And generally now these machines not only drill,
but can also be adjusted to drill to exact pitch, the necessity thus
being avoided of marking out the holes as guides to the drills.
Hand-riveting has mostly been displaced by hydraulic and pneumatic
machines, with resulting great saving in cost, and the advantage of
more trustworthy and uniform results. For boiler work, machines are
mostly of fixed type; for bridge and girder work they are portable,
being slung from chains and provided with pressure water or compressed
air by systems of flexible pipes.
Welding fills a large place in boiler work, but it is that of the
edges of plates chiefly, predominating over that of the bars and rods
of the smithy. The edges to be united are thin and long, so that short
lengths have to be done in succession at successive "heats." Much of
this is hand work, and "gluts" or insertion pieces are generally
preferred to overlapping joints. But in large shops, steam-driven
power hammers are used for closing the welds. Parts that are commonly
welded are the furnace flues, the conical cross-tubes and angle rings.
Another aspect of the work of these departments is the immense
proportions of the modern machine tools used. This development is due
in great degree to the substitution of steel for iron. The steel
shell-plates of the largest boilers are 1½ in. thick, and these have
to be bent into cylindrical forms. In the old days of iron boilers the
capacity of rolls never exceeded about ¾ in. plate. Often,
alternatively to rolling, these thick plates are bent by squeezing
them in successive sections between huge blocks operated by hydraulic
pressure acting on toggle levers. And other machines besides the rolls
are made more massive than formerly to deal with the immense plates of
modern marine boilers.
The boiler and plating shops have been affected by the general
tendency to specialize manufactures. Firms have fallen into the
practice of restricting their range of product, with increase in
volume. The time has gone past when a single shop could turn out
several classes of boilers, and undertake any bridge and girder work
as well. One reason is to be found in the diminution of hand work and
the growth of the machine tool. Almost every distinct operation on
every section of a boiler or bridge may now be accomplished by one of
several highly specialized machines. Repetitive operations are
provided for thus, and by a system of templeting. If twenty or fifty
similar boilers are made in a year, each plate, hole, flange or stay
will be exactly like every similar one in the set. Dimensions of
plates will be marked from a sample or templet plate, and holes will
be marked similarly; or in many cases they are not marked at all, but
pitched and drilled at once by self-acting mechanism embodied in
drilling machines specially designed for one set of operations on one
kind of plate. Hundreds of bracing bars for bridges and girders will
be cut off all alike, and drilled or punched from a templet bar, so
that they are ready to take their place in bridge or girder without
any adjustments or fitting. (J. G. H.)
BOILING TO DEATH, a punishment once common both in England and on the
continent. The only extant legislative notice of it in England occurs in
an act passed in 1531 during the reign of Henry VIII., providing that
convicted poisoners should be boiled to death; it is, however,
frequently mentioned earlier as a punishment for coining. The
_Chronicles of the Grey Friars_ (published by the Camden Society, 1852)
have an account of boiling for poisoning at Smithfield in the year 1522,
the man being fastened to a chain and lowered into boiling water several
times until he died. The preamble of the statute of Henry VIII. (which
made poisoning treason) in 1531 recites that one Richard Roose (or
Coke), a cook, by putting poison in some food intended for the household
of the bishop of Rochester and for the poor of the parish of Lambeth,
killed a man and woman. He was found guilty of treason and sentenced to
be boiled to death without benefit of clergy. He was publicly boiled at
Smithfield. In the same year a maid-servant for poisoning her mistress
was boiled at King's Lynn. In 1542 Margaret Davy, a servant, for
poisoning her employer, was boiled at Smithfield. In the reign of Edward
VI., in 1547, the act was repealed.
See also W. Andrews, _Old Time Punishments_ (Hull, 1890); _Notes and
Queries_, vol. i. (1862), vol. ix. (1867); Du Cange (s.v. _Caldariis
decoquere_).
BOIS BRÛLÉS, or BRULÉS (a French translation of their Indian name
SICHANGU), a sub-tribe of North American Dakota Indians (Teton river
division). The name is most frequently associated with the half-breeds
in Manitoba, who in 1869 came into temporary prominence in connexion
with Riel's Rebellion (see RED RIVER); at that time they had lost all
tribal purity, and were alternatively called _Metis_ (half-castes), the
majority being descendants of French-Canadians.
BOISÉ, a city and the county-seat of Ada county, Idaho, U.S.A., and the
capital of the state, situated on the N. side of the Boisé river, in the
S.W. part of the state, at an altitude of about 2700 ft. Pop. (1890)
2311; (1900) 5957; (1910) 17,358. It is served by the Oregon Short Line
railway, being the terminus of a branch connecting with the main line at
Nampa, about 20 m. W.; and by electric lines connecting with Caldwell
and Nampa. The principal buildings are the state capitol, the United
States assay office, a Carnegie library, a natatorium, and the Federal
building, containing the post office, the United States circuit and
district court rooms, and a U.S. land office. Boisé is the seat of the
state school for the deaf and blind (1906), and just outside the city
limits are the state soldiers' home and the state penitentiary. About 2
m. from the city are Federal barracks. Hot water (175° F.) from artesian
wells near the city is utilized for the natatorium and to heat many
residences and public buildings. The Boisé valley is an excellent
country for raising apples, prunes and other fruits. The manufactured
products of the city are such as are demanded by a mining country,
principally lumber, flour and machine-shop products. Boisé is the trade
centre of the surrounding fruit-growing, agricultural and mining
country, and is an important wool market. The oldest settlement in the
vicinity was made by the Hudson's Bay Fur Company on the west side of
the Boisé river, before 1860; the present city, chartered in 1864, dates
from 1863. After 1900 the city grew very rapidly, principally owing to
the great irrigation schemes in southern Idaho; the water for the
immense Boisé-Payette irrigation system is taken from the Boisé, 8 m.
above the city. (See IDAHO.)
BOISGOBEY, FORTUNÉ DU (1824-1891), French writer of fiction, whose real
surname was Castille, was born at Granville (Manche) on the 11th of
September 1824. He served in the army pay department in Algeria from
1844 to 1848, and extended his travels to the East. He made his literary
debut in the _Petit journal_ with a story entitled _Deux comédiens_
(1868). With _Le Forçat colonel_ (1872) he became one of the most
popular feuilleton writers. His police stories, though not so convincing
as those of Émile Gaboriau, with whom his name is generally associated,
had a great circulation, and many of them have been translated into
English. Among his stories may be mentioned: _Les Mystères du nouveau
Paris_ (1876), _Le Demi-Monde sous la Terreur_ (1877), _Les Nuits de
Constantinople_ (1882), _Le Cri du sang_ (1885), _La Main froide_
(1889). Boisgobey died on the 26th of February 1891.
BOISGUILBERT, PIERRE LE PESANT, SIEUR DE (1676-1714), French economist,
was born at Rouen of an ancient noble family of Normandy, allied to that
of Corneille. He received his classical education in Rouen, entered the
magistracy and became judge at Montivilliers, near Havre. In 1690 he
became president of the _bailliage_ of Rouen, a post which he retained
almost until his death, leaving it to his son. In these two situations
he made a close study of local economic conditions, personally
supervising the cultivation of his lands, and entering into relations
with the principal merchants of Rouen. He was thus led to consider the
misery of the people under the burden of taxation. In 1695 he published
his principal work, _Le Détail de la France; la cause de la diminution
de ses biens, et la facilité du remède_.... In it he drew a picture of
the general ruin of all classes of Frenchmen, caused by the bad economic
régime. In opposition to Colbert's views he held that the wealth of a
country consists, not in the abundance of money which it possesses but
in what it produces and exchanges. The remedy for the evils of the time
was not so much the reduction as the equalization of the imposts, which
would allow the poor to consume more, raise the production and add to
the general wealth. He demanded the reform of the _taille_, the
suppression of internal customs duties and greater freedom of trade. In
his _Factum de la France_, published in 1705 or 1706, he gave a more
concise _résumé_ of his ideas. But his proposal to substitute for all
aides and customs duties a single capitation tax of a tenth of the
revenue of all property was naturally opposed by the farmers of taxes
and found little support. Indeed his work, written in a diffuse and
inelegant style, passed almost unnoticed. Saint Simon relates that he
once asked a hearing of the comte de Pontchartrain, saying that he would
at first believe him mad, then become interested, and then see he was
right. Pontchartrain bluntly told him that he did think him mad, and
turned his back on him. With Michel de Chamillart, whom he had known as
intendant of Rouen (1689-1690), he had no better success. Upon the
disgrace of Vauban, whose _Dîme royale_ had much in common with
Boisguilbert's plan, Boisguilbert violently attacked the controller in a
pamphlet, _Supplément au détail de la France_. The book was seized and
condemned, and its author exiled to Auvergne, though soon allowed to
return. At last in 1710 the controller-general, Nicolas Desmarets,
established a new impost, the "tenth" (_dixième_), which had some
analogy with the project of Boisguilbert. Instead of replacing the
former imposts, however, Desmarets simply added his _dixième_ to them;
the experiment was naturally disastrous, and the idea was abandoned.
In 1712 appeared a _Testament politique de M. de Vauban_, which is
simply Boisguilbert's _Détail de la France_. Vauban's _Dîme royale_
was formerly wrongly attributed to him. Boisguilbert's works were
collected by Daire in the first volume of the _Collection des grands
économistes_. His letters are in the _Correspondance des contrôleurs
généraux_, vol. i., published by M. de Boislisle.
BOISROBERT, FRANÇOIS LE METEL DE (1592-1662), French poet, was born at
Caen in 1592. He was trained for the law, and practised for some time at
the bar at Rouen. About 1622 he went to Paris, and by the next year had
established a footing at court, for he had a share in the ballet of the
_Bacchanales_ performed at the Louvre in February. He accompanied an
embassy to England in 1625, and in 1630 visited Rome, where he won the
favour of Urban VIII. by his wit. He took orders, and was made a canon
of Rouen. He had been introduced to Richelieu in 1623, and by his humour
and his talent as a raconteur soon made himself indispensable to the
cardinal. Boisrobert became one of the five poets who carried out
Richelieu's dramatic ideas. He had a passion for play, and was a friend
of Ninon de l'Enclos; and his enemies found ready weapons against him
in the undisguised looseness of his life. He was more than once
disgraced, but never for long, although in his later years he was
compelled to give more attention to his duties as a priest. It was
Boisrobert who suggested to Richelieu the plan of the Academy, and he
was one of its earliest and most active members. Rich as he was through
the benefices conferred on him by his patron, he was liberal to men of
letters. After the death of Richelieu, he attached himself to Mazarin,
whom he served faithfully throughout the Fronde. He died on the 30th of
March 1662. He wrote a number of comedies, to one of which, _La Belle
Plaideuse_, Molière's _L'Avare_ is said to owe something; and also some
volumes of verse. The licentious _Contes_, published under the name of
his brother D'Ouville, are often attributed to him.
BOISSARD, JEAN JACQUES (1528-1602), French antiquary and Latin poet, was
born at Besançon. He studied at Louvain; but, disgusted by the severity
of his master, he secretly left that seminary, and after traversing a
great part of Germany reached Italy, where he remained several years and
was often reduced to great straits. His residence in Italy developed in
his mind a taste for antiquities, and he soon formed a collection of the
most curious monuments from Rome and its vicinity. He then visited the
islands of the Archipelago, with the intention of travelling through
Greece, but a severe illness obliged him to return to Rome. Here he
resumed his favourite pursuits with great ardour, and having completed
his collection, returned to his native country; but not being permitted
to profess publicly the Protestant religion, which he had embraced some
time before, he withdrew to Metz, where he died on the 30th of October
1602. His most important works are: _Poemata_ (1574); _Emblemata_
(1584); _Icones Virorum Illustrium_ (1597); _Vitae et Icones Sultanorum
Turcicorum_, &c. (1597); _Theatrum Vitae Humanae_ (1596); _Romanae Urbis
Topographia_ (1597-1602), now very rare; _De Divinatione et Magicis
Praestigiis_ (1605); _Habitus Variarum Orbis Gentium_ (1581), ornamented
with seventy illuminated figures.
BOISSIER, MARIE LOUIS ANTOINE GASTON (1823-1908), French classical
scholar, and secretary of the French Academy, was born at Nimes on the
15th of August 1823. The Roman monuments of his native town very early
attracted Gaston Boissier to the study of ancient history. He made
epigraphy his particular theme, and at the age of twenty-three became a
professor of rhetoric at Angoulême, where he lived and worked for ten
years without further ambition. A travelling inspector of the
university, however, happened to hear him lecture, and Boissier was
called to Paris to be professor at the Lycée Charlemagne. He began his
literary career by a thesis on the poet Attius (1857) and a study on the
life and work of M. Terentius Varro (1861). In 1861 he was made
professor of Latin oratory at the Collège de France, and he became an
active contributor to the _Revue des deux mondes_. In 1865 he published
_Cicéron et ses amis_ (Eng. trans, by A.D. Jones, 1897), which has
enjoyed a success such as rarely falls to the lot of a work of
erudition. In studying the manners of ancient Rome, Boissier had learned
to re-create its society and to reproduce its characteristics with
exquisite vivacity. In 1874 he published _La Religion romaine d'Auguste
aux Antonins_ (2 vols.), in which he analysed the great religious
movement of antiquity that preceded the acceptance of Christianity. In
_L'Opposition sous les Césars_ (1875) he drew a remarkable picture of
the political decadence of Rome under the early successors of Augustus.
By this time Boissier had drawn to himself the universal respect of
scholars and men of letters, and on the death of H.J.G. Patin, the
author of _Études sur les tragiques grecs_, in 1876, he was elected a
member of the French Academy, of which he was appointed perpetual
secretary in 1895.
His later works include _Promenades archéologiques: Rome et Pompéi_
(1880; second series, 1886); _L'Afrique romaine, promenades
archéologiques_ (1901); _La Fin du paganisme_ (2 vols., 1891); _Le
Conjuration de Catilina_ (1905); _Tacite_ (1903, Eng. trans, by W.G.
Hutchison, 1906). He was a representative example of the French talent
for lucidity and elegance applied with entire seriousness to weighty
matters of literature. Though he devoted himself mainly to his great
theme, the reconstruction of the elements of Roman society, he also
wrote monographs on _Madame de Sévigné_ (1887) and _Saint-Simon_ (1892).
He died in June 1908.
BOISSONADE DE FONTARABIE, JEAN FRANÇOIS (1774-1857), French classical
scholar, was born at Paris on the 12th of August 1774. In 1792 he
entered the public service during the administration of General
Dumouriez. Driven from it in 1795, he was restored by Lucien Bonaparte,
during whose time of office he served as secretary to the prefecture of
the Upper Marne. He then definitely resigned public employment and
devoted himself to the study of Greek. In 1809 he was appointed deputy
professor of Greek at the faculty of letters at Paris, and titular
professor in 1813 on the death of P.H. Larcher. In 1828 he succeeded
J.B. Gail in the chair of Greek at the Collège de France. He also held
the offices of librarian of the Bibliothèque du Roi, and of perpetual
secretary of the Académie des Inscriptions. He died on the 8th of
September 1857. Boissonade chiefly devoted his attention to later Greek
literature: Philostratus, _Heroica_ (1806) and _Epistolae_ (1842);
Marinus, _Vita procli_ (1814); Tiberius Rhetor, _De Figuris_ (1815);
Nicetas Eugenianus, _Drosilla et Charicles_ (1819); Herodian,
_Partitiones_ (1819); Aristaenetus, _Epistolae_ (1822); Eunapius, _Vitae
Sophistarum_ (1822); Babrius, _Fables_ (1844); Tzetzes, _Allegoriae
Iliados_ (1851); and a _Collection of Greek Poets_ in 24 vols. The
_Anecdota Graeca_ (1829-1833) and _Anecdota Nova_ (1844) are important
for Byzantine history and the Greek grammarians.
A selection of his papers was published by F. Colincamp, _Critique
littéraire sous le premier Empire_ (1863), vol. i. of which contains a
complete list of his works, and a "Notice Historique sur Monsieur B.,"
by Naudet.
BOISSY D'ANGLAS, FRANÇOIS ANTOINE DE (1756-1828), French statesman,
received a careful education and busied himself at first with
literature. He had been a member of several provincial academies before
coming to Paris, where he purchased a position as advocate to the
parlement. In 1789 he was elected by the third estate of the
_sénéchaussée_ of Annonay as deputy to the states-general. He was one of
those who induced the states-general to proclaim itself a National
Assembly on the 17th of June 1789; approved, in several speeches, of the
capture of the Bastille and of the taking of the royal family to Paris
(October 1789); demanded that strict measures be taken against the
royalists who were intriguing in the south of France, and published some
pamphlets on finance. During the Legislative Assembly he was
_procureur-syndic_ for the directory of the department of Ardeche.
Elected to the Convention, he sat in the centre, "_le Marais_," voting
in the trial of Louis XVI. for his detention until deportation should be
judged expedient for the state. He was then sent on a mission to Lyons
to investigate the frauds in connexion with the supplies of the army of
the Alps. During the Terror he was one of those deputies of the centre
who supported Robespierre; but he was gained over by the members of the
Mountain hostile to Robespierre, and his support, along with that of
some other leaders of the _Marais_, made possible the 9th Thermidor. He
was then elected a member of the Committee of Public Safety and charged
with the superintendence of the provisioning of Paris. He presented the
report supporting the decree of the 3rd Ventose of the year III. which
established liberty of worship. In the critical days of Germinal and of
Prairial of the year III. he showed great courage. On the 12th Germinal
he was in the tribune, reading a report on the food supplies, when the
hall of the Convention was invaded by the rioters, and when they
withdrew he quietly continued where he had been interrupted. On the 1st
Prairial he presided over the Convention, and remained unmoved by the
insults and menaces of the insurgents. When the head of the deputy, Jean
Féraud, was presented to him on the end of a pike, he saluted it
impassively. He was reporter of the committee which drew up the
constitution of the year III., and his report shows keen apprehension of
a return of the Reign of Terror, and presents reactionary measures as
precautions against the re-establishment of "tyranny and anarchy." This
report, the proposal that he made (August 27, 1795) to lessen the
severity of the revolutionary laws, and the eulogies he received from
several Paris sections suspected of disloyalty to the republic, resulted
in his being obliged to justify himself (October 15, 1795). As a member
of the Council of the Five Hundred he became more and more suspected of
royalism. He presented a measure in favour of full liberty for the
press, which at that time was almost unanimously reactionary, protested
against the outlawry of returned _émigrés_, spoke in favour of the
deported priests and attacked the Directory. Accordingly he was
proscribed on the 18th Fructidor, and lived in England until the
Consulate. In 1801 he was made a member of the Tribunate, and in 1805 a
senator. In 1814 he voted for Napoleon's abdication, which won for him a
seat in the chamber of peers; but during the Hundred Days he served
Napoleon, and in consequence, on the second Restoration, was for a short
while excluded. In the chamber he still sought to obtain liberty for the
press--a theme upon which he published a volume of his speeches (Paris,
1817). He was a member of the Institute from its foundation, and in
1816, at the reorganization, became a member of the Académie des
Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres. He published in 1819-1821 a two-volume
_Essai sur la vie et les opinions de M. de Malesherbes_.
See F.A. Aulard, _Les Orateurs de la Révolution_ (2nd ed., 1906); L.
Sciout, _Le Directoire_ (4 vols., 1895); and the "Notice sur la vie et
les oeuvres de M. Boissy d'Anglas" in the _Mémoires de l'Académie des
Inscriptions_, ix. (R. A.*)
BOITO, ARRIGO (1842- ), Italian poet and musical composer, was born at
Padua on the 24th of February 1842. He studied music at the Milan
Conservatoire, but even in those early days he devoted as much of his
time to literature as to music, forecasting the divided allegiance which
was to be the chief characteristic of his life's history. While at the
Conservatoire he wrote and composed, in collaboration with Franco
Faccio, a cantata, _Le Sorelle d'Italia_, which was performed with
success. On completing his studies Boito travelled for some years, and
after his return to Italy settled down in Milan, dividing his time
between journalism and music. In 1866 he fought under Garibaldi, and in
1868 conducted the first performance of his opera _Mefistofele_ at the
Scala theatre, Milan. The work failed completely, and was withdrawn
after a second performance. It was revived in 1875 at Bologna in a much
altered and abbreviated form, when its success was beyond question. It
was performed in London in 1880 with success, but in spite of frequent
revivals has never succeeded in firmly establishing itself in popular
favour. Boito treated the Faust legend in a spirit far more nearly akin
to the conception of Goethe than is found in Gounod's Faust, but, in
spite of many isolated beauties, his opera lacks cohesion and dramatic
interest. His energies were afterwards chiefly devoted to the
composition of libretti, of which the principal are _Otello_ and
_Falstaff_, set to music by Verdi; _La Gioconda_, set by Ponchielli;
_Amleto_, set by Faccio; and _Ero e Leandre_, set by Bottesini and
Mancinelli. These works display a rare knowledge of the requirements of
dramatic poetry, together with uncommon literary value. Boito also
published a book of poems and a novel, _L'Alfier Meno_. The degree of
doctor of music was conferred upon him in 1893 by the university of
Cambridge.
BOIVIN, FRANÇOIS DE, Baron de Villars (d. 1618), French chronicler,
entered the service of Charles, Marshal Brissac, as secretary, and
accompanied him to Piedmont in 1550 when the marshal went to take
command of the French troops in the war with Spain. Remaining in this
service he was sent after the defeat of the French at St Quentin in 1557
to assure the French king Henry II. of the support of Brissac. He took
part in the negotiations which led to the treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis in
April 1559, but was unable to prevent Henry II. from ceding the
conquests made by Brissac. Boivin wrote _Mémoires sur les guerres
démêlées tant dans le Piémont qu'au Montferrat et duche de Milan par
Charles de Cossé, comte de Brissac_ (Paris, 1607), which, in spite of
some drawbacks, is valuable as the testimony of an eye-witness of the
war. An edition, carefully revised, appears in the _Mémoires relatifs à
l'histoire de France_, tome x., edited by J.F. Michaud and J.J.F.
Poujoulat (Paris, 1850). He also wrote _Instruction sur les affaires
d'état_ (Lyons, 1610).
See J. Lelong, _Bibliothèque historique de la France_ (Paris,
1768-1778).
BOKENAM, OSBERN (1393?-1447?), English author, was born, by his own
account, on the 6th of October 1393. Dr Horstmann suggests that he may
have been a native of Bokeham, now Bookham, in Surrey, and derived his
name from the place. In a concluding note to his _Lives of the Saints_
he is described as "a Suffolke man, frere Austyn of Stoke Clare." He
travelled in Italy on at least two occasions, and in 1445 was a pilgrim
to Santiago de Compostela. He wrote a series of thirteen legends of holy
maidens and women. These are written chiefly in seven-and eight-lined
stanzas, and nine of them are preceded by prologues. Bokenam was a
follower of Chaucer and Lydgate, and doubtless had in mind Chaucer's
_Legend of Good Women_. His chief, but by no means his only, source was
the _Legenda Aurea_ of Jacobus de Voragine, archbishop of Genoa, whom he
cites as "Januence." The first of the legends, _Vita Scae Margaretae,
virginis et martiris_, was written for his friend, Thomas Burgh, a
Cambridge monk; others are dedicated to pious ladies who desired the
history of their name-saints. The Arundel MS. 327 (British Museum) is a
unique copy of Bokenam's work; it was finished, according to the
concluding note, in 1447, and presented by the scribe, Thomas Burgh, to
a convent unnamed "that the nuns may remember him and his sister, Dame
Betrice Burgh." The poems were edited (1835) for the Roxburghe Club with
the title _Lyvys of Seyntys_ ..., and by Dr Carl Horstmann as _Osbern
Bokenams Legenden_ (Heilbronn, 1883), in E. Kölbing's _Altengl.
Bibliothek_, vol. i. Both editions include a dialogue written in Latin
and English taken from Dugdale's _Monasticon Anglicanum_ (ed. 1846, vol.
vi. p. 1600); "this dialogue betwixt a Secular asking and a Frere
answerynge at the grave of Dame Johan of Acres shewith the lyneal
descent of the lordis of the honoure of Clare fro ... MCCXLVIII to ...
MCCCLVI". Bokenam wrote, as he tells us, plainly, in the Suffolk speech.
He explains his lack of decoration on the plea that the finest flowers
had been already plucked by Chaucer, Gower and Lydgate.
BOKHARA, or BUKHARA (the common central Asian pronunciation is Bukhara),
a state of central Asia, under the protection of Russia. It lies on the
right bank of the middle Oxus, between 37° and 41° N., and between 62°
and 72° E., and is bounded by the Russian governments of Syr-darya,
Samarkand and Ferghana on the N., the Pamirs on the E., Afghanistan on
the S., and the Transcaspian territory and Khiva on the W. Its
south-eastern frontier on the Pamirs is undetermined except where it
touches the Russian dominions. Including the khanates of Karateghin and
Darvaz the area is about 85,000 sq. m. The western portion of the state
is a plain watered by the Zarafshan and by countless irrigation canals
drawn from it. It has in the east the Karnap-chul steppe, covered with
grass in early summer, and in the north an intrusion of the Kara-kum
sand desert. Land suitable for cultivation is found only in oases, where
it is watered by irrigation canals, but these oases are very fertile.
The middle portion of the state is occupied by high plateaus, about 4000
ft. in altitude, sloping from the Tian-shan, and intersected by numerous
rivers, flowing towards the Oxus. This region, very fertile in the
valleys and enjoying a cooler and damper climate than the lower plains,
is densely populated, and agriculture and cattle-breeding are carried on
extensively. Here are the towns of Karshi, Kitab, Shaar, Chirakchi and
Guzar or Huzar. The Hissar range, a westward continuation of the Alai
Mountains, separates the Zarafshan from the tributaries of the Oxus--the
Surkhan, Kafirnihan and Vakhsh. Its length is about 200 m., and its
passes, 1000 to 3000 ft. below the surrounding peaks, reach altitudes of
12,000 to 14,000 ft. and are extremely difficult. Numbers of rivers
pierce or flow in wild gorges between its spurs. Its southern
foot-hills, covered with loess, make the fertile valleys of Hissar and
the Vakhsh. The climate is so dry, and the rains are so scarce, that an
absence of forests and Alpine meadows is characteristic of the ridge;
but when heavy rain falls simultaneously with the melting of the snows
in the mountains, the watercourses become filled with furious torrents,
which create great havoc. The main glaciers (12) are on the north slope,
but none creeps below 10,000 to 12,000 ft. The Peter the Great range, or
Periokh-tau, in Karateghin, south of the valley of the Vakhsh, runs
west-south-west to east-north-east for about 130 m., and is higher than
the Hissar range. From the meridian of Garm or Harm it rises above the
snowline, attaining at least 18,000 ft. in the Sary-kaudal peak, and
20,000 ft. farther east where it joins the snow-clad Darvaz range, and
where the group Sandal, adorned with several glaciers, rises to 24,000
or 25,000 ft. Only three passes, very difficult, are known across it.
Darvaz, a small vassal state of Bokhara, is situated on the Panj, where
it makes its sharp bend westwards, and is emphatically a mountainous
region, agriculture being possible only in the lower parts of the
valleys. The population, about 35,000, consists chiefly of Moslem
Tajiks, and the closely-related Galchas, and its chief town is
Kala-i-khumb on the Panj, at an altitude of 4370 ft.
The chief river of Bokhara is the Oxus or Amu-darya, which separates it
from Afghanistan on the south, and then flows along its south-west
border. It is navigated from the mouth of the Surkhan, and steamboats
ply on it up to Karki near the Afghan frontier. The next largest river,
the Zarafshan, 660 m. long, the water of which is largely utilized for
irrigation, is lost in the sands 20 m. before reaching the Oxus. The
Kashka-darya, which flows westwards out of the glaciers of Hazret-sultan
(west of the Hissar range), supplies the Shahri-sabs (properly
Shaar-sabiz) oasis with water, but is lost in the desert to the west of
Karshi.
The climate of Bokhara is extreme. In the lowlands a very hot summer is
followed by a short but cold winter, during which a frost of -20° Fahr.
may set in, and the Oxus may freeze for a fortnight. In the highlands
this hot and dry summer is followed by four months of winter; and,
finally, in the regions above 8000 ft. there is a great development of
snowfields and glaciers, the passes are buried under snow, and the short
summer is rainy. The lowlands are sometimes visited by terrible
sand-storms from the west, which exhaust men and kill the cotton trees.
Malaria is widely prevalent, and in some years, after a wet spring,
assumes a malignant character.
The population is estimated at 1,250,000. The dominant race is the
Uzbegs, who are fanatical Moslem Sunnites, scorn work, despise their
Iranian subjects, and maintain their old division into tribes or clans.
The nomad Turkomans and the nomad Kirghiz are also of Turkish origin;
while the Sarts, who constitute the bulk of the population in the towns,
are a mixture of Turks with Iranians. The great bulk of the population
in the country is composed of Iranian Tajiks, who differ but very little
from Sarts. Besides these there are Afghans, Persians, Jews, Arabs and
Armenians. Much of the trade is in the hands of a colony of Hindus from
Shikarpur. Nearly 20% of the population are nomads and about 15%
semi-nomads.
On the irrigated lowlands rice, wheat and other cereals are cultivated,
and exported to the highlands. Cotton is widely grown and exported. Silk
is largely produced, and tobacco, wine, flax, hemp and fruits are
cultivated. Cattle-breeding is vigorously prosecuted in Hissar and the
highlands generally. Cotton, silks, woollen cloth, and felt are
manufactured, also boots, saddles, cutlery and weapons, pottery and
various oils. Salt, as also some iron and copper, and small quantities
of gold are extracted. Trade has been greatly promoted by the building
of the Transcaspian railway across the country (from Charjui on the Oxus
to Kati-kurgan) in 1886-1888. The exports to Russia consist of raw
cotton and silk, lamb-skins, fruits and carpets, and the imports of
manufactured goods and sugar. The imports from India are cottons, tea,
shawls and indigo. There are very few roads; goods are transported on
camels, or on horses and donkeys in the hilly tracts.
Bokhara has for ages been looked upon as the centre of Mussulman
erudition in central Asia. About one-fourth of the population is said
to be able to read and write. The primary schools are numerous in the
capital, as well as in the other cities, and even exist in villages, and
_madrasas_ or theological seminaries for higher courses of study are
comparatively plentiful. The _mullahs_ or priests enjoy very great
influence, but the people are very superstitious, believing in
witchcraft, omens, spirits and the evil eye. Women occupy a low position
in the social scale, though slavery has been abolished at the instance
of Russia. The emir of Bokhara is an autocratic ruler, his power being
limited only by the traditional custom (_sheriat_) of the Mussulmans. He
maintains an army of some 11,000 men, but is subject to Russian control,
being in fact a vassal of that empire.
_History._--Bokhara was known to the ancients under the name of
Sogdiana. It was too far removed to the east ever to be brought under
the dominion of Rome, but it has shared deeply in all the various and
bloody revolutions of Asia. The foundation of the capital is ascribed to
Efrasiab, the great Persian hero. After the conquests of Alexander the
Great Sogdiana formed part of the empire of the Seleucidae, and shared
the fortunes of the rather better-known Bactria. Somewhat later the
nomad Yue-chi began to move into the valley of the Oxus from the east,
and gradually became a settled territorial power in Bactria and
Sogdiana, and the dominions of their king, Kadphises I. (who is believed
to have come to the throne about A.D. 45), extended from Bokhara to the
Indus. The district, however, was reconquered by Persia under the
Sassanian dynasty, and we hear of Nestorian Christians at Samarkand, at
any rate in the 6th century. Islam was introduced shortly after the Arab
conquest of Persia (640-642) and speedily became the dominant faith. In
the early centuries of Mahommedan rule Sogdiana was one of the most
celebrated and flourishing districts of central Asia. It was called
Sughd, and contained the two great cities of Samarkand and Bokhara, of
which the former was generally the seat of government, while the latter
had a high reputation as a seat of religion and learning. During the
early middle ages this legion was also known as Ma wara 'l Nahr or
Ma-vera-un-nahr, the meaning of which is given in the alternative
classical title of Transoxiana. Malik Shah, third of the Seljuk dynasty
of Persia, passed the Oxus about the end of the 11th century, and
subdued the whole country watered by that river and the Jaxartes. In
1216 Bokhara was again subdued by Mahommed Shah Khwarizm, but his
conquest was wrested from him by Jenghiz Khan in 1220. The country was
wasted by the fury of this savage conqueror, but recovered something of
its former prosperity under Ogdai Khan, his son, whose disposition was
humane and benevolent. His posterity kept possession till 1369, when
Timur or Tamerlane bore down everything before him, and established his
capital at Samarkand, which with Bokhara regained for a time its former
splendour. Babar, the fifth in descent from Timur, was originally prince
of Ferghana, but conquered Samarkand and northern India, where he
founded the Mogul (Mughal) empire. His descendants ruled in the country
until about 1500, when it was overrun by the Uzbeg Tatars, under
Abulkhair or Ebulkheir Khan, the founder of the Shaibani dynasty, with
which the history of Bokhara properly commences. The most remarkable
representative of this family was Abdullah Khan (1556-1598), who greatly
extended the limits of his kingdom by the conquest of Badakshan, Herat
and Meshhed, and increased its prosperity by the public works which he
authorized. Before the close of the century, however, the dynasty was
extinct, and Bokhara was at once desolated by a Kirghiz invasion and
distracted by a disputed succession. At length, in 1598, Baki Mehemet
Khan, of the Astrakhan branch of the Timur family, mounted the throne,
and thus introduced the dynasty of the Ashtarkhanides. The principal
event of his reign was the defeat he inflicted on Shah Abbas of Persia
in the neighbourhood of Balkh. His brother Vali Mehemet, who succeeded
in 1605, soon alienated his subjects, and was supplanted by his nephew
Imamkuli. After a highly prosperous reign this prince resigned in favour
of his brother, Nazr Mehemet, under whom the country was greatly
troubled by the rebellion of his sons, who continued to quarrel with
each other after their father's death. Meanwhile the district of Khiva,
previously subject to Bokhara, was made an independent khanate by
Abdul-Gazi Bahadur Khan; and in the reign of Subhankuli, who ascended
the throne in 1680, the political power of Bokhara was still further
lessened, though it continued to enjoy the unbounded respect of the
Sunnite Mahommedans. Subhankuli died in 1702, and a war of succession
broke out between his two sons, who were supported by the rivalry of two
Uzbeg tribes. After five years the contest terminated in favour of
Obeidullah, who was little better than a puppet in the hands of Rehim Bi
Atalik, his vizier. The invasion of Nadir Shah of Persia came to
complete the degradation of the land; and in 1740 the feeble king, Abu
'l-Faiz, paid homage to the conqueror, and was soon after murdered and
supplanted by his vizier. The time of the Ashtarkhanides had been for
the most part a time of dissolution and decay; fanaticism and imbecility
went hand in hand. On its fall (1785) the throne was seized by the
Manghit family in the person of Mir Ma'sum, who pretended to the most
extravagant sanctity, and proved by his military career that he had no
small amount of ability. He turned his attention to the encroachments of
the Afghans, and in 1781 reconquered the greater part of what had been
lost to the south of the Oxus. Dying in 1802 he was succeeded by Saïd,
who in bigotry and fanaticism was a true son of his father. In 1826
Nasrullah mounted the throne, and began with the murder of his brother a
reign of continued oppression and cruelty. Meanwhile Bokhara became an
object of rivalry to Russia and England, and envoys were sent by both
nations to cultivate the favour of the emir, who treated the Russians
with arrogance and the English with contempt. Two emissaries of the
British government, Colonel C. Stoddart and Captain A. Conolly, were
thrown by Nasrullah into prison, where they were put to death in 1842.
In 1862-1864 Arminius Vambéry made in the disguise of a dervish a
memorable journey through this fanatical state. At this time the Russian
armies were gradually advancing, and at last they appeared in Khokand;
but the new emir, Mozaffer-eddin, instead of attempting to expiate the
insults of his predecessor, sent a letter to General M.G. Chernayev
summoning him to evacuate the country, and threatening to raise all the
faithful against him. In 1866 the Russians invaded the territory of
Bokhara proper, and a decisive battle was fought on the 20th of May at
Irdjar on the left bank of the Jaxartes. The Bokharians were defeated;
but after a period of reluctant peace they forced the emir to renew the
war. In 1868 the Russians entered Samarkand (May 14), and the emir was
constrained to submit to the terms of the conqueror, becoming
henceforward only a Russian puppet.
See Khanikov's _Bokhara_, translated by De Bode (1845); Vambéry,
_Travels in Central Asia_ (1864), _Sketches of Central Asia_ (1868),
and _History of Bokhara_ (1873); Fedchenko's "Sketch of the Zarafshan
Valley" in _Journ. R. Geogr. Soc._ (1870); Hellwald, _Die Russen in
Central Asien_ (1873); Lipsky, _Upper Bukhara_, in Russian (1902);
Skrine and Ross, _The Heart of Asia_ (1899); Lord Ronaldshay,
_Outskirts of Empire in Asia_ (1904); and Le Strange, _The Lands of
the Eastern Caliphate_ (1905). (P. A. K.; C. El.)
BOKHARA (Bokkara-i-Sherif), capital of the state of Bokhara, on the left
bank of the Zarafshan, and on the irrigation canal of Shahri-rud,
situated in a fertile plain. It is 8 m. from the Bokhara station of the
Transcaspian railway, 162 m. by rail W. of Samarkand, in 39° 47' N. lat.
and 64° 27' E. long. The city is surrounded by a stone wall 28 ft. high
and 8 m. long, with semicircular towers and eleven gates of little value
as a defence. The present city was begun in A.D. 830 on the site of an
older city, was destroyed by Jenghiz Khan in 1220, and rebuilt
subsequently. The water-supply is very unhealthy. The city has no less
than 360 mosques. Nearly 10,000 pupils are said to receive their
education in its 140 _madrasas_ or theological colleges; primary schools
are kept at most mosques. Some of these buildings exhibit very fine
architecture. The most notable of the mosques is the Mir-Arab, built in
the 16th century, with its beautiful lecture halls; the chief mosque of
the emir is the Mejid-kalyan, or Kok-humbez, close by which stands a
brick minaret, 203 ft. high, from the top of which state criminals used
to be thrown until 1871. Of the numerous squares the Raghistan is the
principal. It has on one side the citadel, erected on an artificially
made eminence 45 ft. high, surrounded by a wall 1 m. long, and
containing the palace of the emir, the houses of the chief
functionaries, the prison and the water-cisterns. The houses are mostly
one-storeyed, built of unburned bricks, and have flat roofs.
Bokhara has for ages been a centre of learning and religious life. The
mysticism which took hold on Persia in the middle ages spread also to
Bokhara, and later, when the Mongol invasions of the 13th century laid
waste Samarkand and other Moslem cities, Bokhara, remaining independent,
continued to be a chief seat of Islamitic learning. The _madrasa_
libraries, some of which were very rich, have been scattered and lost,
or confiscated by the emirs, or have perished in conflagrations. But
there are still treasures of literature concealed in private libraries,
and Afghan, Persian, Armenian and Turkish bibliophiles still repair to
Bokhara to buy rare books. Bokhara is, in fact, the principal
book-market of central Asia. The population is supposed by Russian
travellers not to exceed 50,000 or 60,000, but is otherwise estimated at
75,000 to 100,000. Amongst them is a large and ancient colony of Jews.
Bokhara is the most important trading town in central Asia. In the city
bazaars are made or sold silk stuffs, metal (especially copper) wares,
Kara-kul (i.e. astrakhan) lamb-skins and carpets.
_New Bokhara_, or _Kagan_, a Russian town near the railway station, 8 m.
from Bokhara itself, is rapidly growing, on a territory ceded by the
emir. Pop. 2000. (P. A. K.)
BOKSBURG, a town of the Transvaal; 14 m. E. of Johannesburg by rail.
Pop. of the municipality (1904) 14,757, of whom 4175 were whites. It is
the headquarters of the Witwatersrand coal mining industry. The
collieries extend from Boksburg eastward to Springs, 11 m. distant.
Brakpan, the largest colliery in South Africa, lies midway between the
places named.
BOLAN PASS, an important pass on the Baluch frontier, connecting
Jacobabad and Sibi with Quetta, which has always occupied an important
place in the history of British campaigns in Afghanistan. Since the
treaty of Gandamak, which was signed at the close of the first phase of
the Afghan War in 1879, the Bolan route has been brought directly under
British control, and it was selected for the first alignment of the
Sind-Pishin railway from the plains to the plateau. From Sibi the line
runs south-west, skirting the hills to Rindli, and originally followed
the course of the Bolan stream to its head on the plateau. The
destructive action of floods, however, led to the abandonment of this
alignment, and the railway now follows the Mashkaf valley (which
debouches into the plains close to Sibi), and is carried from near the
head of the Mashkaf to a junction with the Bolan at Mach. An alternative
route from Sibi to Quetta was found in the Harnai valley to the N.E. of
Sibi, the line starting in exactly the opposite direction to that of the
Bolan and entering the hills at Nari. The Harnai route, although longer,
is the one adopted for all ordinary traffic, the Bolan loop being
reserved for emergencies. At the Khundilani gorge of the Bolan route
conglomerate cliffs enclose the valley rising to a height of 800 ft.,
and at Sir-i-Bolan the passage between the limestone rocks hardly admits
of three persons riding abreast. The temperature of the pass in summer
is very high, whereas in winter, near its head, the cold is extreme, and
the ice-cold wind rushing down the narrow outlet becomes destructive to
life. Since 1877, when the Quetta agency was founded, the freedom of the
pass from plundering bands of Baluch marauders (chiefly Marris) has been
secured, and it is now as safe as any pass in Scotland. (T. H. H.*)
BOLAS (plural of Span, _bola_, ball), a South American Indian weapon of
war and the chase, consisting of balls of stone attached to the ends of
a rope of twisted or braided hide or hemp. Charles Darwin thus describes
them in his _Voyage of the Beagle_: "The _bolas_, or balls, are of two
kinds: the simplest, which is used chiefly for catching ostriches,
consists of two round stones, covered with leather, and united by a
thin, plaited thong, about 8 ft. long. The other kind differs only in
having three balls united by thongs to a common centre. The Gaucho
(native of Spanish descent) holds the smallest of the three in his
hand, and whirls the other two around his head; then, taking aim, sends
them like chain shot revolving through the air. The balls no sooner
strike any object, than, winding round it, they cross each other and
become firmly hitched." Bolas have been used for centuries in the South
American pampas and even the forest regions of the Rio Grande. F. Ratzel
(_History of Mankind_) supposes them to be a form of lasso. The Eskimos
use a somewhat similar weapon to kill birds. _Bolas perdidas_ (i.e.
lost) are stones attached to a very short thong, or, in some cases,
having none at all.
BOLBEC, a town of northern France, in the department of
Seine-Inférieure, on the Bolbec, 19 m. E.N.E. of Havre by rail. Pop.
(1906) 10,959. Bolbec is important for its cotton spinning and weaving,
and carries on the dyeing and printing of the fabric, and the
manufacture of sugar. There are a chamber of commerce and a board of
trade-arbitration. The town was enthusiastic in the cause of the
Reformed Religion in the 16th century, and still contains many
Protestants. It was burned almost to the ground in 1765.
BOLE (Gr. [Greek: bolos], "a clod of earth"), a clay-like substance of
red, brown or yellow colour, consisting essentially of hydrous aluminium
silicate, with more or less iron. Most bole differs from ordinary clay
in not being plastic, but in dropping to pieces when placed in water,
thus behaving rather like fuller's-earth. Bole was formerly in great
repute medicinally, the most famous kind being the Lemnian Earth
([Greek: gae Laemnia]), from the Isle of Lemnos in the Greek
Archipelago. The earth was dug with much ceremony only once a year, and
having been mixed with goats' blood was made into little cakes or balls,
which were stamped by the priests, whence they became known as _Terra
sigillata_ ("sealed earth"). Large quantities of bole occur as red
partings between the successive lava flows of the Tertiary volcanic
series in the north of Ireland and the west of Scotland. Here it seems
to have resulted from the decomposition of the basalt and kindred rocks
by meteoric agencies, during periods of volcanic repose. In Antrim the
bole is associated with lithomarge, bauxite and pisolitic iron-ore. Bole
occurs in like manner between the great sheets of the Deccan traps in
India; and a similar substance is also found interbedded with some of
the doleritic lavas of Etna.
In the sense of stem or trunk of a tree, "bole" is from the O. Norwegian
_bolr_, of. Ger. _Bohle_, plank. It is probably connected with the large
number of words, such as "boll," "ball," "bowl," &c., which stand for a
round object.
BOLESLAUS I., called "The Great," king of Poland (d. 1025), was the son
of Mieszko, first Christian prince of Poland, and the Bohemian princess
Dobrawa, or Bona, whose chaplain, Jordan, converted the court from
paganism to Catholicism. He succeeded his father in 992. A born warrior,
he speedily raised the little struggling Polish principality on the
Vistula to the rank of a great power. In 996 he gained a seaboard by
seizing Pomerania, and subsequently took advantage of the troubles in
Bohemia to occupy Cracow, previously a Czech city. Like his
contemporaries, Stephen of Hungary and Canute of Denmark, Boleslaus
recognized from the first the essential superiority of Christianity over
every other form of religion, and he deserves with them the name of
"Great" because he deliberately associated himself with the new faith.
Thus despite an inordinate love of adventure, which makes him appear
rather a wandering chieftain than an established ruler, he was
essentially a man of insight and progress. He showed great sagacity in
receiving the fugitive Adalbert, bishop of Prague, and when the saint
suffered martyrdom at the hands of the pagan Slavs (April 23, 997),
Boleslaus purchased his relics and solemnly laid them in the church of
Gnesen, founded by his father, which now became the metropolitan see of
Poland. It was at Gnesen that Boleslaus in the year 1000 entertained
Otto III. so magnificently that the emperor, declaring such a man too
worthy to be merely _princeps_, conferred upon him the royal crown,
though twenty-five years later, in the last year of his life, Boleslaus
thought it necessary to crown himself king a second time. On the death
of Otto, Boleslaus invaded Germany, penetrated to the Elbe, occupying
Stralsund and Meissen on his way, and extended his dominions to the
Elster and the Saale. He also occupied Bohemia, till driven out by the
emperor Henry IV. in 1004. The German war was terminated in 1018 by the
peace of Bautzen, greatly to the advantage of Boleslaus, who retained
Lusatia. He then turned his arms against Jaroslav, grand duke of Kiev,
whom he routed on the banks of the Bug, then the boundary between Russia
and Poland. For ten months Boleslaus remained at Kiev, whence he
addressed triumphant letters to the emperors of the East and West. At
his death in 1025 he left Poland one of the mightiest states of Europe,
extending from the Bug to the Elbe, and from the Baltic to the Danube,
and possessing besides the overlordship of Russia. But his greatest
achievement was the establishment in Poland of a native church, the
first step towards political independence.
See J.N. Pawlowski, _St Adalbert_ (Danzig, 1860); _Chronica Nestoris_
(Vienna, 1860); Heinrich R. von Zeissberg, _Die Kriege Kaiser
Heinrichs II. mit Herzog Boleslaw I._ (Vienna, 1868).
BOLESLAUS II., called "The Bold," king of Poland (1039-1081), eldest son
of Casimir I., succeeded his father in 1058. The domestic order and
tranquillity of the kingdom had been restored by his painstaking father,
but Poland had shrunk territorially since the age of his grandfather
Boleslaus I., and it was the aim of Boleslaus II. to restore her dignity
and importance. The nearest enemy was Bohemia, to whom Poland had lately
been compelled to pay tribute for her oldest possession, Silesia. But
Boleslaus's first Bohemian war proved unsuccessful, and was terminated
by the marriage of his sister Swatawa with the Czech king Wratyslaus II.
On the other hand Boleslaus's ally, the fugitive Magyar prince Bela,
succeeded with Polish assistance in winning the crown of Hungary. In the
East Boleslaus was more successful. In 1069 he succeeded in placing
Izaslaus on the throne of Kiev, thereby confirming Poland's overlordship
over Russia and enabling Boleslaus to chastise his other enemies,
Bohemia among them, with the co-operation of his Russian auxiliaries.
But Wratyslaus of Bohemia speedily appealed to the emperor for help, and
a war between Poland and the Empire was only prevented by the sudden
rupture of Henry IV. with the Holy See and the momentous events which
led to the humiliating surrender of the emperor at Canossa. There is
nothing to show that Boleslaus took any part in this struggle, though at
this time he was on the best of terms with Gregory VII. and there was
some talk of sending papal legates to restore order in the Polish
Church. On the 26th of December 1076 Boleslaus encircled his own brows
with the royal diadem, a striking proof that the Polish kings did not
even yet consider their title quite secure. A second successful
expedition to Kiev to reinstate his _protégé_ Izaslaus, is Boleslaus's
last recorded exploit. Almost immediately afterwards (1079) we find him
an exile in Hungary, where he died about 1081. The cause of this sudden
eclipse was the cruel vengeance he took on the _milites_, or noble
order, who, emulating the example of their brethren in Bohemia, were
already attempting to curb the royal power. The churchmen headed by
Stanislaus Szczepanowski, bishop of Cracow, took the side of the nobles,
whose grievances seem to have been real. Boleslaus in his fury slew the
saintly bishop, but so general was the popular indignation that he had
to fly his kingdom.
See M. Maksymilian Gumplowicz, _Zur Geschichte Polens im Mittelalter_
(Innsbruck, 1898); W.P. Augerstein, _Der Konflikt des polnischen
Königs Boleslaw II. mit dem Bischof Stanislaus_ (Thorn, 1895).
BOLESLAUS III., king of Poland (1086-1139), the son of Wladislaus I. and
Judith of Bohemia, was born on the 23rd of December 1086 and succeeded
his father in 1102. His earlier years were troubled continually by the
intrigues of his natural half-brother Zbigniew, who till he was
imprisoned and blinded involved Boleslaus in frequent contests with
Bohemia and the emperor Henry V. The first of the German wars began in
1109, when Henry, materially assisted by the Bohemians, invaded Silesia.
It was mainly a war of sieges, Henry sitting down before Lubusz, Glogau
and Breslau, all of which he failed to take. The Poles avoided an
encounter in the open field, but harried the Germans so successfully
around Breslau that the plain was covered with corpses, which Henry had
to leave to the dogs on his disastrous retreat; hence the scene of the
action was known as "the field of dogs." The chief political result of
this disaster was the complete independence of Poland for the next
quarter of a century. It was during this respite that Boleslaus devoted
himself to the main business of his life--the subjugation of Pomerania
(i.e. the maritime province) with the view of gaining access to the sea.
Pomerania, protected on the south by virgin forests and almost
impenetrable morasses, was in those days inhabited by a valiant and
savage Slavonic race akin to the Wends, who clung to paganism with
unconquerable obstinacy. The possession of a seaboard enabled them to
maintain fleets and build relatively large towns such as Stettin and
Kolberg, whilst they ravaged at will the territories of their southern
neighbours the Poles. In self-defence Boleslaus was obliged to subdue
them. The struggle began in 1109, when Boleslaus inflicted a terrible
defeat on the Pomeranians at Nackel which compelled their temporary
submission. In 1120-1124 the rebellion of his vassal Prince Warceslaus
of Stettin again brought Boleslaus into the country, but the resistance
was as stout as ever, and only after 18,000 of his followers had fallen
and 8000 more had been expatriated did Warceslaus submit to his
conqueror. The obstinacy of the resistance convinced Boleslaus that
Pomerania must be christianized before it could be completely subdued;
and this important work was partially accomplished by St Otto, bishop of
Bamberg, an old friend of Boleslaus's father, who knew the Slavonic
languages. In 1124 the southern portions of the land were converted by
St Otto, but it was only under the threat of extermination if they
persisted in their evil ways that the people of Stettin accepted the
faith in the following year. In 1128, at the council of Usedom, St Otto
appointed his disciple Boniface bishop of Julin, the first Pomeranian
diocese, and the foundation of a better order of things was laid. In his
later years Boleslaus waged an unsuccessful war with Hungary and
Bohemia, and was forced to claim the mediation of the emperor Lothair,
to whom he did homage for Pomerania and Rügen at the diet of Merseburg
in 1135. He died in 1139.
See Gallus, _Chronicon_, ed. Finkal (Cracow, 1899); Maksymilian
Gumplowicz, _Zur Geschichte Polens im Mittelalter_ (Innsbruck, 1898).
BOLETUS, a well-marked genus of fungi (order _Polyporeae_),
characterized by the central stem, the cap or pileus, the soft, fleshy
tissue, and the vertical, closely-packed tubes or pores which cover the
under surface of the pileus and are easily detachable. The species all
grow on the ground, in woods or under trees, in the early autumn. They
are brown, red or yellow in colour; the pores also vary in colour from
pure white to brown, red, yellow or green, and are from one or two lines
to nearly an inch long. A few are poisonous; several are good for
eating. One of the greatest favourites for the table is _Boletus
edulis_, recognized by its brown cap and white pores which become green
when old. It is the _ceps_ of the continental European markets. There
are forty-nine British species of _Boletus_.
BOLEYN (or BULLEN), ANNE (c. 1507-1536), queen of Henry VIII. of
England, daughter of Sir Thomas Boleyn, afterwards earl of Wiltshire and
Ormonde, and of Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Howard, earl of Surrey,
afterwards duke of Norfolk, was born, according to Camden, in 1507, but
her birth has been ascribed, though not conclusively, to an earlier date
(to 1502 or 1501) by some later writers.[1] In 1514 she accompanied Mary
Tudor to France on the marriage of the princess to Louis XII., remained
there after the king's death, and became one of the women in waiting to
Queen Claude, wife of Francis I. She returned in 1521 or 1522 to
England, where she had many admirers and suitors. Among the former was
the poet Sir Thomas Wyatt,[2] and among the latter, Henry Percy, heir of
the earl of Northumberland, a marriage with whom, however, was stopped
by the king and another match provided for her in the person of Sir
James Butler. Anne Boleyn, however, remained unmarried, and a series of
grants and favours bestowed by Henry on her father between 1522 and 1525
have been taken, though very doubtfully, as a symptom of the king's
affections. Unlike her sister Mary, who had fallen a victim to Henry's
solicitations,[3] Anne had no intention of being the king's mistress;
she meant to be his queen, and her conduct seems to have been governed
entirely by motives of ambition. The exact period of the beginning of
Anne's relations with Henry is not known. They have been surmised as
originating as early as 1523; but there is nothing to prove that Henry's
passion was anterior to the proceedings taken for the divorce in May
1527, the celebrated love letters being undated. Her name is first
openly connected with the king's as a possible wife in the event of
Catherine's divorce, in a letter of Mendoza, the imperial ambassador, to
Charles V. of the 16th of August 1527,[4] during the absence in France
of Wolsey, who, not blinded by passion like Henry, naturally opposed the
undesirable alliance, and was negotiating a marriage with Renée,
daughter of Louis XII. Henry meanwhile, however, had sent William
Knight, his secretary, on a separate mission to Rome to obtain
facilities for his marriage with Anne; and on the cardinal's return in
August he found her installed as the king's companion and proposed
successor to Catherine of Aragon. After the king's final separation from
his wife in July 1531, Anne's position was still more marked, and in
1532 she accompanied Henry on the visit to Francis I., while Catherine
was left at home neglected and practically a prisoner. Soon after their
return Anne was found to be pregnant, and in consequence Henry married
her about the 25th of January 1533[5] (the exact date is unknown), their
union not being made public till the following Easter. Subsequently, on
the 23rd of May, their marriage was declared valid and that with
Catherine null, and in June Anne was crowned with great state in
Westminster Abbey. Anne Boleyn had now reached the zenith of her hopes.
A weak, giddy woman of no stability of character, her success turned her
head and caused her to behave with insolence and impropriety, in strong
contrast with Catherine's quiet dignity under her misfortunes. She, and
not the king, probably was the author of the petty persecutions
inflicted upon Catherine and upon the princess Mary, and her jealousy of
the latter showed itself in spiteful malice. Mary was to be forced into
the position of a humble attendant upon Anne's infant, and her ears were
to be boxed if she proved recalcitrant. She urged that both should be
brought to trial under the new statute of succession passed in 1534,
which declared her own children the lawful heirs to the throne. She was
reported as saying that when the king gave opportunity by leaving
England, she would put Mary to death even if she were burnt or flayed
alive for it.[6] She incurred the remonstrances of the privy council and
alienated her own friends and relations. Her uncle, the duke of Norfolk,
whom she was reported to have treated "worse than a dog," reviled her,
calling her a "grande putaine." But her day of triumph was destined to
be even shorter than that of her predecessor. There were soon signs that
Henry's affection, which had before been a genuine passion, had cooled
or ceased. He resented her arrogance, and a few months after the
marriage he gave her cause for jealousy, and disputes arose. A strange
and mysterious fate had prepared for Anne the same domestic griefs that
had vexed and ruined Catherine and caused her abandonment. In September
1533 the birth of a daughter, afterwards Queen Elizabeth, instead of the
long-hoped-for son, was a heavy disappointment; next year there was a
miscarriage, and on the 29th of January 1536, the day of Catherine's
funeral, she gave birth to a dead male child.
On the 1st of May following the king suddenly broke up a tournament at
Greenwich, leaving the company in bewilderment and consternation. The
cause was soon known. Inquiries had been made on reports of the queen's
ill-conduct, and several of her reputed lovers had been arrested. On the
2nd Anne herself was committed to the Tower on a charge of adultery with
various persons, including her own brother, Lord Rochford. On the 12th
Sir Francis Weston, Henry Norris, William Brereton and Mark Smeaton were
declared guilty of high treason, while Anne herself and Lord Rochford
were condemned unanimously by an assembly of twenty-six peers on the
15th. Her uncle, the duke of Norfolk, presided as lord steward, and gave
sentence, weeping, that his niece was to be burned or beheaded as
pleased the king. Her former lover, the earl of Northumberland, left the
court seized with sudden illness. Her father, who was excused
attendance, had, however, been present at the trial of the other
offenders, and had there declared his conviction of his daughter's
guilt. On the 16th, hoping probably to save herself by these means, she
informed Cranmer of a certain supposed impediment to her marriage with
the king--according to some accounts a previous marriage with
Northumberland, though the latter solemnly and positively denied
it--which was never disclosed, but which, having been considered by the
archbishop and a committee of ecclesiastical lawyers, was pronounced, on
the 17th, sufficient to invalidate her marriage. The same day all her
reputed lovers were executed; and on the 19th she herself suffered death
on Tower Green, her head being struck off with a sword by the
executioner of Calais brought to England for the purpose.[7] She had
regarded the prospect of death with courage and almost with levity,
laughing heartily as she put her hands about her "little neck" and
recalled the skill of the executioner. "I have seen many men" (wrote Sir
William Kingston, governor of the Tower) "and also women executed, and
all they have been in great sorrow, and to my knowledge this lady has
much joy and pleasure in death." On the following day Henry was
betrothed to Jane Seymour.
Amidst the vituperations of the adherents of the papacy and the later
Elizabethan eulogies, and in the absence of the records on which her
sentence was pronounced, Anne Boleyn's guilt remains unproved. To Sir
William Kingston she protested her entire innocence, and on the scaffold
while expressing her submission she made no confession.[8] Smeaton alone
of her supposed lovers made a full confession, and it is possible that
his statement was drawn from him by threats of torture or hopes of
pardon. Norris, according to one account,[9] also confessed, but
subsequently declared that he had been betrayed into making his
statement. The others were all said to have "confessed in a manner" on
the scaffold, but much weight cannot be placed on these general
confessions, which were, according to the custom of the time, a
declaration of submission to the king's will and of general repentance
rather than acknowledgment of the special crime. "I pray God save the
king," Anne herself is reported to have said on the scaffold, "and send
him long to reign over you, for a gentler nor a more merciful prince was
there never; and to me he was ever a good, a gentle and sovereign lord."
A principal witness for the charge of incest was Rochford's own wife, a
woman of infamous character, afterwards executed for complicity in the
intrigues of Catherine Howard. The discovery of Anne's misdeeds
coincided in an extraordinary manner with Henry's disappointment in not
obtaining by her a male heir, while the king's despotic power and the
universal unpopularity of Anne both tended to hinder the administration
of pure justice. Nevertheless, though unproved, Anne's guilt is more
than probable. It is almost incredible that two grand juries, a petty
jury, and a tribunal consisting of nearly all the lay peers of England,
with the evidence before them which we do not now possess, should have
all unanimously passed a sentence of guilt contrary to the facts and
their convictions, and that such a sentence should have been supported
by Anne's own father and uncle. Every year since her marriage Anne had
given birth to a child, and Henry had no reason to despair of more;
while, if Henry's state of health was such as was reported, the desire
for children, which Anne shared with him, may be urged as an argument
for her guilt. Sir Francis Weston in a letter to his family almost
acknowledges his guilt in praying for pardon, especially for offences
against his wife;[10] Anne's own conduct and character almost prepare us
for some catastrophe. Whether innocent or guilty, however, her fate
caused no regrets and her misfortunes did not raise a single champion or
defender. The sordid incidents of her rise, and the insolence with which
she used her triumph, had alienated all hearts from the unhappy woman.
Among the people she had always been intensely disliked; the love of
justice, and the fear of trade losses imminent upon a breach with
Charles V., combined to render her unpopular. She appealed to the king's
less refined instincts, and Henry's deterioration of character may be
dated from his connexion with her. She is described as "not one of the
handsomest women in the world; she is of a middling stature, swarthy
complexion, long neck, wide mouth, bosom not much raised, and in fact
has nothing but the English king's great appetite, and her eyes which
are black and beautiful, and take great effect."[11] Cranmer admired
her--"sitting in her hair" (i.e. with her hair falling over her
shoulders, which seems to have been her custom on great occasions),
"upon a horse litter, richly apparelled," at her coronation.[12]
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--Art. in the _Dict. of Nat. Biography_ and authorities
cited; _Henry VIII._ by A.F. Pollard (1905); _Anne Boleyn_, by P.
Friedman (1884); _The Early Life of Anne Boleyn_, by J.H. Round
(1886); _The Divorce of Catherine of Aragon_, by J.A. Froude (1891);
"Der Ursprung der Ehescheidung König Heinrichs VIII." and "Der Sturz
des Cardinals Wolsey," by W. Busch (_Historisches Taschenbuch_, vi.
Folge viii. 273 and ix. 41, 1889 and 1890); _Lives_, by Miss E.O.
Benger (1821); and Miss A. Strickland, _Lives of the Queens of
England_ (1851), vol. ii.; _Notices of Historic Persons Buried in the
Tower of London_, by D.C. Bell (1877); _The Wives of Henry VIII._ by
M.A.S. Hume (1905); _Excerpta Historica_, by N.H. Nicolas (1831), p.
260; _Spanish Chronicle of Henry VIII._ tr. by M.A.S. Hume (1889);
_Records of the Reformation_, by N. Pocock (1870); _Harleian
Miscellany_ (1808), iii. 47 (the love letters); _Archaeologia_, xxiii.
64 (memorial of G. Constantyne); _Eng. Hist. Rev._ v. 544, viii. 53,
299, x. 104; _State Trials_, i. 410; _History of Henry VIII._ by Lord
Herbert of Cherbury; E. Hall's _Chronicle: Original Letters_, ed. by
Sir H. Ellis, i. ser., ii. 37, 53 et seq., ii. ser., ii. 10; _Extracts
from the Life of Queen Anne Boleigne_, by G. Wyat (1817); _The
Negotiations of Thomas Wolsey_, by Sir W. Cavendish (1641, rep.
Harleian Misc. 1810 v.); C. Wriothesley's _Chronicle_ (Camden Soc.,
1875-1877); _Notes and Queries_, 8 ser., viii. 141, 189, 313, 350; _Il
Successo de la Morte de la Regina de Inghilterra_ (1536); _The Maner
of the Tryumphe of Caleys and Bullen_, and the _Noble Tryumphaunt
Coronacyon of Queen Anne_ (1533, rep. 1884); _State Papers Henry
VIII._; _Letters and Papers of Henry VIII._, by Brewer and Gardiner,
esp. the prefaces; _Cal. of State Pap. England and Spain, Venetian and
Foreign_ (1558-1559), p. 525 (an account full of obvious errors);
_Colton MSS._ (Brit. Mus.), Otho C. 10; "Baga de secretis" in Rep.
iii., App. ii. of Dep. Keeper of Public Records, p. 242; "Römische
Dokumente," v., M.S. Ehses (_Gorres-gesellschaft_, Bd. ii., 1893). See
also articles on CATHERINE OF ARAGON and HENRY VIII. (P. C. Y.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] See _Anne Boleyn_, by P. Friedman; _The Early Life of Anne
Boleyn_, by J.H. Round; and J. Gairdner in _Eng. Hist. Review_, viii.
53, 299, and x. 104.
[2] According to the _Chronicle of King Henry VIII._, tr. by M.A.S.
Hume, p. 68, she was his mistress.
[3] Of this there is no direct proof, but the statement rests upon
contemporary belief and chiefly upon the extraordinary terms of the
dispensation granted to Henry to marry Anne Boleyn, which included
the suspension of all canons relating to impediments created by
"affinity rising _ex illicito coitu_ in any degree even in the
first." Froude rejects the whole story, _Divorce of Catherine of
Aragon_, p. 54; and see Friedman's _Anne Boleyn_, ii. 323.
[4] _Cat. of St. Pap. England and Spain_, iii. pt. ii. p. 327.
[5] According to Cranmer, _Letters and Papers of Henry VIII._ vi. p.
300, the only authority; and Cranmer himself only knew of it a
fortnight after. The marriage was commonly antedated to the 14th of
November 1532.
[6] _Cat. of St. Pap. England and Spain_, v. 198.
[7] _Letters and Papers of Henry VIII._, x. pp. 374, 381, 385.
[8] According to the most trustworthy accounts, but see _Letters and
Papers_, x. p. 382. The well-known letter to Henry VIII. attributed
to her is now recognized as an Elizabethan forgery.
[9] _Archaeologia_, xxiii. 64.
[10] _Letters and Papers_, x. 358.
[11] "Sanuto Diaries," October 31, 1532, in _Cal. of St. Pap.
Venetian_, iv. p. 365.
[12] _Original Letters_, ed. by Sir H. Ellis, 1 ser. ii. 37, and
_Cal. of St. Pap. Venetian_, iv. 351, 418.
BOLGARI, or BOLGARY, a ruined town of Russia, in the government of
Kazan, 4 m. from the left bank of the Volga, in 55°N. lat. It is
generally considered to have been the capital of the Bulgarians when
they were established in that part of Europe (5th to 15th century).
Ruins of the old walls and towers still survive, as well as numerous
_kurgans_ or burial-mounds, with inscriptions, some in Arabic
(1222-1341), others in Armenian (years 557, 984 and 986), and yet others
in Turkic. Upon being opened these tombs were found to contain weapons,
implements, utensils, and silver and copper coins, bearing inscriptions,
some in ordinary Arabic, others in Kufic (a kind of epigraphic Arabic).
These and other antiquities collected here (1722) are preserved in
museums at Kazan, Moscow and St Petersburg. The ruins, which were
practically discovered in the reign of Peter the Great, were visited and
described by Pallas, Humboldt and others. The city of Bolgari was
destroyed by the Mongols in 1238, and again by Tamerlane early in the
following century, after which it served as the capital of the Khans
(sovereign princes) of the Golden Horde of Mongols, and finally, in the
second half of the 15th century it became a part of the principality of
Kazan, and so eventually of Russia. The Arab geographer Ibn Haukal
states that in his time, near the end of the 10th century, it was a
place of 10,000 inhabitants.
See Ibn Fadhlan, _Nachrichten über die Wolga Bulgaren_ (Ger. trans. by
Frähn, St Petersburg, 1832).
BOLI, the chief town of a sanjak of the Kastamuni vilayet in Asia Minor,
altitude 2500 ft., situated in a rich plain watered by the Boli Su, a
tributary of the Filiyas Chai (_Billaeus_). Pop. (1894) 10,796 (Moslems,
9642; Greeks, 758; Armenians, 396). Cotton and leather are manufactured;
the country around is fertile, and in the neighbourhood are large
forests of oak, beech, elm, chestnut and pine, the timber of which is
partly used locally and partly exported to Constantinople. Three miles
east of Boli, at Eskihissar, are the ruins of _Bithynium_, the
birthplace of Antinous, also called _Antinoopolis_, and in Byzantine
times _Claudiopolis_. In and around Boli are numerous marbles with Greek
inscriptions, chiefly sepulchral, and architectural fragments. At Ilija,
south of the town, are warm springs much prized for their medicinal
properties.
BOLINGBROKE, HENRY ST JOHN, VISCOUNT (1678-1751), English statesman and
writer, son of Sir Henry St John, Bart. (afterwards 1st Viscount St
John, a member of a younger branch of the family of the earls of
Bolingbroke and barons St John of Bletso), and of Lady Mary Rich,
daughter of the 2nd earl of Warwick, was baptized on the 10th of October
1678, and was educated at Eton. He travelled abroad during 1698 and 1699
and acquired an exceptional knowledge of French. The dissipation and
extravagance of his youth exceeded all limits and surprised his
contemporaries. He spent weeks in riotous orgies and outdrank the most
experienced drunkards. An informant of Goldsmith saw him once "run naked
through the park in a state of intoxication." Throughout his career he
desired, says Swift, his intimate friend, to be thought the Alcibiades
or Petronius of his age, and to mix licentious orgies with the highest
political responsibilities.[1] In 1700 he married Frances, daughter of
Sir Henry Winchcombe, Bart., of Bucklebury, Berkshire, but matrimony
while improving his fortune did not redeem his morals.
He was returned to parliament in 1701 for the family borough of Wootton
Bassett in Wiltshire. He declared himself a Tory, attached himself to
Harley (afterwards Lord Oxford), then speaker, whom he now addressed as
"dear master," and distinguished himself by his eloquence in debate,
eclipsing his schoolfellow, Walpole, and gaining an extraordinary
ascendancy over the House of Commons. In May he had charge of the bill
for securing the Protestant succession; he took part in the impeachment
of the Whig lords for their conduct concerning the Partition treaties,
and opposed the oath abjuring the Pretender. In March 1702 he was chosen
commissioner for taking the public accounts. After Anne's accession he
supported the bills in 1702 and 1704 against occasional conformity, and
took a leading part in the disputes which arose between the two Houses.
In 1704 St John took office with Harley as secretary at war, thus being
brought into intimate relations with Marlborough, by whom he was treated
with paternal partiality. In 1708 he quitted office with Harley on the
failure of the latter's intrigue, and retired to the country till 1710,
when he became a privy councillor and secretary of state in Harley's new
ministry, representing Berkshire in parliament. He supported the bill
for requiring a real property qualification for a seat in parliament. In
1711 he founded the Brothers' Club, a society of Tory politicians and
men of letters, and the same year witnessed the failure of the two
expeditions to the West Indies and to Canada promoted by him. In 1712 he
was the author of the bill taxing newspapers. But the great business of
the new government was the making of the peace with France. The refusal
of the Whigs to grant terms in 1706, and again in 1709 when Louis XIV.
offered to yield every point for which the allies professed to be
fighting, showed that the war was not being continued for English
national interests, and the ministry were supported by the queen, the
parliament and the people in their design to terminate hostilities. But
various obstacles arose from the diversity of aims among the allies; and
St John was induced, contrary to the most solemn obligations, to enter
into separate and secret negotiations with France for the security of
English interests. In May 1712 St John ordered the duke of Ormonde, who
had succeeded Marlborough in the command, to refrain from any further
engagement. These instructions were communicated to the French, though
not to the allies, Louis putting Dunkirk as security into possession of
England, and the shameful spectacle was witnessed of the desertion by
the English troops of their allies almost on the battlefield.
Subsequently St John received the congratulations of the French
minister, Torcy, on the occasion of the French victory over Prince
Eugene at Denain.
In August St John, who had on the 7th of July been created Viscount
Bolingbroke and Baron St John of Lydiard Tregoze, went to France to
conduct negotiations, and signed an armistice between England and France
for four months on the 19th. Finally the treaty of Utrecht was signed on
the 31st of March 1713 by all the allies except the emperor. The first
production of Addison's _Cato_ was made by the Whigs the occasion of a
great demonstration of indignation against the peace, and by Bolingbroke
for presenting the actor Booth with a purse of fifty guineas for
"defending the cause of liberty against a perpetual dictator"
(Marlborough). In the terms granted to England there was perhaps little
to criticize. But the manner of the peacemaking, which had been carried
on by a series of underhand conspiracies with the enemy instead of by
open conferences with the allies, and was characterized throughout by a
violation of the most solemn international assurances, left a deep and
lasting stain upon the national honour and credit; and not less
dishonourable was the abandonment of the Catalans by the treaty. For all
this Bolingbroke must be held primarily responsible. In June his
commercial treaty with France, establishing free trade with that
country, was rejected. Meanwhile the friendship between Bolingbroke and
Harley, which formed the basis of the whole Tory administration, had
been gradually dissolved. In March 1711, by Guiscard's attempt on his
life, Harley got the wound which had been intended for St John, with all
the credit. In May Harley obtained the earldom of Oxford and was made
lord treasurer, while in July St John was greatly disappointed at
receiving only his viscountcy instead of the earldom lately extinct in
his family, and at being passed over for the Garter. In September 1713
Swift came to London, and made a last but vain attempt to reconcile his
two friends. But now a further cause of difference had arisen. The
queen's health was visibly breaking, and the Tory ministers could only
look forward to their own downfall on the accession of the elector of
Hanover. Both Oxford[2] and Bolingbroke had maintained for some time
secret communications with James, and promised their help in restoring
him at the queen's death. The aims of the former, prudent,
procrastinating and vacillating by nature, never extended probably
beyond the propitiation of his Tory followers; and it is difficult to
imagine that Bolingbroke could have really advocated the Pretender's
recall, whose divine right he repudiated and whose religion and
principles he despised. Nevertheless, whatever his chief motive may have
been, whether to displace Oxford as leader of the party, to strengthen
his position and that of the faction in order to dictate terms to the
future king, or to reinstate James, Bolingbroke, yielding to his more
impetuous and adventurous disposition, went much further than Oxford.
It is possible to suppose a connexion between his zeal for making peace
with France and a desire to forward the Pretender's interests or win
support from the Jacobites.[3] During his diplomatic mission to France
he had incurred blame for remaining at the opera while the Pretender was
present,[4] and according to the Mackintosh transcripts he had several
secret interviews with him. Regular communications were kept up
subsequently. In March 1714 Herville, the French envoy in London, sent
to Torcy, the French foreign minister in Paris, the substance of two
long conversations with Bolingbroke in which the latter advised patience
till after the accession of George, when a great reaction was to be
expected in favour of the Pretender. At the same time he spoke of the
treachery of Marlborough and Berwick, and of one other, presumably
Oxford, whom he refused to name, all of whom were in communication with
Hanover.[5] Both Oxford and Bolingbroke warned James that he could have
little chance of success unless he changed his religion, but the
latter's refusal (March 13) does not appear to have stopped the
communications. Bolingbroke gradually superseded Oxford in the
leadership. Lady Masham, the queen's favourite, quarrelled with Oxford
and identified herself with Bolingbroke's interests. The harsh treatment
of the Hanoverian demands was inspired by him, and won favour with the
queen, while Oxford's influence declined; and by his support of the
Schism Bill in May 1714, a violent Tory measure forbidding all education
by dissenters by making an episcopal licence obligatory for
schoolmasters, he probably intended to compel Oxford to give up the
game. Finally, a charge of corruption brought by Oxford in July against
Bolingbroke and Lady Masham, in connexion with the commercial treaty
with Spain, failed, and the lord treasurer was dismissed or retired on
the 27th of July.
Bolingbroke was now supreme, and everything appeared tending inevitably
to a Jacobite restoration. The Jacobite Sir William Windham had been
made chancellor of the exchequer, important military posts were placed
in the hands of the faction, and a new ministry of Jacobites was
projected. But now the queen's sudden death on the 1st of August, and
the appointment of Shrewsbury to the lord treasurership, instantly
changed the whole scene and ruined Bolingbroke. "The earl of Oxford was
removed on Tuesday," he wrote to Swift on the 3rd of August, "the queen
died on Sunday! What a world is this and how does fortune banter us!"
According to Herville, the French envoy, Bolingbroke declared to him
that in six weeks he could have secured everything. Nevertheless the
exact nature of his projects remains obscure. It is probable that his
statement in his letter to Windham that "none of us had any very settled
resolution" is true, though his declaration in the _Patriot King_ that
"there were no designs on foot ... to place the crown on the head of the
Pretender" is a palpable falsehood. His great object was doubtless to
gain supreme power and to keep it by any means, and by any betrayal that
the circumstances demanded; and it is not without significance perhaps
that on the very day of Oxford's dismissal he gave a dinner to the Whig
leaders, and on the day preceding the queen's death ordered overtures to
be made to the elector.[6]
On the accession of George I. the illuminations and bonfire at Lord
Bolingbroke's house in Golden Square were "particularly fine and
remarkable,"[7] but he was immediately dismissed from office. He retired
to Bucklebury and is said to have now written the answer to the _Secret
History of the White Staff_ accusing him of Jacobitism. In March 1715 he
in vain attempted to defend the late ministry in the new parliament; and
on the announcement of Walpole's intended attack upon the authors of the
treaty of Utrecht he fled in disguise (March 28, 1715) to Paris, where
he was well received, after having addressed a letter to Lord Lansdowne
from Dover protesting his innocence and challenging "the most
inveterate of his enemies to produce any instance of his criminal
correspondence." Bolingbroke in July entirely identified himself with
the interests of the Pretender, whose secretary he became, and on the
10th of September he was attainted. But his counsel was neglected for
that of ignorant refugees and Irish priests. The expedition of 1715 was
resolved upon against his advice. He drew up James's declaration, but
the assurances he had inserted concerning the security of the Church of
England were cancelled by the priests. He remained at Paris, and
endeavoured to establish relations with the regent. On the return of
James, as the result of petty intrigues and jealousies, Bolingbroke was
dismissed from his office. He now renounced all further efforts on the
Pretender's behalf.[8] Replying to Mary of Modena, who had sent a
message deprecating his ill-will, he wished his arm might rot off if he
ever used pen or sword in their service again![9]
He now turned to the English government in hopes of pardon. In March
1716 he declared his final abandonment of the Pretender and promised to
use his influence to secure the withdrawal of his friends; but he
refused to betray any secrets or any individuals. He wrote his
_Reflexions upon Exile_, and in 1717 his letter to Sir W. Windham in
explanation of his position, generally considered one of his finest
compositions, but not published till 1753 after his death. The same year
he formed a liaison with Marie Claire Deschamps de Marcilly, widow of
the marquis de Villette, whom he married in 1720 after the death in 1718
of Lady Bolingbroke, whom he had treated with cruel neglect. He bought
and resided at the estate of La Source near Orleans, studied philosophy,
criticized the chronology of the Bible, and was visited amongst others
by Voltaire, who expressed unbounded admiration for his learning and
politeness. In 1723, through the medium of the king's mistress, the
duchess of Kendal, he at last received his pardon, returned to London in
June or July, and placed his services at the disposal of Walpole, by
whom, however, his offers to procure the accession of several Tories to
the administration were received very coldly. During the following
winter he made himself useful in France in gaining information for the
government. In 1725 an act was passed enabling him to hold real estate
but without power of alienating it.[10] But this had been effected in
consequence of a peremptory order of the king, against Walpole's wishes,
who succeeded in maintaining his exclusion from the House of Lords. He
now bought an estate at Dawley, near Uxbridge, where he renewed his
intimacy with Pope, Swift and Voltaire, took part in Pope's literary
squabbles, and wrote the philosophy for the _Essay on Man_. On the first
occasion which offered itself, that of Pulteney's rupture with Walpole
in 1726, he endeavoured to organize an opposition in conjunction with
the former and Windham; and in 1727 began his celebrated series of
letters to the _Craftsman_, attacking the Walpoles, signed an
"Occasional Writer." He gained over the duchess of Kendal with a bribe
of £11,000 from his wife's estates, and with Walpole's approval obtained
an audience with George. His success was imminent, and it was thought
his appointment as chief minister was assured. In Walpole's own words,
"as St John had the duchess entirely on his side I need not add what
must or might in time have been the consequence," and he prepared for
his dismissal. But once more Bolingbroke's "fortune turned rotten at the
very moment it grew ripe,"[11] and his projects and hopes were ruined by
the king's death in June.[12] Further papers from his pen signed "John
Trot" appeared in the _Craftsman_ in 1728, and in 1730 followed _Remarks
on the History of England by Humphrey Oldcastle_, attacking the
Walpoles' policy. The assault on the government prompted by Bolingbroke
was continued in the House of Commons by Windham, and great efforts were
made to establish the alliance between the Tories and the Opposition
Whigs. The Excise Bill in 1733 and the Septennial Bill in the following
year offered opportunities for further attacks on the government, which
Bolingbroke supported by a new series of papers in the _Craftsman_
styled "A Dissertation on Parties"; but the whole movement collapsed
after the new elections, which returned Walpole to power in 1735 with a
large majority.
Bolingbroke retired baffled and disappointed from the fray to France in
June, residing principally at the château of Argeville near
Fontainebleau. He now wrote his _Letters on the Study of History_
(printed privately before his death and published in 1752), and the
_True Use of Retirement_. In 1738 he visited England, became one of the
leading friends and advisers of Frederick, prince of Wales, who now
headed the opposition, and wrote for the occasion _The Patriot King_,
which together with a previous essay, _The Spirit of Patriotism_, and
_The State of Parties at the Accession of George I._, were entrusted to
Pope and not published. Having failed, however, to obtain any share in
politics, he returned to France in 1739, and subsequently sold Dawley.
In 1742 and 1743 he again visited England and quarrelled with Warburton.
In 1744 he settled finally at Battersea with his friend Hugh Hume, 3rd
earl of Marchmont, and was present at Pope's death in May. The discovery
that the poet had printed secretly 1500 copies of _The Patriot King_
caused him to publish a correct version in 1749, and stirred up a
further altercation with Warburton, who defended his friend against
Bolingbroke's bitter aspersions, the latter, whose conduct was generally
reprehended, publishing a _Familiar Epistle to the most Impudent Man
Living_. In 1744 he had been very busy assisting in the negotiations for
the establishment of the new "broad bottom" administration, and showed
no sympathy for the Jacobite expedition in 1745. He recommended the
tutor for Prince George, afterwards George III. About 1749 he wrote the
_Present State of the Nation_, an unfinished pamphlet. Lord Chesterfield
records the last words heard from him: "God who placed me here will do
what He pleases with me hereafter and He knows best what to do." He died
on the 12th of December 1751, his wife having predeceased him in 1750.
They were both buried in the parish church at Battersea, where a
monument with medallions and inscriptions composed by Bolingbroke was
erected to their memory.
The writings and career of Bolingbroke make a far weaker impression upon
posterity than they made on contemporaries. His genius and character
were superficial; his abilities were exercised upon ephemeral objects,
and not inspired by lasting or universal ideas. Bute and George III.
indeed derived their political ideas from _The Patriot King_, but the
influence which he is said to have exercised upon Voltaire, Gibbon and
Burke is very problematical. Burke wrote his _Vindication of Natural
Society_ in imitation of Bolingbroke's style, but in refutation of his
principles; and in the _Reflections on the French Revolution_ he
exclaims, "Who now reads Bolingbroke, who ever read him through?" Burke
denies that Bolingbroke's words left "any permanent impression on his
mind." Bolingbroke's conversation, described by Lord Chesterfield as
"such a flowing happiness of expression that even his most familiar
conversations if taken down in writing would have borne the press
without the least correction," his delightful companionship, his wit,
good looks, and social qualities which charmed during his lifetime and
made firm friendships with men of the most opposite character, can now
only be faintly imagined. His most brilliant gift was his eloquence,
which according to Swift was acknowledged by men of all factions to be
unrivalled. None of his great orations has survived, a loss regretted by
Pitt more than that of the missing books of Livy and Tacitus, and no art
perishes more completely with its possessor than that of oratory. His
political works, in which the expression is often splendidly eloquent,
spirited and dignified, are for the most part exceedingly rhetorical in
style, while his philosophical essays were undertaken with the chief
object of displaying his eloquence, and no characteristic renders
writings less readable for posterity. They are both deficient in
solidity and in permanent interest. The first deals with mere party
questions without sincerity and without depth; and the second, composed
as an amusement in retirement without any serious preparation, in their
attacks on metaphysics and theology and in their feeble deism present no
originality and carry no conviction. Both kinds reflect in their
Voltairian superficiality Bolingbroke's manner of life, which was
throughout uninspired by any great ideas or principles and thoroughly
false and superficial. Though a libertine and a free-thinker, he had
championed the most bigoted and tyrannical high-church measures. His
diplomacy had been subordinated to party necessities. He had supported
by turns and simultaneously Jacobite and Hanoverian interests. He had
only conceived the idea of _The Patriot King_ in the person of the
worthless Frederick in order to stir up sedition, while his eulogies on
retirement and study were pronounced from an enforced exile. He only
attacked party government because he was excluded from it, and only
railed at corruption because it was the corruption of his antagonists
and not his own. His public life presents none of those acts of devotion
and self-sacrifice which often redeem a career characterized by errors,
follies and even crimes.
One may deplore his unfortunate history and wasted genius, but it is
impossible to regret his exclusion from the government of England. He
was succeeded in the title as 2nd Viscount Bolingbroke, according to the
special remainder, by his nephew Frederick, 3rd Viscount St John (a
title granted to Bolingbroke's father in 1716), from whom the title has
descended.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--Bolingbroke's collected works, including his chief
political writings already mentioned and his philosophical essays
_Concerning the Nature, Extent and Reality of Human Knowledge_, _On
the Folly and Presumption of Philosophers_, _On the Rise and Progress
of Monotheism_, and _On Authority in Matters of Religion_, were first
published in Mallet's faulty edition in 1754,--according to Johnson's
well-known denunciation, "the blunderbuss charged against religion and
morality,"--and subsequently in 1778, 1809 and 1841. _A Collection of
Political Tracts_ by Bolingbroke was published in 1748. His _Letters_
were published by G. Parke in 1798, and by Grimoard, _Lettres
historiques, politiques, philosophiques, &c._, in 1808; for others see
Pope's and Swift's _Correspondence_; W. Coxe's _Walpole_; Phillimore's
_Life of Lyttelton_; _Hardwick State Papers_, vol. ii.; _Marchmont
Papers_, ed. by Sir G.H. Rose (1831); Letters to Lord Chancellor
Hardwicke in _Add. MSS. Brit. Museum_ (see Index, 1894-1899), mostly
transcribed by W. Sichel; _Hist. MSS. Comm., MSS. of Marquis of Bath,
Duke of Portland at Welbeck_; while a further collection of his
letters relating to the treaty of Utrecht is in the British Museum.
For his attempts at verse see Walpole's _Royal and Noble Authors_
(1806), iv. 209 et seq. See also bibliography of his works in Sichel,
ii. 456, 249.
A life of Bolingbroke appeared in his lifetime about 1740, entitled
_Authentic Memoirs_ (in the Grenville Library, Brit. Mus.), which
recounted his escapades; other contemporary accounts were published in
1752 and 1754, and a life by Goldsmith in 1770. Of the more modern
biographies may be noted that in the _Dict. of Nat. Biog._ by Sir
Leslie Stephen, 1897; by C. de Remusat in _L'Angleterre au 18me
siècle_ (1856), vol. i.; by T. Macknight (1863); by J. Churton Collins
(1886); by A. Hassall (1889); and by Walter Sichel (1901-1902),
elaborate and brilliant, but unduly eulogistic. (P. C. Y.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Swift's _Inquiry into the Behaviour of the Queen's Last
Ministry_; Mrs Delaney's _Correspondence_, 2 ser., iii. 168.
[2] _Berwick's Mem._ (Petitot), vol. lxvi. 219.
[3] _Hist. MSS. Comm., Portland MSS._ v. 235.
[4] _Stuart MSS._ (Roxburghe Club), ii. 383.
[5] _Hist. MSS. Comm., MSS. of H.M. the King, Stuart Papers_, i. p.
xlviii.
[6] Sichel's _Bolingbroke_, i. 340; _Lockhart Papers_, i. 460;
Macpherson, ii. 529.
[7] _Wentworth Papers_, 408.
[8] _Hist. MSS. Comm., Stuart Papers_, i. 500; Berwick's _Mem_.
(Petitot), vol. lxvi. 262.
[9] Coxe's _Walpole_, i. 200; _Stuart Papers_, ii. 511, and also 446,
460.
[10] _Hist. MSS. Comm., Onslow MSS._ 515.
[11] Bolingbroke to Swift, June 24th, 1727. He adds, "to hanker after
a court is below either you or me."
[12] Sichel's _Bolingbroke_, ii. 267; _Stanhope_, ii. 163; _Hist.
MSS. Comm., Onslow MSS._ 516, 8th Rep. Pt. III. App. p. 3. This
remarkable incident is discredited by H. Walpole in _Letters_ (ed.
1903), iii. 269; but he was not always well informed concerning his
father's career.
BOLIVAR, SIMON (1783-1830), the hero of South American independence, was
born in the city of Caracas, Venezuela, on the 24th of July 1783. His
father was Juan Vicente Bolivar y Ponte, and his mother Maria Concepcion
Palacios y Sojo, both descended from noble families in Venezuela.
Bolivar was sent to Europe to prosecute his studies, and resided at
Madrid for several years. Having completed his education, he spent some
time in travelling, chiefly in the south of Europe, and visited Paris,
where he was an eye-witness of some of the last scenes of the
Revolution. Returning to Madrid, he married, in 1801, the daughter of
Don N. Toro, uncle of the marquis of Toro in Caracas, and embarked with
her for Venezuela, intending, it is said, to devote himself to the
improvement of his large estate. But the premature death of his young
wife, who fell a victim to yellow fever, drove him again to Europe.
Returning home in 1809 he passed through the United States, where, for
the first time, he had an opportunity of observing the working of free
institutions; and soon after his arrival in Venezuela he appears to have
identified himself with the cause of independence which had already
agitated the Spanish colonies for some years. Being one of the
promoters of the insurrection at Caracas in April 1810, he received a
colonel's commission from the revolutionary junta, and was associated
with Louis Lopez Mendez in a mission to the court of Great Britain.
Venezuela declared its independence on the 5th of July 1811, and in the
following year the war commenced in earnest by the advance of Monteverde
with the Spanish troops. Bolivar was entrusted with the command of the
important post of Puerto Cabello, but not being supported he had to
evacuate the place; and owing to the inaction of Miranda the Spaniards
recovered their hold over the country.
Like others of the revolutionists Bolivar took to flight, and succeeded
in reaching Curaçao in safety. He did not, however, remain long in
retirement, but in September 1812, hearing of important movements in New
Granada, repaired to Cartagena, where he received a commission to
operate against the Spanish troops on the Magdalena river. In this
expedition he proved eminently successful, driving the Spaniards from
post to post, until arriving at the confines of Venezuela he boldly
determined to enter that province and try conclusions with General
Monteverde himself. His troops did not number more than 500 men; but, in
spite of many discouragements, he forced his way to Merida and Truxillo,
towns of some importance in the west of Venezuela, and succeeded in
raising the population to his support. Forming his increased forces into
two divisions, he committed the charge of one to his colleague Rivas,
and pushing on for Caracas the capital, issued his decree of "war to the
death." A decisive battle ensued at Lastoguanes, where the Spanish
troops under Monteverde sustained a crushing defeat. Caracas was entered
in triumph on the 4th of August 1813, and Monteverde took refuge in
Puerto Cabello. General Mariño effected the liberation of the eastern
district of Venezuela, and the patriots obtained entire possession of
the country in January 1814. This success was, however, of very brief
duration. The royalists, effectually roused by the reverses they had
sustained, concentrated all their means, and a number of sanguinary
encounters ensued. Bolivar was eventually defeated by Boves near Cura,
in the plains of La Puerta, and compelled to embark for Cumana with the
shattered remains of his forces. Caracas was retaken by the Spaniards in
July; and before the end of the year 1814 the royalists were again the
undisputed masters of Venezuela. From Cumana Bolivar repaired to
Cartagena, and thence to Tunja, where the revolutionary congress of New
Granada was sitting. Here, notwithstanding his misfortunes and the
efforts of his personal enemies, he was received and treated with great
consideration. The congress appointed him to conduct an expedition
against Santa Fé de Bogota, where Don Cundinamarca had refused to
acknowledge the new coalition of the provinces. In December 1814 he
appeared before Bogota with a force of 2000 men, and obliged the
recalcitrant leaders to capitulate,--a service for which he received the
thanks of congress. In the meanwhile Santa Martha had fallen into the
hands of the royalists, and Bolivar was ordered to the relief of the
place. In this, however, he was not successful, General Morillo having
landed an overwhelming Spanish force. Hopeless of the attempt he
resigned his commission and embarked for Kingston, Jamaica, in May 1814.
While residing there an attempt was made upon his life by a hired
assassin, who, in mistake, murdered his secretary.
From Kingston Bolivar went to Aux Cayes in Haiti, where he was furnished
with a small force by President Petion. An expedition was organized, and
landed on the mainland in May 1816, but proved a failure. Nothing
daunted, however, he obtained reinforcements at Aux Cayes, and in
December landed first in Margarita, and then at Barcelona. Here a
provisional government was formed, and troops were assembled to resist
Morillo, who was then advancing at the head of a strong division. The
hostile forces encountered each other on the 16th of February 1817, when
a desperate conflict ensued, which lasted during that and the two
following days, and ended in the defeat of the royalists. Morillo
retired in disorder, and being met on his retreat by J.A. Paez with his
_llaneros_, suffered an additional and more complete overthrow. Being
now recognized as commander-in-chief, Bolivar proceeded in his career
of victory, and before the close of the year had fixed his headquarters
at Angostura on the Orinoco. At the opening of the congress which
assembled in that city on the 15th February 1819 he submitted an
elaborate exposition of his views on government, and concluded by
surrendering his authority into the hands of congress. Being, however,
required to resume his power, and retain it until the independence of
the country had been completely established, he reorganized his troops,
and set out from Angostura, in order to cross the Cordilleras, effect a
junction with General Santander, who commanded the republican force in
New Granada, and bring their united forces into action against the
common enemy. This bold and original design was crowned with complete
success. In July 1819 he entered Tunja, after a sharp action on the
adjoining heights; and on the 7th of August he gained the victory of
Boyaca, which gave him immediate possession of Bogota and all New
Granada.
His return to Angostura was a sort of national festival. He was hailed
as the deliverer and father of his country, and all manner of
distinctions and congratulations were heaped upon him. Availing himself
of the favourable moment, he obtained the enactment of the fundamental
law of the 17th of December 1819, by which the republics of Venezuela
and New Granada were henceforth to be united in a single state, under
his presidency, by the title of the Republic of Colombia. The seat of
government was also transferred provisionally to Rosario de Cucuta, on
the frontier of the two provinces, and Bolivar again took the field.
Being now at the head of the most numerous and best appointed army the
republicans had yet assembled, he gained important advantages over the
Spaniards under Morillo, and on the 25th of November 1820 concluded at
Truxillo an armistice of six months, probably in the hope that the
Spaniards would come to terms, and that the further effusion of blood
might be spared. If such were his views, however, they were
disappointed. Morillo was recalled, and General Torre assumed the
command. The armistice was allowed to expire, and a renewal of the
contest became inevitable. Bolivar therefore resolved, if possible, to
strike a decisive blow; and this accordingly he did at Carabobo, where,
encountering Torre, he so completely routed the Spaniards that the
shattered remains of their army were forced to take refuge in Puerto
Cabello, where two years after they surrendered to Paez. The battle of
Carabobo may be considered as having put an end to the war in Venezuela.
On the 29th of June 1821 Bolivar entered Caracas, and by the close of
the year the Spaniards were driven from every part of the province
except Puerto Cabello. The next step was to secure, by permanent
political institutions, the independence which had been so dearly
purchased; and, accordingly, on the 30th of August 1821 the constitution
of Colombia was adopted with general approbation, Bolivar himself being
president, and Santander vice-president.
There was, however, more work for him to do. The Spaniards, though
expelled from Colombia, still held possession of the neighbouring
provinces of Ecuador and Peru; and Bolivar determined to complete the
liberation of the whole country. Placing himself at the head of the
army, he marched on Quito in Ecuador. A severe battle was fought at
Pichincha, where, by the prowess of his colleague Sucre, the Spaniards
were routed, and Quito was entered by the republicans in June 1822.
Bolivar then marched upon Lima, which the royalists evacuated at his
approach; and entering the capital in triumph, he was invested with
absolute power as dictator, and authorized to call into action all the
resources of the country. Owing, however, to the intrigues of the
republican factions in Peru he was forced to withdraw to Truxillo,
leaving the capital to the mercy of the Spaniards under Canterac, by
whom it was immediately occupied. But this misfortune proved only
temporary. By June 1824 the liberating army was completely organized;
and taking the field soon after, it routed the vanguard of the enemy.
Improving his advantage, Bolivar pressed forward, and on the 6th of
August defeated Canterac on the plains of Junin, after which he returned
to Lima, leaving Sucre to follow the royalists in their retreat to
Upper Peru--an exploit which the latter executed with equal ability and
success, gaining a decisive victory at Ayacucho, and thus completing the
dispersion of the Spanish force. The possessions of the Spaniards in
Peru were now confined to the castles of Callao, which Rodil maintained
for upwards of a year, in spite of all the means that could be employed
for their reduction. In June 1825 Bolivar visited Upper Peru, which,
having detached itself from the government of Buenos Aires, was formed
into a separate state, called Bolivia, in honour of the liberator. The
first congress of the new republic assembled in August 1825, when
Bolivar was declared perpetual protector, and requested to prepare for
it a constitution of government.
His care was now directed to the administration of the affairs of the
freed provinces. His endeavours to satisfy his countrymen in this
respect did not always meet with encouragement, and sometimes exposed
him to slander. In December 1824 Bolivar convoked a constituent congress
for the February following; but this body, taking into consideration the
unsettled state of the country, thought it proper to invest him with
dictatorial power for another year. His project of a constitution for
Bolivia was presented to the congress of that state on the 25th of May
1826, accompanied with an address, in which he embodied his opinions
respecting the form of government which he conceived most expedient for
the newly established republics. This code, however, did not give
satisfaction. Its most extraordinary feature consisted in the provision
for lodging the executive authority in the hands of a president for
life, without responsibility and with power to nominate his successor, a
proposal which alarmed the friends of liberty, and excited lively
apprehensions amongst the republicans of Buenos Aires and Chile; whilst
in Peru, Bolivar was accused of a design to unite into one state
Colombia, Peru and Bolivia, and to render himself perpetual dictator of
the confederacy.
In the meanwhile the affairs of Colombia had taken a turn which demanded
the presence of Bolivar in his own country. During his absence Santander
had administered the government of the state ably and uprightly, and its
independence had been recognized by other countries. But Paez, who
commanded in Venezuela, having been accused of arbitrary conduct in the
enrolment of the citizens of Caracas in the militia, refused obedience
to the summons of the senate, and placed himself in a state of open
rebellion against the government, being encouraged by a disaffected
party in the northern departments who desired separation from the rest
of the republic.
Accordingly, having entrusted the government to a council nominated by
himself, with Santa Cruz at its head, Bolivar set out from Lima in
September 1826, and hastening to Bogota, arrived there on the 14th of
November. He immediately assumed the extraordinary powers which by the
constitution the president was authorized to exercise in case of
rebellion. After a short stay in the capital he pressed forward to stop
the effusion of blood in Venezuela, where matters had gone much farther
than he could have contemplated. On the 31st of December he reached
Puerto Cabello, and the following day he issued a decree offering a
general amnesty. He had then a friendly meeting with Paez and soon after
entered Caracas, where he fixed his headquarters, in order to check the
northern departments, which had been the principal theatre of the
disturbances. In the meanwhile Bolivar and Santander were re-elected to
the respective offices of president and vice-president, and by law they
should have qualified as such in January 1827. In February, however,
Bolivar formally resigned the presidency of the republic, at the same
time expressing a determination to refute the imputations of ambition
which had been so freely cast upon him, by retiring into private life,
and spending the remainder of his days on his patrimonial estate.
Santander combated this proposal, urging him to resume his station as
constitutional president, and declaring his own conviction that the
troubles and agitations of the country could only be appeased by the
authority and personal influence of the liberator himself. This view
being confirmed by a resolution of congress, although it was not a
unanimous one, Bolivar decided to resume his functions, and he repaired
to Bogota to take the oaths. Before his arrival, however, he issued
simultaneously three separate decrees--one granting a general amnesty,
another convoking a national convention at Ocaña, and a third for
establishing constitutional order throughout Colombia. His arrival was
accelerated by the occurrence of events in Peru and the southern
departments which struck at the very foundation of his power. Not long
after his departure from Lima, the Bolivian code had been adopted as the
constitution of Peru, and Bolivar had been declared president for life
on the 9th of December 1826, the anniversary of the battle of Ayacucho.
At this time the Colombian auxiliary army was cantoned in Peru, and the
third division, stationed at Lima, consisting of veteran troops under
Lara and Sands, became distrustful of Bolivar's designs on the freedom
of the republic. Accordingly, in about six weeks after the adoption of
Bolivar's new constitution, a counter-revolution in the government of
Peru was effected by this body of dissatisfied veterans, and the
Peruvians, availing themselves of the opportunity, abjured the Bolivian
code, deposed the council appointed by the liberator, and proceeded to
organize a provisional government for themselves. After this bloodless
revolution the third division embarked at Callao on the 17th of March
1827, and landed in the southern department of Colombia in the following
month. Intelligence of these events reached Bolivar while in the north
of Colombia, and he lost no time in preparing to march against the
refractory troops, who formerly had placed such implicit confidence in
him. But he was spared the necessity of coming to blows, for the
leaders, finding the government in the hands of the national executive,
had peaceably submitted to General Ovando. In the meanwhile Bolivar had
accepted the presidency, and resumed the functions belonging to his
official position. But although Colombia was, to all external
appearance, restored to tranquillity, the nation was divided into two
parties. Bolivar had, no doubt, regained the personal confidence of the
officers and soldiers of the third division; but the republican party,
with Santander at their head, continued to regard with undisguised
apprehension his ascendancy over the army, suspecting him of a desire to
imitate the career of Napoleon. In the meanwhile all parties looked
anxiously to the convention of Ocaña, which was to assemble in March
1828, for a decided expression of the national will. The republicans
hoped that the issue of its deliberations would be favourable to their
views; whilst the military, on the other hand, did not conceal their
conviction that a stronger and more permanent form of government was
essential to the public welfare. The latter view seems to have
prevailed. In virtue of a decree, dated Bogota, the 27th of August 1828,
Bolivar assumed the supreme power in Colombia, and continued to exercise
it until his death, which took place at San Pedro, near Santa Marta, on
the 17th of December 1830.
Bolivar spent nine-tenths of a splendid patrimony in the service of his
country; and although he had for a considerable period unlimited control
over the revenues of three countries--Colombia, Peru and Bolivia--he
died without a shilling of public money in his possession. He achieved
the independence of three states, and called forth a new spirit in the
southern portion of the New World. He purified the administration of
justice; he encouraged the arts and sciences; he fostered national
interests, and he induced other countries to recognize that independence
which was in a great measure the fruit of his own exertions. His remains
were removed in 1842 to Caracas, where a monument was erected to his
memory; a statue was put up in Bogota in 1846; in 1858 the Peruvians
followed the example by erecting an equestrian statue of the liberator
in Lima; and in 1884 a statue was erected in Central Park, New York.
Twenty-two volumes of official documents bearing on Bolivar's career
were officially published at Caracas in 1826-1833. There are lives by
Larrazabal (New York, 1866); Rojas (Madrid, 1883); and
Ducoudray-Holstein (Paris, 1831). Two volumes of his correspondence
were published in New York in 1866.
BOLÍVAR, till 1908 a department of Colombia, bounded N. and W. by the
Caribbean Sea, E. by the departments of Magdalena and Santander, S. by
Antioquia and S.W. by Cauca. It has an area of 27,028 sq. m., composed
in great part of low, alluvial plains, densely wooded, but slightly
cultivated and unsuited for north European labour. The population,
estimated at 323,097 in 1899, is composed largely of mixed races; in
some localities the inhabitants of mixed race are estimated to
constitute four-fifths of the population. The capital, Cartagena on the
Caribbean coast, was once the principal commercial entrepôt of Colombia.
Other important towns are Barranquilla and Mompox (8000), on the
Magdalena river, and Corozal (9000) and Lorica (10,596 in 1902), near
the western coast.
BOLÍVAR, an inland state of Venezuela, lying S. of the Orinoco and
Apure, with the Yuruari territory on the E., the Caroni river forming
the boundary, and the Amazonas territory and Brazil on the S. Frequent
political changes in Venezuela have led to various modifications in the
size and outlines of this state, which comprises large areas of
uninhabited territory. It is a country of extensive plains (_llanos_)
covered in the rainy season with nutritious grass which disappears
completely in the dry season, and of great forests and numerous rivers.
Its population was given in 1894 as 135,232, but its area has been
largely reduced since then. The capital is Ciudad Bolívar, formerly
called Angostura, which is situated on the right bank of the Orinoco
about 240 m. above its mouth; pop. 11,686. Vessels of light draught
easily ascend the Orinoco to this point, and a considerable trade is
carried on, the exports being cocoa, sugar, cotton, hides, jerked beef
and various forest products.
BOLIVIA, an inland republic of South America, once a part of the Spanish
vice-royalty of Peru and known as the province of Charcas, or Upper
Peru. It is the third largest political division of the continent, and
extends, approximately, from 9° 44' to 22° 50' S. lat., and from 58° to
70° W. long. It is bounded N. and E. by Brazil, S. by Paraguay and
Argentina, and W. by Chile and Peru. Estimates of area vary widely and
have been considerably confused by repeated losses of territory in
boundary disputes with neighbouring states, and no figures can be given
which may not be changed to some extent by further revisions. Official
estimates are 640,226 and 703,633 sq. m., but Supan (_Die Bevolkerung
der Erde_, 1904) places it at 515,156 sq. m.
_Boundaries._--The boundary line between Bolivia and Brazil has its
origin in the limits between the Spanish and Portuguese colonies
determined by the treaties of Madrid and San Ildefonso (1750 and 1777),
which were modified by the treaties of 1867 and 1903. Beginning at the
outlet of Bahia Negra into the Paraguay river, lat. 28° 08' 35" S., the
line ascends the latter to a point on the west bank 9 kilometres below
Fort Coimbra, thence inland 4 kilometres to a point in lat. 19° 45' 36"
S. and long. 58° 04' 12.7" W., whence it follows an irregular course N.
and E. of N. to Lakes Mandioré, Gaiba or Gahiba, and Uberaba, then up
the San Matias river and N. along the Sierra Ricardo Franco to the
headwaters of the Rio Verde, a tributary of the Guaporé. This part of
the boundary was turned inland from the Paraguay to include, within
Brazilian jurisdiction, Fort Coimbra, Corumbá and other settlements on
the west bank, and was modified in 1903 by the recession of about 1158
sq. m. to Bolivia to provide better commercial facilities on the
Paraguay. The line follows the Verde, Guaporé, Mamoré and Madeira rivers
down to the mouth of the Abuna, in about lat. 9° 44' S., as determined
by the treaty of 1903. This is a part of the original colonial frontier,
which extended down the Madeira to a point midway between the Beni and
the Amazon, and then ran due W. to the Javary. The treaty of 1867
changed this starting-point to the mouth of the Beni, in lat. 10° 20'
S., and designated a straight line to the source of the Javary as the
frontier, which gave to Brazil a large area of territory; but when the
valuable rubber forests of the upper Purús became known the Brazilians
invaded them and demanded another modification of the boundary line.
This was finally settled in 1903 by the treaty of Petropolis, which
provided that the line should ascend the Abuna river to lat. 10° 20' S.,
thence along that parallel W. to the Rapirran river which is followed to
its principal source, thence due W. to the Ituxy river which is followed
W. to its source, thence to the source of Bahia Creek which is followed
to the Acré or Aquiry river, thence up the latter to its source, whence
if east of the 69th meridian it runs direct to the 11th parallel which
will form the boundary line to the Peruvian frontier. This frontier gave
about 60,000 sq. m. of territory to Brazil, for which the latter gave an
indemnity of £2,000,000 and about 1158 sq. m. of territory on the Matto
Grosso frontier. The boundary with Paraguay is unsettled, but an
unratified treaty of the 23rd of November 1894 provides that the line
shall start from a point on the Paraguay river 3 m. north of Fort Olimpo
and run south-west in a straight line to an intersection with the
Pilcomayo in long. 61° 28' W., where it unites with the Argentine
boundary. The boundary with Chile was greatly modified by the results of
the war of 1879-83, as determined by the treaties of 1884, 1886 and
1895, Bolivia losing her department of the littoral on the Pacific and
all access to the coast except by the grace of the conqueror. Provisions
were made in 1895 for the cession of the port of Mejillones del Norte
and a right of way across the province of Tarapacá, but Peru protested,
and negotiations followed for the cession of Cobija, in the province of
Antofagasta. These negotiations proved fruitless, and in 1904 Bolivia
accepted a pecuniary indemnity in lieu of territory. The new boundary
line starts from the summit of the Sapaleri (or Zapalegui), where the
Argentine, Bolivian and Chilean boundaries converge, and runs west to
Licancaur, thence north to the most southern source of Lake Ascotán
which it follows to and across this lake in the direction of the Oyahua
volcano, and thence in a straight line to the Tua volcano, on the
frontier of the province of Tarapacá. From this point the line follows
the summits of the Cordillera Silillica north to the Cerro Paquiza, on
the Tacna frontier, and to the Nevado Pomarape, near the frontier of
Peru. Thence it continues north to an intersection with the Desaguadero,
in about 16° 45' S. lat., follows that river to the Winamarca lagoon and
Lake Titicaca, and crosses the latter diagonally to Huaicho on the north
shore. From this point the line crosses the Cordillera Real through the
valley of the San Juan del Oro to Suches Lake, follows the Cololo and
Apolobamba ranges to the headwaters of the Sina river, and thence down
that stream to the Inambari. Thence the line either follows the latter
to its confluence with the Madre de Dios, or the water-parting between
that river and the Tambopata or Pando, to the valley of the Madre de
Dios, from which point it runs due north to 12° 40' S. lat., and
north-west to the new Brazilian frontier. The N.W. angle on the map
represents the Bolivian claim until the settlement of 1909, which gave
the territory to Peru.
[Illustration: Map of Bolivia]
_Physiography._--Roughly calculated, two-fifths of the total area of
Bolivia is comprised within the Andean cordilleras which cross its
south-west corner and project east toward the Brazilian highlands in the
form of a great obtuse angle. The Cordilleras, divided into two great
parallel chains, with flanking ranges and spurs to the east, reach their
greatest breadth at this point and form the _massif_ of the Andean
system. It is made up of a number of parallel ranges enclosing great
elevated plateaus broken by transverse ranges and deep ravines.
North-east of Lake Titicaca there is a confused mass or knot (the Nudo
de Apolobamba) of lofty intersecting ridges which include some of the
highest peaks in South America. Below this mountainous area the ranges
open out and enclose extensive plateaus. The western range, the
Cordillera Occidental, a part of the boundary between Bolivia and the
northern provinces of Chile, closely follows the coast outline and forms
the western rampart of the great Bolivian tableland or _alta-planicie_,
which extends from the Vilcanota knot in Peru, south to the Serrania de
Lipez on the Argentine frontier, is 500 m. long, and about 80 m. broad,
and contains about 40,000 sq. m. The northern part of this plateau is
commonly called the _puna_; the southern part, the "desert of Lipez," in
character and appearance is part of the great Puna de Atacama. This
plateau has an average elevation of about 12,650 ft. near Lake Titicaca,
but descends about 1000 ft. toward its southern extremity. It is a great
lacustrine basin where once existed an inland sea having an outlet to
the east through the La Paz gorge. The plateau is bleak and inhospitable
in the north, barren and arid toward the south, containing great saline
depressions covered with water in the rainy season, and broken by ridges
and peaks, the highest being the Cerro de Tahua, 17,454 ft. Overlooking
the plateau from the west are the snow-clad peaks of Pomarape (20,505
ft.), Parinacota (20,918 ft.), Sajama (21,047), Huallatiri (21,654),
Lirima (19,128), and the three volcanic peaks, Oyahua (19,226), San
Pedro y Pablo (19,423) and Licancaur (19,685). The eastern rampart of
this great plateau is formed by the Cordillera Oriental, which extends
north-west into Peru under the name of Carabaya, and south to the
frontier in broken ranges, one of which trends south-east in the
vicinity of Sucré. The main part of this great range, known as the
Cordillera Real, and one of the most imposing mountain masses of the
world, extends from the Peruvian border south-east to the 18th parallel
and exhibits a series of snow-crowned peaks, notably the triple-crested
Illampu or Sorata (21,490 ft.), Illimani (Conway, 21,204), Cacaaca
(20,571) and Chachacomani (21,434). Of the ranges extending south from
the Cordillera Real and branching out between the 18th and 19th
parallels, the more prominent are the Frailes which forms the eastern
rampart of the great central plateau and which is celebrated for its
mineral deposits, the Chichas which runs south from the vicinity of
Potosi to the Argentine frontier, and the Livichuco which turns
south-east and forms the watershed between the Cachimayo and Pilcomayo.
The more prominent peaks in and between these ranges are the Asanaque
(16,857), Michaga (17,389), Cuzco (17,930), Potosi (15,381), Chorolque
(18,480) and Tuluma (15,584). At the southern extremity of the great
plateau is the transverse Serrania de Lipez, the culminating crest of
which stands 16,404 ft. above sea-level. The eastern rampart of the
Bolivian highlands comprises two distinct chains--the Sierra de
Cochabamba on the north-east and the Sierra de Misiones on the east.
Between these and the Cordillera Oriental is an apparently confused mass
of broken, intersecting ranges, which on closer examination are found to
conform more or less closely to the two outside ranges. These have been
deeply cut by rivers, especially on the north-east, where the rainfall
is heavier. The region enclosed by these ranges is extremely rugged in
character, but it is esteemed highly for its fertile valleys and its
fine climate, and is called the "Bolivian Switzerland." Lying wholly
within the tropics, these mountain masses form one of the most
interesting as well as one of the most imposing and difficult regions of
the world. At their feet and in their lower valleys the heat is intense
and the vegetation is tropical. Above these are cool, temperate slopes
and valleys, and high above these, bleak, wind-swept passes and
snow-clad peaks. West of the Cordillera Oriental, where special
conditions prevail, a great desert plateau stretches entirely across one
corner of the republic. Apart from the Andean system there is a group of
low, broken, gneiss ranges stretching along the east side of Bolivia
among the upper affluents of the Mamoré and Guaporé, which appear to
belong to the older Brazilian orographic system, from which they have
been separated by the erosive action of water. They are known as the
Sierras de Chiquitos, and are geologically interesting because of their
proximity to the eastern projection of the Andes. Their culminating
point is Cerro Cochii, 3894 ft. above sea-level, but for the most part
they are but little more than ranges of low wooded hills, having in
general a north-west and south-east direction between the 15th and 19th
parallels.
The popular conception of Bolivia is that of an extremely rugged
mountainous country, although fully three-fifths of it, including the
Chiquitos region, is composed of low alluvial plains, great swamps and
flooded bottomlands, and gently undulating forest regions. In the
extreme south are the Bolivian Chaco and the llanos (open grassy plains)
of Manzo, while above these in eastern Chuquisaca and southern Santa
Cruz are extensive swamps and low-lying plains, subject to periodical
inundations and of little value for agricultural and pastoral purposes.
There are considerable areas in this part of Bolivia, however, which lie
above the floods and afford rich grazing lands. The great drawback to
this region is defective drainage; the streams have too sluggish a
current to carry off the water in the rainy season. Between the
Chiquitos sierras and the Andes are the Llanos de Chiquitos, which have
a higher general elevation and a more diversified surface. North of this
elevation, which formed the southern shore of the ancient Mojos Lake,
are the llanos of Guarayos and Mojos, occupying an extensive region
traversed by the Guaporé, San Miguel, Guapay, Mamoré, Yacuma, Beni and
Madre de Dios rivers and their numerous tributaries. It was once covered
by the great Mojos Lake, and still contains large undrained areas, like
that of Lake Rojoagua (or Roguaguado). It contains rich agricultural
districts and extensive open plains where cattle-raising has been
successfully followed since the days of the Jesuit missions in that
region. The lower slopes of the Andes, especially toward the north-west,
where the country is traversed by the Beni and Madre de Dios, are
covered with heavy forests. This is one of the richest districts of
Bolivia and is capable of sustaining a large population.
The river-systems of Bolivia fall naturally into three distinct
regions--the Amazon, La Plata and Central Plateau. The first includes
the rivers flowing directly and indirectly into the Madeira, one of the
great tributaries of the Amazon, together with some small tributaries of
the Acré and Purús in the north, all of which form a drainage basin
covering more than one-half of the republic. The two principal rivers of
this system are the Mamoré and Beni, which unite in lat. 10° 20' S. to
form the Madeira. The Mamoré, the upper part of which is called the
Chimoré, rises on the north-east slopes of the Sierra de Cochabamba a
little south of the 17th parallel, and follows a northerly serpentine
course to its confluence with the Beni, the greater part of which course
is between the 65th and 66th meridians. The river has a length of about
600 m., fully three-fourths of which, from Chimoré (925 ft. above sea
level) to the rapids near its mouth, passes across a level plain and is
navigable. The principal Bolivian tributary of the Mamoré, the Guapay or
Grande, which is larger and longer than the former above their
confluence and should be considered the main stream, rises in the
Cordillera Oriental east of Lake Pampa Aullaguas, and flows east to the
north extremity of the Sierra de Misiones, where it emerges upon the
Bolivian lowlands. Turning to the north in a magnificent curve, it
passes around the south-east extremity of the Sierra de Cochabamba,
skirts the Llanos de Chiquitos, and, turning to the north-west, unites
with the Mamoré at Junta de los Rios in about 15° 20' S. lat. and 64°
40' W. long. It has a tortuous course of over 700 m., which is described
as not navigable. The principal tributaries of the Guapay are the
Mizque, Piray or Sará and Yapacani, the last rising on the east slopes
of the Cordillera Real, flowing east by Cochabamba to the sierras of
that name where it breaks through with a great bend to the north. The
other large Bolivian tributaries of the Mamoré, all rising on the
north-east flanks of the Andes, are the Chaparé, Sécure, Manique or
Aperé and Yacuma, the last draining a region of lakes and swamps north
of the Sierra Chamaya. The Beni and its great affluent, the Madre de
Dios, though of smaller volume and extent than the Mamoré, are of much
greater economic importance, owing to their navigability, the fertility
of the region they drain, and the great forests along their banks. North
of the Beni, the Abuna flows into the Madeira. Several of its south
tributaries belong to Bolivia. The Guaporé, or Itenez, an affluent of
the Mamoré, is the third large river of this Bolivian drainage basin,
but it rises in Brazil, on the south slopes of the Sierra dos Parecis,
where it flows in a great bend to the south and then west of north to
the Bolivian frontier in 14° S. lat. From this point to its junction
with the Mamoré, a little north of the 12th parallel, it flows in a
northwesterly direction and forms the boundary line between the two
republics. Its Brazilian tributaries are comparatively unimportant, but
from Bolivia it receives the Baures and the San Miguel, both rising in
the Sierras de Chiquitos and flowing north-west across the llanos to the
Guaporé. The Baures has one large tributary, the Blanco, and the Itonama
(San Miguel) has its origin in Lake Conception, lying among the west
ranges of the Chiquitos mountains 952 ft. above sea-level.
The south-east drainage basin, which is smaller and economically less
important than that of the Madeira, discharges into the Paraguay and
extends from the Sierras de Chiquitos south to the Argentine frontier,
and from the Cordillera Oriental east to the Paraguay. It possesses only
one large river in Bolivia, the Pilcomayo, which rises on the east
slopes of the Cordillera Oriental opposite the south end of Lake Pampa
Aullaguas and flows east and south-east through the sierra region to the
Bolivian Chaco. It flows through a nearly level country with so sluggish
a current that its channels are greatly obstructed. Nothing definite is
known of its tributaries in the Chaco, but in the sierra region it
possesses a number of small tributaries, the largest of which are the
Cachimayo, Mataca and Pílaya or Camblaya, the latter formed by the
Cotagaita and San Juan. The Bermejo, which is an Argentine river,
receives one large tributary from the Bolivian uplands, the Tarija or
Rio Grande, which drains a small district south-east of the Santa
Victoria sierra. The Bolivian tributaries of the upper Paraguay are
small and unimportant. The Otuquis, the most southern of the group, is
formed by the San Rafael and Tucabaca, which drain both slopes of the
Cerro Cochii range; but is lost in some great marshes 50 m. from the
Paraguay. Another considerable stream of this region, which is lost in
the great marshy districts of the Bolivian plain, is the Parapiti, which
rises on the eastern slopes of the Sierra de Misiones and flows
north-east through a low plain for about 150 m. until lost.
The third drainage basin is that of the great central plateau, or
_alta-planicie_. This is one of the most elevated lacustrine basins in
the world, and though it once drained eastward, now has no surface
outlet. Lake Titicaca receives the waters of several short streams from
the neighbouring heights and discharges through the Desaguadero, a
sluggish river flowing south for 184 m. with a gradually diminishing
depth to Lake Pampa Aullaguas or Poopo. The Desaguadero is navigable for
small craft, and has two or three small tributaries from the west. Two
small streams empty into Lake Pampa Aullaguas, which has a small outlet
in the Lacahahuira flowing west for 60 m. to the Cienegas de
(salt-swamps of) Coipasa. The drainage of this extensive district seems
to be wholly absorbed by the dry soil of the desert and by evaporation.
In the extreme south the Rio Grande de Lipez is absorbed in the same
way.
Few of the Bolivian lakes are at all well known. The great lacustrine
basin between the Beni and the Mamoré contains several lakes and
lagoons, two of them of large size. These are Lake Rogagua whose waters
find their way into the Beni through Rio Negro, and the Roguaguado
lagoon and marshes which cover a large area of territory near the
Mamoré. The latter has an elevation little, if any, above the level of
the Mamoré, which apparently drains this region, and its area has been
estimated at about 580 sq. m. Lake Conceptión, in the Chiquitos
mountains, belongs to this same hydrographic area. In the south-east
there are several large shallow lakes whose character and size change
with the season. They fill slight depressions and are caused by
defective drainage. Near the Paraguay there are several of these lakes,
partly caused by obstructed outlets, such as Bahia Negra, Cáceres,
Mandioré, Gaiba and Uberaba, some of them of sufficient depth to be
navigable by small craft. Above the latter are the great Xarayes swamps,
sometimes described as a lake. This region, like that of the north, is
subject to periodical inundations in the summer months (November-March
or even May), when extensive areas of level country are flooded and
traffic is possible only by the use of boats. The two principal lakes of
the plateau region are Titicaca and Pampa Aullaguas or Poopo. The former
lies near the north end of the great Bolivian _alta-planicie_, 12,644
ft. above sea-level, being one of the most elevated lakes of the world.
It is indented with numerous bays and coves; its greatest length is 138
m., and its greatest breadth 69 m. According to a survey made by Dr M.
Neveau-Lemaire (_La Geographie_, ix. p. 409, Paris, 1904), its water
surface, excluding islands and peninsulas, is 1969 sq. m., and its
greatest depth is 892 ft. The level of the lake rises about 5 in. in
summer; the loss in winter is even greater. The lake belongs to both
Bolivia and Peru, and is navigated by steamers running between Bolivian
ports and the Peruvian railway port of Puno. The outlet of the lake is
through the Desaguadero river. It has several islands, the largest of
which bears the same name and contains highly interesting archaeological
monuments of a prehistoric civilization usually attributed to the Incas.
Lake Pampa Aullaguas or Poopo is about 180 m. south-east of Titicaca,
and is fed principally by its outflow. It lies 505 ft. below the level
of Titicaca, which gives an average fall for the Desaguadero of very
nearly 21 ft. per mile. The Pampa Aullaguas has an estimated area of 386
sq. m., and has one large inhabited island. The lake is shallow and the
district about it is sparsely populated. Its outlet is through the
Lacahahuira river into the Coipasa swamp, and it is estimated that the
outflow is much less than the inflow, showing a considerable loss by
evaporation and earth absorption.
Having no sea-coast, Bolivia has no seaport except what may be granted
in usufruct by Chile.
_Geology._--The eastern ranges of ihe Bolivian Andes are formed of
Palaeozoic rocks with granitic and other intrusions; the Western
Cordillera consists chiefly of Jurassic and Cretaceous beds, together
with the lavas and ashes of the great volcanoes; while the intervening
plateau is covered by freshwater and terrestrial deposits through
which rise ridges of Palaeozoic rock and of a series of red sandstones
and gypsiferous marls of somewhat uncertain age (probably, in part at
least, Cretaceous). The Palaeozoic beds have yielded fossils of
Cambrian, Ordovician, Devonian and Carboniferous age. In southern
Bolivia Cambrian and Ordovician beds form the greater part of the
eastern Andes, but farther north the Devonian and Carboniferous are
extensively developed, especially in the north-eastern ranges. The
hills, known as the Chiquitos, which rise from the plains of eastern
Bolivia, are composed of ancient sedimentary rocks of unknown age. The
Palaeozoic beds are directly overlaid by a series of red sandstones
and gypsiferous marls, similar to the _formacion petrolifera_ of
Argentina and Brazil. At the base there is frequently a conglomerate
or tuff of porphyritic rocks. Marine fossils found by Gustav Steinmann
in the middle of the series are said to indicate an age not earlier
than the Jurassic, and Steinmann refers them to the Lower Cretaceous.
It is, however, not improbable that the series may represent more than
one geological system. No later marine deposits have been found either
in the eastern Andes or in the plains of Bolivia, but freshwater beds
of Tertiary and later date occupy a wide area. The recent deposits,
which cover so large a part of the depression between the Eastern and
the Western Cordillera, appear to be partly of torrential origin, like
the talus-fans at the foot of mountain ranges in other dry regions;
but Lakes Titicaca and Pampa Aullaguas (Poopo) were undoubtedly at one
time rather more extensive than they are to-day. The volcanoes of
Bolivia lie almost entirely in the Western Cordillera--the great
summits of the eastern range, such as Illimani and Sorata, being
formed of Palaeozoic rocks with granitic and other intrusions. The
gold, silver and tin of Bolivia occur chiefly in the Palaeozoic rocks
of the eastern ranges. The copper belongs mostly to the red sandstone
series.
_Climate._--Bolivia lies wholly within the torrid zone, and variations
in temperature are therefore due to elevation, mountain barriers and
prevailing winds. The country possesses every gradation of temperature,
from that of the tropical lowlands to the Arctic cold of the snow-capped
peaks directly above. This vertical arrangement of climatic zones is
modified to some extent (less than in Argentina) by varying rainfall
conditions, which are governed by the high mountain ranges crossing one
corner of the republic, and also by the prevailing winds. The trade
winds give to S. Bolivia a wet and dry season similar to that of N.
Argentina. Farther north, and east of the Cordillera Oriental, rains
fall throughout the year, though the summer months (November-March) are
usually described as the rainy season. On the west side of the
Cordillera, which extracts the moisture from the prevailing easterly
winds, the elevated plateaus have a limited rainfall in the north, which
diminishes toward the south until the surface becomes absolutely barren.
Brief and furious rain-storms sometimes sweep the northern plateau, but
these are not frequent and occur during a short season only. Electrical
wind storms are frequent in these high altitudes.
Bolivia has a wide range of temperature between places of the same
latitude. The natives designate the Bolivian climatic zones as
_yungas, valle_ or _medio yungas, cabezera de valle, puna_ and _puna
brava_. The _yungas_ comprises all the lowlands and the mountain
valleys up to an elevation of 5000 ft. The temperature is tropical,
winter is unknown and the atmosphere is exceedingly humid. The mean
temperature, according to official estimates, is 70° F., but this
probably represents the average between the higher elevations and the
low country. The _valle_ zone includes the deep valleys from 5000 to
9500 ft., has a warm climate with moderate variations in temperature
and no cold weather, is sub-tropical in character and productions, and
is sometimes described as a region of perpetual summer. The _cabezera
de valle_, as the name indicates, includes the heads of the deep
valleys above the _valle_ zone, with elevations ranging from 9500 to
11,000 ft.; its climate is temperate, is divided into regular seasons,
and is favourable to the production of cereals and vegetables. The
_puna_, which lies between 11,000 and 12,500 ft., includes the great
central plateau of Bolivia. It has but two seasons, a cold summer or
autumn and winter. The air is cold and dry, and the warmer season is
too short for the production of anything but potatoes and barley. The
mean temperature is officially estimated as 54° F. The _puna brava_
extends from 12,500 ft. up to the snow limit (about 17,500 ft.), and
covers a bleak, inhospitable territory, inhabited only by shepherds
and miners. Above this is the region of eternal snow, an Arctic zone
within the tropics. In general, the sub-tropical (_valle_) and
temperate (_cabezera de valle_) regions of Bolivia are healthy and
agreeable, have a plentiful rainfall, moderate temperature in the
shade, and varied and abundant products. There is a high rate of
mortality among the natives, due to unsanitary habits and diet, and
not to the climate. In the tropical _yungas_ the ground is covered
with decaying vegetation, and malaria and fevers are common. There are
localities in the open country and on exposed elevations where healthy
conditions prevail, but the greater part of this region is considered
unhealthy. The prevailing winds are easterly, bringing moisture across
Brazil from the Atlantic, but eastern Bolivia is also exposed to hot,
oppressive winds from the north, and to violent cold winds (_surazos_)
from the Argentine plains, which have been known to cause a fall of
temperature of 36° within a few hours. According to the _Sinópsis
Estadistica y Geográfica de la República de Bolivia_ (La Paz, 1903),
the average mean temperature and the annual rainfall in eastern
Bolivia are as follows: 10° S. lat., 90.8° F. and 31.5 in. rainfall;
15° S. lat., 86° F. and 30.7 in. rainfall; 20° S. lat., 81° F. and 30
in. rainfall; and 25° S. lat., 76.8° F. and 29.3 in. rainfall.
_Fauna._--The indigenous fauna of Bolivia corresponds closely to that of
the neighbouring districts of Argentina, Brazil and Peru. Numerous
species of monkeys inhabit the forests of the tropical region, together
with the puma, jaguar, wildcat, coati, tapir or _anta_, sloth, ant-bear,
paca (_Coelogenys paca_) and capybara. A rare species of bear, the
_Ursus ornatus_ (spectacled bear) is found among the wooded Andean
foothills. The chinchilla (_C. laniger_), also found in northern
Argentina and Chile, inhabits the colder plateau regions and is prized
for its fur. The plateau species of the viscacha (_Lagidium cuvieri_)
and the widely distributed South American otter (_Lutra paranensis_) are
also hunted for their skins. The peccary, which prefers a partially open
country, ranges from the Chaco to the densely wooded districts of the
north. There are two or three species of deer, the most common being the
large marsh deer of the Chaco; but the deer are not numerous. The
armadillo, opossum, ferret and skunk are widely distributed. The
amphibia are well represented throughout the lower tropical districts.
Alligators are found in the tributaries of the Paraguay and their
lagoons, lizards and turtles are numerous, and the batrachians are
represented by several species. Snakes are also numerous, including
rattlesnakes and the great boa-constrictors of the Amazon region.
The most interesting of all the Bolivian animals, however, are the
guanaco (_Auchenia huanaco_) and its congeners, the llama (_A. llama_),
alpaca (_A. pacos_) and vicuña (_A. vicugna_), belonging to the
Camelidae, with the structure and habits of the African camel, but
smaller, having no hump, and inhabiting a mountainous and not a level
sandy region. They are able to go without food and drink for long
periods, and inhabit the arid and semi-arid plateaus of the Andes and
the steppes of Patagonia. The guanaco is supposed to be the original
type, is the largest of the four, and has the greatest range from Peru
to Tierra del Fuego. The llama and alpaca were domesticated long before
the discovery of America, but the guanaco and vicuña are found in a wild
state only. The llama is used as a pack animal in Bolivia and Peru, and
its coarse wool is used in the making of garments for the natives. The
alpaca is highly prized for its fine wool, which is a staple export from
Bolivia, but the animal is reared with difficulty and the product cannot
be largely increased. The vicuña also is celebrated for its wool, which
the natives weave into beautiful and costly _ponchos_ (blanket cloaks)
and other wearing apparel. The guanaco is hunted for its skin, which,
when dressed, makes an attractive rug or robe. The slaughter of the
guanaco and vicuña is rapidly diminishing their number. The rearing of
llamas and alpacas is a recognized industry in the Bolivian highlands
and is wholly in the hands of the Indians, who alone seem to understand
the habits and peculiarities of these interesting animals.
Of birds and insects the genera and species are very numerous and
interesting. The high sierras are frequented by condors and eagles of
the largest size, and the whole country by the common vulture, while the
American ostrich (_Rhea americanus_) and a species of large stork (the
_bata_ or _jaburú_, _Mycteria americana_; maximum height, 8 ft.; spread
of wings, 8 ft. 6 in.) inhabit the tropical plains and valleys.
Waterfowl are numerous and the forests of the warm valleys are filled
with song-birds and birds of beautiful plumage. Many species of
humming-birds are found even far up in the mountains, and great numbers
of parrots, araras and toucans, beautiful of feather but harsh of voice,
enliven the forests of the lowlands.
Like other South American states, Bolivia benefited greatly from the
introduction of European animals. Horses, cattle, sheep, goats, swine
and poultry were introduced, and are now sources of food and wealth to a
large part of the population. Mules are used to a large extent as pack
animals, but they are imported from Argentina. Silkworms have been bred
with success in some departments, and the cochineal insect is found
wherever the conditions are favourable for the cactus.
_Flora._--Owing to the diversities in altitude the flora of Bolivia
represents every climatic zone, from the scanty Arctic vegetation of the
lofty Cordilleras to the luxuriant tropical forests of the Amazon basin.
Between these extremes the diversity in vegetable life is as great as
that of climate and soil. The flora of Bolivia has been studied less
than the flora of the neighbouring republics, however, because of the
inaccessibility of these inland regions. Among the more important
productions, the potato, oca (_Oxalis tuberosa_), quinoa (_Chenopodium
quinoa_) and some coarse grasses characterize the puna region, while
barley, an exotic, is widely grown for fodder. Indian corn was
cultivated in the temperate and warm regions long before the advent of
Europeans, who introduced wheat, rye, oats, beans, pease and the fruits
and vegetables of the Old World, for each of which a favourable soil and
climate was easily found. In the sub-tropical and tropical zones the
indigenous plants are the sweet potato, cassava (_Manihot utilissima_
and _M. aipi_), peanuts, pineapple, guava, chirimoya (_Anona
cherimolia_), pawpaw (_Carica papaya_), _ipecacuanha_ (_Cephaelis_),
sarsaparilla, vanilla, false jalap (_Mirabilis jalapa_), copaiba, tolu
(_Myroxylon toluiferum_), rubber-producing trees, dyewoods, cotton and
a great number of beautiful hardwoods, such as jacarandá, mahogany,
rosewood, quebracho, colo, cedar, walnut, &c. Among the fruits many of
the most common are exotics, as the orange, lemon, lime, fig, date,
grape, &c., while others, as the banana, caju or cashew (_Anacardium
occidentale_) and aguacate avocado or alligator pear, have a disputed
origin. Coca, one of the most important plants of the country, is
cultivated on the eastern slopes of the Andes at an altitude of 5000 to
6000 ft., where the temperature is uniform and frosts are unknown. Quina
or calisaya is a natural product of the eastern Andes, and is found at
an altitude of 3000 to 9000 ft. above sea-level. The calisaya trees of
Bolivia rank among the best, and their bark forms an important item in
her foreign trade. The destructive methods of collecting the bark are
steadily diminishing the natural sources of supply, and experiments in
cinchona cultivation were undertaken during the last quarter of the 19th
century, with fair prospects of success. The most important of the
indigenous forest products, however, is rubber, derived principally from
the _Hevea guayanensis_ (var. _brasiliensis_), growing along the river
courses in the _yungas_ regions of the north, though Maniçoba rubber is
also obtained from _Manihot Glaziovii_ on the drier uplands. Among the
exotics, sugar-cane, rice and tobacco are cultivated in the warm
districts.
_Population._--The population of Bolivia is composed of Indians,
Caucasians of European origin, and a mixture of the two races, generally
described as _mestizos_. There is also a very small percentage of
Africans, descendants of the negro slaves introduced in colonial times.
A roughly-taken census of 1900 gives the total population as 1,816,271,
including the Litoral department, now belonging to Chile (49,820), and
estimates the number of wild Indians of the forest regions at 91,000. Of
this total, 50.7% were classed as Indians, 12.8% as whites, 26.8% as
_mestizos_, 0.3% as negroes, and 9.4% as unknown. In 1904 an official
estimate made the population 2,181,415, also including the Litoral
(59,784), but of course all census returns and estimates in such a
country are subject to many allowances. The Indian population (920,860)
is largely composed of the so-called civilized tribes of the Andes,
which once formed part of the nationality ruled by the Incas, and of
those of the Mojos and Chiquitos regions, which were organized into
industrial communities by the Jesuits in the l7th century. The former,
which are chiefly Aymarás south of the latitude of Lake Titicaca,
attained a considerable degree of civilization before the discovery of
America and have been in closer contact with Europeans than the other
tribes of Bolivia. It is doubtful, however, whether their condition has
been improved under these influences. The Mojos and Chiquitos tribes,
also, have been less prosperous since the expulsion of the Jesuits, but
they have remained together in organized communities, and have followed
the industries and preserved the religion taught them as well as
circumstances permitted. Both these groups of Indians are peaceable and
industrious, and form an important labouring element. They are addicted
to the excessive use of _chica_ (a native beer made from Indian corn),
and have little or no ambition to improve their condition, but this may
be attributed in part to their profound ignorance and to the state of
peonage in which they are held. Inhabiting the southern part of the
Bolivian plain are the Chiriguanos, a detached tribe of the Guarani race
which drifted westward to the vicinity of the Andes long ago. They are
of a superior physical and mental type, and have made noteworthy
progress toward civilization. They are agriculturists and stock-raisers
and have the reputation of being peaceable and industrious. The
remaining native tribes under the supervision of the state have made
little progress, and their number is said to be decreasing
(notwithstanding the favourable climatic conditions under which most of
them live) because of unsanitary and intemperate habits, and for other
causes not well understood, one being the custom noticed by early
travellers among some of the tribes of the La Plata region of avoiding
the rearing of children. (See Southey's _History of Brazil_, iii. pp.
402, 673.) Of the wild Indians very little is known in regard to either
numbers or customs.
The white population (231,088) is descended in great part from the early
Spanish adventurers who entered the country in search of mineral wealth.
To these have been added a small number of Spanish Americans from
neighbouring republics and some Portuguese Americans from Brazil. There
has been no direct immigration from Europe, though Europeans of various
nationalities have found their way into the country and settled there as
miners or traders. The percentage of whites therefore does not increase
as in Argentina and Brazil, and cannot until means are found to promote
European immigration.
The _mestizos_ (486,018) are less numerous than the Indians, but
outnumber the whites by more than two to one. It has been said of the
_mestizos_ elsewhere that they inherit the vices of both races and the
virtues of neither. Yet, with a decreasing Indian population, and with a
white population wanting in energy, barely able to hold its own and
comprising only one-eighth of the total, the future of Bolivia mainly
depends on them. As a rule they are ignorant, unprogressive and
apathetic, intensely superstitious, cruel and intemperate, though
individual strong characters have been produced. It may be that
education and experience will develop the _mestizos_ into a vigorous
progressive nationality, but the first century of self-government can
hardly be said to have given much promise of such a result.
_Divisions and Towns._--The republic is divided into eight departments
and one territory, and these are subdivided into 54 provinces, 415
cantons, 232 vice-cantons, 18 missions and one colony. The names, areas
and populations of the departments, with their capitals, according to
the census of 1900, to which corrections must be made on account of the
loss of territory to Brazil in 1903, are as follows:--
+----------------+-------------+----------+--------------+----------+
| | Area sq. m. |Population| |Population|
| Department. |from Official| 1900.[*] | Capitals. | 1900. |
| | Sources. | | | |
+----------------+-------------+----------+--------------+----------+
| La Paz | 53,777 | 445,616 | La Paz | 54,713 |
| El Beni | 102,111 | 32,180 | Trinidad | 2,556 |
| Oruro | 19,127 | 86,081 | Oruro | 13,575 |
| Cochabamba | 23,328 | 328,163 | Cochabamba | 21,886 |
| Santa Cruz | 141,368 | 209,592 | Santa Cruz de| 15,874 |
| | | | la Sierra | |
| Potosi | 48,801 | 325,615 | Potosi | 20,910 |
| Chuquisaca | 26,418 | 204,434 | Sucré | 20,967 |
| Tarija | 33,036 | 102,887 | Tarija | 6,980 |
| Nat. Territory | 192,260 | 31,883 | | |
+----------------+-------------+----------+--------------+----------+
| | 640,226 |1,766,451 | | |
+----------------+-------------+----------+--------------+----------+
[*] The figures for population include a 5% addition for omissions,
sundry corrections and the estimated number of wild Indians.
The total area according to Gotha computations, with corrections for
loss of territory to Brazil in 1903, is 515,156 sq. m.
There are no populous towns other than the provincial capitals above
enumerated. Four of these capitals--Sucré or Chuquisaca, La Paz,
Cochabamba and Oruro--have served as the national capital, and Sucré was
chosen, but after the revolution of 1898 the capital was at La Paz,
which is the commercial metropolis and is more accessible than Sucré.
Among the smaller towns prominent because of an industry or commercial
position, may be mentioned the Huanchaca mining centre of Pulacayo (pop.
6512), where 3200 men are employed in the mines and surface works of
this great silver mining company; Uyuni (pop. 1587), the junction of the
Pulacayo branch with the Antofagasta and Oruro railway, and also the
converging point for several important highways and projected railways;
and Tupiza (pop. 1644), a commercial and mining centre near the
Argentine frontier, and the terminus of the Argentine railway extension
into Bolivia. All these towns are in the department of Potosi. Viacha
(pop. 1670), a small station on the railway from Guaqui to Alto de La
Paz, 14 m. from the latter, is the starting point of an important
projected railway to Oruro. In the department of Cochabamba, Tarata
(4681) and Totora (3501) are two important trading centres, and in the
department of Santa Cruz, Ascensión (pop. 4784) is a large mission
station in the Chiquitos hills.
_Communications._--Under a treaty with Brazil in 1903 and with Chile in
1904 (ratified 1905) provisions were made for railway construction in
Bolivia to bring this isolated region into more effective communication
with the outside world. Brazil agreed to construct a railway around the
falls of the Madeira (about 180 m. long) to give north-eastern Bolivia
access to the Amazon, and paid down £2,000,000 in cash which Bolivia was
to expend on railway construction within her own territory. Chile also
agreed to construct a railway from Arica to La Paz, 295 m. (the Bolivian
section becoming the property of Bolivia fifteen years after
completion), and to pay the interest (not over 5%) which Bolivia might
guarantee on the capital invested in certain interior railways if
constructed within thirty years, providing these interest payments
should not exceed £100,000 a year, nor exceed £1,600,000 in the
aggregate. Argentina had already undertaken to extend her northern
railway from Jujuy to the Bolivian frontier town of Tupiza, and the
Peruvian Corporation had constructed for the Bolivian government a short
line (54 m. long) from Guaqui, on Lake Titicaca, to Alto de La Paz,
which is connected with the city of La Paz, 1493 ft. below, by an
electric line 5 m. long. This line gives La Paz access to the Peruvian
port of Mollendo, 496 m. distant, and promises in time to give it
railway communication with Cuzco. Rivalry for the control of her trade,
therefore, promises to give Bolivia the railways needed for the
development of her resources. Up to 1903 the only railways in Bolivia
were the Antofagasta and Oruro line, with a total length of 574 m., of
which 350 m. are within Bolivian territory, a private branch of that
line (26 m. long) running to the Pulacayo mines, and the line (54 m.
long) from Guaqui to Alto de La Paz--a total of only 430 m. As a result
of her war with Chile in 1878-81, the railways (282 m. long) of her
Litoral department passed under Chilean control. Lines were in 1907
projected from La Paz to the navigable waters of the Beni, from La Paz
to Cochabamba, from Viacha to Oruro, from Uyuni to Potosi and Sucré,
from Uyuni to Tupiza, and from Arica to La Paz via Corocoro. The central
northern line of the Argentine government was completed to the Bolivian
frontier in 1908, and this line was designed to extend to Tupiza. The
undertaking of the Arica-La Paz line by the Chilean government, also,
was an important step towards the improvement of the economic situation
in Bolivia. Both these lines offer the country new outlets for its
products.
Public highways have been constructed between the large cities and to
some points on the frontiers, and subsidized stage coaches are run on
some of them. The roads are rough and at times almost impassable,
however, and the river crossings difficult and dangerous. The large
cities are connected with one another by telegraph lines and are in
communication with the outside world through Argentina, Chile and Peru.
Telegraph service dates from 1880, and in 1904 there were 3115 m. in
operation, of which 1936 belonged to the state and 1179 to private
corporations. The latter includes the lines belonging to the Antofagasta
and Oruro railway, which are partly within Chilean territory. Bolivia is
a member of the International Postal Union, and has parcel and money
order conventions with some foreign countries. Special agreements have
been made, also, with Argentina, Chile and Peru for the transmission of
the Bolivian foreign mails.
The loss of her maritime department has left Bolivia with no other ports
than those of Lake Titicaca (especially Guaqui, or Huaqui, which trades
with the Peruvian port of Puno), and those of the Madeira and Paraguay
rivers and their affluents. As none of these can be reached without
transhipment in foreign territory, the cost of transport is increased,
and her neighbours are enabled to exclude Bolivia from direct commercial
intercourse with other nations. An exception formerly existed at Puerto
Acré, on the Acré river, to which ocean-going steamers could ascend from
Pará, but Brazil first closed the Purús and Acré rivers to foreign
vessels seeking this port, and then under a treaty of 1903 acquired
possession of the port and adjacent territory. Since then Bolivia's
outlet to the Amazon is restricted to the Madeira river, the navigation
of which is interrupted by a series of falls before Bolivian territory
is reached. The Bolivian port of entry for this trade, Villa Bella, is
situated above the falls of the Madeira at the confluence of the Beni
and Mamoré, and is reached from the lower river by a long and costly
portage. It is also shut off from the navigable rivers above by the
falls of the Beni and Mamoré. The railway to be built by Brazil will
remedy this unfavourable situation, will afford a better outlet for
north-eastern Bolivia, and should promote a more rapid development of
that region, which is covered with an admirable system of navigable
rivers above the falls of the Beni and Mamoré. Connected with the upper
Paraguay are Puerto Pacheco on Bahia Negra, Puerto Suarez (about 1600 m.
from Buenos Aires by river), on Lake Cáceres, through which passes the
bulk of Bolivian trade in that direction, and Puerto Quijarro, on Lake
Gaiba, a projected port said to be more accessible than any other in
this region. Whenever the trade of southern Bolivia becomes important
enough to warrant the expense of opening a navigable channel in the
Pilcomayo, direct river communication with Buenos Aires and Montevideo
will be possible.
_Industries._--Stock-raising was one of the earliest industries of the
country after that of mining. Horses, formerly successfully raised in
certain parts of the north, have not flourished there since the
introduction of a _peste_ from Brazil, but some are now raised in La Paz
and other departments of the temperate region. The Jesuit founders of
the Mojos missions took cattle with them when they entered that region
to labour among the Indians, with the result that the Mojos and
Chiquitos llanos were soon well stocked, and have since afforded an
unfailing supply of beef for the neighbouring inland markets. Their
inaccessibility and the costs of transportation have prevented a
development of the industry and a consequent improvement in stock, but
the persistency of the industry under conditions so unfavourable is
evidence that the soil and climate are suited to its requirements.
Farther south the llanos of Chuquisaca and Tarija also sustain large
herds of cattle on the more elevated districts, and on the well-watered
plains of the Chaco. There are small districts in La Paz, Potosi and
Cochabamba, also, where cattle are raised. Apart from the cattle driven
into the mining districts for consumption, a number of _saladeros_ are
employed in preparing (usually salting and sun-drying) beef for the home
markets. The hides are exported. Goats are raised in the warm and
temperate regions, and sheep for their wool in the latter. On the higher
and colder plateaus much attention is given to the breeding of llamas
and alpacas. Another industry of a different character is that of
breeding the fur-bearing chinchilla (_C. laniger_), which is a native of
the higher plateaus. The Bolivian government has prohibited the
exportation of the live animals and is encouraging their production.
The agricultural resources of the republic are varied and of great
value, but their development has been slow and hesitating. The
cultivation of cereals, fruits and vegetables in the temperate and warm
valleys of the Andes followed closely the mining settlements. Sugar-cane
also was introduced at an early date, but as the demand for sugar was
limited the product was devoted chiefly to the manufacture of rum, which
is the principal object of cane cultivation in Bolivia to-day. The
climatic conditions are highly favourable for this product in eastern
Bolivia, but it is heavily taxed and is restricted to a small home
market. Rice is another exotic grown in the tropical districts of
eastern Bolivia, but the quantity produced is far from sufficient to
meet local requirements. Tobacco of a fair quality is produced in the
warm regions of the east, including the _yungas_ valleys of La Paz and
Cochabamba; cacáo of a superior grade is grown in the department of
Beni, where large orchards were planted at the missions, and also in the
warm Andean valleys of La Paz and Cochabamba; and coffee of the best
flavour is grown in some of the warmer districts of the eastern Andes.
The two indigenous products which receive most attention, perhaps, are
those of quinoa and coca. Quinoa is grown in large quantities, and is a
staple article of food among the natives. Coca is highly esteemed by
the natives, who masticate the leaf, and is also an article of export
for medicinal purposes. It is extensively cultivated in the departments
of Cochabamba and La Paz, especially in the province of Yungas.
In the exploitation of her forest products, however, are to be found the
industries that yield the greatest immediate profit to Bolivia. The most
prominent and profitable of these is that of rubber-collecting, which
was begun in Bolivia between 1880 and 1890, and which reached a
registered annual output of nearly 3500 metric tons just before
Bolivia's best rubber forests were transferred to Brazil in 1903. There
still remain extensive areas of forest on the Beni and Madre de Dios in
which the rubber-producing _Hevea_ is to be found. Although representing
less value in the aggregate, the collecting of cinchona bark is one of
the oldest forest industries of Bolivia, which is said still to have
large areas of virgin forest to draw upon. The Bolivian product is of
the best because of the high percentage of quinine sulphate which it
yields. The industry is destructive in method, and the area of cinchona
forests is steadily diminishing. Many other Bolivian plants are
commercially valuable, and organized industry and trade in them will
certainly be profitable.
The industrial activities of the Bolivian people are still of a very
primitive character. An act was passed in 1894 authorizing the
government to offer premiums and grant advantageous concessions for the
development of manufacturing industries, especially in sugar production,
but conditions have not been favourable and the results have been
disappointing. Spinning and weaving are carried on among the people as a
household occupation, and fabrics are made of an exceptionally
substantial character. It is not uncommon to see the natives busily
twirling their rude spindles as they follow their troops of pack animals
over rough mountain roads, and the yarn produced is woven into cloth in
their own houses on rough Spanish looms of colonial patterns. Not only
is coarse cloth for their own garments made in this manner from the
fleece of the llama, but cotton and woollen goods of a serviceable
character are manufactured, and still finer fabrics are woven from the
wool of the alpaca and vicuña, sometimes mixed with silk or lamb's wool.
The Indian women are expert weavers, and their handiwork often commands
high prices. In the Mojos and Chiquitos districts the natives were
taught by the Jesuit missionaries to weave an excellent cotton cloth,
and the industry still exists. Cashmere, baize, waterproof _ponchos_ of
fine wool and silk, and many other fabrics are made by the Indians of
the Andean departments. They are skilled in the use of dyes, and the
Indian women pride themselves on a large number of finely-woven,
brilliantly-coloured petticoats. Tanning and saddlery are carried on by
the natives with primitive methods, but with excellent results. They are
skilful in the preparation of lap robes and rugs from the skins of the
alpaca and vicuña. The home markets are supplied, by native industry,
with cigars and cigarettes, soap, candles, hats, gloves, starch, cheese
and pottery. Sugar is still made in the old way, and there is a small
production of wine and silk in certain districts. No country is better
supplied with water power, and electric lighting and electric power
plants have been established at La Paz.
_Commerce._--The foreign trade of Bolivia is comparatively unimportant,
but the statistical returns are incomplete and unsatisfactory; the
imports of 1904 aggregated only £1,734,551 in value, and the exports
only £1,851,758. The imports consisted of cottons, woollens, live-stock,
provisions, hardware and machinery, wines, spirits and clothing. The
principal exports were (in 1903) silver and its ores (£636,743), tin and
its ores (£1,039,298), copper ores (£157,609), bismuth (£16,354), other
minerals (£20,948), rubber (£260,559), coca (£28,907), and cinchona
(£9197)--total exports, £2,453,638. These figures, however, do not
correctly represent the aggregates of Bolivian trade, as her imports and
exports passing through Antofagasta, Arica and Mollendo are to a large
extent credited to Chile and Peru. The import trade of Bolivia is
restricted by the poverty of the people. The geographical position
limits the exports to mineral, forest and some pastoral products, owing
to cost of transportation and the tariffs of neighbouring countries.
_Government._--The government of Bolivia is a "unitarian" or centralized
republic, representative in form, but autocratic in some important
particulars. The constitution in force (1908) was adopted on the 28th of
October 1880, and is a model in form and profession. The executive
branch of the government is presided over by a president and two
vice-presidents, who are elected by direct popular vote for a period of
four years, and are not eligible for re-election for the next succeeding
term. The president is assisted by a cabinet of five ministers of state,
viz.: foreign relations and worship; finance and industry; interior and
fomento; justice and public instruction; war and colonization. Every
executive act must be countersigned by a minister of state, who is held
responsible for its character and enforcement, and may be prosecuted
before the supreme court for its illegality and effects. The legislative
branch is represented by a national congress of two houses--a Senate and
Chamber of Deputies. The Senate is composed of 16 members, two from each
department, who are elected by direct popular vote for a period of six
years, one-third retiring every two years. The Chamber of Deputies is
composed of 72 members, who are elected for a period of four years,
one-half retiring every two years. In impeachment trials the Chamber
prosecutes and the Senate sits as a court, as in the United States. One
of the duties of the Chamber is to elect the justices of the supreme
court. Congress meets annually and its sessions are for sixty days,
which may be extended to ninety days. The chambers have separate and
concurrent powers defined by the constitution. The right of suffrage is
exercised by all male citizens, twenty-one years of age, or over, if
single, and eighteen years, or over, if married, who can read and write,
and own real estate or have an income of 200 bolivianos a year, said
income not to be compensation for services as a servant. The electoral
body is therefore small, and is under the control of a political
oligarchy which practically rules the country, no matter which party is
in power.
The Bolivian judiciary consists of a national supreme court, eight
superior district courts, lower district courts, and _juzgados de
instrucción_ for the investigation and preparation of cases. The
_corregidores_ and _alcaldes_ also exercise the functions of a justice
of the peace in the cantons and rural districts. The supreme court is
composed of seven justices elected by the Chamber of Deputies from lists
of three names for each seat sent in by the Senate. A justice can be
removed only by impeachment proceedings before the Senate.
The supreme administration in each department is vested in a prefect
appointed by and responsible solely to the president. As the prefect has
the appointment of subordinate department officials, including the
_alcaldes_, the authority of the national executive reaches every hamlet
in the republic, and may easily become autocratic. There are no
legislative assemblies in the departments, and their government rests
with the national executive and congress. Subordinate to the prefects
are the sub-prefects in the provinces, the _corregidores_ in the cantons
and the _alcaldes_ in the rural districts--all appointed officials. The
national territory adjacent to Brazil and Peru is governed by two
_delegados nacionales_, appointees of the president. The department
capitals are provided with municipal councils which have jurisdiction
over certain local affairs, and over the construction and maintenance of
some of the highways.
_Army._--The military forces of the republic in 1905 included 2890
regulars and an enrolled force of 80,000 men, divided into a first
reserve of 30,000, a second reserve of 40,000, and 10,000 territorial
guards. The enrolled force is, however, both unorganized and unarmed.
The strength of the army is fixed in each year's budget. That for 1903
consisted of 2933 officers and men, of which 275 were commissioned and
558 non-commissioned officers, 181 musicians, and only 1906 rank and
file. A conscription law of 1894 provides for a compulsory military
service between the ages of twenty-one and fifty years, with two years'
actual service in the regulars for those between twenty-one and
twenty-five, but the law is practically a dead letter. There is a
military school with 60 cadets, and an arsenal at La Paz.
_Education._--Although Bolivia has a free and compulsory school system,
education and the provision for education have made little progress.
Only a small percentage of the people can read and write. Although
Spanish is the language of the dominant minority, Quichua, Aymará and
Guarani are the languages of the natives, who form a majority of the
population. A considerable percentage of the Indians do not understand
Spanish at all, and they even resist every effort to force it upon them.
Even the _cholos_ (mestizos) are more familiar with the native idioms
than with Spanish, as is the case in some parts of Argentina and
Paraguay. According to official estimates for 1901, the total number of
primary schools in the republic was 733, with 938 teachers and 41,587
pupils--the total cost of their maintenance being estimated at 585,365
bolivianos, or only 14.07 bolivianos per pupil (about £1:4:6). The
school enrolment was only one in 43.7 of population, compared with one
in 10 for Argentina. The schools are largely under the control of the
municipalities, though nearly half of them are maintained by the
national government, by the Church and by private means. There were in
the same year 13 institutions of secondary and 14 of superior
instruction. The latter include so-called universities at Sucré
(Chuquisaca), La Paz, Cochabamba, Tarija, Potosi, Santa Cruz and
Oruro--all of which give instruction in law, the first three in medicine
and the first four in theology. The university at Sucré, which dates
from colonial times, and that at La Paz, are the only ones on the list
sufficiently well equipped to merit the title. Secondary instruction is
under the control of the universities, and public instruction in general
is under the direction of a cabinet minister. All educational matters,
however, are practically under the supervision of the Church. The total
appropriation for educational purposes in 1901 was 756,943 bolivianos,
or £66,232:6s. There are a military academy at La Paz, an agricultural
school at Umala in the department of La Paz, a mining and civil
engineering school at Oruro, commercial schools at Sucré and Trinidad,
and several mission schools under the direction of religious orders.
_Religion._--The constitution of Bolivia, art. 2, defines the attitude
of the republic toward the Church in the following words:--"The state
recognizes and supports the Roman Apostolic Catholic religion, the
public exercise of any other worship being prohibited, except in the
colonies where it is tolerated." This toleration is tacitly extended to
resident foreigners belonging to other religious sects. The census of
1900 enumerated the Roman Catholic population at 1,609,365, and that of
other creeds at 24,245, which gives the former 985 and the latter 15 in
every thousand. The domesticated Indians profess the Roman Catholic
faith, but it is tinged with the superstitions of their ancestors. They
hold the clergy in great fear and reverence, however, and are deeply
influenced by the forms and ceremonies of the church, which have changed
little since the first Spanish settlements. Bolivia is divided into an
archbishopric and three bishoprics. The first includes the departments
of Chuquisaca, Oruro, Potosi, Tarija and the Chilean province of
Antofagasta, with its seat at Sucré, and is known as the archbishopric
of La Plata. The sees of the three bishoprics are La Paz, Cochabamba and
Santa Cruz. Mission work among the Indians is entrusted to the
_Propaganda Fide_, which has five colleges and a large number of
missions, and receives a small subvention from the state. It is
estimated that these missions have charge of fully 20,000 Indians. The
annual appropriation for the Church is about £17,150. The religious
orders, which have never been suppressed in Bolivia, maintain several
convents.
_Finance._--No itemized returns of receipts and expenditures are ever
published, and the estimates presented to congress by the cabinet
ministers furnish the only source from which information can be drawn.
The expenditures are not large, and taxation is not considered heavy.
The estimated revenues and expenditures for 1904 and 1905 at 21 pence
per boliviano, were as follows: 1904, revenue £632,773:15s., expenditure
£748,571:10s.; 1905, revenue £693,763:17:6, expenditure £828,937:19:9.
The revenues are derived principally from duties and fees on imports,
excise taxes on spirits, wines, tobacco and sugar, general, mining
taxes and export duties on minerals (except silver), export duties on
rubber and coca, taxes on the profits of stock companies, fees for
licences and patents, stamp taxes, and postal and telegraph revenues.
Nominally, the import duties are moderate, so much so that Bolivia is
sometimes called a "free-trade country," but this is a misnomer, for in
addition to the schedule rates of 10 to 40% _ad valorem_ on imports,
there are a consular fee of 1½% for the registration of invoices
exceeding 200 bolivianos, a consumption tax of 10 centavos per quintal
(46 kilogrammes), fees for viséing certificates to accompany merchandise
in transit, special "octroi" taxes on certain kinds of merchandise
controlled by monopolies (spirits, tobacco, &c.), and the import and
consumption taxes levied by the departments and municipalities. The
expenditures are chiefly for official salaries, subsidies, public works,
church and mission support, justice, public instruction, military
expenses, and interest on the public debt. The appropriations for 1905
were as follows: war, 2,081,119 bolivianos; finance and industry,
1,462,259; government and fomento, 2,021,428; justice and public
instruction, 1,878,941.
The acknowledged public debt of the country is comparatively small. At
the close of the war with Chile there was an indemnity debt due to
citizens of that republic of 6,550,830 bolivianos, which had been nearly
liquidated in 1904 when Chile took over the unpaid balance. This was
Bolivia's only foreign debt. In 1905 her internal debt, including
1,998,500 bolivianos of treasury bills, amounted to 6,243,270 bolivianos
(£546,286). The government in 1903 authorized the issue of treasury
notes for the department of Beni and the National Territory to the
amount of one million bolivianos (£87,500), for the redemption of which
10% of the customs receipts of the two districts is set apart. The paper
currency of the republic consists of bank-notes issued by four private
banks, and is therefore no part of the public debt. The amount in
circulation on the 30th of June 1903 was officially estimated at
9,144,254 bolivianos (£800,122), issued on a par with silver. The
coinage of the country is of silver, nickel and copper. The silver coins
are of the denominations of 1 boliviano, or 100 centavos, 50, 20, 10 and
5 centavos, and the issue of these coins from the Potosi mint is said to
be about 1,500,000 bolivianos a year. The silver mining companies are
required by law to send to the mint 20% of their product. The silver
boliviano, however, is rarely seen in circulation because of the cheaper
paper currency. To check the exportation of silver coin, the fractional
denominations have been slightly debased. The nickel coins are of 5 and
10 centavos, and the copper 1 and 2 centavos.
The departmental revenues, which are derived from excise and land taxes,
mining grants, tithes, inheritance taxes, tolls, stamp taxes, subsidies
from the national treasury and other small taxes, were estimated at
2,296,172 bolivianos in 1903, and the expenditures at 2,295,791
bolivianos. The expenditures were chiefly for justice, police, public
works, public instruction and the Church. The municipal revenues
aggregated 2,317,670 bolivianos in 1902, and the expenditures 61,510
bolivianos in excess of that sum. These revenues are derived from a
lighting tax, leases and ground rents, cemetery fees, consumption and
market taxes, licences, tolls, taxes on hides and skins, personal and
various minor taxes. There is a multiplication of taxes in trade which
recalls the old colonial _alcabala_ tax, and it serves to restrict
commerce and augment the cost of goods in much the same way, if not to
the same degree.
AUTHORITIES.--M.V. Ballivián, _Apuntes sobre la industria de goma
elastica, &c._ (La Paz, 1896); _Noticia Politica, Geográfica,
Industrial, y Estadistica de Bolivia_ (La Paz, 1900); _Breves
Indicaciones para el Inmigrante y el Viajero à Bolivia_ (La Paz,
1898); _Monografias de la Industria Minera en Bolivia_, three parts
(La Paz, 1899-1900); _Relaciones Geográficas de Bolivia existentes en
el Archivo de la Oficina Nacional de Inmigración, &c._ (La Paz, 1898);
M.V. Ballivián and Eduardo Idiaquez, _Diccionario Geográfico de la
República de Bolivia_ (La Paz, 1900); André Bresson, _Sept années
d'explorations, de voyages et de séjours dans l'Amérique australe_
(Paris, 1886); Enrique Bolland, _Exploraciones practicadas en el Alto
Paraguay y en la Laguna Gaiba_ (Buenos Aires, 1901); G.E. Church _The
Route to Bolivia via the River Amazon_ (London, 1877); G.E. Church,
"Bolivia by the Rio de la Plata Route," _Geogr. Jour._ xix. pp. 64-73
(London, 1902); C.B. Cisneros and R.E. Garcia, _Geografia Comercial de
la America del Sur_ (Lima, 1898); Sir W.M. Conway, _Climbing and
Exploration in the Bolivian Andes_ (London, 1903); M. Dalence,
_Bosquejo estadistico de Bolivia_ (Chuquisaca, 1878); J.L. Moreno,
_Nociones de geografia de Bolivia_ (Sucré, 1889); Edward D. Mathews,
_Up the Amazon and Madeira Rivers, through Bolivia and Peru_ (London,
1879); Carlos Matzenauer, _Bolivia in historischer, geographischer und
cultureller Hinsicht_ (Vienna, 1897); M.F. Soldan, _Narracion de
Guerra de Chile contra Peru y Bolivia_ (La Paz, 1884); C.M. Pepper,
_Panama to Patagonia_ (Chicago, 1906); A. Petrocokino, _Along the
Andes, in Bolivia, Peru, and Ecuador_ (London, 1903); Comte C.
d'Ursel, _Sud Amérique: Séjours et voyages au Brésil, en Bolivie, &c._
(Paris, 1879); Charles Wiener, _Pérou et Bolivie_ (Paris, 1880);
_Bolivia, Geographical Sketch, Natural Resources, &c._, Intern. Bur.
of the American Republics (Washington, 1904); _Boletin de la Oficina
Nacional de Inmigración, Estadistica y Propaganda Geográfica_ (La
Paz); _Sinopsis estadistica y geográfica de la Republica de Bolivia_
(3 vols., La Paz, 1902-1904); G. de Crequi-Montfort, "Exploration en
Bolivie," in _La Géographie_, ix. pp. 79-86 (Paris, 1904); M.
Neveau-Lemaire, "Le Titicaca et le Poopo," &c., in _La Géographie_,
ix. pp. 409-430 (Paris, 1904); _British Foreign Office Diplomatic and
Consular Reports_ (London); _United States Consular Reports_;
Stanford's _Compendium of Geography and Travel_, vol. i., _South and
Central America_ (London, 1904). For Geology see A. d'Orbigny, _Voyage
dans l'Amérique méridionale_, vol. iii. pt. iii. (Paris, 1842); D.
Forbes, "On the Geology of Bolivia and Peru," _Quart. Journ. Geol.
Soc._ vol. xvii. (London, 1861), pp. 7-62, pls. i.-iii.; A. Ulrich,
"Palaeozoische Versteinerungen aus Bolivien," _Neues Jahrb. f. Min._
Band viii. (1893), pp. 5-116, pls. i.-v.; G. Steinmann, &c., "Geologie
des südostlichen Boliviens," _Centralb. f. Min., Jahrg._ (1904), pp.
1-4. (A. J. L.)
HISTORY
The country now forming the republic of Bolivia, named after the great
liberator Simon Bolivar (q.v.), was in early days simply a portion of
the empire of the Incas of Peru (q.v.). After the conquest of Peru by
the Spaniards in the 16th century the natives were subjected to much
tyranny and oppression, though it must in fairness be said that much of
it was carried out in defiance of the efforts and the wishes of the
Spanish home government, whose legislative efforts to protect the
Indians from serfdom and ill-usage met with scant respect at the hands
of the distant settlers and mine-owners, who bid defiance to the humane
and protective regulations of the council of the Indies, and treated the
unhappy natives little better than beasts of burden. The statement,
moreover, that some eight millions of Indians perished through forced
labour in the mines is a gross exaggeration. The annual diminution in
the number of the Indian population was undoubtedly very great, but it
was due far more to the result of European epidemics and to indulgence
in alcohol than to hard work. The abortive insurrection of 1780-82, led
by the Inca Tupac Amarú, was never a general rising, and was directed
rather against Creole tyranny than against Spanish rule. The heavy
losses sustained by the Indians during that outbreak, and their dislike
and distrust of the colonial Spaniard, account for the comparative
indifference with which they viewed the rise and progress of the 1814
colonial revolt against Spain, which gave the South American states
their independence.
War of Independence.
We are only concerned here with the War of Independence so far as it
affected Upper Peru, the Bolivia of later days. When the patriots of
Buenos Aires had succeeded in liberating from the dominion of Spain the
interior provinces of the Rio de la Plata, they turned their arms
against their enemies who held Upper Peru. An almost uninterrupted
warfare followed, from July 1809 till August 1825, with alternate
successes on the side of the Spanish or royalist and the South American
or patriot forces,--the scene of action lying chiefly between the
Argentine provinces of Salta and Jujuy and the shores of Lake Titicaca.
The first movement of the war was the successful invasion of Upper Peru
by the army of Buenos Aires, under General Balcarce, which, after twice
defeating the Spanish troops, was able to celebrate the first
anniversary of independence near Lake Titicaca, in May 1811. Soon,
however, the patriot army, owing to the dissolute conduct and negligence
of its leaders, became disorganized, and was attacked and defeated, in
June 1811, by the Spanish army under Gey fol Goyeneche, and driven back
into Jujuy. Four years of warfare, in which victory was alternately
with the Spaniards and the patriots, was terminated in 1815 by the total
rout of the latter in a battle which took place between Potosi and
Oruro. To this succeeded a revolt of the Indians of the southern
provinces of Peru, and the object being the independence of the whole
country, it was joined by numerous Creoles. This insurrection was,
however, speedily put down by the royalists. In 1816 the Spanish general
Laserna, having been appointed commander-in-chief of Upper Peru, made an
attempt to invade the Argentine provinces, intending to march on Buenos
Aires, but he was completely foiled in this by the activity of the
irregular _gaucho_ troops of Salta and Jujuy, and was forced to retire.
During this time and in the six succeeding years a guerrilla warfare was
maintained by the patriots of Upper Peru, who had taken refuge in the
mountains, chiefly of the province of Yungas, and who frequently
harassed the royalist troops. In June 1823 the expedition of General
Santa Cruz, prepared with great zeal and activity at Lima, marched in
two divisions upon Upper Peru, and in the following months of July and
August the whole country between La Paz and Oruro was occupied by his
forces; but later, the indecision and want of judgment displayed by
Santa Cruz allowed a retreat to be made before a smaller royalist army,
and a severe storm converted their retreat into a precipitate flight,
only a remnant of the expedition again reaching Lima. In 1824, after the
great battle of Ayacucho in Lower Peru, General Sucre, whose valour had
contributed so much to the patriot success of that day, marched with a
part of the victorious army into Upper Peru. On the news of the victory
a universal rising of the patriots took place, and before Sucre had
reached Oruro and Puno, in February 1825, La Paz was already in their
possession, and the royalist garrisons of several towns had gone over to
their side. The Spanish general Olañeta, with a diminished army of 2000
men, was confined to the province of Potosi, where he held out till
March 1825, when he was mortally wounded in an action with some of his
own revolted troops.
Bolivia a nation.
General Sucre was now invested with the supreme command in Upper Peru,
until the requisite measures could be taken to establish in that country
a regular and constitutional government. Deputies from the various
provinces to the number of fifty-four were assembled at Chuquisaca, the
capital, to decide upon the question proposed to them on the part of the
government of the Argentine provinces, whether they would or would not
remain separate from that country. In August 1825 they decided this
question, declaring it to be the national will that Upper Peru should in
future constitute a distinct and independent nation. This assembly
continued their session, although the primary object of their meeting
had thus been accomplished, and afterwards gave the name of Bolivia to
the country,--issuing at the same time a formal declaration of
independence.
The first general assembly of deputies of Bolivia dissolved itself on
the 6th of October 1825, and a new congress was summoned and formally
installed at Chuquisaca on the 25th of May 1826, to take into
consideration the constitution prepared by Bolivar for the new republic.
A favourable report was made to that body by a committee appointed to
examine it, on which it was approved by the congress, and declared to be
the constitution of the republic; and as such, it was sworn to by the
people. General Sucre was chosen president for life, according to the
constitution, but only accepted the appointment for the space of two
years, and on the express condition that 2000 Colombian troops should be
permitted to remain with him.
The independence of the country, so dearly bought, did not, however,
secure for it a peaceful future. Repeated risings occurred, till in the
end of 1827 General Sucre and his Colombian troops were driven from La
Paz. A new congress was formed at Chuquisaca in April 1828, which
modified the constitution given by Bolivar, and chose Marshal Santa Cruz
for president; but only a year later a revolution, led by General
Blanco, threw the country into disorder and for a time overturned the
government. Quiet being again restored in 1831, Santa Cruz promulgated
the code of laws which bore his name, and brought the financial affairs
of the country into some order; he also concluded a treaty of commerce
with Peru, and for several years Bolivia remained in peace. In 1835,
when a struggle for the chief power had made two factions in the
neighbouring republic of Peru, Santa Cruz was induced to take a part in
the contest; he marched into that country, and after defeating General
Gamarra, the leader of one of the opposing parties, completed the
pacification of Peru in the spring of 1836, named himself its protector,
and had in view a confederation of the two countries. At this juncture
the government of Chile interfered actively, and espousing the cause of
Gamarra, sent troops into Peru. Three years of fighting ensued till in a
battle at Jungay in June 1839 Santa Cruz was defeated and exiled,
Gamarra became president of Peru, and General Velasco provisional chief
in Bolivia. The Santa Cruz party, however, remained strong in Bolivia,
and soon revolted successfully against the new head of the government,
ultimately installing General Ballivian in the chief power. Taking
advantage of the disturbed condition of Bolivia, Gamarra made an attempt
to annex the rich province of La Paz, invading it in August 1841 and
besieging the capital; but in a battle with Ballivian his army was
totally routed, and Gamarra himself was killed. The Bolivian general was
now in turn to invade Peru, when Chile again interfered to prevent him.
Ballivian remained in the presidency till 1848, when he retired to
Valparaiso, and in the end of that year General Belzu, after leading a
successful military revolution, took the chief power, and during his
presidency endeavoured to promote agriculture, industry and trade.
General Jorge Cordova succeeded him, but had not been long in office
when a new revolt in September 1857, originating with the garrison of
Oruro, spread over the land, and compelled him to quit the country. His
place was taken by Dr José Maria Linares, the originator of the
revolution, who, taking into his own hands all the powers of government,
and acting with the greatest severity, caused himself to be proclaimed
dictator in March 1858. Fresh disturbances led to the deposition of
Linares in 1861, when Dr Maria de Acha was chosen president. In 1862 a
treaty of peace and commerce with the United States was ratified, and in
the following year a similar treaty was concluded with Belgium; but new
causes of disagreement with Chile had arisen in the discovery of rich
beds of guano on the eastern coast-land of the desert of Atacama, which
threatened warfare, and were only set at rest by the treaty of August
1866, in which the 24th parallel of latitude was adopted as the boundary
between the two republics. A new military revolution, led by Maria
Melgarejo, broke out in 1865, and in February of that year the troops of
President Acha were defeated in a battle near Potosi, when Melgarejo
took the dominion of the country. After defeating two revolutions, in
1865 and 1866, the new president declared a political amnesty, and in
1869, after imposing a revised constitution on the country, he became
its dictator.
Recent history.
In January 1871 President Melgarejo was in his turn deposed and driven
from the country by a revolution headed by Colonel Augustin Morales. The
latter, becoming president, was himself murdered in November 1872 and
was succeeded by Colonel Adolfo Ballivian, who died in 1874. Under this
president Bolivia entered upon a secret agreement with Peru which was
destined to have grave consequences for both countries. To understand
the reasons that urged Bolivia to take this step it is necessary to go
back to the above-mentioned treaty of 1866 between Chile and Bolivia. By
this instrument Bolivia, besides conceding the 24th parallel as the
boundary of Chilean territory, agreed that Chile should have a half
share of the customs and full facilities for trading on the coast that
lay between the 23rd and 24th parallels, Chile at that time being
largely interested in the trade of that region. It was also agreed that
Chile should be allowed to mine and export the products of this district
without tax or hindrance on the part of Bolivia. In 1870, in further
consideration of the sum of $10,000, Bolivia granted to an Anglo-Chilean
company the right of working certain nitrate deposits north of the 24th
parallel. The great wealth which was passing into Chilean hands owing to
these compacts created no little discontent in Bolivia, nor was Peru
any better pleased with the hold that Chilean capital was establishing
in the rich district of Tarapacá. On 6th February 1873 Bolivia entered
upon a secret agreement with Peru, the ostensible object of which was
the preservation of their territorial integrity and their mutual defence
against exterior aggression. There can be no doubt that the aggression
contemplated as possible by both countries was a further encroachment on
the part of Chile.
Upon the death of Adolfo Ballivian, immediately after the conclusion of
this treaty with Peru, Dr Tomas Frias succeeded to the presidency. He
signed yet another treaty with Chile, by which the latter agreed to
withdraw her claim to half the duties levied in Bolivian ports on
condition that all Chilean industries established in Bolivian territory
should be free from duty for twenty-five years. This treaty was never
ratified, and four years later General Hilarion Daza, who had succeeded
Dr Frias as president in 1876, demanded as the price of Bolivia's
consent that a tax of 10 cents per quintal should be paid on all
nitrates exported from the country, further declaring that, unless this
levy was paid, nitrates in the hands of the exporters would be seized by
the Bolivian government. As an answer to these demands, and in order to
protect the property of Chilean subjects, the Chilean fleet was sent to
blockade the ports of Antofagasta, Cobija and Tocapilla. On the 14th
February 1879 the Chilean colonel Sotomayor occupied Antofagasta, and on
1st March, a fortnight later, the Bolivian government declared war.
An offer on the part of Peru to act as mediator met with no favour from
Chile. The existence of the secret treaty, well known to the Chilean
government, rendered the intervention of Peru more than questionable,
and the law passed by the latter in 1875, which practically created a
monopoly of the Tarapacá nitrate beds to the serious prejudice of
Chilean enterprise, offered no guarantee of her good faith. Chile
replied by curtly demanding the annulment of the secret treaty and an
assurance of Peruvian neutrality. Both demands being refused, she
declared war upon Peru.
The superiority of the Chileans at sea, though checked for some time by
the heroic gallantry of the Peruvians, soon enabled them to land a
sufficient number of troops to meet the allied forces which had
concentrated at Arica and other points in the south. The Bolivian ports
were already in Chilean hands, and a sea attack upon Pisagua surprised
and routed the troops under the Peruvian general Buendia and opened the
way into the southern territory of Peru. General Daza, who should have
cooperated with Buendia, turned back, on receiving news of the Peruvian
defeat, and led the Bolivian troops to Tacna in a hasty and somewhat
disorderly retreat. The fall of San Francisco followed, and Iquique,
which was evacuated by the allies without a struggle, was occupied.
Severe fighting took place before Tarapacá surrendered, but the end of
1879 saw the Chileans in complete possession of the province.
Meanwhile a double revolution took place in Peru and Bolivia. In the
former country General Prado was deposed and Colonel Pierola proclaimed
dictator. The Bolivians followed the example of their allies. The troops
at Tacna, indignant at the inglorious part they had been condemned to
play by the incompetence or cowardice of their president, deprived him
of their command and elected Colonel Camacho to lead them. At the same
time a revolution in La Paz proclaimed General Narciso Campero
president, and he was elected to that post in the following June by the
ordinary procedure of the constitution. During 1880 the war was chiefly
maintained at sea between Chile and Peru, Bolivia taking little or no
part in the struggle. In January of 1881 were fought the battles of
Chorillos and Miraflores, attended by heavy slaughter and savage
excesses on the part of the Chilean troops. They were followed almost
immediately by the surrender of Lima and Callao, which left the Chileans
practically masters of Peru. In the interior, however, where the
Peruvian admiral Montero had formed a provisional government, the war
still lingered, and in September 1882 a conference took place between
the latter and President Campero, at which it was decided that they
should hold out for better terms. But the Peruvians wearied of the
useless struggle. On the 20th of October 1883 they concluded a treaty of
peace with Chile; the troops at Arequipa, under Admiral Montero,
surrendered that town, and Montero himself, coldly received in Bolivia,
whither he had fled for refuge, withdrew from the country to Europe. On
the 9th of November the Chilean army of occupation was concentrated at
Arequipa, while what remained of the Bolivian army lay at Oruro.
Negotiations were opened, and on 11th December a peace was signed
between Chile and Bolivia. By this treaty Bolivia ceded to Chile the
whole of its sea-coast, including the port of Cobija.
On the 18th of May 1895 a treaty was signed at Santiago between Chile
and Bolivia, "with a view to strengthening the bonds of friendship which
unite the two countries," and, "in accord with the higher necessity that
the future development and commercial prosperity of Bolivia require her
free access to the sea." By this treaty Chile declared that if, in
consequence of the plebiscite (to take place under the treaty of Ancon
with Peru), or by virtue of direct arrangement, she should "acquire
dominion and permanent sovereignty over the territories of Tacna and
Arica, she undertakes to transfer them to Bolivia in the same form and
to the same extent as she may acquire them"; the republic of Bolivia
paying as an indemnity for that transfer $5,000,000 silver. If this
cession should be effected, Chile should advance her own frontier north
of Camerones to Vitor, from the sea up to the frontier which actually
separates that district from Bolivia. Chile also pledged herself to use
her utmost endeavour, either separately or jointly with Bolivia, to
obtain possession of Tacna and Arica. If she failed, she bound herself
to cede to Bolivia the roadstead (_caleta_) of Vitor, or another
analogous one, and $5,000,000 silver. Supplementary protocols to this
treaty stipulated that the port to be ceded must "fully satisfy the
present and future requirements" of the commerce of Bolivia.
On the 23rd of May 1895 further treaties of peace and commerce were
signed with Chile, but the provisions with regard to the cession of a
seaport to Bolivia still remained unfulfilled. During those ten years of
recovery on the part of Bolivia from the effects of the war, the
presidency was held by Dr Pacheco, who succeeded Campero, and held
office for the full term; by Dr Aniceto Arce, who held it until 1892,
and by Dr Mariano Baptista, his successor. In 1896 Dr Severe Alonso
became president, and during his tenure of office diplomatic relations
were resumed with Great Britain, Señor Aramayo being sent to London as
minister plenipotentiary in July 1897. As an outcome of his mission an
extradition treaty was concluded with Great Britain in March 1898.
In December an attempt was made to pass a law creating Sucre the
perpetual capital of the republic. Until this Sucre had taken its turn
with La Paz, Cochabamba and Oruro. La Paz rose in open revolt. On the
17th of January of the following year a battle was fought some 40 m.
from La Paz between the insurgents and the government forces, in which
the latter were defeated with the loss of a colonel and forty-three men.
Colonel Pando, the insurgent leader, having gained a strong following,
marched upon Oruro, and entered that town on 11th April 1899, after
completely defeating the government troops. Dr Severo Alonso took refuge
in Chilean territory; and Colonel Pando formed a provisional government.
He had no difficulty in obtaining his election to the presidency without
opposition. He entered upon office on the 26th of October, and proved
himself to be a strong and capable chief magistrate. He had to deal with
two difficult settlements as to boundaries with Chile and Brazil, and to
take steps for improving the means of communication in the country, by
this means reviving its mining and other industries. The dispute with
Brazil over the rich Acré rubber-producing territory was accentuated by
the majority of those engaged in the rubber industry being Brazilians,
who resented the attempts of Bolivian officials to exercise authority in
the district. This led to a declaration of independence on the part of
the state of Acré, and the despatch of a body of Bolivian troops in 1900
to restore order. There was no desire, however, on the part of
President Pando to involve himself in hostilities with Brazil, and in a
spirit of concession the dispute was settled amicably by diplomatic
means, and a treaty signed in November 1903. A new boundary line was
drawn, and a portion of the Acré province ceded to Brazil in
consideration of a cash indemnity of $10,000,000.
The long-standing dispute with Chile with regard to its occupation of
the former Bolivian provinces of Tacna and Arica under the Parto de
Tregna of the 4th of April 1884 was more difficult to arrange
satisfactorily. In 1895 there had been some prospect of Chile conceding
an outlet on the sea in exchange for a recognition of the Chilean
ownership of Tacna and Arica. The discovery, however, of secret
negotiations between Bolivia and Argentina caused Chile to change its
conciliatory attitude. Bolivia was in no position to venture upon
hostilities or to compel the Chileans to make concessions, and the final
settlement of the boundary dispute between Argentina and Chile deprived
the Bolivians of the hope of obtaining the support of the Argentines.
President Pando and his successor, Ismail Montes, who became president
in 1904, saw that it was necessary to yield, and to make the best terms
they could. A treaty was accordingly ratified in 1905, which was in many
ways advantageous to Bolivia, though the republic was compelled to cede
to Chile the maritime provinces occupied by the latter power since the
war of 1881, and to do without a seaport. The government of Chile
undertook to construct a railway at its own cost from Arica to the
Bolivian capital, La Paz, and to give the Bolivians free transit through
Chilean territory to certain towns on the coast. Chile further agreed to
pay Bolivia a cash indemnity and lend certain pecuniary assistance to
the construction of other railways necessary for the opening out of the
country.
See C. Wiener, _Bolivie et Pérou_ (Paris, 1880); E. Mossbach,
_Bolivia_ (Leipzig, 1875); Theodore Child, _The South American
Republics_ (New York, 1801); Vicente de Ballivian y Rizas, _Archive
Boliviano. Collecion de documentes relativos a la historia de Bolivia_
(Paris, 1872); Ramon Sotomayor Valdes, _Estudio historico de Bolivia
bajo la administracion del General don José Maria Achá con una
introducion que contiene el compendio de la Guerra de la independencia
i de los gobiernos de dicha Republica hasta 1861_ (Santiago de Chile,
1874). (W. Hd.; G. E.)
BOLKHOV, a town of Russia, in the government of Orel, and 35 m. N. of
the city of Orel. Pop. (1897) 20,703. It is prettily situated amongst
orchards and possesses a cathedral. There is a lively trade in hemp,
hemp-seed oil, hemp goods and cattle, and there are hemp-mills,
soap-works and tanneries. The much-venerated monastery, Optina Pustyn,
is close by.
BOLL, a botanical term for a fruit-pod, particularly of the cotton
plant. The word is in O. Eng. _bolla_, which is also represented in
"bowl," a round vessel for liquids, a variant due to "bowl," ball, which
is from the Fr. _boule_. "Boll" is also used, chiefly in Scotland and
the north of England, as a measure of weight for flour = 140 lb., and of
capacity for grain: 16 pecks = 1 boll.
BOLLANDISTS, the Belgian Jesuits who publish the _Acta Sanctorum_, the
great collection of biographies and legends of the saints, arranged by
days, in the order of the calendar. The original idea was conceived by a
Jesuit father, Heribert Rosweyde (see HAGIOLOGY), and was explained by
him in a sort of prospectus, which he issued in 1607 under the title of
_Fasti sanctorum quorum vitae in Belgicis Bibliothecis manuscriptae_.
His intention was to publish in eighteen volumes the lives of the saints
compiled from the MSS., at the same time adding sober notes. At the time
of his death (1629) he had collected a large amount of material, but had
not been able actually to begin the work. A Jesuit father, John Bolland,
was appointed to carry on the project, and was sent to Antwerp. He
continued to amass material, and extended the scope of the work. In 1643
the two volumes for January appeared. The three volumes for February
appeared in 1658, the three for March in 1668, the three for April in
1675, and so on. In 1635 Henschenius (Godfried Henschen) was associated
with Bolland, and collaborated in the work until 1681. From 1659 to 1714
Papebroch (Daniel van Papenbroeck) collaborated. This was the most
brilliant period in the history of the _Acta Sanctorum_. The freedom of
Papebroch's criticism made him many enemies, and he had often to defend
himself against their attacks. The work was continued--with some
inequalities, but always in the same spirit--until the suppression of
the Society of Jesus in 1773. The last volume published was vol. iii. of
October, which appeared in 1770.
On the dispersion of the Jesuits the Bollandists were authorized to
continue their work, and remained at Antwerp until 1778, when they were
transferred to Brussels, to the monastery of canons regular of
Coudenberg. Here they published vol. iv. of October in 1780, and vol. v.
of October in 1786, when the monastery of Coudenberg was suppressed. In
1788 the work of the Bollandists ceased. The remains of their library
were acquired by the Premonstratensians of Tongerloo, who endeavoured to
continue the work, and in their abbey vol. vi. of October appeared in
1794.
After the re-establishment of the Society of Jesus in Belgium the work
was again taken up in 1837, at the suggestion of the Académie Royale of
Belgium and with the support of the Belgian government, and the
Bollandists were installed at the college of St Michael in Brussels. In
1845 appeared vol. vii. of October, the first of the new series, which
reached vol. xiii. of October in 1883. In this series the Jesuit fathers
Joseph van der Moere, Joseph van Hecke, Benjamin Bossue, Victor and Remi
de Buck, Ant. Tinnebroeck, Edu. Carpentier and Henr. Matagne
collaborated. Father John Martinov of Theazan was entrusted with the
editing of the _Annus Graeco-Slavicus_, which appeared in the beginning
of vol. xi. of October in 1864.
In 1882 the activities of the Bollandists were exerted in a new
direction, with a view to bringing the work more into line with the
progress of historical methods. A quarterly review was established under
the title of _Analecta Bollandiana_ by the Jesuit fathers C. de Smedt,
G. van Hooff and J. de Backer. This reached its 25th volume in 1906, and
was edited by the Bollandists de Smedt, F. van Ontroy, H. Delehaye, A.
Porcelet and P. Peeters. This review contains studies in preparation for
the continuation and remoulding of the _Acta Sanctorum_, inedited texts,
dissertations, and, since 1892, a _Bulletin des publications
hagiographiques_, containing criticisms of recent works on hagiographic
questions. In addition to this review, the Bollandists undertook the
analysis of the hagiographic MSS. in the principal libraries. Besides
numerous library catalogues published in the _Analecta_ (e.g. those of
Chartres, Namur, Ghent, Messina, Venice, etc.), separate volumes were
devoted to the Latin MSS. in the Bibliothèque Royale at Brussels (2
vols., 1886-1889), to the Latin and Greek MSS. in the Bibliothèque
Nationale at Paris (5 vols., 1889-1896), to the Greek MSS. in the
Vatican (1899), and to the Latin MSS. in the libraries of Rome (1905
seq.). They also prepared inventories of the hagiographic texts hitherto
published, and of these there have appeared the _Bibliotheca
hagiographica graeca_ (1895), the _Bibliotheca hagiographica latina_
(1899) and the _Bibliotheca hagiographica Orientalis_. These
indispensable works delayed the publication of the principal collection,
but tended to give it a more solid basis and a strictly scientific
stamp. In 1887 appeared vol. i. for November; in 1894, vol. ii.,
preceded by the _Martyrologium Hieronymianum_ by J.B. de Rossi and the
abbé Louis Duchesne; in 1902, the _Propylaeum ad Acta Sanctorum
Novembris_, comprising the _Synaxarium ecclesiae Constantinopolitanae_.
There are three editions of the _Acta Sanctorum_: the original edition
(Antwerp, Tongerloo and Brussels, 63 vols., 1643-1902); the Venice
edition, stopping at vol. v. of September (1734-1770); and the Paris
edition, stopping at vol. xiii. of October (61 vols., 1863-1883). In
addition to these, there is a volume of tables, edited by the abbé
Rigollot.
See _Acta Sanctorum apologelicis libris ... vindicata_ (Antwerp,
1755); L.P. Gachard, _Mémoire historique sur les Bollandistes_
(Brussels, 1835); van Hecke, "De ratione operis Bollandiani" (_Acta
Sanctorum Octobris_, vii.); and Cardinal J.B. Pitra, _Études sur la
collection des Actes des Saints_ (Paris, 1880). (H. De.)
BOLOGNA, GIOVANNI DA (1524-1608) [Ital. for his real name, JEAN BOLOGNE
or BOULLONGNE], French sculptor, was born at Douai in 1524. His early
training as a sculptor was conducted at Antwerp, but at the age of
twenty-five he went to Italy and he settled in 1553 in Florence, where
his best works still remain. His two most celebrated productions are the
single bronze figure of Mercury, poised on one foot, resting on the head
of a zephyr, as if in the act of springing into the air (in the Bargello
gallery), and the marble group known as the Rape of the Sabines, which
was executed for Francesco de' Medici and received this name, Lanzi
informs us, after it was finished. It is now in the Loggia de Lanzi of
the ducal piazza. Giovanni was also employed at Genoa, where he executed
various excellent works, chiefly in bronze. Most of his pieces are
characterized by great spirit and elegance. His great fountain at
Bologna (1563-1567) is remarkable for beauty of proportion. Noteworthy
also are his two fountains in the Boboli gardens, one completed in 1576
and the other in 1585. He also cast the fine bronze equestrian statue of
Cosimo de' Medici at Florence and the very richly decorated west door of
Pisa cathedral. One of Bologna's best works, a group of two nude figures
fighting, is now lost. A fine copy in lead was at one time in the front
quadrangle of Brasenose College, Oxford. In 1881 it was sold for old
lead by the principal and fellows of the college, and was melted down by
the plumber who bought it.
See _La Vie et l'oeuvre de Jean Bologne, par Abel Desjardins, d'après
les manuscrits--recueillis par Foucques de Vagnonville_ (1883,
numerous illustrations; list of works).
BOLOGNA, a city and archiepiscopal see of Emilia, Italy, the capital of
the province of Bologna, and headquarters of the VI. army corps. It is
situated at the edge of the plain of Emilia, 180 ft. above sea-level at
the base of the Apennines, 82 m. due N. of Florence by rail, 63 m. by
road and 50 m. direct, and 134 m. S.E. of Milan by rail. Pop. (1901)
town, 102,122; commune, 153,501. The more or less rectangular Roman
city, orientated on the points of the compass, with its streets arranged
at right angles, can be easily distinguished from the outer city, which
received its fortifications in 1206 (see G. Gozzadini, _Studi
archeologico-topografici sulla citta di Bologna_, Bologna, 1868). The
streets leading to the gates of the latter radiate from the outskirts,
and not from the centre, of the former. Some of the oldest churches,
however, lie outside the limits of the Roman city (of which no buildings
remain above ground) such as S. Stefano, S. Giovanni in Monte and SS.
Vitale ed Agricola. The first consists of a group of no less than seven
different buildings, of different dates; the earliest of which, the
former cathedral of SS. Pietro e Paolo, was constructed about the middle
of the 4th century, in part with the débris of Roman buildings; while S.
Sepolcro, a circular church with ornamentation in brick and an imitation
of _opus reticulatum_, should probably be attributed to the 6th or 7th
centuries. The present cathedral (S. Pietro), erected in 910, is now
almost entirely in the baroque style. The largest church in the town,
however, is that of S. Petronio, the patron saint of Bologna, which was
begun in 1390; only the nave and aisles as far as the transepts were,
however, completed, but even this is a fine fragment, in the Gothic
style, measuring 384 ft. long, and 157 wide, whereas the projected
length of the whole (a cruciform basilica) was over 700 ft., with a
breadth across the transepts of 460 ft., and a dome 500 ft. high over
the crossing (see F. Cavazza in _Rassegna d' Arte_, 1905, 161). The
church of S. Domenico, which contains the body of the saint, who died
here in 1221, is unfinished externally, while the interior was
remodelled in the 18th century. There are many other churches of
interest, among them S. Francesco, perhaps the finest medieval building
in Bologna, begun in 1246 and finished in 1260; it has a fine brick
campanile of the end of the 14th century. It was restored to sacred uses
in 1887, and has been carefully liberated from later alterations (U.
Berti in _Rassegna d' Arte_, 1901, 55). The church of Corpus Dominii has
fine 15th-century terra cottas on the façade (F. Malaguzzi Valeri in
_Archivio Storico dell' Arte_, ser. ii. vol. ii. (Rome, 1896), 72). The
centre of the town is formed by the Piazza Vittorio Emanuele (formerly
Piazza Maggiore), and the Piazza del Nettuno, which lie at right angles
to one another. Here are the church of S. Petronio, the massive Palazzo
Comunale, dating from 1245, the Palazzo del Podesta, completed in the
same year, and the fine bronze statue of Neptune by Giovanni da Bologna
(Jean Bologne of Douai).
The famous university of Bologna was founded in the 11th century (its
foundation by Theodosius the Great in A.D. 425 is legendary), and
acquired a European reputation as a school of jurisprudence under Pepo,
the first known teacher at Bologna of Roman law (about 1076), and his
successor Irnerius and their followers the glossators. The students
numbered between three and five thousand in the 12th to the 15th
century, and in 1262, it is said, nearly ten thousand (among them were
both Dante and Petrarch). Anatomy was taught here in the 14th century.
But despite its fame, the university, though an autonomous corporation,
does not seem to have had any fixed residence: the professors lectured
in their own houses, or later in rooms hired or lent by the civic
authorities. It was only in 1520 that the professors of law were given
apartments in a building belonging to the church of S. Petronio; and in
1562, by order of Pius IV., the university itself was constructed close
by, by Carlo Borromeo, then cardinal legate. The reason of this measure
was no doubt partly disciplinary, Bologna itself having in 1506 passed
under the dominion of the papacy. Shortly after this, in 1564, Tasso was
a student there, and was tried for writing a satirical poem. One of the
most famous professors was Marcello Malpighi, a great anatomist of the
17th century. The building has served as the communal library since
1838. Its courtyard contains the arms of those students who were elected
as representatives of their respective nations or faculties. The
university has since 1803 been established in the (16th century) Palazzo
Poggi. Between 1815 and 1848 the number of students sank to about a
hundred in some years, chiefly owing to the political persecutions of
the government: in 1859 the number had risen to 355. It now possesses
four faculties and is attended by some 1700 students. Among its
professors women have more than once been numbered.
The Museo Civico is one of the most important museums in Italy,
containing especially fine collections of antiquities from Bologna and
its neighbourhood. The picture gallery is equally important in its way,
affording a survey both of the earlier Bolognese paintings and of the
works of the Bolognese eclectics of the 16th and 17th centuries, the
Caracci, Guido Reni, Domenichino, Guercino, &c. The primitive masters
are not of great excellence, but the works of the masters of the 15th
century, especially those of Francesco Francia (1450-1517) and Lorenzo
Costa of Ferrara (1460-1535), are of considerable merit. The great
treasure of the collection is, however, Raphael's S. Cecilia, painted
for the church of S. Giovanni in Monte, about 1515.
The two leaning towers, the Torre Asinelli and the Torre Garisenda,
dating from 1109 and 1110 respectively, are among the most remarkable
structures in Bologna: they are square brick towers, the former being
320 ft. in height and 4 ft. out of the perpendicular, the latter
(unfinished) 163 ft. high and 10 ft. out of the perpendicular. The town
contains many fine private palaces, dating from the 13th century
onwards. The streets are as a rule arcaded, and this characteristic has
been preserved in modern additions, which have on the whole been made
with considerable taste, as have also the numerous restorations of
medieval buildings. A fine view may be had from the Madonna di S. Luca,
on the south-west of the town (938 ft.).
Among the specialities of Bologna may be noted the _salami_ or
_mortadella_ (Bologna sausage), _tortellini_ (a kind of macaroni) and
liqueurs.
Bologna is an important railway centre, just as the ancient Bononia was
a meeting-point of important roads. Here the main line from Milan
divides, one portion going on parallel to the line of the ancient Via
Aemilia (which it has followed from Piacenza downwards) to Rimini,
Ancona and Brindisi, and the other through the Apennines to Florence and
thence to Rome. Another line runs to Ferrara and Padua, another
(eventually to be prolonged to Verona) to S. Felice sul Panaro, and a
third to Budrio and Portomaggiore (a station on the line from Ferrara to
Ravenna). Steam tramways run to Vignola, Pieve di Cento and Malalbergo.
Bologna was only for a short while subject to the Lombards, remaining
generally under the rule of the exarchate of Ravenna, until this in 756
was given by Pippin to the papacy. It was sacked by the Hungarians in
902, but otherwise its history is little known, and it is uncertain when
it acquired its freedom and its motto _Libertas_. But the first
"constitution" of the commune of Bologna dates from about 1123, and at
that time we find it a free and independent city. From the 12th to the
14th century it was very frequently at war, and strongly supported the
Guelph cause against Frederick II. and against the neighbouring cities
of Romagna and Emilia; indeed, in 1249 the Bolognese took Enzio, the
emperor's son, prisoner, and kept him in confinement for the rest of his
life. But the struggles between Guelphs and Ghibellines in Bologna
itself soon followed, and the commune was so weakened that in 1337
Taddeo de' Pepoli made himself master of the town, and in 1350 his son
sold it to Giovanni Visconti of Milan. Ten years later it was given to
the papacy, but soon revolted and recovered its liberty. In 1401
Giovanni Bentivoglio made himself lord of Bologna, but was killed in a
rebellion of 1402. It then returned to the Visconti, and after various
struggles with the papacy was again secured in 1438 by the Bentivoglio,
who held it till 1506, when Pope Julius II. drove them out, and brought
Bologna once more under the papacy, under the sway of which it remained
(except in the Napoleonic period between 1796 and 1815 and during the
revolutions of 1821 and 1831) until in 1860 it became part of the
kingdom of Italy.
Among the most illustrious natives of Bologna may be noted Luigi Galvani
(1737-1798), the discoverer of galvanism, and Prospero Lambertini (Pope
Benedict XIV.).
See C. Ricci, _Guida di Bologna_ (3rd ed., Bologna, 1900). (T. As.)
BOLSENA (anc. _Volsinii_),[1] a town of the province of Rome, Italy, 12
m. W.S.W. of Orvieto by road, situated on the north-east bank of the
lake of Bolsena. Pop. (1901) 3286. The town is dominated by a
picturesque medieval castle, and contains the church of S. Christina
(martyred by drowning in the lake, according to the legend, in 278)
which dates from the 11th century and contains some frescoes, perhaps of
the school of Giotto. It has a fine Renaissance façade, constructed
about 1500 by Cardinal Giovanni de' Medici (afterwards Pope Leo X.), and
some good terra cottas by the Della Robbia. Beneath the church are
catacombs, with the tomb of the saint, discovered in 1880 (E. Stevenson
in _Notizie degli Scavi_, 1880, 262; G.B. de Rossi in _Bullettino
d'Archeologia Cristiana_, 1880, 109). At one of the altars in this crypt
occurred the miracle of Bolsena in 1263. A Bohemian priest, sceptical of
the doctrine of transubstantiation, was convinced of its truth by the
appearance of drops of blood on the host he was consecrating. In
commemoration of this Pope Urban IV. instituted the festival of Corpus
Christi, and ordered the erection of the cathedral of Orvieto. The
miracle forms the subject of a celebrated fresco by Raphael in the
Vatican.
The Lake of Bolsena (anc. _Lacus Volsiniensis_), 1000 ft. above
sea-level, 71 sq. m. in area, and 480 ft. deep, is almost circular, and
was the central point of a large volcanic district, though it is
probably not itself an extinct crater. Its sides show fine basaltic
formation in places. It abounds in fish, but its banks are somewhat
deserted and not free from malaria. It contains two islands, Bisentina
and Martana, the former containing a church constructed by Vignola, the
latter remains of the castle where Amalasuntha, the daughter of
Theodoric, was imprisoned and strangled. (T. As.)
FOOTNOTE:
[1] According to the theory now generally adopted, the Etruscan
Volsinii occupied the site of Orvieto, which was hence called _Urbs
vetus_ in late classical and medieval times, while the Roman Volsinii
was transferred to Bolaena (see VOLSINII).
BOLSOVER, an urban district in the north-eastern parliamentary division
of Derbyshire, England, 5½ m. E. of Chesterfield, on branch lines of the
Midland and the Great Central railways. Pop. (1901) 6844. It lies at a
considerable height on a sharp slope above a stream tributary to the
river Rother. The castle round which the town grew up was founded
shortly after the Conquest by William Peveril, but the existing
building, a fine castellated residence, was erected on its site in 1613.
The town itself was fortified, and traces of early works remain. The
church of St Mary is of Norman and later date; it contains some
interesting early stone-carving, and monuments to the family of
Cavendish, who acquired the castle in the 16th century. Coal-mining and
quarrying are carried on in the neighbourhood of Bolsover.
BOLSWARD, a town in the province of Friesland, Holland, 6½ m. W.N.W. of
Sneek. A steam-tramway connects it with Sneek, Makkum, Harlingen and
Franeker. Pop. (1900) 6517. The Great church, or St Martin's (1446-1466)
is a large building containing some good carving, a fine organ and the
tombs of many Frisian nobles. The so-called Small church, dating from
about 1280, also contains fine carving and tombstones; and is the
remnant of a Franciscan convent which once existed here. Bolsward also
possesses a beautiful renaissance town-hall (1614-1618) and various
educational and charitable institutions, including a music and a drawing
school. It has an active trade in agricultural produce, and some
spinning-mills and tile and pottery works. The town is mentioned in 725,
when it was situated on the Middle Sea. When this receded, a canal was
cut to the Zuider Zee, and in 1422 it was made a Hansa town.
The medieval constitution of Bolsward, though in its government by eight
_scabini_, with judicial, and four councillors with administrative
functions, it followed the ordinary type of Dutch cities, was in some
ways peculiar. The family of Jongema had certain hereditary rights in
the administration, which, though not mentioned in the town charter of
1455, were defined in that of 1464. According to this the head of the
family sat for two years with the _scabini_ and the third year with the
councillors, and had the right to administer an oath to one of each
body. More singular was the influential position assigned, in civic
legislation and administration, to the clergy, to whom in conjunction
with the councillors, there was even, in certain cases, an appeal from
the judgment of the _scabini_.
See C. Hegel, _Stadte u. Gilden der germanischen Völker im
Mittelalter_ (Leipzig, 1891).
BOLT, an O. Eng. word (compare Ger. _Bolz_, an arrow), for a "quarrel"
or cross-bow shaft, or the pin which fastened a door. From the swift
flight of an arrow comes the verb "to bolt," as applied to a horse, &c.,
and such expressions as "bolt upright," meaning straight upright; also
the American use of "bolt" for refusing to support a candidate nominated
by one's own party. In the sense of a straight pin for a fastening, the
word has come to mean various sorts of appliances. From the sense of
"fastening together" is derived the use of the word "bolt" as a definite
length (in a roll) of a fabric (40 ft. of canvas, &c.).
From another "bolt" or "boult," to sift (through O. Fr. _buleter_, from
the Med. Lat. _buretare_ or _buletare_), come such expressions as in
Shakespeare's _Winter's Tale_, "The fann'd snow, That's bolted by the
northern blasts twice o'er," or such a figurative use as in Burke's "The
report of the committee was examined and sifted and bolted to the bran."
From this sense comes that of to moot, or discuss, as in Milton's
_Comus_, "I hate when vice can bolt her arguments."
BOLTON, DUKES OF. The title of duke of Bolton was held in the family of
Powlett or Paulet from 1689 to 1794. Charles Powlett, the 1st duke (c.
1625-1699), who became 6th marquess of Winchester on his father's death
in 1675, had been member of parliament for Winchester and then for
Hampshire from 1660 to 1675. Having supported the claim of William and
Mary to the English throne in 1688, he was restored to the privy council
and to the office of lord-lieutenant of Hampshire, and was created duke
of Bolton in April 1689. An eccentric man, hostile to Halifax and
afterwards to Marlborough, he is said to have travelled during 1687 with
four coaches and 100 horsemen, sleeping during the day and giving
entertainments at night. He died in February 1699, and was succeeded by
his elder son, Charles, 2nd duke of Bolton (1661-1722), who had also
been a member of parliament for Hampshire and a supporter of William of
Orange. He was lord-lieutenant of Hampshire and of Dorset, a
commissioner to arrange the union of England and Scotland; and was twice
a lord justice of the kingdom. He was also lord chamberlain of the royal
household; governor of the Isle of Wight; and for two short periods was
lord-lieutenant of Ireland. His third wife was Henrietta (d. 1730), a
natural daughter of James, duke of Monmouth. According to Swift this
duke was "a great booby." His eldest son, Charles, 3rd duke of Bolton
(1685-1754), was a member of parliament from 1705 to 1717, when he was
made a peer as Baron Pawlet of Basing. He filled many of the public
offices which had been held by his father, and also attained high rank
in the British army. Having displeased Sir Robert Walpole he was
deprived of several of his offices in 1733; but some of them were
afterwards restored to him, and he raised a regiment for service against
the Jacobites in 1745. He was a famous gallant, and married for his
second wife the singer, Lavinia Fenton (d. 1760), a lady who had
previously been his mistress. He died in August 1754, and was succeeded
as 4th duke by his brother Harry (c. 1690-1759), who had been a member
of parliament for forty years, and who followed the late duke as
lord-lieutenant of Hampshire. The 4th duke's son, Charles (c.
1718-1765), who became 5th duke in October 1759, committed suicide in
London in July 1765, and was succeeded by his brother Harry (c.
1719-1794), an admiral in the navy, on whose death without sons, in
December 1794, the dukedom became extinct. The other family titles
descended to a kinsman, George Paulet (1722-1800), who thus became 12th
marquess of Winchester. In 1778 Thomas Orde (1746-1807) married Jean
Mary (d. 1814), a natural daughter of the 5th duke of Bolton, and this
lady inherited Bolton Castle and other properties on the death of the
6th duke. Having taken the additional name of Powlett, Orde was created
Baron Bolton in 1797, and the barony has descended to his heirs.
BOLTON (or BOULTON), EDMUND (1575?-1633?), English historian and poet,
was born by his own account in 1575. He was brought up a Roman Catholic,
and was educated at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, afterwards residing in
London at the Inner Temple. In 1600 he contributed to _England's
Helicon_. He was a retainer of the duke of Buckingham, and through his
influence he secured a small place at the court of James I. Bolton
formulated a scheme for the establishment of an English academy, but the
project fell through after the death of the king, who had regarded it
favourably. He wrote a _Life of King Henry II._ for Speed's _Chronicle_,
but his Catholic sympathies betrayed themselves in his treatment of
Thomas Becket, and a life by Dr John Barcham was substituted (Wood,
_Ath. Oxon._ ed. Bliss, iii. 36). The most important of his numerous
works are _Hypercritica_ (1618?), a short critical treatise valuable for
its notices of contemporary authors, reprinted in Joseph Haslewood's
_Ancient Critical Essays_ (vol. ii., 1815); _Nero Caesar, or Monarchic
Depraved_ (1624), with special note of British affairs. Bolton was still
living in 1633, but the date of his death is unknown.
BOLTON (BOLTON-LE-MOORS), a municipal, county and parliamentary borough
of Lancashire, England, 196 m. N.W. by N. from London and 11 m. N.W.
from Manchester. Pop. (1891) 146,487; (1901) 168,215. Area, 15,279
acres. It has stations on the London & North-Western and the Lancashire
& Yorkshire railways, with running powers for the Midland railway. It is
divided by the Croal, a small tributary of the Irwell, into Great and
Little Bolton, and as the full name implies, is surrounded by high
moorland. Although of early origin, its appearance, like that of other
great manufacturing towns of the vicinity, is wholly modern. It owes not
a little to the attractions of its site. The only remnants of antiquity
are two houses of the 16th century in Little Bolton, of which one is a
specially good example of Tudor work. The site of the church of St Peter
has long been occupied by a parish church (there was one in the 12th
century, if not earlier), but the existing building dates only from
1870. There may also be mentioned a large number of other places of
worship, a town hall with fine classical façade and tower, market hall,
museums of natural history and of art and industry, an exchange,
assembly rooms, and various benevolent institutions. Several free
libraries are maintained. Lever's grammar school, founded in 1641, had
Robert Ainsworth, the Latin lexicographer, and John Lemprière, author of
the classical dictionary, among its masters. There are municipal
technical schools. A large public park, opened in 1866, was laid out as
a relief work for unemployed operatives during the cotton famine of the
earlier part of the decade. On the moors to the north-west, and
including Rivington Pike (1192 ft.), is another public park, and there
are various smaller pleasure grounds. A large number of cotton mills
furnish the chief source of industry; printing, dyeing and bleaching of
cotton and calico, spinning and weaving machine making, iron and steel
works, and collieries in the neighbourhood, are also important. The
speciality, however, is fine spinning, a process assisted by the damp
climate. The parliamentary borough, created in 1832 and returning two
members, falls within the Westhoughton division of the county. Before
1838, when Bolton was incorporated, the town was governed by a
borough-reeve and two constables appointed at the annual court-leet. The
county borough was created in 1888. The corporation consists of a mayor,
24 aldermen and 72 councillors.
The earliest form of the name is Bodleton or Botheltun, and the most
important of the later forms are Bodeltown, Botheltun-le-Moors,
Bowelton, Boltune, Bolton-super-Moras, Bolton-in-ye-Moors,
Bolton-le-Moors. The manor was granted by William I. to Roger de
Poictou, and passed through the families of Ferrers and Pilkington to
the Harringtons of Hornby Castle, who lost it with their other estates
for their adherence to Richard III. In 1485 Henry VII. granted it to the
first earl of Derby. The manor is now held by different lords, but the
earls of Derby still have a fourth part. The manor of Little Bolton
seems to have been, at least from Henry III.'s reign, distinct from that
of Great Bolton, and was held till the 17th century by the Botheltons or
Boltons.
From early days Bolton was famous for its woollen manufactures. In
Richard I.'s reign an aulneger, whose duty it was to measure and stamp
all bundles of woollen goods, was appointed, and it is clear, therefore,
that the place was already a centre of the woollen cloth trade. In 1337
the industry received an impulse from the settlement of a party of
Flemish clothiers, and extended so greatly that when it was found
necessary in 1566 to appoint by act of parliament deputies to assist the
aulnegers, Bolton is named as one of the places where these deputies
were to be employed. Leland in his _Itinerary_ (1558) recorded the fact
that Bolton made cottons, which were in reality woollen goods. Real
cotton goods were not made in Lancashire till 1641, when Bolton is named
as the chief seat of the manufacture of fustians, vermilions and
dimities. After the revocation of the edict of Nantes the settlement of
some French refugees further stimulated this industry. It was here that
velvets were first made about 1756, by Jeremiah Clarke, and muslins and
cotton quiltings in 1763. The cotton trade received an astonishing
impetus from the inventions of Sir Richard Arkwright (1770), and Samuel
Crompton (1780), both of whom were born in the parish. Soon after the
introduction of machinery, spinning factories were erected, and the
first built in Bolton is said to have been set up in 1780. The number
rapidly increased, and in 1851 there were 66 cotton mills with 860,000
throstle spindles at work. The cognate industry of bleaching has been
carried on since early in the 18th century, and large ironworks grew up
in the latter half of the 19th century. In 1791 a canal was constructed
from Manchester to Bolton, and by an act of parliament (1792) Bolton
Moor was enclosed.
During the Civil War Bolton sided with the parliament, and in February
1643 and March 1644 the royalist forces assaulted the town, but were on
both occasions repulsed. On the 28th of May 1644, however, it was
attacked by Prince Rupert and Lord Derby, and stormed with great
slaughter. On the 15th of October 1651 Lord Derby, who had been taken
prisoner after the battle of Worcester, was brought here and executed
the same day.
Up to the beginning of the 19th century the market day was Monday, but
the customary Saturday market gradually superseded this old chartered
market. In 1251 William de Ferrers obtained from the crown a charter
for a weekly market and a yearly fair, but gradually this annual fair
was replaced by four others chiefly for horses and cattle. The New Year
and Whitsuntide Show fairs only arose during the 19th century.
BOLTON ABBEY, a village in the West Riding of Yorkshire, England, 22 m.
N.W. from Leeds and 5½ from Ilkley by the Midland railway. It takes its
name, inaccurately, from the great foundation of Bolton Priory, the
ruins of which are among the most exquisitely situated in England. They
stand near the right bank of the upper Wharfe, the valley of which is
beautifully wooded and closely enclosed by hills. The earliest part of
the church is of transitional Norman date; the nave, which is perfect,
is Early English and Decorated. The transepts and choir are ruined, and
the remains of domestic buildings are slight. The manor of Bolton Abbey
with the rest of the district of Craven was granted by William the
Conqueror to Robert de Romili, who evidently held it in 1086, although
there is no mention made of it in the Domesday survey. William de
Meschines and Cicely de Romili, his wife, heiress of Robert, founded and
endowed a priory at Embsay or Emmesay, near Skipton, in 1120, but it was
moved here in 1151 by their daughter, Alice de Romili, wife of William
FitzDuncan, who gave the manor to the monks in exchange for other lands.
After the dissolution of the monasteries the manor was sold in 1542 to
Henry Clifford, 2nd earl of Cumberland, whose descendants, the dukes of
Devonshire, now hold it.
See J.D. Whitaker, LL.D., F.S.A., _History of the District of Craven_
(ed. Morant, 1878); Dugdale's _Monasticon Anglicanum_.
BOLZANO, BERNHARD (1781-1848), Austrian priest and philosopher, was born
at Prague on the 5th of October 1781. He distinguished himself at an
early age, and on his ordination to the priesthood (1805) was appointed
professor of the philosophy of religion in Prague University. His
lectures, in which he endeavoured to show that Catholic theology is in
complete harmony with reason, were received with eager interest by the
younger generation of thinkers. But his views met with much opposition;
and it was only through the protection of the archbishop, Prince
Salm-Salm, that he was enabled to retain his chair. In 1820 he was
accused of being connected with some of the students' revolutionary
societies, and was compelled to resign. Several doctrines extracted from
his works were condemned at Rome, and he was suspended from his priestly
functions, spending the rest of his life in literary work. He died at
Prague on the 18th of December 1848. The most important of his numerous
works are the _Wissenschaftslehre, oder Versuch einer neuen Darstellung
der Logik_, advocating a scientific method in the study of logic (4
vols., Sulzbach, 1837); the _Lehrbuch der Religionswissenschaft_ (4
vols., Sulzbach, 1834), a philosophic representation of all the dogmas
of Roman Catholic theology; and _Athanasia, oder Gründe für die
Unsterblichkeit der Seele_ (2nd ed., Mainz, 1838). In philosophy he
followed Reinhard in ethics and the monadology of Leibnitz, though he
was also influenced by Kant.
See _Lebensbeschreibung des Dr Bolzano_ (an autobiography, 1836);
Wisshaupt, _Skizzen aus dem Leben Dr Bolzanos_ (1850); Palágy, _Kant
und Bolzano_ (Halle, 1902).
BOMA (properly _Mboma_), a port on the north bank of the river Congo
about 60 m. from its mouth, the administrative capital of Belgian Congo.
Pop. about 5000. It was one of the places at which the European traders
on the west coast of Africa established stations in the 16th and 17th
centuries. It became the entrepôt for the commerce of the lower Congo
and a well-known mart for slaves. The trade was chiefly in the hands of
Dutch merchants, but British, French and Portuguese firms also had
factories there. No European power exercised sovereignty, though shadowy
claims were from time to time put forward by Portugal (see AFRICA, § 5).
In 1884 the natives of Boma granted a protectorate of their country to
the International Association of the Congo.
See H.M. Stanley, _The Congo and the Founding of its Free State_
(London, 1885).
BOMB, a term formerly used for an explosive shell (see AMMUNITION) fired
by artillery. The word is derived from the Gr. [Greek: bombos], a
hammering, buzzing noise, cf. "bombard" (q.v.). At the present day it is
most frequently used of a shattering or incendiary grenade, or of an
explosive vessel actuated by clockwork or trip mechanism, employed to
destroy life or property. In naval warfare, before the introduction of
the shell gun, explosive projectiles were carried principally by special
vessels known as bomb-vessels, bombards or, colloquially, bombs.
In geology, the name "bomb" is given to certain masses of lava which
have been hurled forth from a volcanic vent by explosive action. In
shape they are spheroidal, ellipsoidal or discoidal; in structure they
may be solid, hollow or more or less cavernous; whilst in size they vary
from that of a walnut to masses weighing several tons. It is generally
held that the form is partly due to rotation of the mass during its
aerial flight, and in some cases the bomb becomes twisted by a gyratory
movement. According, however, to Dr H.J. Johnston-Lavis, many of the
so-called bombs of Vesuvius are not projectiles, but merely globular
masses formed in a stream of lava; and in like manner Professor J.D.
Dana showed that what were regarded as bombs in Hawaii are in many cases
merely lava-balls that have not been hurled through the air. Certain
masses of pumice ejected from Vulcano have been called by Johnston-Lavis
"bread-crust bombs," since they present a coating of obsidian which has
been bent and cracked in a way suggestive of the crust of a roll. It is
probable that here the acid magma was expelled in a very viscous
condition, and the crust which formed on cooling was burst by the steam
from the occluded water. Some of the bombs thrown out during recent
eruptions of Etna consist of white granular quartz, encased in a black
scoriaceous crust, the quartz representing an altered sandstone. The
bombs of granular olivine, found in some of the tuffs in the Eifel, are
represented in most geological collections (see VOLCANO).
BOMBARD (derived through Med. Lat. and Fr. forms from Gr. [Greek:
bombein], to make a humming noise), a term applied in the middle ages to
a sort of cannon, used chiefly in sieges, and throwing heavy stone
balls; hence the later use as a verb (see BOMBARDMENT). The name, in
various forms, was also given to a medieval musical instrument
("bombard," "bumhart," "pumhart," "pommer"), the forerunner of the bass
oboe or schalmey. At the present day a small primitive oboe called
_bombarde_, with eight holes but no keys, is used among the Breton
peasants.
BOMBARDIER, originally an artilleryman in charge of a bombard; now a
non-commissioned officer in the artillery of the British army, ranking
below a corporal.
BOMBARDMENT, an attack by artillery fire directed against
fortifications, troops in position or towns and buildings. In its strict
sense the term is only applied to the bombardment of defenceless or
undefended objects, houses, public buildings, &c., the object of the
assailant being to dishearten his opponent, and specially to force the
civil population and authorities of a besieged place to persuade the
military commandant to capitulate before the actual defences of the
place have been reduced to impotence. It is, therefore, obvious that
mere bombardment can only achieve its object when the amount of
suffering inflicted upon non-combatants is sufficient to break down
their resolution, and when the commandant permits himself to be
influenced or coerced by the sufferers. A threat of bombardment will
sometimes induce a place to surrender, but instances of its fulfilment
being followed by success are rare; and, in general, with a determined
commandant, bombardments fail of their object. Further, an intentionally
terrific fire at a large target, unlike the slow, steady and minutely
accurate "artillery attacks "directed upon the fortifications, requires
the expenditure of large quantities of ammunition, and wears out the
guns of the attack. Bombardments are, however, frequently resorted to in
order to test the temper of the garrison and the civil population, a
notable instance being that of Strassburg in 1870. The term is often
loosely employed to describe artillery attacks upon forts or fortified
positions in preparation for assaults by infantry.
BOMBARDON, or BASS TUBA, the name given to the bass and contrabass of
the brass wind in military bands, called in the orchestra bass tuba.
The name of bombardon is unquestionably derived from _bombardone_, the
Italian for contrabass pommer (bombard), which, before the invention of
the fagotto, formed the bass of medieval orchestras; it is also used for
a bass reed stop of 16 ft. tone on the organ. The bombardon was the very
first bass wind instrument fitted with valves, and it was at first known
as the _corno basso_, _clavicor_ or _bass horn_ (not to be confounded
with the bass horn with keys, which on being perfected became the
ophicleide). The name was attached more to the position of the wind
instruments as bass than to the individual instrument. The original
corno basso was a brass instrument of narrow bore with the pistons set
horizontally. The valve-ophicleide in F of German make had a wider bore
and three vertical pistons, but it was only a "half instrument,"
measuring about 12 ft. A. Kalkbrenner, in his life of W. Wieprecht
(1882), states that in the Jäger military bands of Prussia the corno
basso (keyed bass horn) was introduced as bass in 1829, and the
bombardon (or valve-ophicleide) in 1831; in the Guards these instruments
were superseded in 1835 by the bass tuba invented by Wieprecht and J.G.
Moritz.
The modern bombardon is made in two forms: the upright model, used in
stationary band music; and the circular model, known as the helicon,
worn round the body with the large bell resting on the left shoulder,
after the style of the Roman _cornu_ (see HORN), which is a more
convenient way of carrying this heavy instrument when marching. The
bombardon, and the euphonium, of which it is the bass, are the outcome
of the application of valves to the bugle family whereby the saxhorns
were also produced. The radical difference between the saxhorns and the
tubas (including the bombardon) is that the latter have a sufficiently
wide conical bore to allow of the production of fundamental sounds in a
rich, full quality of immense power. This difference, first recognized
in Germany and Austria, has given rise in those countries to the
classification of the brass wind as "half" and "whole" instruments
(_Halbe_ and _Ganze Instrumente_). When the brass wind instruments with
conical bore and cup-shaped mouthpiece first came into use, it was a
well-understood principle that the tube of each instrument must
theoretically be made twice as long as an organ pipe giving the same
note; for example, the French horn sounding the 8 ft. C of an 8 ft.
organ pipe, must have a tube 16 ft. long; C then becomes the second
harmonic of the series for the 16 ft. tube, the first or fundamental
being unobtainable. After the introduction of pistons, instrument-makers
experimenting with the bugle, which has a conical bore of very wide
diameter in proportion to the length, found that baritone and bass
instruments constructed on the same principle gave out the fundamental
full and clear. A new era in the construction of brass wind instruments
was thus inaugurated, and now that the proportions of the bugle have
been adopted, the tubes of the tubas are made just half the length of
those of the older instruments, corresponding to the length of the organ
pipe of the same pitch, so that a euphonium sounding 8 ft. C no longer
needs to be 16 ft. long but only 8 ft. The older instruments, such as
the saxhorns, with narrow bore, have therefore been denominated "half
instruments," because only half the length of the instrument is of
practical utility, while the tubas with wide bore are styled "whole
instruments." [1] Bombardons are made in E flat and F of the 16 ft.
octave, corresponding to the orchestral bass tuba, double bass in
strings, and pedal clarinet and contrafagotto in the wood wind. The
bombardon in B flat or C, an octave lower than the euphonium,
corresponds to the contrabass tuba in the orchestra.
The bombardons possess a chromatic compass of 3½ to 4 octaves. The
harmonic series consists of the harmonics from the 1st to the 8th.
[Illustration: BOMBARDON IN E FLAT.]
[Illustration: HARMONIC SERIES OF THE CONTRABASS BOMBARDON IN C.]
The lowest notes produced by the valves are very difficult to obtain,
for the lips seldom have sufficient power to set in vibration a column
of air of such immense length, at a rate of vibration slow enough to
synchronize with that of notes of such deep pitch.[2] Even when they
are played, the lowest valve notes can hardly be heard unless doubled
an octave higher by another bombardon.
Bombardons are generally treated as non-transposing instruments, the
music being written as sounded, except in France and Belgium, where
transposition is usual. The intervening notes are obtained by means of
pistons or valves, which, on being depressed, either admit the wind
into additional lengths of tubing to lower the pitch, or cut off a
length in order to raise it. Bombardons usually have three or four
pistons lowering the pitch of the instrument respectively 1, ½, 1½ and
2½ tones (in Belgium, 1, ½, 2 and 3 tones). The valve system, disposal
of the tubing and shape and position of the bell differ considerably
in the various models of well-known makers. In Germany and Austria[3]
what is known as the cylinder action is largely used; for the piston
or pump is substituted a four-way brass cock operated by means of a
key and a series of cranks.
In order to obtain a complete chromatic scale throughout the compass,
there must be, as on the slide-trombone, seven different positions or
lengths of tubing available, each having its harmonic series. These
different lengths are obtained on the bombardon by means of a
combination of pistons: the simultaneous use of Nos. 2 and 3 lowers
the pitch two tones; of Nos. 1, 2 and 3, three tones; of Nos. 1, 2, 3,
4, five and a half tones, &c. A combination of pistons, however, fails
to give the interval with an absolutely correct intonation, since the
length of tubing thrown open is not of the theoretical length required
to produce it. Many ingenious contrivances have been invented from
time to time to remedy this inherent defect of the valve system, such
as the six-valve independent system of Adolphe Sax; the Besson
_Registre_, giving eight independent positions; the Besson
compensating system _Transpositeur_; the Boosey automatic compensating
piston invented by D.J. Blaikley, and V. Mahillon's automatic
regulating pistons. More recently the Besson enharmonic valve system,
with six independent tuning slides and three pistons, and Rudall,
Carte & Company's new (Klussmann's patent) bore, conical throughout
the open tube and additional lengths, have produced instruments which
leave nothing to be desired as to intonation. (See VALVES and TUBA.)
(K. S.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] See Dr E. Schafhäutl's article on Musical Instruments, section 4
of _Bericht der Beurtheilungscommission bei der Allg. deutschen
Industrie-Ausstellung_, 1854 (Munich, 1855), pp. 169-170; also
Friedr. Zamminer, _Die Musik und die Musikinstrumente in ihrer
Beziehung zu den Gesetzen der Akustik_ (Giessen, 1855), p. 313.
[2] V.C. Mahillon, _Eléments d'acoustique musicale et instrumentale_
(Bruxelles, 1874), p. 153.
[3] The bombardon is used in the military bands of Austria, but in
those of Germany it has been superseded by a bass tuba differing
slightly in form and construction from the bombardons and bass tubas
used in England, France, Belgium and Austria.
BOMBAY CITY, the capital of Bombay Presidency, and the chief seaport of
western India, situated in 18° 55' N. and 72° 54' E. The city stands on
an island of the same name, which forms one of a group now connected by
causeways with the mainland. The area is 22 sq. m.; and the population
of the town and island (1901) 776,006 (estimate in 1906, 977,822).
Bombay is the second most populous city in the Indian empire, having
fallen behind Calcutta at the census of 1901. Its position on the side
of India nearest to Europe, its advantages as a port and a railway
centre, and its monopoly of the cotton industry, are counteracted by the
fact that the region which it serves cannot vie with the valley of the
Ganges in point of fertility and has no great waterway like the Ganges
or Brahmaputra. Nevertheless Bombay pushes Calcutta hard for supremacy
in point of population and commercial prosperity.
The Bombay Island, or, as it ought to be more correctly called, the
Bombay Peninsula, stands out from a coast ennobled by lofty hills, and
its harbour is studded by rocky islands and precipices, whose peaks rise
to a great height. The approach from the sea discloses one of the
finest panoramas in the world,--the only European analogy being the Bay
of Naples. The island consists of a plain about 11 m. long by 3 broad,
flanked by two parallel lines of low hills. A neck of land stretching
towards the south-west forms the harbour on its eastern side, sheltering
it from the force of the open sea, and enclosing an expanse of water
from 5 to 7 m. wide. At the south-west of the island, Back Bay, a
shallow basin rather more than 2 m. in breadth, runs inland for about 3
m. between the extreme points of the two ranges of hills. On a slightly
raised strip of land between the head of Back Bay and the harbour is
situated the fort, the nucleus of the city of Bombay. From this point
the land slopes westward towards the central plain, a low-lying tract,
which before the construction of the embankment known as the Hornby
Vellard, used at high tide to be submerged by the sea. The town itself
consists of well-built and unusually handsome native bazaars, and of
spacious streets devoted to European commerce. In the native bazaar the
houses rise three or four storeys in height, with elaborately carved
pillars and front work. Some of the European hotels and commercial
buildings are on the American scale, and have no rival in any other city
of India. The Taj Mahal hotel, which was built by the Tata family in
1904, is the most palatial and modern hotel in India. The private houses
of the European residents lie apart alike from the native and from the
mercantile quarters of the town. As a rule, each is built in a large
garden or compound; and although the style of architecture is less
imposing than that of the stately residences in Calcutta, it is well
suited to the climate, and has a beauty and comfort of its own. The
favourite suburb is Malabar hill, a high ridge running out into the sea,
and terraced to the top by handsome houses, which command one of the
finest views, of its kind, in the world. Of recent years wealthy natives
have been competing with Europeans for the possession of this desirable
quarter. To the right of this ridge, looking towards the sea, runs
another suburb known as Breach Candy, built close upon the beach and
within the refreshing sound of the waves. To the left of Malabar hill
lies Back Bay, with a promontory on its farther shore, which marks the
site of the old Bombay Fort; its walls are demolished, and the area is
chiefly devoted to mercantile buildings. Farther round the island,
beyond the fort, is Mazagon Bay, commanding the harbour, and the centre
of maritime activity. The defences of the port, remodelled and armed
with the latest guns, consist of batteries on the islands in the
harbour, in addition to which there are three large batteries on the
mainland. There is also a torpedo-boat detachment stationed in the
harbour.
No city in the world has a finer water-front than Bombay. The great line
of public offices along the esplanade and facing Back Bay, which are in
the Gothic style mixed with Saracenic, are not individually
distinguished for architectural merit, but they have a cumulative effect
of great dignity. The other most notable buildings in the city are the
Victoria terminus of the Great Indian Peninsula railway and the Taj
Mahal hotel. Towards the northern end of Malabar hill lie the Parsee
Towers of Silence, where the Parsees expose their dead till the flesh is
devoured by vultures, and then cast the bones into a well where they
crumble into dust. The foundation-stone of a museum was laid by the
prince of Wales in 1905.
_Local Government._--The port of Bombay (including docks and warehouses)
is managed by a port trust, the members of which are nominated by the
government from among the commercial community. The municipal government
of the city was framed by an act of the Bombay legislative council
passed in 1888. The governing body consists of a municipal corporation
and a town council. The corporation is composed of 72 members, of whom
16 are nominated by the government. Of the remainder, 36 are elected by
the ratepayers, 16 by the justices of the peace, 2 by the senate of the
university, and 2 by the chamber of commerce. The council, which forms
the standing committee of the corporation, consists of 12 members, of
whom 4 are nominated by the government and the rest elected by the
corporation. The members of the corporation include Europeans, Hindus,
Mahommedans and Parsees. The Bombay University was constituted in 1857
as an examining body, on the model of the university of London. The
chief educational institutions in Bombay City are the government
Elphinstone College, two missionary colleges (Wilson and St Xavier), the
Grant medical college, the government law school, the Sir Jamsetjee
Jeejeebhoy school of art, and the Victoria Jubilee technical institute.
_Docks._--The dockyard, originally built in 1736, has a sea-face of
nearly 700 yds. and an area of about 200 acres. There are five graving
docks, three of which together make one large dock 648 ft. long, while
the other two make a single dock 582 ft. long. There are also four
building slips opposite the Apollo Bandar (landing-place) on the
south-east side of the enclosure. The dockyard is lighted by
electricity, so that work can be carried on by night as well as day.
Bombay is the only important place near the sea in India where the rise
of the tide is sufficient to permit docks on the largest scale. The
highest spring tides here reach 17 ft., but the average is 14 ft.
Prince's dock, of which the foundation-stone was laid by the prince of
Wales in 1875, was opened in 1879, and is 1460 ft. long by 1000 ft.
broad, with a water area of 30 acres; while the Victoria dock, which was
completed and opened in 1887-1888, has a water area of 25 acres. South
of the Victoria dock, the foundation-stone of the Alexandra dock, the
largest in India, was laid by the prince of Wales in 1905.
_Cotton Mills._--The milling industry is, next to the docks, the chief
feature of Bombay's commercial success. The staple manufacture is
cotton-spinning, but in addition to this there are flour mills and
workshops to supply local needs. The number of factories increased from
fifty-three in 1881 to eighty-three in 1890, and that decade saw the
influx of a great industrial population from the surrounding districts;
but the decade 1891-1901 witnessed at least a temporary set-back owing
to the ravages caused by plague and the effects of over-production. In
addition to the actual mortality it inflicted, the plague caused an
exodus of the population from the island, disorganized the labour at the
docks and in the mills, and swallowed up large sums which were spent by
the municipality on plague operations and sanitary improvements. After
1901, however, both population and trade began to revive again. In 1901
there were 131,796 persons employed in the cotton industry.
_Population._--Owing to its central position between East and West and
to the diversity of races in India, no city in the world can show a
greater variety of type than Bombay. The Mahratta race is the dominant
element next to the European rulers, but in addition to them are a great
and influential section of Parsee merchants, Arab traders from the Gulf,
Afghans and Sikhs from northern India, Bengalis, Rajputs, Chinese,
Japanese, Malays, negroes, Tibetans, Sinhalese and Siamese. Bombay is
the great port and meeting-place of the Eastern world. Out of the large
sections of its population, Hindu, Mahommedan, Parsee, Jain and
Christian, the Parsees are one of the smallest and yet the most
influential. They number only some 46,000 all told, but most of the
great business houses are owned by Parsee millionaires and most of the
large charities are founded by them.
_History._--The name of the island and city of Bombay is derived from
Mumba (a form of Parvati), the goddess of the Kolis, a race of
husbandmen and fishermen who were the earliest known inhabitants, having
occupied the island probably about the beginning of the Christian era.
Bombay originally consisted of seven islands (the _Heptanesia_ of
Ptolemy) and formed an outlying portion of the dominions of successive
dynasties dominant in western India: Satavahanas, Mauryas, Chalukyas and
Rashtrakutas. In the Maurya and Chalukya period (450-750) the city of
Puri on Elephanta Island was the principal place in Bombay harbour. The
first town built on Bombay Island was Mahikavati (Mahim), founded by
King Bhima, probably a member of the house of the Yadavas of Deogiri, as
a result of Ala-ud-din Khilji's raid into the Deccan in 1294. It
remained under Hindu rule until 1348, when it was captured by a
Mahommedan force from Gujarat; and the islands remained part of the
province (later kingdom) of Gujarat till 1534, when they were ceded by
Sultan Bahadur to the Portuguese.
The island did not prosper under Portuguese rule. By the system known as
_aforamento_ the lands were gradually parcelled out into a number of
fiefs granted, under the crown of Portugal, to individuals or to
religious corporations in return for military service or equivalent
quit-rents. The northern districts were divided among the Franciscans
and Jesuits, who built a number of churches, some of which still
survive. The intolerance of their rule did not favour the growth of the
settlement, which in 1661, when it was transferred to the British, had a
population of only 10,000. The English had, however, long recognized its
value as a naval base, and it was for this reason that they fought the
battle of Swally (1614-1615), attempted to capture the place in 1626,
and that the Surat Council urged the purchase of Bombay from the
Portuguese. In 1654 the directors of the Company drew Cromwell's
attention to this suggestion, laying stress on the excellence of its
harbour and its safety from attack by land. It finally became the
property of the British in 1661 as part of the dowry of the infanta
Catherine of Portugal on her marriage to Charles II., but was not
actually occupied by the British until 1665, when they experienced much
difficulty in overcoming the opposition of the Portuguese, and
especially of the religious orders, to the cession. In 1668 it was
transferred by the crown to the East India Company, who placed it under
the factory of Surat.
The real foundation of the modern city dates from this time, and was the
work of Gerald Aungier (or Angier), brother of Francis Aungier, 3rd Lord
Aungier of Longford and 1st earl of Longford in Ireland (d. 1700), who
succeeded Sir George Oxenden as president of Surat in 1669 and died in
1677. At this time Bombay was threatened by the Mahrattas from inland,
by the Malabar pirates and the Dutch from the sea, and was cut off from
the mainland by the Portuguese, who still occupied the island of
Salsette and had established a customs-barrier in the channel between
Bombay and the shore. In spite of the niggardly policy of the court of
directors, who refused to incur the expense of employing skilled
engineers, Aungier succeeded in fortifying the town and shore; he also
raised a force of militia and regulars, the latter mainly Germans (as
more trustworthy than the riffraff collected in London by the Company's
crimps). In 1672 Aungier transferred his headquarters to Bombay, and
after frightening off an imposing Dutch fleet, which in 1670 attempted
to surprise the island, set to work to organize the settlement anew. To
this task he brought a mind singularly enlightened and a sincere belief
in the best traditions of English liberty. In its fiscal policy, in its
religious intolerance, and in its cruel and contemptuous treatment of
the natives, Portuguese rule had been alike oppressive. Aungier altered
all this. With the consent of "a general assembly of the chief
representatives of the people" he commuted the burdensome land tax for a
fixed money payment; he protected all castes in the celebration of their
religious ceremonies; and he forbade any compulsion of natives to carry
burdens against their will. The result was that the population of Bombay
increased rapidly; a special quarter was set apart for the banya, or
capitalist, class of Hindus; while Parsees and Armenians flocked to a
city where they were secure of freedom alike for their trade and their
religion. Within eight years the population had grown from 10,000 to
60,000. The immediate result of this concentration of people in a spot
so unwholesome was the prevalence of disease, produced by the appalling
sanitary conditions. This, too, Aungier set himself to remedy. In 1675
he initiated the works for draining the foul tidal swamps; and, failing
the consent of the Company to the erection of a regular hospital, he
turned the law court into an infirmary. He also set up three courts of
justice: a tribunal for petty causes under a factor with native
assessors, a court of appeal under the deputy governor and members of
council, and a court-martial. A regular police force was also
established and a gaol built in the Bazaar.[1]
During this period, however, the position of Bombay was sufficiently
precarious. The Malabar pirates, though the city itself was too strong
for them, were a constant menace to its trade; and it required all the
genius of Aungier to maintain the settlement, isolated as it was between
the rival powers of the Mahrattas and the Mogul empire. After his death,
on the 30th of June 1677, its situation became even more precarious.
Even under Aungier the Siddi admirals of the Moguls had asserted their
right to use Bombay harbour as winter quarters for their fleet, though
they had failed to secure it as a base against the Mahrattas. Under his
weak successor (Rolt, 1677-1682), the English waters, the value of which
had now been proved, became the battle-ground between the rival navies,
and for some years Bombay lay at the mercy of both. The Company's rule,
moreover, was exposed to another danger. The niggardly policy of the
board of directors, more intent on peaceful dividends than on warlike
rule, could not but be galling to soldiers of fortune. A mutiny at
Bombay in 1674 had only been suppressed by the execution of the
ringleader; and in 1683 a more formidable movement took place under
Richard Keigwin, a naval officer who had been appointed governor of St
Helena in reward for the part played by him in the capture of the island
from the Dutch in 1673. Keigwin, elected governor of Bombay by popular
vote, issued a proclamation in the king's name, citing the "intolerable
extortions, oppressions and exactions" of the Company, and declaring his
government under the immediate authority of the crown. He ruled with
moderation, reformed the system of taxation, obtained notable
concessions from the Mahrattas, and increased the trade of the port by
the admission of "interlopers." But he failed to extend the rebellion
beyond Bombay; and when a letter arrived, under the royal sign manual,
ordering him to surrender the fort to Sir John Child, appointed admiral
and captain-general of the Company's forces, he obeyed.[2]
Meanwhile the Company had decided to consider Bombay as "an independent
settlement, and the seat of the power and trade of the English in the
East Indies." But a variety of causes set back the development of the
city, notably the prevalence of plague and cholera due to the silting up
of the creeks that divided its component islands; and it was not till
after the amalgamation of the old and new companies in 1708 that the
governor's seat was transferred from Surat to Bombay. In 1718 the city
wall was completed; settlers began to stream in, especially from
distracted Gujarat; and a series of wise administrative reforms
increased this tendency until in 1744 the population, which in 1718 had
sunk to 16,000, had risen to 70,000. Meanwhile the Mahratta conquest of
Bassein and Salsette (1737-1739) had put a stop to the hostility of the
Portuguese, and a treaty of alliance with the Siddis (1733) had secured
a base of supplies on the mainland. The French wars of 1744-1748 and
1756-1763 led to a further strengthening of the fortifications; and the
influx of settlers from the mainland made the questions of supplies and
of the protection of trade from piracy more pressing. The former was in
part settled by the acquisition of Bankot (1755) as a result of an
alliance with the peshwa, the latter by the successful expedition under
Watson and Clive against Vijayadrug (1756). During this period, too, the
importance of Bombay as a naval base, long since recognized, was
increased by the building of a dock (1750), a second being added in
1762. The year 1770 saw the beginning of the cotton trade with China,
the result of a famine in that country, the Chinese government having
issued an edict commanding more land to be used for growing grain. This,
too, was a period of searching reforms in the administration and the
planning and building of the city; the result being a further immense
growth of its population, which in 1780 was 113,000. This was still
further increased by the famine of 1803, which drove large numbers of
people from Konkan and the Deccan to seek employment in Bombay. A great
fire broke out in the fort in the same year and caused enormous loss;
but it enabled the government to open wider thoroughfares in the more
congested parts, and greatly stimulated the tendency of the natives to
build their houses and shops outside the walls of the fort in what are
now some of the busiest parts of the city.
The British victory over the Mahrattas and the annexation of the Deccan
opened a new period of unrestricted development for Bombay. At this
time, too (1819), its fortunes were vigorously fostered by Mountstuart
Elphinstone, and in 1838 the population had risen to 236,000. But in the
next fifty years it more than doubled itself, the figures for 1891 being
821,000. This great leap was due to the influence of railways, of which
the first line was completed in 1853, the opening of the Suez Canal, and
the foundation of cotton factories. In 1866-1867 the tide of prosperity
was interrupted by a financial crisis, due to the fall in the price of
cotton on the termination of the American war. Bombay, however, soon
recovered herself, and in 1891 was more prosperous than ever before; but
during the ensuing decade great havoc was played by plague (q.v.) with
both her population and her trade. In addition to a decline of 6% in the
population, the exports also declined by 7%, whereas Calcutta's exports
rose during the same period by 38%.
See S.M. Edwardes, _The Rise of Bombay_ (1902); James Douglas, _Bombay
and Western India_ (1893); G.W. Forrest, _Cities of India_ (1903); Sir
William Hunter, _History of British India_ (London, 1900); _Imp.
Gazetteer of India_ (Oxford, 1908), s.v. "Bombay City."
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Hunter, _Hist. of British India_, ii. pp. 212, &c.
[2] See Hunter, op. cit. ii. 205, &c. He received a full pardon, was
appointed later to the command of a frigate in the royal navy, and
fell while leading the assault on St Christopher's (June 21, 1690).
BOMBAY FURNITURE. "Bombay blackwood furniture" is a term applied to a
rather extensive class of articles manufactured in the city of Bombay
and in the towns of Surat and Ahmedabad in India. The wood used is
Shisham or blackwood (_Dalbergia_), a hard-grained dark-coloured timber
which with proper treatment assumes a beautiful natural polish. Much of
the so-called Bombay furniture is clumsy and inelegant in form, defects
which it is suggested by experts, like Sir George Birdwood, it owes to
the circumstance that the original models were Dutch. Some of the
smaller articles, such as flower stands, small tables, and ornamental
stands, are, however, of exceedingly graceful contour, and good examples
are highly prized by collectors. The carving at its best is lace-like in
character, and apart from its inherent beauty is attractive on account
of the ingenuity shown by the worker in adapting his design in detail to
the purpose of the article he is fashioning. The workmen who manufacture
the most artistic Bombay furniture are a special class with inherited
traditions. Often a man knows only one design, which has been
transmitted to him by his father, who in his turn had had it from his
father before him. In recent years under European auspices efforts have
been made with a certain measure of success to modernize the industry by
introducing portions of the native work into furniture of Western
design. In the main, however, the conventional patterns are still
adhered to. "Bombay boxes" are inlaid in geometrical patterns on wood.
The inlaying materials consist of the wire, sandal wood, sapan wood,
ebony, ivory and stags' horns, and the effect produced by the
combination of minute pieces of these various substances is altogether
peculiar and distinctive.
BOMBAY PRESIDENCY, a province or presidency of British India, consisting
partly of British districts, and partly of native states under the
administration of a governor. This territory extends from 13° 53' to 28°
45' N., and from 66° 40' to 76° 30' E., and is bounded on the N. by
Baluchistan, the Punjab and Rajputana; on the E. by Indore, the Central
Provinces and Hyderabad; on the S. by Madras and Mysore; and on the W.
by the Arabian Sea. Within these limits lie the Portuguese settlements
of Diu, Damaun and Goa, and the native state of Baroda which has direct
relations with the government of India; while politically Bombay
includes the settlement of Aden. The total area, including Sind but
excluding Aden, is 188,745 sq. m., of which 122,984 sq. m. are under
British and 65,761 under native rule. The total population (1901) is
25,468,209, of which 18,515,587 are resident in British territory and
6,908,648 in native states. The province is divided into four
commissionerships and twenty-six districts. The four divisions are the
northern or Gujarat, the central or Deccan, the southern or Carnatic,
and Sind. The twenty-six districts are: Bombay City, Ahmedabad, Broach,
Kaira, Panch Mahals, Surat, Thana, Ahmednagar, Khandesh (partitioned
into two districts in 1906), Nasik, Poona, Satara, Sholapur, Belgaum,
Bijapur, Dharwar, Kanara, Kolaba, Ratnagiri, Karachi, Hyderabad,
Shikarpur, Thar and Parkar, and Upper Sind Frontier. The native states
comprise in all 353 separate units, which are administered either by
political agents or by the collectors of the districts in which the
smaller states are situated. The chief groups of states are North
Gujarat, comprising Cutch, Kathiawar agency, Palanpur agency, Mahi
Kantha agency, Rewa Kantha agency and Cambay; South Gujarat, comprising
Dharampur, Bansda and Sachin; North Konkan, Nasik and Khandesh,
comprising Khandesh political agency, Surgana and Jawhar; South Konkan
and Dharwar, comprising Janjira, Sawantwari and Savanur; the Deccan
Satara Jagirs, comprising Akalkot, Bhor, Aundh, Phaltan, Jath and
Daphlapur; the southern Mahratta states, comprising Kolhapur and other
states, and Khairpur in Sind. The native states under the supervision of
the government of Bombay are divided, historically and geographically,
into two main groups. The northern or Gujarat group includes the
territories of the gaekwar of Baroda, with the smaller states which form
the administrative divisions of Cutch, Palanpur, Rewa Kantha, and Mahi
Kantha. These territories, with the exception of Cutch, have an
historical connexion, as being the allies or tributaries of the gaekwar
in 1805, when final engagements were included between that prince and
the British government. The southern or Mahratta group includes
Kolhapur, Akalkot, Sawantwari, and the Satara and southern Mahratta
Jagirs, and has an historical bond of union in the friendship they
showed to the British in their final struggle with the power of the
peshwa in 1818. The remaining territories may conveniently be divided
into a small cluster of independent zamin-daris, situated in the wild
and hilly tracts at the northern extremity of the Sahyadri range, and
certain principalities which, from their history or geographical
position, are to some extent isolated from the rest of the presidency.
_Physical Aspects._--The Bombay Presidency consists of a long strip of
land along the Indian Ocean from the south of the Punjab to the north of
Mysore. The coast is rock-bound and difficult of access; and though it
contains several bays forming fairweather ports for vessels engaged in
the coasting trade, Bombay, Karachi-in-Sind, Marmagoa and Karwar alone
have harbours sufficiently land-locked to protect shipping during the
prevalence of the south-west monsoon. The coast-line is regular and
little broken, save by the Gulfs of Cambay and Cutch, between which lies
the peninsula of Kathiawar.
Mountains.
Speaking generally, a range of hills, known as the Western Ghats, runs
down the coast, at places rising in splendid bluffs and precipices from
the water's edge, at others retreating inland, and leaving a flat
fertile strip of 5 to 50 m. between their base and the sea. In the north
of the presidency on the right bank of the Indus, the Hala mountains, a
continuation of the great Suleiman range, separate British India from
the dominions of the khan of Kalat. Leaving Sind, and passing by the
ridges of low sandhills,--the leading feature of the desert east of the
Indus,--and the isolated hills of Cutch and Kathiawar, which form
geologically the western extremity of the Aravalli range, the first
extensive mountain range is that separating Gujarat from the states of
central India. The rugged and mountainous country south of the Tapti
forms the northern extremity of the Sahyadri or Western Ghats. This
great range of hills, sometimes overhanging the ocean, and generally
running parallel to it at a distance nowhere exceeding 50 m., with an
average elevation of about 1800 ft., contains individual peaks rising to
more than double that height. They stretch southwards for upwards of 500
m., with a breadth of 10 to 20 m. The western declivity is abrupt, the
land at the base of the hills being but slightly raised above the level
of the sea. As is usually the case with the trap formation, they descend
to the plains in terraces with abrupt fronts. The landward slope is in
many places very gentle, the crest of the range being sometimes but
slightly raised above the level of the plateau of the Deccan. Their
best-known elevation is Mahabaleshwar, 4500 ft. high, a fine plateau,
37 m. from Poona, covered with rich vegetation, and used by the Bombay
government as its summer retreat and sanitarium. In the neighbourhood of
the Sahyadri hills, particularly towards the northern extremity of the
range, the country is rugged and broken, containing isolated peaks,
masses of rock and spurs, which, running eastward, form watersheds for
the great rivers of the Deccan. The Satpura hills separate the valley of
the Tapti from the valley of the Nerbudda, and the district of Khandesh
from the territories of Indore. The Satmala or Ajanta hills, which are
rather the northern slope of the plateau than a distinct range of hills,
separate Khandesh from the Nizam's Dominions.
Plains.
The more level parts of Bombay consist of five well-demarcated
tracts--Sind, Gujarat, the Konkan, the Deccan, and the Carnatic. Sind,
or the lower valley of the Indus, is very flat, with but scanty
vegetation, and depending for productiveness entirely on irrigation.
Gujarat, except on its northern parts, consists of rich, highly
cultivated alluvial plains, watered by the Tapti and Nerbudda, but not
much subject to inundation. The Konkan lies between the Western Ghats
and the sea. It is a rugged and difficult country, intersected by
creeks, and abounding in isolated peaks and detached ranges of hills.
The plains of the Deccan and Khandesh are watered by large rivers, but
as the rainfall is uncertain, they are generally, during the greater
part of the year, bleak and devoid of vegetation. The Carnatic plain, or
the country south of the river Kistna, consists of extensive tracts of
black or cotton soil in a high state of cultivation.
Rivers.
The chief river of western India is the Indus, which enters the
presidency from the north of Sind and flowing south in a tortuous
course, falls into the Arabian Sea by several mouths, such as the Ghizri
creek, Khudi creek, Pitiani creek, Sisa creek, Hajamro creek, Vatho
creek, Mall creek, Wari creek, Bhitiara creek, Sir creek and Khori
creek. In the dry season the bed varies at different places from 480 to
1600 yds. The flood season begins in March and continues till September,
the average depth of the river rising from 9 to 24 ft., and the velocity
of the current increasing from 3 to 7 m. an hour. Next to the Indus
comes the Nerbudda. Rising in the Central Provinces, and traversing the
dominions of Holkar, the Nerbudda enters the presidency at the
north-western extremity of the Khandesh district, flows eastward, and
after a course of 700 m. from its source, falls into the Gulf of Cambay,
forming near its mouth the alluvial plain of Broach, one of the richest
districts of Bombay. For about 100 m. from the sea the Nerbudda is at
all seasons navigable by small boats, and during the rains by vessels of
from 30 to 50 tons burden. The Tapti enters the presidency a few miles
south of the town of Burhanpur, a station on the Great Indian Peninsula
railway, flows eastward through the district of Khandesh, the native
state of Rewa Kantha and the district of Surat, and falls into the Gulf
of Cambay, a few miles west of the town of Surat. The Tapti drains about
250 m. of country, and is, in a commercial point of view, the most
useful of the Gujarat rivers. Besides these there are many minor
streams. The Banas and the Saraswati take their rise in the Aravalli
hills, and flowing eastward through the native state of Palanpur, fall
into the Runn of Cutch. The Sabarmati and the Mahi rise in the Mahi
Kantha hills, and flowing southwards, drain the districts of Northern
Gujarat, and fall into the sea near the head of the Gulf of Cambay. The
streams which, rising in the Sahyadri range, or Western Ghats, flow
westward into the Arabian Sea, are of little importance. During the
rains they are formidable torrents, but with the return of the fair
weather they dwindle away, and during the hot season, with a few
exceptions, they almost dry up. Clear and rapid as they descend the
hills, on reaching the lowlands of the Konkan they become muddy and
brackish creeks. The Kanarese rivers have a larger body of water and a
more regular flow than the streams of the Konkan. One of them, the
Sharawati, forcing its way through the western ridge of the Ghats,
plunges from the high to the low country by a succession of falls, the
principal of which is 800 ft. in height. The Sahyadri, or Western Ghats,
also throw off to the eastward the two principal rivers of the Madras
Presidency, the Godavari and the Kistna. These rivers collect countless
tributary streams, some of them of considerable size, and drain the
entire plain of the Deccan as they pass eastward towards the Bay of
Bengal.
Lakes.
The Manchar Lake is situated on the right bank of the Indus. During
inundations it attains a length of 20 m., and a breadth of 10, covering
a total area estimated at 180 sq. m. But the most peculiar lacustrine
feature of the presidency is the Runn or Lake of Cutch, which, according
to the season of the year, is a salt marsh, an inland lake, or an arm of
the sea with an area of 8000 sq. m. It forms the western boundary of the
province of Gujarat, and when flooded during the rains unites the Gulfs
of Cutch and Cambay, and converts the territory of Cutch into an island.
_Geology._--South of Gujarat nearly the whole of Bombay is covered by
the horizontal lava flows of the Deccan Trap series, and these flows
spread over the greater part of the Kathiawar peninsula and extend into
Cutch. In Cutch and Kathiawar they are underlaid by Jurassic and
Neocomian beds. The Jurassic beds are marine and contain numerous
Ammonites, but the beds which are referred to the Neocomian include a
series of sandstones and shales with remains of plants. Several of the
plants are identical with forms which occur in the upper portion of the
Gondwana system. Tertiary limestones, sandstones and shales overlie the
Deccan Trap in Cutch, but the greatest development of deposits of this
age is to be met with on the western side of the Indus (see SIND). The
plain of Sind and of eastern Gujarat is covered by alluvium and
wind-blown sand.
_Climate._--Great varieties of climate are met with in the presidency.
In its extreme dryness and heat, combined with the aridity of a sandy
soil, Upper Sind resembles the sultry deserts of Africa. The mean
maximum temperature at Hyderabad, in Lower Sind, during the six hottest
months of the year, is 98° F. in the shade, and the water of the Indus
reaches blood heat; in Upper Sind it is even hotter, and the thermometer
has been known to register 130° in the shade. In Cutch and in Gujarat
the heat, though less, is still very great. The Konkan is hot and moist,
the fall of rain during the monsoon sometimes approaching 300 in. The
table-land of the Deccan above the Ghats, on the contrary, has an
agreeable climate except in the hot months, as has also the southern
Mahratta country; and in the hills of Mahabaleshwar, Singarh, and other
detached heights, Europeans may go out at all hours with impunity.
Bombay Island itself, though in general cooled by the sea breeze, is
oppressively hot during May and October. The south-west monsoon
generally sets in about the first week in June, and pours down volumes
of rain along the coast. From June to October travelling is difficult
and unpleasant, except in Sind, where the monsoon rains exert little
influence.
_Forests._--Bombay Presidency possesses two great classes of
forests--those of the hills and those of the alluvial plains. The hill
forests are scattered over a wide area, extending from 23° to 14° N.
lat. Most of them lie among the Sahyadri hills or Western Ghats. The
alluvial forests lie in Sind, on or close to the banks of the Indus, and
extend over an area of 550 sq. m. The principal timber trees in the
forests are--teak; blackwood of two varieties (_Dalbergia Sisu_ and
_Dalbergia latifolia_), _Dalbergia ujainensis, Pterocarpus Marsupium,
Terminalia glabra, Acacia arabica, Acacia Catechu, Nauclea cordifolia,
Nauclea parvifolia, Bidelia spinosa, Hardwickia binata, Juga xylocarpa,
Populus euphratica_, and _Tamarindus indica_. The forests contain many
trees which, on account of their fruits, nuts or berries, are valuable,
irrespective of the quality of their timber. Among these are the mango
(_Mangifera indica_); the jack (_Artocarpus integrifolia_), _Zizypkus
Jujuba, Aegle Marmelos, Terminalia Chebula, Calophyllum Inophyllum,
Bassia latifolia and Pongamia glabra_. The jungle tribes collect gum
from several varieties of trees, and in Sind the Forest Department
derives a small revenue from lac. The palms of the presidency consist of
cocoa-nut, date, palmyra and areca catechu.
_Population._--The census of 1901 gave a total of 25,468,209, out of
which the chief religions furnished the following numbers:--
Hindu 19,916,438
Mahommedan 4,567,295
Jain 535,950
Zoroastrian 78,552
Christian 216,118
In Sind Islam has been the predominant religion from the earliest Arab
conquest in the 8th century. In Gujarat the predominant religion is
Hinduism, though petty Mahommedan kingdoms have left their influence in
many parts of the province. The Deccan is the home of the Mahrattas, who
constitute 30% of the population. The Konkan is notable for various
Christian castes, owing their origin to Portuguese rule; while in the
Carnatic, Lingayatism, a Hindu reformation movement of the 12th century,
has been embraced by 45% of the population. The Mahrattas are the
dominating race next to the Europeans and number (1901) 3,650,000,
composed of 1,900,000 Kunbis, 350,000 Konkanis, and 1,400,000 Mahrattas
not otherwise specified.
_Languages._--The chief languages of the presidency are Sindhi in Sind,
Cutchi in Cutch, Gujarati and Hindustani in Gujarat, Mahratti in Thana
and the central division, Gujarati and Mahratti in Khandesh, and
Mahratti and Kanarese in the southern division. There are also Bhil
(120,000) and Gipsy (30,000) dialects.
_Agriculture._--The staple crops are as follows:--Joar (_Sorghum
vulgare_) and bajra (_Holcus spicatus_) are the staple food grains in
the Deccan and Khandesh. Rice is the chief product of the Konkan. Wheat,
generally grown in the northern part of the Presidency, but specially in
Sind and Gujarat, is exported to Europe in large quantities from
Karachi, and on a smaller scale from Bombay. Barley is principally grown
in the northern parts of the presidency. Nachani (_Eleusine coracana_)
and kodra (_Paspalum serobiculatum_), inferior grains grown on the
hill-sides, furnish food to the Kolis, Bhils, Waralis, and other
aboriginal tribes. Of the pulses the most important are gram (_Cicer
arietinum_), tur (_Cajanus indicus_), kulti (_Dolichos biflorus_), and
mug (_Phaseolus Mungo_). Principal oil-seeds: til (_Sesamum orientale_),
mustard, castor-oil, safflower and linseed. Of fibres the most important
are cotton, Deccan hemp (_Hibiscus cannabinus_), and sunn or tag
(_Crotalaria juncea_). Much has been done to improve the cotton of the
presidency. American varieties have been introduced with much advantage
in the Dharwar collectorate and other parts of the southern Mahratta
country. In Khandesh the indigenous plant from which one of the lowest
classes of cotton in the Bombay market takes its name has been almost
entirely superseded by the superior Hinganghat variety. Miscellaneous
crops: sugar-cane, requiring a rich soil and a perennial water-supply,
and only grown in favoured localities, red pepper, potatoes, turmeric
and tobacco.
_Manufactures._--The chief feature of the modern industrial life of
Bombay is the great development in the growth and manufacture of cotton.
Large steam mills have rapidly sprung up in Bombay City, Ahmedabad and
Khandesh. In 1905 there were 432 factories in the presidency, of which
by far the greater number were engaged in the preparation and
manufacture of cotton. The industry is centred in Bombay City and
Island, which contains nearly two-thirds of the mills. During the decade
1891-1901 the mill industry passed through a period of depression due to
widespread plague and famine, but on the whole there has been a marked
expansion of the trade as well as a great improvement in the class of
goods produced. In addition to the mills there are (1901) 178,000
hand-loom weavers in the province, who still have a position of their
own in the manipulation of designs woven into the cloth. Silk goods are
manufactured in Ahmedabad, Surat, Yeola, Nasik, Thana and Bombay, the
material being often decorated with printed or woven designs; but owing
to the competition of European goods most branches of the industry are
declining. The custom of investing savings in gold and silver ornaments
gives employment to many goldsmiths; the metal is usually supplied by
the customer, and the goldsmith charges for his labour. Ahmedabad and
Surat are famous for their carved wood-work. Many of the houses in
Ahmedabad are covered with elaborate wood-carving, and excellent
examples exist in Broach, Baroda, Surat, Nasik and Yeola. Salt is made
in large quantities in the government works at Kharaghoda and Udu in
Ahmedabad, whence it is exported by rail to Gujarat and central India.
There is one brewery at Dapuri near Poona.
_Railways and Irrigation._--The province is well supplied with railways,
all of which, with one exception, concentrate at Bombay City. The
exception is the North-Western line, which enters Sind from the Punjab
and finds its natural terminus at Karachi. The other chief lines are the
Great Indian Peninsula, Indian Midland, Bombay, Baroda & Central India,
Rajputana-Malwa & Southern Mahratta systems. In 1905 the total length of
railway under the Bombay government open for traffic was 7980 m. These
figures do not include the railway system in Sind. With the exception of
Sind, the water-supply of the Bombay Presidency does not lend itself to
the construction of large irrigation works.
_Army._--Under Lord Kitchener's re-arrangement of the Indian army in
1904 the old Bombay command was abolished and its place was taken by the
Western army corps under a lieutenant-general. The army corps was
divided into three divisions under major-generals. The 4th division,
with headquarters at Quetta, comprises the troops in the Quetta and Sind
districts. The 5th division, with headquarters at Mhow, consists of
three brigades, located at Nasirabad, Jubbulpore and Jhansi, and
includes the previous Mhow, Deesa, Nagpur, Nerbudda and Bundelkhand
districts, with the Bombay district north of the Tapti. The 6th
division, with headquarters at Poona, consists of three brigades,
located at Bombay, Ahmednagar and Aden. It comprises the previous Poona
district, Bombay district south of the Tapti, Belgaum district north of
the Tungabhadra, and Dharwar and Aurungabad districts.
_Education._--The university of Bombay, established in 1857, is a body
corporate, consisting of a chancellor, vice-chancellor and fellows. The
governor of Bombay is _ex officio_ chancellor. The education department
is under a director of public instruction, who is responsible for the
administration of the department in accordance with the general
educational policy of the state. The native states have generally
adopted the government system. Baroda and the Kathiawar states employ
their own inspectors. In 1905 the total number of educational
institutions was 10,194 with 593,431 pupils. There are ten art colleges,
of which two are managed by government, three by native states, and five
are under private management. According to the census of 1901, out of a
population of 25½ millions nearly 24 millions were illiterate.
_Administration._--The government of Bombay is administered by a
governor in council consisting of the governor as president and two
ordinary members. The governor is appointed from England; the council is
appointed by the crown, and selected from the Indian civil service.
These are the executive members of government. For making laws there is
a legislative council, consisting of the governor and his executive
council, with certain other persons, not fewer than eight or more than
twenty, at least half of them being non-officials. Each of the members
of the executive council has in his charge one or two departments of the
government; and each department has a secretary, an under-secretary, and
an assistant secretary, with a numerous staff of clerks. The political
administration of the native states is under the superintendence of
British agents placed at the principal native courts; their position
varies in different states according to the relations in which the
principalities stand with the paramount power. The administration of
justice throughout the presidency is conducted by a high court at
Bombay, consisting of a chief justice and seven puisne judges, along
with district and assistant judges throughout the districts of the
presidency. The administration of the districts is carried on by
collectors, assistant collectors, and a varying number of supernumerary
assistants.
_History._--In the earliest times of which any record remains the
greater part of the west coast of India was occupied by Dravidian
tribes, living under their kings in fortified villages, carrying on the
simpler arts of life, and holding a faith in which the propitiation of
spirits and demons played the chief part. There is evidence, however,
that so early as 1000 B.C. an export trade existed to the Red Sea by way
of East Africa, and before 750 B.C. a similar trade had sprung up with
Babylon by way of the Persian Gulf. It was by this latter route that the
traders brought back to India the Brahmi alphabet, the art of
brick-making and the legend of the Flood. Later still the settlement of
Brahmans along the west coast had already Aryanized the country in
religion, and to some extent in language, before the Persian conquest of
the Indus valley at the close of the 6th century B.C. The Persian
dominion did not long survive; and the march of Alexander the Great down
the Indus paved the way for Chandragupta and the Maurya empire. Under
this empire Ujjain was the seat of a viceroy, a prince of the imperial
house, who ruled over Kathiawar, Malwa and Gujarat. On the death of
Asoka in 231 B.C. the empire of the Mauryas broke up, and their heritage
in the west fell to the Andhra dynasty of the Satavahanas of Paithan on
the Godavari, a Dravidian family whose dominion by 200 B.C. stretched
across the peninsula from the deltas of the Godavari and Kistna to Nasik
and the Western Ghats. About A.D. 210, however, their power in the west
seems to have died out, and their place was taken by the foreign dynasty
of the Kshaharatas, the Saka satraps of Surashtra (Kathiawar), who in
120 had mastered Ujjain and Gujarat and had built up a rival kingdom to
the north. Since about A.D. 40 the coast cities had been much enriched
by trade with the Roman empire, which both the Satavahanas and the
satraps did much to encourage; but after the fall of Palmyra (273) and
the extinction of the main Kshaharata dynasty (c. 300) this commerce
fell into decay. The history of the century and a half that follows is
very obscure; short-lived Saka dynasties succeeded one another until,
about 388, the country was conquered by the Guptas of Magadha, who kept
a precarious tenure of it till about 470, when their empire was
destroyed by the White Huns, or Ephthalites (q.v.), who, after
breaking the power of Persia and assailing the Kushan kingdom of Kabul,
poured into India, conquered Sind, and established their dominion as far
south as the Nerbudda.
Under the Hun tyranny, which lasted till the overthrow of the White Huns
on the Oxus by the Turks (c. 565), native dynasties had survived, or new
ones had established themselves. In Kathiawar a chief named Bhatarka,
probably of foreign origin, had established himself at Valabhi (Wala) on
the ruins of the Gupta power (c. 500), and founded a dynasty which
lasted until it was overthrown by Arab invaders from Sind in 770.[1] The
northern Konkan was held by the Mauryas of Puri near Bombay, the
southerly coast by the Kadambas of Vanavasi, while in the southern
Deccan Chalukyas and Rashtrakutas struggled for the mastery. A new
power, too, appeared from the north: the Gurjaras (ancestors, it is
supposed, of the Gujar caste), who had probably entered India with the
White Huns, established their power over Gujarat and (c. 600) overran
north-eastern Kathiawar, made the raja of Valabhi their tributary, and
established a branch at Broach (585-740). During the short-lived empire
of Harsha (d. 647 or 648), Malwa, Gujarat and Kathiawar were subject to
his sway; but the southern boundary of his kingdom was the Nerbudda,
south of which the Chalukyas in the 7th century, having overcome the
Rashtrakutas and other rivals, had absorbed the smaller kingdoms into
their empire. In 710-711 (92 A.H.) the Arabs invaded India, and in 712
conquered and established themselves in Sind; they did not, however,
attempt any serious attack on the Gurjara and Chalukya empires,
confining themselves to more or less serious raids. In 770 they
destroyed the city of Valabhi and, as already mentioned, brought its
dynasty to an end. Meanwhile the Chalukyas, after successfully
struggling with the Pallavas (whose capital was taken by Vikramaditya
II., c. 740), had in their turn succumbed to their ancient rivals the
Rashtrakutas, who succeeded to the bulk of their dominions, including
Gujarat, where they had set up a branch line. For some two centuries (c.
750-950) there was a balance of power between the Gurjaras and
Rashtrakutas, neither kingdom being strong enough to encroach on the
other to any extent. The Rashtrakutas were, moreover, debarred from
large schemes of conquest by dissensions with the branch dynasty which
they had set up in Gujarat and by the constant threat of attack by the
Chalukyas from Mysore. Nevertheless their power and magnificence (they
were notable builders and patrons of literature) greatly impressed the
Arabs, by whom the king was known as Balhara (_i.e. Vallhaba_,
"well-beloved"), a title borrowed from the preceding dynasty. Under them
the Konkan and the coast farther south were governed by chiefs of the
Silahara family, whose rule is mainly notable for the revival of trade
with the Persian Gulf and, doubtless as a result of this, the arrival in
775 on the west coast of a number of Parsee refugees, who found, in a
country where three religions were already equally honoured, the
toleration denied to them in Mussulman Persia. But in the 10th century
the Rashtrakuta power began to break up; in 961 Mularaja Solanki
(Chalukya) conquered the kingdom of Anhilvada (Anhilvara) in Gujarat,
where his dynasty reigned till 1242; and twelve years later the
Chalukyas once more overthrew the Rashtrakutas in the Deccan,
establishing their capital at Kalyani, while a branch line was set up in
southern Gujarat. Farther south the Silaharas, however, continued to
rule the coast, and succeeded in maintaining their independence until
after the final fall of the Chalukyas in 1192. The cause of the downfall
of the dynasty, splendid and enlightened as any of its predecessors, was
the system of governing by means of great feudatories, which also proved
fatal to the Solanki rajas of Anhilvada. From 1143 onward the power of
the latter had been overshadowed by that of the Vaghela chiefs of
Dholka, and during the same period the Deccan had been rapidly lapsing
into absolute anarchy, amid which rival chiefs struggled for the supreme
power. In the end the Yadavas of Devagiri (Daulatabad) prevailed, and in
1192 established a short-lived empire to which the Dholka princes were
ultimately forced to become tributary.
But meanwhile a new power had appeared, which was destined to establish
the Mussulman domination in western and southern India. In 1023 Mahmud
of Ghazni had already invaded Gujarat with a large army, destroyed the
national Hindu idol of Somnath, and carried away an immense booty.
Mahommed Ghori also invaded Gujarat, and left a garrison in its capital.
But it was not till after the Mussulman power was firmly established in
northern India that the Mahommedan sovereigns of Delhi attempted the
conquest of the south. In 1294 the emperor Ala-ud-din first invaded the
Deccan, and in 1297 he conquered Gujarat. In 1312 the Mahommedan arms
were triumphant through the Mahratta country; and seven years later the
whole of Malabar fell a prey to the invaders. In the middle of the 14th
century the weakness of the Delhi sovereigns tempted the governors of
provinces to revolt against their distant master, and to form
independent kingdoms. In this way the Bahmani kingdom was established in
the Deccan, and embraced a part of the Bombay presidency. Ahmednagar and
Gujarat also became the seats of a new kingdom. In 1573 Akbar conquered
Gujarat and reannexed it to the empire; in 1599 he effected the
reconquest of Khandesh, and in 1600 that of Ahmednagar. From this time
the country was never tranquil, and Ahmednagar became the focus of
constant rebellions. During the latter part of the 17th century the
Mahrattas rose into power, and almost every part of the country now
comprising the presidency of Bombay fell under their sway. In 1498 the
Portuguese came first to Calicut, their earliest possession in the
presidency being the island of Anjidiv. After their victory at Diu over
the Egyptian fleet their mastery of the Indian Ocean was undisputed, and
they proceeded to establish themselves on the coast. They captured Goa
in 1510, Malacca in 1511, and Ormuz in 1515. They next took advantage of
the decay of the kingdom of Gujarat to occupy Chaul (1531), Bassein with
its dependencies, including Bombay (1534), Diu (1535) and Daman (1559).
But the inherent vices of their intolerant system undermined their
power, even before their Dutch and English rivals appeared on the scene.
The first English settlement in the Bombay presidency was in 1618, when
the East India Company established a factory at Surat, protected by a
charter obtained from the emperor Jahangir. In 1626 the Dutch and
English made an unsuccessful attempt to gain possession of the island of
Bombay, and in 1653 proposals were suggested for its purchase from the
Portuguese. In 1661 it was ceded to the English crown, as part of the
dower of the infanta Catherine of Portugal on her marriage with Charles
II. So lightly was the acquisition esteemed in England, and so
unsuccessful was the administration of the crown officers, that in 1668
Bombay was transferred to the East India Company for an annual payment
of £10. At the time of the transfer, powers for its defence and for the
administration of justice were also conferred; a European regiment Vas
enrolled; and the fortifications erected proved sufficient to deter the
Dutch from their intended attack in 1673 (see BOMBAY CITY: History). In
1687 Bombay was placed at the head of all the Company's possessions in
India; but in 1753 the government of Bombay became subordinate to that
of Calcutta. The first collision of the English with the Mahratta power
was in 1774 and resulted in 1782 in the treaty of Salbai, by which
Salsette was ceded to the British, while Broach was handed over to
Sindhia. More important were the results of the second Mahratta war,
which ended in 1803. Surat had already been annexed in 1800; the East
India Company now received the districts of Broach, Kaira, &c.
In 1803 the Bombay presidency included only Salsette, the islands of the
harbour (since 1774), Surat and Bankot (since 1756); but between this
date and 1827 the framework of the presidency took its present shape.
The Gujarat districts were taken over by the Bombay government in 1805
and enlarged in 1818; and the first measures for the settlement of
Kathiawar and Mahi Kantha were taken between 1807 and 1820. Baji Rao,
the last of the peshwas, who had attempted to shake off the British
yoke, was defeated, captured and pensioned (1817-1818), and large
portions of his dominions (Poona, Ahmednagar, Nasik, Sholapur, Belgaum,
Kaladgi, Dharwar, &c.) were included in the presidency, the settlement
of which was completed by Mountstuart Elphinstone, governor from 1819 to
1827. His policy was to rule as far as possible on native lines,
avoiding all changes for which the population was not yet ripe; but the
grosser abuses of the old régime were stopped, the country was pacified,
the laws were codified, and courts and schools were established. The
period that followed is notable mainly for the enlargement of the
presidency through the lapse of certain native states, by the addition
of Aden (1839) and Sind (1843), and the lease of the Panch Mahals from
Sindhia (1853). The establishment of an orderly administration, one
outcome of which was a general fall of prices that made the unwonted
regularity of the collection of taxes doubly unwelcome, naturally
excited a certain amount of misgiving and resentment; but on the whole
the population was prosperous and contented, and under Lord Elphinstone
(1853-1860) the presidency passed through the crisis of the Mutiny
without any general rising. Outbreaks among the troops at Karachi,
Ahmedabad and Kolhapur were quickly put down, two regiments being
disbanded, and the rebellions in Gujarat, among the Bhils, and in the
southern Mahratta country were local and isolated. Under Sir Bartle
Frere (1862-1867) agricultural prosperity reached its highest point, as
a result of the American Civil War and the consequent enormous demand
for Indian cotton in Europe. The money thus poured into the country
produced an epidemic of speculation known as the "Share Mania"
(1864-1865), which ended in a commercial crisis and the failure of the
bank of Bombay (1866). But the peasantry gained on the whole more than
they lost, and the trade of Bombay was not permanently injured. Sir
Bartle Frere encouraged the completion of the great trunk lines of
railways, and with the funds obtained by the demolition of the town
walls (1862) he began the magnificent series of public buildings that
now adorn Bombay.
During recent times the entire history of Bombay has been sadly affected
by plague and famine. Bubonic plague, of a fatal and contagious nature,
first broke out in Bombay City in September 1896, and, despite all the
efforts of the government, quickly spread to the surrounding country.
Down to the end of October 1902 over 531,000 deaths had taken place due
to plague. In 1903-1904 there were 426,387 cases with 316,523 deaths,
and 1904-1905 there were 285,897 cases with 212,948 deaths. The great
cities of Bombay, Karachi and Poona suffered most severely. A few
districts in Gujarat almost entirely escaped; but the mortality was very
heavy in Satara, Thana, Surat, Poona, Kolaba, and in the native states
of Cutch, Baroda, Kolhapur and Palanpur. The only sanitary measure that
can be said to have been successful was complete migration, which could
only be adopted in villages and smaller towns. Inoculation was
extensively tried in some cases. Segregation was the one general method
of fighting the disease; but, unfortunately, it was misunderstood by the
people and led to some deplorable outbreaks. In Poona, during 1897, two
European officials were assassinated; the editor of a prominent native
paper was sentenced to imprisonment for sedition; and two leaders of the
Brahman community were placed in confinement. At Bombay, in March 1898,
a riot begun by Mahommedan weavers was not suppressed until several
Europeans had been fatally injured. In Nasik district, in January 1898,
the native chairman of the plague committee was brutally murdered by a
mob. But on the whole the people submitted with characteristic docility
to the sanitary regulations of the government. Bombay, like the Central
Provinces, suffered from famine twice within three years. The failure of
the monsoon of 1896 caused widespread distress throughout the Deccan,
over an area of 46,000 sq. m., with a population of 7 millions. The
largest number of persons on relief was 301,056 in September 1897; and
the total expenditure on famine relief was Rs. 1,28,000,000. The
measures adopted were signally successful, both in saving life and in
mitigating distress. In 1899 the monsoon again failed in Gujarat, where
famine hitherto had been almost unknown; and the winter rains failed in
the Deccan, so that distress gradually spread over almost the entire
presidency. The worst feature was a virulent outbreak of cholera in
Gujarat, especially in the native states. In April 1900 the total number
of persons in receipt of relief was 1,281,159 in British districts,
566,671 in native states, and 71,734 in Baroda. For 1900-1901 the total
expenditure on famine relief was nearly 3 crores (say, £2,000,000
sterling); and a continuance of drought necessitated an estimate of 1
crore in the budget of the following year. The Bombay government
exhausted its balances in 1897, and was subsequently dependent on grants
from the government of India.
See Sir James Campbell, _Gazetteer of Bombay_ (26 vols., 1896); S.M.
Edwardes, _The Rise of Bombay_ (1902); James Douglas, _Bombay and
Western India_ (1893); and Sir William Lee-Warner, _The Presidency of
Bombay_ (Society of Arts, 1904); _The Imperial Gazetteer of India_
(Oxford, 1908); and for the early history, V.A. Smith, _The Early
History of India_ (2nd ed., Oxford, 1908).
FOOTNOTE:
[1] V.A. Smith, _Early History of India_, p. 295.
BOMBAZINE, or BOMBASINE, a stuff originally made of silk or silk and
wool, and now also made of cotton and wool or of wool alone. Good
bombazine is made with a silk warp and a worsted weft. It is twilled or
corded and used for dress-material. Black bombazine has been used
largely for mourning, but the material has gone out of fashion. The word
is derived from the obsolete French _bombasin_, applied originally to
silk but afterwards to "tree-silk" or cotton. Bombazine is said to have
been made in England in Queen Elizabeth's reign, and early in the 19th
century it was largely made at Norwich.
BOMBELLES, MARC MARIE, MARQUIS DE (1744-1822), French diplomatist and
ecclesiastic, was the son of the comte de Bombelles, tutor and guardian
of the duke of Orleans. He was born at Bitsch in Lorraine, and served in
the army through the Seven Years' War. In 1765 he entered the diplomatic
service, and after several diplomatic missions became ambassador of
France to Portugal in 1786, being charged to win over that country to
the Family Compact; but the madness of the queen and then the death of
the king prevented his success. He was transferred to Vienna early in
1789, but the Revolution cut short his diplomatic career, and he was
deprived of his post in September 1790. He remained attached to Louis
XVI., and was employed on secret missions to other sovereigns, to gain
their aid for Louis. In 1792 he emigrated, and after Valmy lived in
retirement in Switzerland. In 1804, after the death of his wife, he
withdrew to the monastery of Brünn in Austria, and became bishop of
Oberglogau in Prussia. In 1815 he returned to France, and became bishop
of Amiens (1819). He died in Paris in 1822.
His son, LOUIS PHILIPPE, comte de Bombelles (1780-1843), born at
Regensburg, passed his life in the diplomatic service of Austria. In
1814 he became Austrian ambassador to Denmark, and in 1816 filled a
similar position at Dresden. (E. Es.)
BOMBERG, DANIEL, a famous Christian printer of Hebrew books. His chief
activity was in Venice between 1516 and 1549 (the year of his death).
Bomberg introduced a new era in Hebrew typography. Among other great
enterprises, he published the _editio princeps_ (1516-1517) of the
rabbinical Bible (Hebrew text with rabbinical commentaries, &c.). He
also produced the first complete edition of the Talmud (1520-1523).
BONA, JOHN (1609-1674), Italian cardinal and author, was born at Mondovi
in Piedmont, on the 10th of October 1609. In 1624 he joined the
Congregation of Feuillants and was successively elected prior of Asti,
abbot of Mondovi and general of his order. He was created cardinal in
1669 by Clement IX., and during the conclave, which followed that pope's
death, was regarded as a possible candidate for the papacy. He died on
the 27th of October 1674. Bona's writings are mainly concerned with
liturgical and devotional subjects. Of the numerous editions of his
works, the best are those of Paris (1677), Turin (1747) and Antwerp
(1777). Stores of interesting rubrical information, interspersed with
verses and prayers, are to be found in the _De Libris Liturgicis_ and
the _Divina Psalmodia_; recent advances in liturgical studies, however,
have somewhat lessened their value. The _De Discretione Spirituum_
treats of certain higher phases of mysticism; the _Via Compendii ad
Deum_ was well translated in 1876 by Henry Collins, O. Cist., under the
title of _An Easy Way to God_. Sir Roger L'Estrange's translation (_The
Guide to Heaven_, 1680) of the _Manuductio ad Coelum_ was reprinted in
1898, and a new edition of the _Principia Vitae Christianae_, ed. by D.
O'Connor, appeared in 1906. The devotional treatise _De Sacrificio
Missae_ is the classical work in its field (new edition by Ildephonsus
Cummins, 1903).
The chief source for the life of Bona is the biography by the
Cistercian abbot Bertolotti (Asti, 1677); the best modern study is by
A. Ighina (Mondovi, 1874).
BONA (BÔNE), a seaport of Algeria, in 36° 53' N., 7° 46' E., on a bay of
the Mediterranean, chief town of an arrondissement in the department of
Constantine, 220 m. by rail W. of Tunis, and 136 m. N.E. of Constantine.
The town, which is situated at the foot of the wooded heights of Edugh,
is surrounded with a modern rampart erected outside the old Arab wall,
the compass of which was found too small for its growth. Much of the old
town has been demolished, and its general character now is that of a
flourishing French city. The streets are wide and well laid out, but
some are very steep. Through the centre of the town runs a broad
tree-lined promenade, the Cours Jérôme-Bertagna, formerly the Cours
National, in which are the principal buildings --theatre, banks, hotels.
At its southern end, by the quay, is a bronze statue of Thiers, and at
the northern end, the cathedral of St Augustine, a large church built in
quasi-Byzantine style. In it is preserved a relic supposed to be the
right arm of St Augustine, brought from Pavia in 1842. The Grand Mosque,
built out of ruins of the ancient Hippo, occupies one side of the chief
square, the Place d'Armes. There are barracks with accommodation for
3000 men, and civil and military hospitals. The Kasbah (citadel) stands
on a hill at the north-east of the town. The inner harbour, covering 25
acres, is surrounded by fine quays at which vessels drawing 22 ft. can
be moored. Beyond is a spacious outer harbour, built 1857-1868 and
enlarged in 1905-1907. Bona is in direct steamship communication with
Marseilles, and is the centre of a large commerce, ranking after Algiers
and Oran alone in Algeria. It imports general merchandise and
manufactures, and exports phosphates, iron, zinc, barley, sheep, wool,
cork, esparto, &c. There are manufactories of native garments, tapestry
and leather. The marshes at the mouths of the Seybuse and Bujema rivers,
which enter the sea to the south of Bona, have been drained by a system
of canals, to the improvement of the sanitary condition of the town,
which has the further advantage of an abundant water supply obtained
from the Edugh hills. There are cork woods and marble quarries in the
vicinity, and the valley of the Seybuse and the neighbouring plains are
rich in agricultural produce. The population of the town of Bona in 1906
was 36,004, of the commune 42,934, of the arrondissement, which includes
La Calle (q.v.) and 11 other communes, 77,803.
Bona is identified with the ancient _Aphrodisium_, the seaport of _Hippo
Regius_ or _Ubbo_, but it derives its name from the latter city, the
ruins of which, consisting of large cisterns, now restored, and
fragments of walls, are about a mile to the south of the town. In the
first three centuries of the Christian era Hippo was one of the richest
cities in Roman Africa; but its chief title to fame is derived from its
connexion with St Augustine, who lived here as priest and bishop for
thirty-five years. Hippo was captured by the Vandals under Genseric in
431, after a siege of fourteen months, during which Augustine died. Only
the cathedral, together with Augustine's library and MSS., escaped the
general destruction. The town Avas partially restored by Belisarius, and
again sacked by the Arabs in the 7th century. On the top of the hill on
which Hippo stood, a large basilica, with chancel towards the west,
dedicated to St Augustine, was opened in 1900. An altar surmounted by a
bronze statue of the saint has also been erected among the ruins. The
place was named Hippo Regius (Royal) by the Romans because it was a
favourite residence of the Numidian kings. Bona (Arabic _annaba_, "the
city of jujube trees"), which has passed through many vicissitudes, was
built by the Arabs, and was for centuries a possession of the rulers of
Tunis, who built the Kasbah in 1300. From the beginning of the 14th to
the middle of the 15th century it was frequented by Italians and
Spaniards, and in the 16th it was held for some time by Charles V., who
strengthened its citadel. Thereafter it was held in turn by Genoese,
Tunisians and Algerines. From the time of Louis XIV. to the Revolution,
the French _Compagnie d'Afrique_ maintained a very active trade with the
port. The town was occupied by the French for a few months in 1830 and
reoccupied in 1832, when Captains Armandy and Yusuf with a small force
of marines seized the Kasbah and held it for some months until help
arrived. From that time the history of Bona is one of industrial
development, greatly stimulated since 1883 by the discovery of the
phosphate beds at Tebessa.
BONA DEA, the "good goddess," an old Roman deity of fruitfulness, both
in the earth and in women. She was identified with Fauna, and by later
syncretism also with Ops and Maia--the latter no doubt because the
dedication-day of her temple on the Aventine was 1st May (Ovid, _Fasti_,
v. 149 foll.). This temple was cared for, and the cult attended, by
women only, and the same was the case at a second celebration at the
beginning of December in the house of a magistrate with _imperium_,
which became famous owing to the profanation of these mysteries by P.
Clodius in 62 B.C., and the political consequences of his act. Wine and
myrtle were tabooed in the cult of this deity, and myths grew up to
explain these features of the cult, of which an account may be read in
W.W. Fowler's _Roman Festivals_, pp. 103 foll. Herbs with healing
properties were kept in her temple, and also snakes, the usual symbol of
the medicinal art. Her victim was a porca, as in the cults of other
deities of fertility, and was called _damium_, and we are told that the
goddess herself was known as Damia and her priestess as _damiatrix_.
These names are almost certainly Greek; Damia is found worshipped at
several places in Greece, and also at Tarentum, where there was a
festival called _Dameia_. It is thus highly probable that on the cult of
the original Roman goddess was engrafted the Greek one of Damia,
perhaps after the conquest of Tarentum (272 B.C.). It is no longer
possible to distinguish clearly the Greek and Roman elements in this
curious cult, though it is itself quite intelligible as that of an
Earth-goddess with mysteries attached.
See also Pauly-Wissowa, _Realencyclopadie_. (W. W. F.*)
BONA FIDE (Lat. "in good faith"), in law, a term implying the absence of
all fraud or unfair dealing or acting. It is usually employed in
conjunction with a noun, e.g. "bona fide purchaser," one who has
purchased property from its legal owner, to whom he has paid the
consideration, and from whom he has taken a legal conveyance, without
having any notice of any trust affecting the property; "bona fide
holder" of a bill of exchange, one who has taken a bill complete and
regular on the face of it, before it was overdue, and in good faith and
for value, and without notice of any defect in the title of the person
who negotiated it to him; "bona fide traveller" under the licensing
acts, one whose lodging-place during the preceding night is at least 3
m. distant from the place where he demands to be supplied with liquor,
such distance being calculated by the nearest public thoroughfare.
BONALD, LOUIS GABRIEL AMBROISE, VICOMTE DE (1754-1840), French
philosopher and politician, was born at Le Monna, near Millau in
Aveyron, on the 2nd of October 1754. Disliking the principles of the
Revolution, he emigrated in 1791, joined the army of the prince of
Condé, and soon afterwards settled at Heidelberg. There he wrote his
first important work, the highly conservative _Théorie du pouvoir
politique et religieux_ (3 vols., 1796; new ed., Paris, 1854, 2 vols.),
which was condemned by the Directory. Returning to France he found
himself an object of suspicion, and was obliged to live in retirement.
In 1806 he was associated with Chateaubriand and Fiévée in the conduct
of the _Mercure de France_, and two years later was appointed councillor
of the Imperial University which he had often attacked. After the
restoration he was a member of the council of public instruction, and
from 1815 to 1822 sat in the chamber as deputy. His speeches were on the
extreme conservative side; he even advocated a literary censorship. In
1822 he was made minister of state, and presided over the censorship
commission. In the following year he was made a peer, a dignity which he
lost through refusing to take the oath in 1830. From 1816 he had been a
member of the Academy. He took no part in public affairs after 1830, but
retired to his seat at Le Monna, where he died on the 23rd of November
1840.
Bonald was one of the leading writers of the theocratic or
traditionalist school, which included de Maistre, Lamennais, Ballanche
and d'Eckstein. His writings are mainly on social and political
philosophy, and are based ultimately on one great principle, the divine
origin of language. In his own words, "L'homme pense sa parole avant de
parler sa pensée"; the first language contained the essence of all
truth. From this he deduces the existence of God, the divine origin and
consequent supreme authority of the Holy Scriptures, and the
infallibility of the church. While this thought lies at the root of all
his speculations there is a formula of constant application. All
relations may be stated as the triad of cause, means and effect, which
he sees repeated throughout nature. Thus, in the universe, he finds the
first cause as mover, movement as the means, and bodies as the result;
in the state, power as the cause, ministers as the means, and subjects
as the effects; in the family, the same relation is exemplified by
father, mother and children. These three terms bear specific relations
to one another; the first is to the second as the second to the third.
Thus, in the great triad of the religious world--God, the Mediator, and
Man-God is to the God-Man as the God-Man is to Man. On this basis he
constructed a system of political absolutism which lacks two things
only:--well-grounded premisses instead of baseless hypotheses, and the
acquiescence of those who were to be subjected to it.
Bonald's style is remarkably fine; ornate, but pure and vigorous. Many
fruitful thoughts are scattered among his works, but his system scarcely
deserves the name of a philosophy. In abstract thought he was a mere
dilettante, and his strength lay in the vigour and sincerity of his
statements rather than in cogency of reasoning.
He had four sons. Of these, VICTOR DE BONALD (1780-1871) followed his
father in his exile, was rector of the academy of Montpellier after the
restoration, but lost his post during the Hundred Days. Regaining it at
the second restoration, he resigned finally in 1830. He wrote _Des vrais
principes opposés aux erreurs du XIXe siècle_ (1833), _Moïse et les
géologues modernes_ (1835), and a life of his father. LOUIS JACQUES
MAURICE (1787-1870), cardinal (1841), was condemned by the council of
state for a pastoral letter attacking Dupin the elder's _Manuel de droit
ecclésiastique_. In 1848 he held a memorial service "for those who fell
gloriously in defence of civil and religious liberty." In 1851 he
nevertheless advocated in the senate the maintenance of the temporal
power of Rome by force of arms. HENRI (d. 1846) was a contributor to
legitimist journals; and RENÉ was interim prefect of Aveyron in 1817.
Besides the _Théorie_ above mentioned, the vicomte de Bonald published
_Essai analytique sur les lois naturelles de l'ordre social_ (1800);
_Législation primitive_ (1802); _Du divorce considéré au XIXe siècle_
(1801); _Recherches philosophiques sur les premiers objets de
connaissances morales_ (2 vols., 1818); _Mélanges littéraires et
politiques, démonstration philosophique du principe constitutif de la
société_ (1819, 1852). The first collected edition appeared in 12
vols., 1817-1819; the latest is that of the Abbé Migne (3 vols.,
1859).
See _Notice sur M. le Vicomte de Bonald_ (1841, ed. Avignon, 1853),
(by his son Victor); Damiron, _Phil. en France au XIXe siècle_;
Windelband, _History of Philosophy_ (trans. J.H. Tufts, 1893); E.
Faguet in _Rev. des deux mondes_ (April 15, 1889).
BONAPARTE, the name of a family made famous by Napoleon I. (q.v.),
emperor of the French. The French form Bonaparte was not commonly used,
even by Napoleon, until after the spring of 1796. The original name was
Buonaparte, which was borne in the early middle ages by several distinct
families in Italy. One of these, which settled at Florence before the
year 1100, divided in the 13th century into the two branches of San
Miniato and Sarzana. A member of this latter, Francesco Buonaparte,
emigrated in the middle of the 16th century to Corsica, where his
descendants continued to occupy themselves with the affairs of law and
the magistracy.
Napoleon's father and mother.
CARLO BUONAPARTE [Charles Marie de Bonaparte] (1746-1785), the father of
Napoleon I., took his degree in law at the university of Pisa, and after
the conquest of Corsica by the French became assessor to the royal court
of Ajaccio and the neighbouring districts. His restless and dissatisfied
nature led him to press or intrigue for other posts, and to embark in
risky business enterprises which compromised the fortune of his family
for many years to come. In 1764 he married Letizia Ramolino, a beautiful
and high-spirited girl, aged fourteen, descended from a well-connected
family domiciled in Corsica since the middle of the 15th century. The
first two children, born in 1765 and 1767, died in infancy; Joseph (see
below), the first son who survived, was born in 1768, and Napoleon in
1769. The latter was born in the midst of the troubles consequent on the
French conquest, Letizia having recently accompanied her husband in
several journeys and escapes. Her firm and courageous disposition showed
itself at that trying time and throughout the whole of her singularly
varied career. Simple and frugal in her tastes, and devout in thought
and manner of life, she helped to bind her children to the life of
Corsica, while her husband, a schemer by nature and a Voltairian by
conviction, pointed the way to careers in France, the opening up of
which moulded the fortunes of the family and the destinies of Europe. He
died of cancer in the stomach at Montpellier in 1785.
Letizia lived to witness the glory and the downfall of her great son,
surviving Napoleon I. by sixteen years. She never accommodated herself
to the part she was called on to play during the Empire, and, though
endowed with immense wealth and distinguished by the title of _Madame
Mère_, lived mainly in retirement, and in the exercise of a strict
domestic economy which her early privations had made a second nature to
her, but which rendered her very unpopular in France and was displeasing
to Napoleon. After the events of 1814 she joined the emperor in the
island of Elba and was privy to his plans of escape, returning to Paris
during the Hundred Days. After the final downfall of Waterloo, she took
up her residence at Rome, where Pope Pius VII. treated her with great
kindness and consideration, and protected her from the suspicious
attentions of the powers of the Grand Alliance. In 1818 she addressed a
pathetic letter to the powers assembled at the congress of Aix,
petitioning for Napoleon's release, on the ground that his mortal
illness had removed any possibility of his ever again becoming a menace
to the world's peace. The letter remained unanswered, the powers having
reason to believe that it was a mere political move, and that its terms
had been previously concerted with Napoleon. Henceforth, saddened by the
death of Napoleon, of her daughters Pauline and Elisa, and of several
grandchildren, she lived a life of mournful seclusion. In 1829 she was
crippled by a serious fall, and was all but blind before her death in
1836.
For the Bonaparte family in general, and Carlo and Letizia, see
_Storia genealogica della famiglia Bonaparte, della sua origine fina
all' estinzione del ramo già esisente nella città di S. Miniato,
scritta da un Samminiatese_ (D. Morali) (Florence, 1846); F. de
Stefani, _Le antichità dei Bonaparte; precede per una introduzione_
(L. Beretta) (Venice, 1857); L. Ambrosini and A. Huard, _La Famille
impériale. Hist. de la famille Bonaparte depuis son origine jusqu'en
1860_ (Paris, 1860); C. Leynadier, _Histoire de la famille Bonaparte
de l'an 1050 à l'an 1848_ (_continuée jusqu'en 1866 par de la
Brugère_) (Paris, 1866); A. Kleinschmidt, _Die Eltern und Geschwister
Napoleons I._ (Berlin, 1876); D.A. Bingham, _The Marriages of the
Bonapartes_ (2 vols., London, 1881); F. Masson, _Napoléon et sa
famille_ (4 vols., Paris, 1897-1900); A. Chuquet, _La Jeunesse de
Napoléon_ (3 vols., Paris, 1897-1899); T. Nasica, _Mémoires sur
l'enfance et la jeunesse de Napoléon jusqu'à la âge vingt-trois ans;
précédes d'une notice historique sur son père_; Baron H. Larrey,
_Madame Mère_ (2 vols., Paris, 1892); Clara Tschudi, _Napoleons
Mutter: aus dem Norwegischen übersetzt von H. von Lenk_ (Leipzig,
1901).
The brothers and sisters of Napoleon I., taken in order of age, are the
following:--
Napoleon's brothers and sisters: 1. Joseph Bonaparte.
I. JOSEPH (1768-1844), was born at Corte in Corsica, on the 7th of
January 1768. He was educated at the college at Autun in France,
returned to Corsica in 1784, shortly after the death of his father, and
thereafter studied law at the university of Pisa. He became a barrister
at Bastia in June 1788, and was soon elected a councillor of the
municipality of Ajaccio. Like his brothers, Napoleon and Lucien, he
embraced the French or democratic side, and on the victory of the
Paolist party fled with his family from Corsica and sought refuge in
France. After spending a short time in Paris, where he was disgusted
with the excesses of the Jacobins, he settled at Marseilles and married
Mlle Julie Clary, daughter of a merchant of that town. The Bonapartes
moved from place to place, mainly with the view of concerting measures
for the recovery of Corsica. Joseph took part in these efforts and went
on a mission to Genoa in 1795. In 1796 he accompanied his brother
Napoleon in the early part of the Italian campaign, and had some part in
the negotiations with Sardinia which led to the armistice of Cherasco
(April 28), the news of which he bore to the French government. Later he
proceeded to Leghorn, took part in the French expedition for the
recovery of Corsica, and, along with the commissioner of the French
Republic, Miot de Melito, helped in the reorganization of that island.
In March 1797 he was appointed by the Directory, minister to the court
of Parma, and early in the summer he proceeded to Rome in the same
capacity. Discords arose between the Vatican and the French Republic,
and it is clear that Napoleon and the French Directory ordered Joseph to
encourage revolutionary movements in Rome. On the 28th of December 1797
a disturbance took place opposite the French embassy, which led to the
death of the French general, Léonard Duphot. Joseph at once left Rome,
which soon became a republic. Repairing to Paris, he entered on
parliamentary life, becoming one of the members for Corsica in the
Council of Five Hundred. He made no mark in the chamber and retired in
1799.
Before the _coup d'état_ of Brumaire he helped Napoleon in making
overtures to Sieyès and Moreau, but otherwise did little. Thereafter he
refused to enter the ministry, but became a member of the council of
state and of the _Corps Législatif_, where his advice on the state of
public opinion was frequently useful. He had a hand in the negotiations
for the Concordat, but, according to Lucien Bonaparte, looked on that
measure as "ill-advised and retrograde." His services in the diplomatic
sphere were more important. At Mortfontaine, his country-house, he
concluded with the envoy of the United States a convention which bears
that name (1800). He also presided over the negotiations which led to
the treaty of Lunéville with Austria (February 9, 1801); and he and
Maret represented France in the lengthy discussions with the British
envoy, Lord Cornwallis, which resulted in the signature of the treaty of
Amiens (March 25, 1802). This diplomatic triumph in its turn led to the
consolidation of Napoleon's power as First Consul for life (August 1,
1802) with the chief voice in the selection of his successor. On this
question the brothers disagreed. As neither Joseph nor Napoleon had a
male heir, the eldest brother, whose ideas of primogeniture were very
strict, claimed to be recognized as heir, while Napoleon wished to
recognize the son of Louis Bonaparte. On the proclamation of the French
empire (May 1804) the friction became acute. Napoleon offered to make
Joseph king of Lombardy if he would waive all claim of succession to the
French throne, but met with a firm refusal.
Meanwhile Joseph had striven earnestly, but in vain, to avert a rupture
with England, which came about in May 1803. In 1805 he acted as chief of
the French government while Napoleon was campaigning in Germany. Early
in 1806 he proceeded to Naples with a French force in order to expel the
Bourbon dynasty from southern Italy, Napoleon adding the promise that
the Neapolitan crown would be for Joseph if he chose to accept it. The
conquest of the mainland was speedily effected, though Gaëta, Reggio and
the rock of Scylla held out for some months. The Bourbon court retired
to Sicily, where it had the protection of a British force. By the decree
of the 30th of March 1806 Napoleon proclaimed Joseph king of Naples, but
allowed him to keep intact his claims to the throne of France. In
several letters he enjoined his brother to greater firmness in his
administration: "These peoples in Italy, and in general all nations, if
they do not find their masters, are disposed to rebellion and mutiny."
The memoirs of Count Miot de Melito, whom Joseph appointed minister of
war, show how great were the difficulties with which the new monarch had
to contend--an almost bankrupt treasury, a fickle and degraded populace,
Bourbon intrigues and plots, and frequent attacks by the British from
Sicily. General Stuart's victory at Maida (July 3) shook Joseph's throne
to its base; but the surrender of Gaëta soon enabled Massena to march
southwards and subdue Calabria. During his brief reign at Naples, Joseph
effected many improvements; he abolished the relics of feudalism,
reformed the monastic orders, reorganized the judicial, financial and
educational systems, and initiated several public works. In everything
he showed his desire to carry out the aims which he expressed to his
consort in April 1806: "Justice demands that I should make this people
as happy as the scourge of war will permit."
From these well-meant, but not always successful, efforts he was
suddenly called away by Napoleon to take the crown of Spain (May 1808).
There his difficulties were far greater. Despite the benevolent
intentions announced to the Spaniards in his proclamation dated Bayonne,
23rd of June 1808, all reconciliation between them and the French was
impossible after Napoleon's treatment of their _de facto_ king,
Ferdinand VII. For the varying fortunes of King Joseph in Spain and in
the eventful years of the Peninsular War, see SPAIN and PENINSULAR WAR.
His sovereignty was little more than titular. Compelled to leave Madrid
hastily in August 1808, owing to the Spanish success at Baylen, he was
reinstated by Napoleon at the close of the year; and he was thereafter
kept in a subordinate position which led him on four occasions to offer
to abdicate. The emperor took no notice of these offers, and ordered him
to govern with more energy. Between February and May 1810 the emperor
placed the northern and north-eastern provinces under the command of
French generals as military districts, virtually independent of
Joseph's authority. Again the king protested, but in vain. As his
trusted adviser, Miot de Melito, observed in his memoirs, Joseph tried
to be constitutional king of Spain, whereas after the experience of the
years 1808-1809 he could only succeed in the Peninsula by becoming "the
mere instrument of a military power." "Bearing a title which was only an
oppressive burden, the king had in reality ceased to exist as a monarch,
and barely retained some semblance of authority over a small part of the
French army as a general. Reduced by the exhausted state of his treasury
to the last extremity he at length seriously thought of departure."
Joseph took this step in April 1811, and proceeded to Paris in order to
extort better terms, or offer his abdication; but he had to return with
a monthly subsidy of 500,000 francs and the promise that the army of the
centre (the smallest of the five French armies) should be under his
control. Late in that year Napoleon united Catalonia to France.
Wellington's victory at Salamanca (July 22, 1812) compelled Joseph to
leave his capital; and despite the retirement of the British in the
autumn of that year, Joseph's authority never fully recovered from that
blow. The end of his nominal rule came in the next year, when Wellington
utterly overthrew the chief French army, commanded by King Joseph and
Marshal Jourdan, at Vittoria (June 21, 1813). The king fled from Spain,
was disgraced by Napoleon, and received the order to retire incognito to
Mortfontaine. The emperor wrote to the minister of war (July 11,
1813):--"His [Joseph's] behaviour has never ceased bringing misfortune
upon my army; it is time to make an end of it."
Napoleon was equally dissatisfied with his brother's conduct as
lieutenant-general of France, while he himself was conducting the
campaign of 1814 in the east of France. On the 30th of March, Joseph
empowered Marmont to make a truce with the assailants of Paris if they
should be in overpowering strength. On the surrender of the capital
Joseph at once retired. The part which he played during the Hundred Days
(1815) was also insignificant. It is strange that, four days after
Waterloo, Napoleon should have urged him to inspirit the Chamber of
Deputies with a view to a national resistance (_Lettres nouvelles de
Napoléon_). In point of fact Joseph did little beyond seeking to further
the emperor's plans of escape to America. After the surrender of his
brother to the captain of H.M.S. "Bellerophon" at Rochefort, Joseph went
to the United States. Settling in Bordentown, New Jersey, he adopted the
title of comte de Survilliers, and sought to promote plans for the
rescue of his brother from St Helena. In 1830 he pleaded, but
unsuccessfully, for the recognition of the claims of the duke of
Reichstadt (king of Rome) to the French throne. He afterwards visited
England, and for a time resided at Genoa and Florence. In the latter
city, the cradle of his race, he died on the 28th of July 1844. In
person he somewhat resembled Napoleon, but utterly lacked his strength
and energy. He was fitted for an embassy or judgeship, but was too mild,
supine and luxurious for the tasks thrust upon him by his brother. Yet
his correspondence and memoirs prove that he retained for Napoleon warm
feelings of affection.
Of the many works dealing with Joseph Bonaparte we may cite Baron A.
du Casse, _Mémoires et correspondance politique et militaire du roi
Joseph_ (10 vols., Paris, 1854), and _Les Rois frères de Napoléon_
(1883); J.S.C. Abbott, _History of Joseph Bonaparte_ (New York, 1869);
G. Bertin, _Joseph Bonaparte in America_; _Joseph Bonaparte jugé par
ses contemporains_ (anon.); the _Memoirs of Count Miot de Melito_
(translation, edited by General Fleischmann, 2 vols., 1881); R.M.
Johnston, _The Napoleonic Empire in Southern Italy_ (2 vols., with an
excellent bibliography, London, 1904); _Correspondence of Napoleon
with Joseph Bonaparte_ (2 vols., New York, 1856); Baron A. du Casse,
_Histoire des ... traités de Mortfontaine, de Lunéville et d'Amiens_,
&c. (1855-1857); F. Masson, _Napoléon et sa famille_ (4 vols., Paris,
1889-1900).
2. Lucien Bonaparte
II. LUCIEN (1775-1840), prince of Canino, was born at Ajaccio on the
21st of May 1775. He followed his elder brothers to the schools of Autun
and Brienne. At that time he wished to enter the French army, but, being
debarred by defective sight, was destined for the church, and with this
aim in view went to the seminary at Aix in Provence (1786). His
excitable and volatile disposition agreed ill with the discipline of
the place, and on the outbreak of the Revolution in 1789 he eagerly
espoused the democratic and anti-clerical movement then sweeping over
France. On returning to Corsica he became the leading speaker in the
Jacobin club at Ajaccio. Pushing even Napoleon to more decided action,
Lucien urged his brothers to break with Paoli, the leader of the more
conservative party, which sought to ally itself with England as against
the regicide republic of France. He headed a Corsican deputation which
went to France in order to denounce Paoli and to solicit aid for the
democrats; but, on the Paolists gaining the upper hand, the Bonapartes
left the island and joined Lucien at Toulon. In the south of France he
worked hard for the Jacobinical cause, and figured as "Brutus" in the
Jacobin club of the small town of St Maximin (then renamed Marathon).
There on the 4th of May 1794 he married Mlle Catherine Boyer, though he
was a minor and had not the consent of his family--an act which brought
him into a state almost approaching disgrace and penury. The _coup
d'état_ of Thermidor (July 28, 1794) compelled the young disciple of
Robespierre hurriedly to leave St Maximin, and to accept a small post at
St Chamans. There he was arrested and imprisoned for a time until
Napoleon's influence procured his release, and further gained for him a
post as commissioner in the French army campaigning in Germany. Lucien
soon conceived a dislike for a duty which opened up no vista for his
powers of oratory and political intrigue, and repaired to Corsica. In
the hope of being elected a deputy of the island, he refused an
appointment offered by Napoleon in the army of Egypt in 1798. His hopes
were fulfilled, and in 1798 he entered the Council of Five Hundred at
Paris. There his vivacious eloquence brought him into prominence, and he
was president of that body on the eventful day of the 19th of Brumaire
(November 10) 1799, when Napoleon overthrew the national councils of
France at the palace of St Cloud. The refusal of Lucien to put the vote
of outlawry, for which the majority of the council clamoured, his
opportune closing of the sitting, and his appeal to the soldiers outside
to disperse _les représentants du poignard_, turned the scale in favour
of his brother.
By a strange irony this event, the chief event of Lucien's life, was
fatal to the cause of democracy of which he had been the most eager
exponent. In one of his earlier letters to his brother Joseph, Lucien
stated that he had detected in Napoleon "an ambition not altogether
egotistic but which surpassed his love for the general weal; ... in case
of a counter-revolution he would try to ride on the crest of events."
Napoleon having by his help triumphed over parliamentary institutions in
France, Lucien's suspicion of his brother became a dominant feeling; and
the relations between them became strained during the period of the
consulate (1799-1804). He accepted office as minister of the interior,
but was soon deprived of it owing to political and personal differences
with the First Consul. In order to soften the blow, Napoleon appointed
him ambassador to the court of Madrid (November 1800). There again
Lucien displeased his brother. France and Spain were then about to
partition Portugal, and the Spanish forces were beginning to invade that
land, when the court of Lisbon succeeded, owing (it is said) to the free
use of bribes, in inducing Godoy, the Spanish minister, and Lucien
Bonaparte to sign the preliminaries of peace on the 6th of June 1801 at
Badajoz. The First Consul, finding his plans of seizing Lisbon
frustrated, remonstrated with his brother, who thereupon resigned his
post, and returned to Paris, there taking part in the opposition which
the Tribunate offered to some of Napoleon's schemes. Lucien's next
proceeding completed the breach between the two brothers. His wife had
died in 1800; he became enamoured of a Mme Jouberthou in the early
summer of 1802, made her his mistress, and finally, despite the express
prohibition of the First Consul, secretly married her at his residence
of Plessis (on October 23, 1803). At that time Napoleon was pressing
Lucien for important reasons of state to marry the widow of the king of
Etruria, and on hearing of his brother's action he ordered him to leave
French territory. Lucien departed for Italy with his wife and infant
son, after annoying Napoleon by bestowing on her publicly the name of
Bonaparte. He also charged Joseph never to try to reconcile Napoleon to
him.
For some years he lived in Italy, chiefly at Rome, showing marked
hostility to the emperor. In December 1807 the latter sought to come to
an arrangement by which Lucien would take his place as a French prince,
provided that he would annul his marriage. This step Lucien refused to
take; and after residing for some time at his estate of Canino, from
which he took the papal title of prince of Canino, he left for America.
Captured by a British ship, he was taken to Malta and thence to England,
where he resided under some measure of surveillance up to the peace of
1814. Returning to Rome, he offered Napoleon his help during the Hundred
Days (1815), stood by his side at the "Champ de Mai" at Paris, and was
the last to defend his prerogatives at the time of his second
abdication. He spent the rest of his life in Italy, and died at Rome on
the 29th of June 1840. His family comprised four sons and six daughters.
He wrote an epic, _Charlemagne, ou l'Église délivreé_ (2 vols., 1814),
also _La Vérité sur les Cent Jours_ and _Memoirs_, which were not
completed.
For sources see T. Jung, _Lucien Bonaparte et ses mémoires_ (3 vols.,
Paris, 1882-1883); an anonymous work, _Le Prince Lucien Bonaparte et
sa famille_ (Paris, 1888); F. Masson, _Napoléon et sa famille_ (4
vols., Paris, 1897-1900), and H. Houssaye, _"1815"_ (3 vols., Paris,
1899-1905).
3. Elisa.
III. MARIANNE ELISA (1777-1820) was born at Ajaccio on the 3rd of
January 1777. Owing to the efforts of her brothers she entered the
establishment of St Cyr near Paris as a "king's scholar." On its
disruption by the revolutionists in 1792 Napoleon took charge of her and
brought her back to Ajaccio. She shared the fortunes of the family in
the south of France, and on the 5th of May 1797 married Felix Bacciochi,
a well-connected Corsican. In 1805, after the foundation of the French
empire, Napoleon bestowed upon her the principality of Piombino and
shortly afterwards Lucca; in 1808 her importunities gained for her the
grand duchy of Tuscany. Bacciochi being almost a nullity, her pride and
ability had a great influence on the administration and on Italian
affairs in general. Her relations with Napoleon were frequently
strained; and in 1813-1814 she abetted Murat in his enterprises (see
MURAT). After her brother's fall she retired, with the title of countess
of Compignano, first to Bologna and afterwards to Santo Andrea near
Trieste, where she died on the 6th of August 1820.
See J. Turquan, _Les Soeurs de Napoléon_ (Paris, 1896); P. Marmothan,
_Élisa Bonaparte_ (Paris, 1898); E. Rodocanachi, _Élisa Bonaparte en
Italie_ (Paris, 1900); F. Masson, _Napoléon et sa famille_ (4 vols.,
Paris, 1897-1900).
4. Louis Bonaparte.
IV. Louis (1778-1846) was born at Ajaccio on the 2nd of September 1778.
His elder brother Napoleon supervised his education with much care,
gaining for him scholarships to the royal military schools of France,
and during the time when the elder brother was a lieutenant in garrison
at Auxonne Louis shared his scanty fare. In 1795 Napoleon procured for
him admission to the military school at Châlons, and wrote thus of the
boy:--"I am very pleased with Louis; he fulfils my hopes; intelligence,
warmth, good health, talent, good address, kindness--he possesses all
these qualities." Louis went through the Italian campaign of 1796-97
with Napoleon and acted as his aide-de-camp in Egypt in 1798-99. In 1802
the First Consul married him to Hortense Beauharnais, a forced union
which led to most deplorable results. In 1804 Louis was raised to the
rank of general, and entered the council of state in order to perfect
his knowledge of administrative affairs. In the next year he became
governor of Paris and undertook various military and administrative
duties.
After the victory of Austerlitz (December 2, 1805) Napoleon began to
plan the formation of a ring of states surrounding, and in close
alliance with, the French empire. He destined Louis for the throne of
Holland, and proclaimed him king of that country on the 6th of June
1806. From the first the emperor reproached him with being too easy with
his subjects and with courting popularity too much. The increasing
rigour of the continental system brought the two brothers to an open
rupture. Their relations were embittered by a violent jealousy which
Louis conceived against his wife. In 1808 the emperor offered Louis the
throne of Spain then vacant; but on Louis refusing to accept it the
honour went to Joseph. The dispute between Louis and the emperor
continued. In the latter part of 1809 Napoleon virtually resolved to
annex Holland, in order to stop the trade which the Dutch secretly
carried on with England. At the close of the year Louis went to Paris,
partly in order to procure a divorce from Hortense and partly to gain
better terms for Holland. He failed in both respects. In January 1810
Napoleon annexed the island of Walcheren, alleging that Louis had not
done his share in defending the interests of France at the time of the
British Walcheren expedition (1809). The French troops also occupied
Breda and Bergen-op-Zoom. Louis gave way on all the points in dispute;
but his acquiescence only postponed the crisis. After the collapse of
negotiations with Great Britain in the spring of 1810, the emperor again
pressed Louis hard, and finally sent French troops against the Dutch
capital. Thereupon Louis, despairing of offering resistance, fled from
his kingdom and finally settled at Töplitz in Bohemia. On the 9th of
July 1810 Napoleon annexed Holland to the French empire. Louis spent the
rest of his life separated from his wife, and in 1815 gained the custody
of his elder son. He lived chiefly at Rome, concerning himself with
literary and philosophic studies and with the fortunes of his sons.
Their devotion to the national and democratic cause in Italy in
1830-1831 gave him much pleasure, which was overclouded by the death of
the elder, Napoleon Louis, in the spring campaign of 1831 in the
Romagna. The failure of his other son, Charles Louis Napoleon
(afterwards Napoleon III.), to wrest the French crown from Louis
Philippe by the attempts at Strassburg and Boulogne also caused him much
disappointment. He died on the 25th of July 1846 and was buried at St
Leu. Under more favourable conditions Louis would have gained a name for
kindness and philanthropy, proofs of which did indeed appear during his
reign in Holland and gained him the esteem of his subjects; but his
morbid sensitiveness served to embitter his relations both of a domestic
and of a political nature and to sour his own disposition. His literary
works are unimportant. His sons were Napoleon Charles (1802-1807),
Napoleon Louis (1804-1831), and Charles Louis Napoleon (1808-1873),
afterwards emperor of the French as NAPOLEON III. (q.v.).
The chief works on the life and reign of Louis are le comte de
Saint-Leu, _Documents historiques et reflexions sur le gouvernement de
Hollande_ 3 vols., 2nd ed., Paris, 1820); F. Rocquain, _Napoleon I^er
et le Roi Louis, d'après les documents conservés aux archives
nationales_ (Paris, 1875); Baron A. du Casse, _Les Rois frères de
Napoléon_ (Paris, 1883); A Garnier, _La Cour de Hollande sous le règne
de Louis Bonaparte, par un auditeur_ (Paris and Amsterdam, 1823); T.
Jorissen, _Napoléon 1'er et le roi de Hollande (1806-1813) d'après des
documents authentiques et inedits_ (Paris and The Hague, 1868); V.
Loosjes, _Louis Bonaparte, Koning van Holland_ (Amsterdam, 1888); L.
Wichers, _De Regeering van Koning Lodewijk Napoleon_ (1806-1810)
(Utrecht, 1892); F. Masson, _Napoléon et sa famille_ (4 vols., Paris,
1897-1900).
5. Pauline.
V. MARIE PAULINE (1780-1825), the gayest and most beautiful member of
the family, was born at Ajaccio on the 20th October 1780. At seventeen
years of age she married General Leclerc, a staff officer of Napoleon,
and accompanied him to St Domingo, where he died of yellow fever in
1802. Returning to Paris she espoused Prince Camillo Borghese (August
23, 1803) and went to reside with him in Rome. She soon tired of him,
returned to Paris and gratified her whims in ways that caused some
scandal. In 1806 she received the title of duchess of Guastalla. Her
offhand treatment of the new empress, Marie Louise, in 1810 led to her
removal from court. Nevertheless in 1814 she repaired with "Madame Mère"
to Elba, and is said to have expressed a wish to share Napoleon's exile
in St Helena. She died in 1825 of cancer. Canova's statue of her as
Venus reclining on a couch is well known.
See J. Turquan, _Les Soeurs de Napoléon: les princesses Élisa, Pauline
et Caroline_ (Paris, 1896); F. Masson, _Napoléon et sa famille_ (4
vols., Paris, 1897-1900).
6. Caroline Murat.
VI. MARIA ANNUNCIATA CAROLINE (1782-1839) was born at Ajaccio on the
25th of March 1782. Early in 1800 she married Joachim Murat, whose
interests she afterwards advanced with all the power of her ambitious
and intriguing nature. He became governor of Paris, marshal of France
(1804), grand duke of Berg and of Cleves (1806), lieutenant of the
emperor in Spain (1808), and early in the summer of that year king of
Naples. The distance of this capital from Paris displeased Caroline; her
relations with Napoleon became strained, and she associated herself with
the equivocal movements of her husband in 1814-1815. Before his tragic
end at Pizzo on the 13th of October 1815, she had retired to Austrian
territory and was placed under some measure of restraint. Finally she
lived at Trieste with her sister Elisa. She died on the 18th of May
1839.
See J. Turquan, _Caroline Murat, reine de Naples_ (Paris, 1899); F.
Masson, _Napoléon et sa famille_ (4 vols., Paris, 1897-1900). See also
under MURAT, JOACHIM.
7. Jerome Bonaparte.
VII. JEROME (1784-1860) was born at Ajaccio on the 15th of November
1784; he shared the fortunes of the family in the early years of the
French Revolution, was then educated at Juilly and was called to the
side of his brother, then First Consul of France, in 1800. Many stories
are told illustrating his impetuous but affectionate nature. While in
the Consular Guard he fought a duel with the younger brother of General
Davout and was wounded. Soon afterwards he was transferred to the navy
and cruised in the West Indies, until, when blockaded by a British
cruiser, he left his ship and travelled through the United States. At
Baltimore he fell in love with Miss Elizabeth Patterson, and, though a
minor, married her. This disregard of discipline and of the laws of
France greatly annoyed Napoleon; and when in 1805 Jerome brought his
wife to Europe, the emperor ordered her to be excluded from his states.
Jerome vainly sought to bend his brother's will in an interview at
Alexandria. In May 1805 he received command of a small squadron in the
Mediterranean, while his wife proceeded to Camberwell, where she gave
birth to a son. In November Jerome sailed in a squadron commanded by
Admiral Willaumez, which was to ravage the West Indies; but it was
scattered by a storm. After damaging British commerce in the North
Atlantic, Jerome reached France with his ship in safety in August 1806.
Napoleon made him a prince of France, and gave him command of a division
of South Germans in the campaign of 1806. After Jena, Jerome received
the surrender of several Prussian towns. An imperial decree having
annulled the Patterson marriage, the emperor united Jerome to the
princess Catherine of Württemberg; and in pursuance of the terms of the
treaty of Tilsit (July 7, 1807) raised him to the throne of the new
kingdom of Westphalia. There Jerome, though frequently rebuked by the
emperor, displayed his fondness for luxury, indulged in numerous
_amours_ and ran deeply into debt. In some respects his kingdom
benefited by the connexion with France. Feudalism was abolished; the
_Code Napoléon_ was introduced; the Jews were freed from repressive
laws; and education received some impulse in its higher departments. But
the unpopularity of Jerome's rule was shown by the part taken by the
peasants in the abortive rising headed by Baron Wilhelm von Dörnberg and
other Westphalian officers in April 1809. Despite heavy taxation, the
state debt increased greatly; and the sending of a contingent to Russia
in 1812 brought the state to the verge of bankruptcy. In the early part
of that campaign Jerome was entrusted with an important movement which
might have brought the southern Russian army into grave danger; on his
failure (which was probably due to his lack of energy) the emperor
promptly subjected him to the control of Marshal Davout, and Jerome
returned to Cassel. In 1813, on the fall of the Napoleonic régime in
Germany, Jerome retired to France, and in 1814 spent some time in
Switzerland and at Trieste. Returning to France in 1815, he commanded a
division on the French left wing at Waterloo and attacked Hougomont with
great pertinacity. On Napoleon's second abdication Jerome proceeded to
Württemberg, was threatened with arrest unless he gave up his wife and
child, and was kept under surveillance at Goppingen; finally he was
allowed to proceed to Augsburg, and thereafter resided at Trieste, or in
Italy or Switzerland. His consort died in 1835. He returned to France in
1847, and after the rise of Louis Napoleon to power, became successively
governor of the Invalides, marshal of France and president of the
senate. He died on the 24th of June 1860. His children were Jerome
Napoleon (see XIV.), Mathilde (see XII.) and Napoleon Joseph Charles
Paul (born in 1822); the last was afterwards known as Prince Napoleon
(see XI. below) and finally became the heir to the fortunes of the
Napoleonic dynasty.
The chief works relating to Jerome Bonaparte are: Baron Albert du
Casse, _Mémoires et correspondance du roi Jérôme et de la reine
Cathérine_ (7 vols., Paris, 1861-1866) and _Les Rois frères de
Napoléon_ (1883); M.M. Kaisenberg, _Konig Jerome Napoleon_; W.T.R.
Saffell, _The Bonaparte-Patterson Marriage_; August von Schlossberger,
_Briefwechsel der Konigin Katharina und des Konigs Jerome von
Westfalen mit Konig Friedrich von Württemberg_ (Stuttgart, 1886-1887),
supplemented by du Casse in _Corresp. inédite de la reine Cathérine de
Westphalie_ (Paris, 1888-1893); A. Martinet, _Jérôme Napoléon, roi de
Westfalie_ (Paris, 1902); P.W. Sergeant, _The Burlesque Napoleon_
(1905); F. Masson, _Napoléon et sa famille_ (4 vols., Paris,
1897-1900). (J. Hl. R.)
The fortunes of the Bonaparte family may be further followed under the
later biographies of its leading members, mainly descendants of Lucien
(II. above) and Jerome (VII. above).
Descendants of Lucien: 8. Charles.
VIII. CHARLES LUCIEN JULES LAURENT (1803-1857), prince of Canino, son of
Lucien Bonaparte, was a scientist rather than a politician. He married
his cousin, Zénaïde Bonaparte, daughter of Joseph, in 1822. At the age
of twenty-two he began the publication of an _American Ornithology_ (4
vols., Philadelphia, 1825-1833), which established his scientific
reputation. A series of other works in zoology followed: _Iconographia
della fauna Italica_ (3 vols., Rome, 1832-1841), _Catalogo metodico
degli uccelli europei_ (1 vol., Bologna, 1842), _Catalogo metodico dei
pesci europei_ (1 vol., Naples, 1845, 4to), _Catalogo metodico dei
mammiferi europei_ (1 vol., Milan, 1845), _Telachorum tabula analytica_
(Neufchatel, 1838). He was elected honorary member of the academy of
Upsala in 1833, of that of Berlin in 1843, and correspondent of the
Institute of France in 1844. Towards 1847 he took part in the political
agitation in Italy, and presided over scientific congresses, notably at
Venice, where he declared himself in favour of the independence of Italy
and the expulsion of the Austrians. He entered the Junto of Rome in 1848
and was elected deputy by Viterbo to the national assembly. The failure
of the revolution forced him to leave Italy in July 1849. He gained
Holland, then France, where he turned again to science. His principal
works were, _Conspectus systematis ornithologiae, mastozologiae,
erpetologiae et amphibologiae, Ichthyologiae_ (Leiden, 1850), _Tableau
des oiseaux-mouches_ (Paris, 1854), _Ornithologie fossile_ (Paris,
1858). Eight children survived him: Joseph Lucien Charles Napoleon,
prince of Canino (1824-1865), who died without heirs; Lucien Louis
Joseph Napoleon, born in 1828, who took holy orders in 1853 and became a
cardinal in 1868; Julie Charlotte Zénaïde Pauline Laetitia Désirée
Bartholomée, who married the marquis of Roccagiovine; Charlotte Honorine
Josephine, who married Count Primoli; Marie Désirée Eugénie Josephine
Philomène, who married the count Campello; Auguste Amélie Maximilienne
Jacqueline, who married Count Gabrielli; Napoleon Charles Grégoire
Jacques Philippe, born in 1839, who married the princess Ruspoli, by
whom he had two daughters; and Bathilde Aloyse Léonie, who married the
comte de Cambacérès. The branch is now extinct.
9. Louis Lucien.
IX. LOUIS LUCIEN (1813-1891), son of Lucien Bonaparte, was born at
Thorngrove, Worcestershire, England, on the 4th of January 1813. He
passed his youth in England, not going to France until 1848, when, after
the revolution, he was elected deputy for Corsica on the 28th of
November 1848; his election having been invalidated, he was returned as
deputy for the Seine in June 1849. He sat in the right of the
Legislative Assembly, but had no direct part in the _coup d'état_ of his
cousin on the 2nd of December 1851. Napoleon III. named him senator and
prince, but he took hardly any part in politics during the Second
Empire, and after the proclamation of the Third Republic in 1870 he
withdrew to England. There he busied himself with philology, and
published notably some works on the Basque language: _Grammaire basque,
Remarques sur plusieurs assertions concernant la langue basque_ (1876),
_Observations sur le basque Fontarabie_ (1878). He died on the 3rd of
November 1891, leaving no children.
10. Pierre.
X. PIERRE NAPOLEON (1815-1881), son of Lucien Bonaparte, was born at
Rome on the 12th of September 1815. He began his life of adventure at
the age of fifteen, joining the insurrectionary bands in the Romagna
(1830-1831); was then in the United States, where he went to join his
uncle Joseph, and in Colombia with General Santander (1832). Returning
to Rome he was taken prisoner by order of the pope (1835-1836). He
finally took refuge in England. At the revolution of 1848 he returned to
France and was elected deputy for Corsica to the Constituent Assembly.
He declared himself an out-and-out republican and voted even with the
socialists. He pronounced himself in favour of the national workshops
and against the _loi Falloux_. His attitude contributed greatly to give
popular confidence to his cousin Louis Napoleon (Napoleon III.), of
whose _coup d'état_ on the 2nd of December 1851 he disapproved; but he
was soon reconciled to the emperor, and accepted the title of prince.
The republicans at once abandoned him. From that time on he led a
debauched life, and lost all political importance. He turned to
literature and published some mediocre poems. In January 1870 a violent
incident brought him again into prominence. As the result of a
controversy with Paschal Grousset, the latter sent him two journalists
to provoke him to a duel. Pierre Bonaparte took them personally to
account, and during a violent discussion he drew his revolver and killed
one of them, Victor Noir. This crime greatly excited the republican
press, which demanded his trial. The High Court acquitted him, and
criticism then fell upon the government. Pierre Bonaparte died in
obscurity at Versailles on the 7th of April 1881. He had married the
daughter of a Paris working-man, Justine Eleanore Ruffin, by whom he
had, before his marriage, two children: (1) Roland Napoleon, born on the
19th of May 1858, who entered the army, was excluded from it in 1886,
and then devoted himself to geography and scientific explorations; (2)
Jeanne, wife of the marquis de Vence.
Descendants of Jerome: 11. Prince Napoleon (Plon-Plon).
XI. NAPOLEON JOSEPH CHARLES PAUL, commonly known as Prince Napoleon, or
by the sobriquet of "Plon-Plon,"[1] (1822-1891), was the second son of
Jerome Bonaparte, king of Westphalia, by his wife Catherine, princess of
Württemberg, and was born at Trieste on the 9th of September 1822. He
soon rendered himself popular by his advanced democratic ideas, which he
expressed on all possible occasions. After the French revolution of 1848
he was elected to the National Assembly as a representative of Corsica,
and (his elder brother, Jerome Napoleon Charles, dying in 1847) assumed
the name of Jerome. Notwithstanding his ostensible opposition to the
_coup d'état_ of 1851, he was designated, upon the establishment of the
Empire, as successor to the throne if Napoleon III. should die
childless, and received a liberal dotation, but was allowed no share in
public affairs. Privately he professed himself the representative of the
Napoleonic tradition in its democratic aspect, and associated mainly
with men of advanced political opinions. At court he represented the
Liberal party against the empress Eugénie. In 1854 he took part in the
Crimean campaign as general of division. His conduct at the battle of
the Alma occasioned imputations upon his personal courage, but they seem
to have been entirely groundless. Returning to France he undertook the
chief direction of the National Exhibition of 1855, in which he
manifested great capacity. In 1858 he was appointed minister for the
Colonies and Algeria, and his administration aroused great hopes, but
his activity was diverted into a different channel by his sudden
marriage in January 1859 with the princess Marie Clotilde of Savoy,
daughter of Victor Emmanuel, a prelude to the war for the liberation of
Italy. In this war Prince Napoleon commanded the French corps that
occupied Tuscany, and it was expected that he would become ruler of the
principality, but he refused to exert any pressure upon the inhabitants,
who preferred union with the Italian kingdom. The next few years were
chiefly distinguished by remarkable speeches which displayed the prince
in the unexpected character of a great orator. Unfortunately his
indiscretion equalled his eloquence: one speech (1861) sent him to
America to avoid a duel with the duke d'Aumale; another (1865), in which
he justly but intemperately protested against the Mexican expedition,
cost him all his official dignities. Nevertheless he was influential in
effecting the reform by which in 1869 it was sought to reconcile the
Empire with Liberal principles. The fatal war of 1870 was resolved upon
during his absence in Norway, and was strongly condemned by him. After
the first disasters he undertook an ineffectual mission to Italy to
implore the aid of his father-in-law; and after the fall of the Empire
lived in comparative retirement until in 1879 the death of Napoleon
III.'s son, the Prince Imperial (see XIII. below), made him direct heir
to the Napoleonic succession. His part as imperial pretender was
unfortunate and inglorious: his democratic opinions were unacceptable to
the imperial party, and before his death he was virtually deposed in
favour of his son Prince Napoleon Victor, who, supported by Paul de
Cassagnac and others, openly declared himself a candidate for the throne
in 1884. He died at Rome on the 17th of March 1891. In the character of
his intellect, as in personal appearance, he bore an extraordinary
resemblance to the first Napoleon, possessing the same marvellous
lucidity of insight, and the same gift of infallibly distinguishing the
essential from the non-essential. He was a warm friend of literature and
art, and in a private station would have achieved high distinction as a
man of letters.
His eldest son, Prince Napoleon Victor Jérome Frédéric (b. 1862), became
at his death the recognized head of the French Bonapartist party. The
second son, Prince Louis Napoleon, an officer in the Russian army,
showed a steadier disposition, and was more favoured in some monarchist
quarters; in 1906 he was made governor of the Caucasus.
12. Mathilde.
XII. MATHILDE LETITIA WILHELMINE (1820-1904), daughter of Jerome, and
sister of Prince Napoleon (XI.), was born at Trieste on the 20th of May
1820; after being almost betrothed to her cousin Louis Napoleon, in 1840
she was married to Prince Anatole Demidov. His conduct, however, led to
a separation within five years, and the tsar Nicholas compelled him to
make Princess Mathilde a handsome allowance. After the election of Louis
Napoleon to the presidency of the republic she took up her residence in
Paris, and did the honours of the Élysée till his marriage. She
continued to live in Paris, having great influence as a friend and
patron of men of art and letters, till her death on the 2nd of January
1904.
13. Prince Imperial: son of Napoleon III.
XIII. NAPOLEON EUGENE LOUIS JEAN JOSEPH (1856-1879), Prince Imperial,
only son of the emperor Napoleon III. and the empress Eugénie, was born
at Paris on the 16th of March 1856. He was a delicate boy, but when the
war of 1870 broke out his mother sent him to the army, to win popularity
for him, and the government journals vaunted his bravery. After the
first defeats he had to flee from France with the empress, and settled
in England at Chislehurst, completing his military education at
Woolwich. On the death of his father on the 9th of January 1873 the
Imperialists proclaimed him Napoleon IV., and he became the official
Pretender. He was naturally inactive, but he was influenced by his
mother on the one hand, and by the Bonapartist leaders in France on the
other. They thought that he should win his crown by military prestige,
and he was persuaded to attach himself as a volunteer to the English
expedition to Zululand in February 1879. It was a blunder to have
allowed him to go, and the blunder ended in a tragedy, for while out on
a reconnaissance with a few troopers they were surprised by Zulus, and
the Prince Imperial was killed (June 1, 1879). His body was brought back
to England, and buried at Chislehurst.
XIV. THE BONAPARTES OF BALTIMORE are a branch of the family settled in
America, descended from Jerome Bonaparte (VII.) by his union with
Elizabeth (b. 1785), daughter of William Patterson, a Baltimore
merchant, probably descended from the Robert Paterson who was the
original of Sir Walter Scott's "Old Mortality." The marriage took place
at Baltimore on the 24th of December 1803, but it was greatly disliked
by Napoleon, who refused to recognize its legality. However, it was
valid according to American law, and Pope Pius VII. refused to declare
it void. Nevertheless Jerome was forced by his brother to separate
himself from his wife, whom he had brought to Europe, and after a stay
in England Madame Patterson, or Madame Bonaparte, as she was usually
called, returned to Baltimore. She died in 1879. Jerome's only child by
this marriage was Jerome Napoleon Bonaparte (1805-1870), who was born in
England, but resided chiefly in Baltimore, and is said to have shown a
marked resemblance to his uncle, the great emperor. He was on good terms
with Jerome, who for some time made him a large allowance, and father
and son occasionally met. His elder son, also called Jerome Napoleon
Bonaparte (1832-1893), entered the French army, with which he served in
the Crimea and in Italy.
Charles Joseph Bonaparte (b. 1851), younger son of the first Jerome
Napoleon Bonaparte, and a grandson of Jerome, king of Westphalia,
attained a distinguished place in American politics. Born at Baltimore
on the 9th of June 1851 and educated at Harvard University, he became a
lawyer in 1874 and has been president of the National Municipal League
and has filled other public positions. He was secretary of the navy in
President Roosevelt's cabinet from July 1905 to December 1906, and then
attorney-general of the United States until March 1909.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Derived, it is supposed, from the nickname "Plomb-plomb," or
"Craint-plomb" (fear-lead), given him by his soldiers in the Crimea.
BONAR, HORATIUS (1808-1889), Scottish Presbyterian divine, was born in
Edinburgh on the 19th of December 1808, and educated at the high school
and university of his native city. After a term of mission work at
Leith, he was appointed parish minister of Kelso in 1837, and at the
Disruption of 1843 became minister of the newly formed Free Church,
where he remained till 1866, when he went to the Chalmers memorial
church, Edinburgh. He had in 1853 received the D.D. degree from Aberdeen
University, and in 1883 he was moderator of the general assembly of his
church. He died on the 31st of July 1889. Bonar was a prolific writer of
religious literature, and edited several journals, including the
_Christian Treasury_, the _Presbyterian Review_ and the _Quarterly
Journal of Prophecy_; but his best work was done in hymnology, and he
published three series of _Hymns of Faith and Hope_ between 1857 and
1866 (new ed., 1886). Nearly every modern hymnal contains perhaps a
score of his hymns, including "Go, labour on," "I heard the voice of
Jesus say," "Here, O my Lord, I see Thee face to face," "When the weary,
seeking rest."
See _Horatius Bonar, D.D., a Memorial_ (1889).
BONAVENTURA, SAINT (JOHN OF FIDANZA), Franciscan theologian, was born in
1221 at Bagnarea in Tuscany. He was destined by his mother for the
church, and is said to have received his cognomen of Bonaventura from St
Francis of Assisi, who performed on him a miraculous cure. He entered
the Franciscan order in 1243, and studied at Paris possibly under
Alexander of Hales, and certainly under Alexander's successor, John of
Rochelle, to whose chair he succeeded in 1253. Three years earlier his
fame had gained for him permission to read upon the _Sentences_, and in
1255 he received the degree of doctor. So high was his reputation that
in the following year he was elected general of his order. It was by his
orders that Roger Bacon was interdicted from lecturing at Oxford, and
compelled to put himself under the surveillance of the order at Paris.
He was instrumental in procuring the election of Gregory X., who
rewarded him with the titles of cardinal and bishop of Albano, and
insisted on his presence at the great council of Lyons in the year 1274.
At this meeting he died.
Bonaventura's character seems not unworthy of the eulogistic title,
"Doctor Seraphicus," bestowed on him by his contemporaries, and of the
place assigned to him by Dante in his _Paradiso_. He was formally
canonized in 1482 by Sixtus IV., and ranked as sixth among the great
doctors of the church by Sixtus V. in 1587. His works, as arranged in
the Lyons edition (7 vols., folio), consist of expositions and sermons,
filling the first three volumes; of a commentary on the _Sentences_ of
Lombardus, in two volumes, celebrated among medieval theologians as
incomparably the best exposition of the third part; and of minor
treatises filling the remaining two volumes, and including a life of St
Francis. The smaller works are the most important, and of them the best
are the famous _Itinerarium Mentis ad Deum, Breviloquium, De Reductione
Artium ad Theologiam, Soliloquium_, and _De septem itineribus
aeternitatis_, in which most of what is individual in his teaching is
contained.
In philosophy Bonaventura presents a marked contrast to his great
contemporaries, Thomas Aquinas and Roger Bacon. While these may be taken
as representing respectively physical science yet in its infancy, and
Aristotelian scholasticism in its most perfect form, he brings before us
the mystical and Platonizing mode of speculation which had already to
some extent found expression in Hugo and Richard of St Victor, and in
Bernard of Clairvaux. To him the purely intellectual element, though
never absent, is of inferior interest when compared with the living
power of the affections or the heart. He rejects the authority of
Aristotle, to whose influence he ascribes much of the heretical tendency
of the age, and some of whose cardinal doctrines--such as the eternity
of the world--he combats vigorously. But the Platonism he received was
Plato as understood by St Augustine, and as he had been handed down by
the Alexandrian school and the author of the mystical works passing
under the name of Dionysius the Areopagite. Bonaventura accepts as
Platonic the theory that ideas do not exist _in rerum natura_, but as
thoughts of the divine mind, according to which actual things were
formed; and this conception has no slight influence upon his philosophy.
Like all the great scholastic doctors he starts with the discussion of
the relations between reason and faith. All the sciences are but the
handmaids of theology; reason can discover some of the moral truths
which form the groundwork of the Christian system, but others it can
only receive and apprehend through divine illumination. In order to
obtain this illumination the soul must employ the proper means, which
are prayer, the exercise of the virtues, whereby it is rendered fit to
accept the divine light, and meditation which may rise even to ecstatic
union with God. The supreme end of life is such union, union in
contemplation or intellect and in intense absorbing love; but it cannot
be entirely reached in this life, and remains as a hope for futurity.
The mind in contemplating God has three distinct aspects, stages or
grades--the senses, giving empirical knowledge of what is without and
discerning the traces (_vestigia_) of the divine in the world; the
reason, which examines the soul itself, the image of the divine Being;
and lastly, pure intellect (_intelligentia_), which, in a transcendent
act, grasps the Being of the divine cause. To these three correspond the
three kinds of theology--_theologia symbolica, theologia propria_ and
_theologia mystica_. Each stage is subdivided, for in contemplating the
outer world we may use the senses or the imagination; we may rise to a
knowledge of God _per vestigia_ or _in vestigiis_. In the first case the
three great properties of physical bodies--weight, number, measure,--in
the second the division of created things into the classes of those that
have merely physical existence, those that have life, and those that
have thought, irresistibly lead us to conclude the power, wisdom and
goodness of the Triune God. So in the second stage we may ascend to the
knowledge of God, _per imaginem_, by reason, or _in imagine_, by the
pure understanding (_intellectus_); in the one case the triple
division--memory, understanding and will,--in the other the Christian
virtues--faith, hope and charity,--leading again to the conception of a
Trinity of divine qualities--eternity, truth and goodness. In the last
stage we have first _intelligentia_, pure intellect, contemplating the
essential being of God, and finding itself compelled by necessity of
thought to hold absolute being as the first notion, for non-being
cannot be conceived apart from being, of which it is but the privation.
To this notion of absolute being, which is perfect and the greatest of
all, objective existence must be ascribed. In its last and highest form
of activity the mind rests in the contemplation of the infinite goodness
of God, which is apprehended by means of the highest faculty, the _apex
mentis_ or _synderesis_. This spark of the divine illumination is common
to all forms of mysticism, but Bonaventura adds to it peculiarly
Christian elements. The complete yielding up of mind and heart to God is
unattainable without divine grace, and nothing renders us so fit to
receive this gift as the meditative and ascetic life of the cloister.
The monastic life is the best means of grace.
Bonaventura, however, is not merely a meditative thinker, whose works
may form good manuals of devotion; he is a dogmatic theologian of high
rank, and on all the disputed questions of scholastic thought, such as
universals, matter, the principle of individualism, or the _intellectus
agens_, he gives weighty and well-reasoned decisions. He agrees with
Albertus Magnus in regarding theology as a practical science; its
truths, according to his view, are peculiarly adapted to influence the
affections. He discusses very carefully the nature and meaning of the
divine attributes; considers universals to be the ideal forms
pre-existing in the divine mind according to which things were shaped;
holds matter to be pure potentiality which receives individual being and
determinateness from the formative power of God, acting according to the
ideas; and finally maintains that the _intellectus agens_ has no
separate existence. On these and on many other points of scholastic
philosophy the Seraphic Doctor exhibits a combination of subtilty and
moderation which makes his works peculiarly valuable.
EDITIONS.--7 vols., Rome, 1588-1596; 7 vols., Lyons, 1668; 13 vols.,
Venice, 1751 ff.; by A.C. Peltier, 15 vols., Paris, 1863 ff.; 10
vols., Rome, 1882-1892. K.J. Hefele edited the _Breviloquium_ and the
_Itin. Mentis_ (3rd ed., Tübingen, 1862); two volumes of selections
were issued by Alix in 1853-1856.
LITERATURE.--W.A. Hollenberg, _Studien zu Bonaventura_ (1862); F.
Nitzsch, art. in Herzog-Hauck, _Realencyk. für prot. Theol._, where a
list of monographs is given, to which add one by De Chévancé (1899).
(R. Ad.; X.)
BONCHAMPS, CHARLES MELCHIOR ARTUS, MARQUIS DE (c. 1760-1793), Vendéan
leader, was born at Jouverteil, Anjou. He gained his first military
experience in the American War of Independence, and on his return to
France was made a captain of grenadiers in the French army. He was a
staunch upholder of the monarchy, and at the outbreak of the French
Revolution resigned his command and retired to his château at St
Florent. In the spring of 1793 he was chosen leader by the insurgents of
the Vendée, and to his counsels may be attributed in great measure the
success of the peasants' arms. He was present at the taking of
Bressuire, Thouars and Fontenay, at which last place he was wounded; but
dissensions among their leaders weakened the insurgents, and at the
bloody battle of Cholet (October 1793) the Vendéans sustained a severe
defeat and Bonchamps was mortally wounded. He died the next day. It is
said that his last act was the pardoning of five thousand republican
prisoners, whom his troops had sworn to kill in revenge for his death. A
statue of him by David d'Angers stands in the church of St Florent.
BOND, SIR EDWARD AUGUSTUS (1815-1898), English librarian, was born at
Hanwell on the 31st of December 1815, the son of a schoolmaster. He was
educated at Merchant Taylors' school, and in 1832 obtained a post in the
public record office. In 1838 he became an assistant in the manuscript
department of the British Museum, where he attracted the notice of his
chief, Sir Frederick Madden, the most eminent palaeographer of his day,
and in 1852 he was made Egerton librarian. In 1856 he became assistant
keeper of MSS., and in 1867 was promoted to the post of keeper. His work
in reorganizing the manuscript department was of lasting value, and to
him is due the classified catalogue of MSS., and the improved efficiency
and punctuality of publication of the department. In 1878 he was
appointed principal librarian. Under his supervision were erected the
new buildings of the "White Wing," which provide accommodation for
prints, drawings, manuscripts and newspapers, and the purchase of the
Stowe MSS. was concluded while he remained in office. He founded, in
conjunction with Sir E. Maunde Thompson, the Palaeographical Society,
and first made classical palaeography an exact science. He was made
LL.D. of Cambridge in 1879, created C.B. in 1885, and K.C.B. the day
before his death on the 2nd of January 1898. He was the editor of four
volumes of facsimiles of Anglo-Saxon charters from 679 to the Conquest,
_The Speeches in the Trial of Warren Hastings_ (1859-1861), and a number
of other interesting historic documents.
BOND,[1] in English law, an obligation by deed. Its design is to secure
that the obligor, i.e. the person giving the bond, will either pay a
sum of money, or do or refrain from doing some act; and for this purpose
the obligor binds himself in a penalty to the obligee, with a condition
added that, if the obligor pays the sum secured--which is usually half
the penalty--or does or refrains from doing the specified act, the bond
shall be void: otherwise it shall remain in full force. This condition
is known as the defeasance because it defeats or undoes the bond. The
form of a common money bond runs as follows:--
Know All Men by these presents that I, A.B. (name, address and
description of obligor), am bound to C.D. (name, address and
description of obligee) in the sum of £[2000] to be paid to the said
(obligee), his executors, administrators or assigns or to his or their
attorney or attorneys, for which payment I bind myself by these
presents. Sealed with my seal. Dated this day of 19 .
The condition of the above-written bond is such that if the above
A.B., his heirs, executors or administrators, shall on the day
of pay to the above-named C.D., his heirs, executors, administrators
or assigns the sum of £[1000], with interest for the same from the
date of the above-written bond at the rate of per cent per
annum without any deduction, then the above-written bond shall be
void: otherwise the bond shall remain in full force.
Signed, sealed and delivered
by the above-named A.B.
in the presence of (witness)
Recitals are frequently added to explain the circumstances under which
the bond is given.
If the condition is not performed, i.e. if the obligor does not pay the
money by the day stipulated, or do or refrain from doing the act
provided for, the bond becomes forfeit or absolute at law, and charges
the obligor and his estate (see Conveyancing Act 1881, s. 59). In old
days, when a bond was forfeit, the whole penalty was recoverable at law
and payment _post diem_ could not be pleaded to an action on it, but the
court of chancery early interposed to prevent oppression. It held the
penalty of a bond to be the form, not the substance of it, a pledge
merely to secure repayment of the sum bona fide advanced, and would not
permit a man to take more than in conscience he ought, i.e. in case of a
common money bond, his principal, interest and expenses. This equitable
relief received statutory recognition by an act of 1705, which provided
that, in case of a common money bond, payment of the lesser sum with
interest and costs shall be taken in full satisfaction of the bond. An
obligee of a common money bond can, since the date of the Judicature
Act, obtain summary judgment under O. xiv. (R.S.C. 1883) by specially
endorsing his writ under O. iii. R. 6.
Bonds were, however, and still are given to secure performance of a
variety of matters other than the payment of a sum of money at a fixed
date. They may be given and are given, for instance, to guarantee the
fidelity of a clerk, of a rent collector, or of a person in an office of
public trust, or to secure that an intended husband will settle a sum on
his wife in the event of her surviving him, or that a building contract
shall be carried out, or that a rival business shall not be carried on
by the obligor except within certain limits of time and space. The same
object can often be attained--and more conveniently attained--by a
covenant than by bond, and covenants have in the practice of
conveyancers largely superseded bonds, but there are cases where
security by bond is still preferable to security by covenant. Thus under
a bond to secure an annuity, if the obligor makes default, judgment may
be entered for the penalty and stand as security for the future payments
without the necessity of bringing a fresh action for each payment. In
cases of bonds with special conditions, such as those instanced above,
the remedy of the obligee for breach of the condition is prescribed by
an act of 1696, the procedure under which is preserved by the Judicature
Act (O. xxii. R. 1, O. xiii. R. 14). The obligee assigns the particular
breaches of which he complains, damages in respect of such breaches are
assessed, and, on payment into court by the obligor of the amount of
such damages, the court enters a stay of execution. A difficulty which
has much exercised and still exercises the courts is to determine, in
these cases of special conditions, whether the sum for which the bond is
given is a true penalty or only liquidated damages. There is nothing to
prevent the parties to a bond from agreeing the damages for a breach,
and if they have done so, the court will not interfere, as it will in
the case of a penalty. The leading case on the subject is _Kemble_ v.
_Farren_ (1829; 6 Bing. 148).
Bonds given to secure the doing of anything which is contrary to the
policy of the law are void. Such, for instance, is a bond given to a
woman for future cohabitation (as distinguished from past cohabitation),
or a marriage brocage bond, that is, a bond given to procure a marriage
between parties. (See the matrimonial agency case, _Hermann_ v.
_Charlesworth_, 1905, 2 K.B. 123). It was not without design that
Shakespeare laid the scene of Shylock's suit on Antonio's bond in a
Venetian court; the bond would have had short shrift in an English
court.
_Post Obit Bonds._--A post obit bond is one given by an expectant heir
or legatee, payable on or after the death of the person from whom the
obligor has expectations. Such a bond, if the obligee has exacted
unconscionable terms, may be set aside.
_Bottomry Bonds._--A bottomry bond is a contract of hypothecation by
which the owner of a ship, or the master as his agent, borrows money
for the use of the ship to meet some emergency, e.g. necessary
repairs, and pledges the ship (or keel or bottom of the ship, _partem
pro toto_) as security for repayment. If the ship safely accomplishes
her voyage, the obligee gets his money back with the agreed interest:
if the ship is totally lost, he loses it altogether.
_Lloyd's Bonds._--Lloyd's bonds are instruments under the seal of a
railway company, admitting the indebtedness of the company to the
obligee to a specified amount for work done or goods supplied, with a
covenant to pay him such amount with interest on a future day. They
are a device by which railway companies were enabled to increase their
indebtedness without technically violating their charter. The name is
derived from the counsel who settled the form of the bond.
_Debenture Bonds._--Debenture bonds are bonds secured only by the
covenant of the company without any floating or fixed charge on the
assets. (See DEBENTURES AND DEBENTURE STOCK.)
_Recognizance._--A recognizance differs from a bond in being entered
into before a court of record and thereby becoming an obligation of
record.
_Heritable bond_ is a Scots law term, meaning a bond for money, joined
with a conveyance of land, and held by a creditor as security for his
debt.
For goods "in bond" see BONDED WAREHOUSE. (E. Ma.)
FOOTNOTE:
[1] This word, meaning "that which binds," is a phonetic variant of
"band," and is derived from the Teutonic root seen in _bindan_, to
bind; it must be distinguished from the obsolete "bond," meaning
originally a householder. In the laws of Canute this word is used as
equal to the Old English _ceorl_ (see CHURL), and thus, as the
churl's position became less free after the Norman Conquest, the
"bond" approximated to the "villein," and still later to the "serf."
The word is in Old English _bonda_, and appears in "husband"
(q.v.), and is derived from the root of the verb _búa_, to dwell,
to have a house, the Latin _colere_, and thus in origin is cognate
with German _Bauer_ and English "boor." The transition in meaning to
the idea of serfdom, and hence to slavery, is due to an early
confusion with "bond," from "bind." The same wrong connexion appears
in the transition of meaning in "bondage," properly "tenure in
villeinage," but now used as synonymous with "slavery." A trace of
the early meaning still survives in "bondager" (q.v.).
BONDAGER, a word meaning generally a servant, but specially used in the
south of Scotland and Northumberland as the term for a female outworker
whom a married farm-labourer, living in a cottage attached to the farm,
undertakes as a condition of his tenancy to supply for field-labour,
sometimes also to board and lodge. The origin of the system was a dearth
of field-labour.
BONDE, GUSTAF, COUNT (1620-1667), Swedish statesman. He is remarkable
for being the persistent advocate of a pacific policy at a time when war
on the slightest provocation was the watchword of every Swedish
politician. Even the popular Polish adventure of Charles X. was
strenuously opposed by Bonde, though when once it was decided upon he
materially assisted the king to find the means for carrying it on. He
was also in favour of strict economy coupled with the recovery of the
royal domains which had fallen into the hands of the nobles, though his
natural partiality for his fellow-peers came out clearly enough when in
1655 he was appointed a member of Charles X.'s land-recovery commission.
In 1659 he succeeded Herman Fleming as lord high treasurer, and was one
of the council of regency appointed to govern Sweden during the minority
of Charles XI. In 1661 he presented to the senate a plan which aimed at
rendering Sweden altogether independent of foreign subsidies, by a
policy of peace, economy and trade-development, and by further recovery
of alienated estates. His budget in the following year, framed on the
same principles, subsequently served as an invaluable guide to Charles
XI. Bonde's extraordinary tenacity of purpose enabled him for some years
to carry out his programme, despite the opposition of the majority of
the senate and his co-regents, who preferred the more adventurous
methods of the chancellor Magnus de la Gardie, ultimately so ruinous to
Sweden. But the ambition of the oligarchs, and the fear and jealousy of
innumerable monopolists who rose in arms against his policy of economy,
proved at last too strong for Bonde, while the costly and useless
expedition against Bremen in 1665, undertaken contrary to his advice,
completed the ruin of the finances. In his later years Bonde's powers of
resistance were weakened by sickness and mortification at the triumph of
reckless extravagance, and he practically retired from the government
some time before his death.
See Martin Veibull, _Sveriges Storhetstid_ (Stockholm, 1881).
BONDED WAREHOUSE, a warehouse established by the state, or by private
enterprise, in which goods liable to duty are lodged until the duty upon
them has been paid. Previous to the establishment of bonded warehouses
in England the payment of duties on imported goods had to be made at the
time of importation, or a bond with security for future payment given to
the revenue authorities. The inconveniences of this system were many; it
was not always possible for the importer to find sureties, and he had
often to make an immediate sale of the goods, in order to raise the
duty, frequently selling when the market was depressed and prices low;
the duty, having to be paid in a lump sum, raised the price of the goods
by the amount of the interest on the capital required to pay the duty;
competition was stifled from the fact that large capital was required
for the importation of the more heavily taxed articles; there was also
the difficulty of granting an exact equivalent drawback to the exporter,
on goods which had already paid duty. To obviate these difficulties and
to put a check upon frauds on the revenue, Sir Robert Walpole proposed
in his "excise scheme" of 1733, the system of warehousing, so far as
concerned tobacco and wine. The proposal, however, was very unpopular,
and it was not till 1803 that the system was actually adopted. By an act
of that year imported goods were to be placed in warehouses approved by
the customs authorities, and importers were to give "bonds" for payment
of duties when the goods were removed. It was from this that the
warehouses received the name of "bonded" or "bonding." The Customs
Consolidation Act 1853 dispensed with the giving of bonds, and laid down
various provisions for securing the payment of customs duties on goods
warehoused. These provisions are contained in the Customs Consolidation
Act 1876, and the amending statutes, the Customs and Inland Revenue Act
1880, and the Revenue Act 1883. The warehouses are known as "king's
warehouses," and by s. 284 of the act of 1876 are defined as "any place
provided by the crown or approved by the commissioners of customs, for
the deposit of goods for security thereof, and the duties due thereon."
By s. 12 of the same act the treasury may appoint warehousing ports or
places, and the commissioners of customs may from time to time approve
and appoint warehouses in such ports or places where goods may be
warehoused or kept, and fix the amount of rent payable in respect of the
goods. The proprietor or occupier of every warehouse so approved
(except existing warehouses of special security in respect of which
security by bond has hitherto been dispensed with), or some one on his
behalf, must, before any goods be warehoused therein, give security by
bond, or such other security as the commissioners may approve of, for
the payment of the full duties chargeable on any goods warehoused
therein, or for the due exportation thereof (s. 13). All goods deposited
in a warehouse, without payment of duty on the first importation, upon
being entered for home consumption, are chargeable with existing duties
on like goods under any customs acts in force at the time of passing
such entry (s. 19). The act also prescribes various rules for the
unshipping, landing, examination, warehousing and custody of goods, and
the penalties on breach. The system of warehousing has proved of great
advantage both to importers and purchasers, as the payment of duty is
deferred until the goods are required, while the title-deeds, or
warrants, are transferable by endorsement.
While the goods are in the warehouse ("in bond") the owner may subject
them to various processes necessary to fit them for the market, such as
the repacking and mixing of tea, the racking, vatting, mixing and
bottling of wines and spirits, the roasting of coffee, the manufacture
of certain kinds of tobacco, &c., and certain specific allowances are
made in respect of waste arising from such processes or from leakage,
evaporation and the like.
BONDU, a French protectorate in West Africa, dependent on the colony of
Senegal. Bondu lies between the Faleme river and the upper course of the
Gambia, that is between 13° and 15° N., and 12° and 13° W. The country
is an elevated plateau, with hills in the southern and central parts.
These are generally unproductive, and covered with stunted wood; but the
lower country is fertile, and finely clothed with the baobab, the
tamarind and various valuable fruit-trees. Bondu is traversed by
torrents, which flow rapidly during the rains but are empty in the dry
season, such streams being known in this part of West Africa as
_marigots_. The inhabitants are mostly Fula, though the trade is largely
in the hands of Mandingos. The religion and laws of the country are
Mahommedan, though the precepts of that faith are not very rigorously
observed. Mungo Park, the first European traveller to visit the country,
passed through Bondu in 1795, and had to submit to many exactions from
the reigning prince. The royal residence was then at Fatteconda; but
when Major W. Gray, a British officer who attempted to solve the Niger
problem, visited Bondu in 1818 it had been removed to Bulibani, a small
town, with about 3000 population, surrounded by a strong clay wall. In
August 1845 the king of Bondu signed a treaty recognizing French
sovereignty over his country. The treaty was disregarded by the natives,
but in 1858 Bondu came definitely under French control. The country has
since enjoyed considerable prosperity (see SENEGAL).
See A. Rançon, _Le Bondou: étude de géographie et d'histoire
soudaniennes de 1681 à nos jours_ (Bordeaux, 1894).
BONE, HENRY (1755-1834), English enamel painter, was born at Truro. He
was much employed by London jewellers for small designs in enamel,
before his merits as an artist were well known to the public. In 1800
the beauty of his pieces attracted the notice of the Royal Academy, of
which he was then admitted as an associate; in 1811 he was made an
academician. Up to 1831 he executed many beautiful miniature pieces of
much larger size than had been attempted before in England; among these
his eighty-five portraits of the time of Queen Elizabeth, of different
sizes, from 5 by 4 to 13 by 8 in. are most admired. They were disposed
of by public sale after his death. His Bacchus and Ariadne, after
Titian, painted on a plate, brought the great price of 2200 guineas.
BONE (a word common in various forms to Teutonic languages, in many of
which it is confined to the shank of the leg, as in the German _Bein_),
the hard tissue constituting the framework of the animal skeleton. For
anatomy see SKELETON and CONNECTIVE TISSUES.
BONE DISEASES AND INJURIES.--The more specific diseases affecting the
bones of the human body are treated under separate headings; in this
article _inflammation of bone_ and _fractures_ are dealt with.
Ostitis.
_Ostitis_ ([Greek: osteon], bone), or inflammation of bone, may be acute
or chronic. _Acute ostitis_ is one of the most serious diseases which
can be met with in young people. It is due to the cultivation of
virulent germs in the delicate growing tissue of the bone and in the
marrow. Another name for it is _septic osteomyelitis_, which has the
advantage of expressing the cause as well as the exact seat ([Greek:
myelos], marrow) of the inflammation. The name of the micro-organism
causing the inflammation is _Staphylococcus pyogenes aureus_, which
means that the germs collect in clusters like grapes, that they are of
the virulent pus-producing kind, and that they have a yellow tinge. As a
rule, the germs find their way to the bone by the blood-stream, which
they have entered through the membrane lining the mouth or gullet, or
some other part of the alimentary canal. In the pre-antiseptic days they
often entered the sawn bone during the amputation of a limb, and were
not infrequently the cause of blood-poisoning and death. When the
individual is well and strong, and there has been no hurt, strain or
accident to lower the power of resistance of the bone, the staphylococci
may circulate harmlessly in the blood, until they are gradually eaten up
by the white corpuscles; but if a bone has been injured it offers a
likely and attractive focus to the wandering germs.
The disease is infective. That is to say, the micro-organisms having
begun to germinate in the damaged bone find their way by the
blood-stream into other tissues, and developing after their kind, are
apt to cause blood-poisoning. Should a surgeon prick his finger whilst
operating on a case of septic osteomyelitis his blood also might be
poisoned, and he would run the risk of losing his finger, his hand, or
even his life. The starting-point of the disease is the delicate growing
tissue recently deposited between the main part of the shaft of the bone
(diaphysis) and the cartilaginous end. And it often happens that the
earliest complaint of pain is just above or below the knee; just above
the ankle, the elbow or the wrist. If the surgeon is prompt in operating
he may find the disease limited to that spot. In the case of infants,
the germs are very apt to make their way into the neighbouring joint,
giving rise to the very serious disease known as _acute arthritis of
infants_.
Probably the first sign of there being anything amiss with the limb will
be a complaint of aches or pains near a joint; and these pains are apt
to be miscalled rheumatic. Perhaps they occur during convalescence from
scarlet or typhoid fever, or after exposure to injury, or to wet or
cold, or after unusual fatigue. The part becomes swollen, hot, red and
excessively tender; the tenderness, however, is not in the skin but in
the bone, and in the engorged membrane around it, the periosteum. The
temperature may run up to 104°, and may be associated with convulsions
or shiverings. The patient's nights are disturbed, and very likely he
has violent delirium. If the case is allowed to drift on, abscess forms,
and death may ensue from septic pneumonia, or pericarditis, or from some
other form of blood-poisoning.
As soon as the disease is recognized an incision should be made down to
the bone, and the affected area should be scraped out, and disinfected
with a solution of corrosive sublimate. A considerable area of the bone
may be found stripped bare by sub-periosteal abscess, and necrosis is
likely to ensue. Perhaps the shaft of the bone will have to be opened up
in the chief part of its length in order that it may be cleared of germs
and pus. The surgeon is more apt to err on the side of doing too little
in these serious cases than too much. It may be that the whole of that
piece of bone (diaphysis) which lies between the joint-ends is found
loose in a large abscess cavity, and in some cases immediate amputation
of the limb may be found necessary in order to save life; in other
cases, amputation may be called for later because of long-continued
suppuration and grave constitutional disturbance. Several bones may be
affected at the same time, and large pieces of them may be killed
outright (_multiple necrosis_) by inflammatory engorgement and
devastating abscess.
Septic ostitis may be confounded with erysipelas and rheumatism, but
the central thickening and tenderness should suffice to distinguish it.
_Chronic ostitis_ and _periostitis_ denote long-continued and increased
vascular supply. This may be due to injury, syphilis or rheumatism. The
disease is found chiefly in the shafts of the bones. There is a dull
pain in the bone, which is worse at night, and the inflamed piece of
bone is thickened and tender. The lump thus formed is called a _hard
node_, and its outline shows clearly by X-rays. The affected limb should
be rested and kept elevated. Leeches and fomentations may ease the pain,
and iodide of potassium is the most useful medicine.
_Chronic inflammation of tuberculous origin_ affects the soft,
cancellated tissue of such bones as the vertebrae, and the bones of the
hands and feet, as well as the spongy ends of the long bones. In
tuberculous ostitis the presence of the bacilli in the spongy tissue
causes an escape of colourless corpuscles from the blood, which,
collecting around the bacilli, form a small greyish white heap, a
_tubercle_. These tubercles may be present in large numbers at the
expense of the living tissue, and a _rarefying ostitis_ is thus
produced. Later the tubercles break down and form tuberculous abscesses,
which slowly, and almost painlessly, find escape upon the surface. They
should not be allowed to open spontaneously, however, as the wounds are
then likely to become infected with pus-producing germs, and fuel being
added to the fire, as it were, destruction advances with increased
rapidity. The treatment for these tuberculous foci is to place the limb
or the part at absolute rest upon a splint, to give plenty of fresh air
to the patient, and to prescribe cod-liver oil and iron. And when it is
seen that in spite of the adoption of these measures the tuberculous
abscess is advancing towards the surface, the surgeon should cut down
upon the part, scrape out the foci, and disinfect with some strong
antiseptic lotion. Consideration should also be given to the treatment
by injection of tuberculin.
_Caries_ (rottenness, decay) is the name given to tuberculous disease of
bone when the tubercles are running together and are breaking down the
cancellous tissue. In short, caries generally means tuberculous ostitis,
though syphilitic ulceration of bone has also received the same name.
Fracture.
_Fractures._--A bone may be broken at the part where it is struck
(fracture from direct violence), or it may break in consequence of a
strain applied to it (fracture from indirect violence), or the fracture
may be due to muscular action as when a violent cough causes a rib to
break. In the first case the fracture is generally transverse and in the
second more or less oblique. The fully developed bone is broken fairly
across; the soft bones of young people may simply be bent--_green stick_
or _willow fracture._ Fractures are either _simple_ or _compound_. A
simple fracture is analogous to the subcutaneous laceration in the soft
parts, and a compound one to an open wound in the soft parts. The wound
of the soft parts in the compound fracture may be due either to the
force which caused the fracture, as in the case of a cart-wheel going
over a limb, first wounding the soft parts and then fracturing the bone,
or to the sharp point of the fractured bone coming out through the skin.
In either case there is a communication between the external air and
injured bone, and the probability arises of the germs of suppuration
finding their way to the seat of fracture. This greatly increases the
risks of the case, for septic inflammation and suppuration may lead to
delayed union, to death of large pieces of the bone (necrosis), and to
osteomyelitis and to blood-poisoning. In the treatment of a fracture,
every care should be taken to prevent any sharp fragment coming near the
skin. Careless handling has often been the means of a simple fracture
being converted into a compound one.
In most cases of fracture _crepitus_ can be made out; this is the
feeling elicited when two rough osseous surfaces are rubbed together.
When a bone is merely bent there is, of course, no crepitus. It is also
absent in fractures in which the broken extremities are driven into one
another (impacted fracture). In order to get firm bony union it is
necessary to secure accurate apposition of the fragments. Putting the
broken ends together is termed "setting the fracture," and the needful
amount of rest is obtained by the use of splints. As a rule, it is also
advisable to fix with the splint the joint above or below the fracture.
In cases in which a splintering of the bone into a joint has taken
place, more especially in those cases in which tendons have been
injured, there may be a good deal of effusion into the joint and the
tendon sheaths, and this may be organized into fibrous tissue leading to
permanent stiffness. This is particularly apt to occur in old people.
Care must be taken in such instances by gentle exercises, and by passive
movement during the process of cure, to keep the joint and tendons free.
To take a common example,--in fracture close to the wrist joint, it is
necessary to arrange the splint so that the patient can move his fingers
and thumb, and the splint must be taken off every day, in order that the
wrist and fingers may be gently bent, straightened and exercised.
The treatment of fractures has undergone considerable improvement of
late years. Simple fractures are not kept so long at rest in splints,
but are constantly "taken down" in order that massage and movements of
the limb may be resorted to. This, of course, is done with the utmost
gentleness, and with the result that swelling, pain and other evidences
of the serious injury quickly disappear, whilst a more rapid and
complete recovery is ensured. Stiff hands and feet after fracture are
much less frequently met with. By the aid of the X-rays it is now easy
for the surgeon to assure himself that fractured surfaces have been well
adjusted and are in close apposition. But if they are not in a
satisfactory position, and it be found impracticable to assure their
close adjustment by ordinary methods, the surgeon now, without undue
loss of time, cuts down upon the broken ends and fixes them together by
a strong wire suture, which remains permanently in the tissues. If the
fracture be associated with an open wound of the part (compound
fracture), and the broken ends are found incapable of easy adjustment,
immediate wiring together of the fragments is now considered to be a
necessary part of the primary treatment. The French surgeon, Just
Lucas-Championnière, has done more than any one else to show the
advantage of discreet movements, of massage and of exercises in the
treatment of fractures.
_Special Fracture in Young People._--The long bones of children and
growing persons consist of a shaft with cartilaginous ends in which bone
is developed. As the result of injury, the end of the bone may become
detached, a variety of fracture known as _diastasis_. Such a
fracture--however well treated--may be followed by arrest of growth of
the bone or by stiffness of the neighbouring joint.
_Delayed union_ means that consolidation is taking place very slowly, if
at all. This may be due to local or constitutional causes, but provided
the bones are in good position, nothing further than patience, with
massage, and with due attention to general health-measures, is
necessary.
An _ununited fracture_ is one in which after many weeks or months no
attempt has been made by nature to consolidate the parts. This may be
due to the ends not having been brought close enough together; to the
seat of fracture having been constantly disturbed; to muscle or tendon
being interposed between the broken ends, or to the existence of some
constitutional defect in the patient. Except in the last-named
condition, the treatment consists in cutting down to the broken ends;
freshening them up by sawing off a thin slice, and by adjusting and
fixing them by a wire or screw. Ununited fracture of the leg-bones in
children is a most unsatisfactory and rebellious condition to deal with.
There is still a difference of opinion as to the best way of treating a
recent _fracture of the patella_ (knee-cap). Many surgeons are still
content to follow the old plan of fixing the limb on a back-splint, or
in plaster of Paris splints, and awaiting the result. It is beyond
question that a large percentage of these cases recover with a perfectly
useful limb--especially if the fibrous bond of union between the pieces
of the broken knee-cap is adequately protected against being stretched
by bending the leg at too early a date. But in some cases the fragments
have been eventually found wide apart, the patient being left with an
enfeebled limb. Still, at any rate, this line of treatment was
unassociated with risk. But after Lister showed (1883) that with due
care and cleanliness the knee-joint could be opened, and the fragments
of the broken patella secured in close apposition by a stout wire
suture, the treatment of the injury underwent a remarkable change. The
great advantage of Lister's treatment was that the fragments, being
fixed close together by the wire stitch, became solidly united by bone,
and the joint became as sound as it was before. Some surgeons, however,
objected to the operation--in spite of the excellence of the results
obtainable by it--because of the undoubted risk which it entailed of the
joint becoming invaded by septic micro-organisms. As a sort of
compromise, Professor A.E.J. Barker introduced the method, which he
deemed to be less hazardous, of holding the fragments close together by
means of a strong silver wire passed round them vertically by a large
needle without actually laying open the joint. But experience has shown
that in the hands of careful and skilful surgeons Lister's operation of
openly wiring the fragments gives a perfect result with a comparatively
small risk. Other surgeons secure the fragments in close contact for
bony union by passing a silk or metal suture around them
circumferentially. Many years ago Lister remarked that the careful
selection of one's patients is an antiseptic measure--by which he meant
that if a surgeon intended to get the most perfect results for his
operative work, he must carefully consider whether any individual
patient is physically adapted for the performance upon him of any
particular operation. This aphorism implies that not every patient with
a broken knee-cap is suited for the opening of his knee-joint, or even
for the subcutaneous adjustment of the broken fragments. An operative
procedure which is admirably suited for one patient might result in
disaster when adopted for another, and it is an important part of the
surgeon's business to know what to advise in each individual case.
(E. O.*)
_Industrial Applications of Bones._--By the increasing inventiveness
of man, the industrial utilization of animal bone has been so
developed that not one of the constituents fails to reappear in
commerce. Composed of mineral matter--phosphates, &c.--fat and
gelatinous substances, the phosphates are used as artificial manures,
the fat is worked up by the soap-maker and chandler, and the
gelatinous matter forms the basis of the gelatin and glue of commerce;
while by the dry distillation of bones from which the gelatin has been
but partially removed, there are obtained a carbonaceous
residue--animal charcoal--and a tarry distillate, from which "bone
oil" and bone pitch are obtained. To these by-products there must be
added the direct uses of bone--for making buttons, knife-handles,
&c.--when an estimate is desired of the commercial importance of these
components of the animal frame.
While most of the world's supply of bones goes to the glue and gelatin
works, the leg and thigh bones, termed "marrows" and "knuckles," are
used for the manufacture of bone articles. The treatment which they
receive is very different from that practised in the glue-works. The
ends are removed by a saw, and the bones are steeped in a 1% brine
solution for three to four days, in order to separate the fibrous
matter. The bones are now heated with water, and allowed to simmer for
about six hours. This removes a part of the fat and gelatinous matter;
the former rises as a scum, the latter passes into solution, and the
bones remain sufficiently firm to be worked up by the lathe, &c. The
fat is skimmed off, and, after bleaching, reappears as a component of
fine soaps, or, if unbleached, the oil is expressed and is used as an
adulterant of other oils, while the stearine or solid matter goes to
the candle-maker; the gelatinous water is used (after filtration) for
making size for cardboard boxes; while the bones are scrubbed, dried,
and then transferred to the bone-worker.
The glue-worker first removes the fat, which is supplied to the soap
and candle trades; the bones are now treated for glue (q.v.); and
the residue is worked up for manures, &c. These residues are ground to
a fine or coarse meal, and supplied either directly as a fertilizer or
treated with sulphuric acid to form the more soluble superphosphates,
which are more readily assimilated by growing plants. In some places,
especially South America, the residues are burned in a retort to a
white ash, the "bone-ash" of commerce, which contains some 70-80% of
tricalcium phosphate, and is much used as a manure, and in the
manufacture of high-grade superphosphates. In the gelatin industry
(see GELATIN) the mineral matter has to be recovered from its solution
in hydrochloric acid. To effect this, the liquors are freed from
suspended matter by filtration, and then run into vats where they are
mixed with milk of lime, or some similar neutralizer. The slightly
soluble bicalcium phosphate, CaHPO4, is first precipitated, which,
with more lime, gives ordinary tricalcium phosphate, Ca3(PO4)2. The
contents of the vats are filter-pressed, and the cakes dried on
plates supported on racks in heated chambers. This product is a very
valuable manure, and is also used in the manufacture of phosphorus.
Instead of extracting all the gelatinous matter from degreased bones,
the practice of extracting about one half and carbonizing the residue
is frequently adopted. The bones are heated in horizontal cast-iron
retorts, holding about 5 cwt., and the operation occupies about twelve
to thirteen hours. The residue in the retorts is removed while still
red-hot to air-tight vessels in which it is allowed to cool. It is
then passed through grinding mills, and is subsequently riddled by
revolving cylindrical sieves. The yield is from 55 to 60% of the bones
carbonized, and the product contains about 10% of carbon and about 75%
of calcium phosphate, the remainder being various inorganic salts and
moisture (6-7%). Animal charcoal has a deep black colour, and is much
used as a filtering and clarifying material. The vapours evolved
during carbonization are condensed in vertical air condensers. The
liquid separates into two layers: the upper tarry layer is floated off
and redistilled; the distillate is termed "bone oil,"[1] and mainly
consists of many fatty amines and pyridine derivatives, characterized
by a most disgusting odour; the residue is "bone pitch," and finds
application in the manufacture of black varnishes and like
compositions. The lower layer is ammoniacal liquor; it is transferred
to stills, distilled with steam, and the ammonia received in sulphuric
acid; the ammonium sulphate, which separates, is removed, drained and
dried, and is principally used as a manure. Both during the
carbonization of the bones and the distillation of the tar inflammable
gases are evolved; these are generally used, after purification, for
motive or illuminating purposes. (C. E.*)
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Bone oil, also known as Dippel's oil, was originally produced by
the distillation of stags' horns; it is of interest in the history of
chemistry, since from it were isolated in 1846 by T. Anderson
pyridine and some of its homologues.
BONE BED, a term loosely used by geologists when speaking generally of
any stratum or deposit which contains bones of whatever kind. It is also
applied to those brecciated and stalagmitic deposits on the floor of
caves, which frequently contain osseous remains. In a more restricted
sense it is used to connote certain thin layers of bony fragments, which
occur upon well-defined geological horizons. One of the best-known of
these is the Ludlow Bone Bed, which is found at the base of the Downton
Sandstone in the Upper Ludlow series. At Ludlow itself, two such beds
are actually known, separated by about 14 ft. of strata. Although quite
thin, the Ludlow Bone Bed can be followed from that town into
Gloucestershire for a distance of 45 m. It is almost made up of
fragments of spines, teeth and scales of ganoid fish. Another well-known
bed, formerly known as the "Bristol" or "Lias" Bone Bed, exists in the
form of several thin layers of micaceous sandstone, with the remains of
fish and saurians, which occur in the Rhaetic Black Paper Shales that
lie above the Keuper marls in the south-west of England. It is
noteworthy that a similar bone bed has been traced on the same
geological horizon in Brunswick, Hanover and Franconia. A bone bed has
also been observed at the base of the Carboniferous limestone series in
certain parts of the south-west of England.
BONE-LACE, a kind of lace made upon a cushion from linen thread; the
pattern is marked out with pins, round which are twisted the different
threads, each wound on its own bobbin. The lace was so called from the
fact that bobbins were formerly made of bone.
BONER (or BONERIUS), ULRICH (fl. 14th century), German-Swiss writer of
fables, was born in Bern. He was descended of an old Bernese family,
and, as far as can be ascertained, took clerical orders and became a
monk; yet as it appears that he subsequently married, it is certain that
he received the "tonsure" only, and was thus entitled to the benefit of
the _clerici uxoriati_, who, on divesting themselves of the clerical
garb, could return to secular life. He is mentioned in records between
1324 and 1349, but neither before nor after these dates. He wrote, in
Middle High German, a collection of fables entitled _Der Edelstein_ (c.
1349), one hundred in number, which were based principally on those of
Avianus (4th century) and the _Anonymus_ (edited by I. Nevelet, 1610).
This work he dedicated to the Bernese patrician and poet, Johann von
Rinkenberg, advocatus (_Vogt_) of Brienz (d. c. 1350). It was printed in
1461 at Bamberg; and it is claimed for it that it was the first book
printed in the German language. Boner treats his sources with
considerable freedom and originality; he writes a clear and simple
style, and the necessarily didactic tone of the collection is relieved
by touches of humour.
_Der Edelstein_ has been edited by G.F. Benecke (Berlin, 1816) and
Franz Pfeiffer (Leipzig, 1844); a translation into modern German by K.
Pannier will be found, in Reclam's _Universal-Bibliothek_ (Leipzig,
1895). See also G.E. Lessing in _Zur Geschichte und Literatur_
(_Werke_, ix.); C. Waas, _Die Quellen der Beispiele Boners_ (Giessen,
1897).
BO'NESS, or BORROWSTOUNNESS, a municipal and police burgh and seaport of
Linlithgowshire, Scotland. Pop. (1891) 6295; (1901) 9306. It lies on the
southern shore of the Firth of Forth, 17 m. W. by N. of Edinburgh, and
24 m. by rail, being the terminus of the North British railway's branch
line from Manuel. In the 18th century it ranked next to Leith as a port,
but the growth of Grangemouth, higher up the firth, seriously affected
its shipping trade, which is, however, yet considerable, coal and
pig-iron forming the principal exports, and pit props from the Baltic
the leading import. It has an extensive harbour (the area of the dock
being 7¾ acres). The great industries are coal-mining--some of the pits
extending for a long distance beneath the firth--iron-founding (with
several blast furnaces) and engineering, but it has also important
manufactures of salt, soap, vitriol and other chemicals. Shipbuilding
and whaling are extinct. Traces of the wall of Antoninus which ran
through the parish may still be made out, especially near Inveravon.
Blackness, on the coast farther east, was the seaport of Linlithgow till
the rise of Bo'ness, but its small export trade now mainly consists of
coal, bricks, tiles and lime. Its castle, standing on a promontory, is
of unknown age. James III. of Scotland is stated to have consigned
certain of the insurgent nobles to its cells; and later it was used as a
prison in which many of the Covenanters were immured. It was one of the
four castles that had to be maintained by the Articles of Union, but
when its uselessness for defensive purposes became apparent, it was
converted into an ammunition depot. Kinneil House, 1 m. south of
Bo'ness, a seat of the duke of Hamilton, formerly a keep, was fortified
by the regent Arran, plundered by the rebels in Queen Mary's reign, and
reconstructed in the time of Charles II. Dr John Roebuck (1718-1794),
founder of the Carron Iron Works, occupied it for several years from
1764. It was here that, on his invitation, James Watt constructed a
model of his steam-engine, which was tested in a now disused colliery.
Though Roebuck lost all his money in the coal-mines and salt works which
he established at Bo'ness, the development of the mineral resources of
the district may be regarded as due to him.
BONFIGLI, BENEDETTO, 15th century Italian painter, was born at Perugia.
Until near the middle of the 15th century the Umbrian school was far
behind those of Florence and the North, but in the person of Perugino
and some of his followers it suddenly advanced into the very first rank.
Among the latter none holds a more distinguished place than Benedetto
Bonfigli. The most important of his extant works are a series, in
fresco, of the life of St Louis of Toulouse, in the communal palace of
Perugia.
BONFIRE (in Early English "bone-fire," Scottish "bane-fire"), originally
a fire of bones, now any large fire lit in the open air on an occasion
of rejoicing. Though the spelling "bonfire" was used in the 16th
century, the earlier "bone-fire" was common till 1760. The earliest
known instance of the derivation of the word occurred as _ban fyre ignis
ossium_ in the _Catholicon Anglicum_, A.D. 1483. Other derivations, now
rejected, have been sought for the word. Thus some have thought it
_Baal-fire_, passing through _Bael_, _Baen_ to _Bane_. Others have
declared it to be _boon_-fire by analogy with _boen-harow_, i.e.
"harrowing by gift," the suggestion being that these fires were
"contribution" fires, every one in the neighbourhood contributing a
portion of the material, just as in Northumberland the "contributed
Ploughing Days" are known as _Bone-daags_.
Whatever the origin of the word, it has long had several meanings-(a) a
fire of bones, (b) a fire for corpses, a funeral pile, (c) a fire for
immolation, such as that in which heretics and proscribed books were
burnt, (d) a large fire lit in the open air, on occasions of national
rejoicing, or as a signal of alarm such as the bonfires which warned
England of the approach of the Armada. Throughout Europe the peasants
from time immemorial have lighted bonfires on certain days of the year,
and danced around or leapt over them. This custom can be traced back to
the middle ages, and certain usages in antiquity so nearly resemble it
as to suggest that the bonfire has its origin in the early days of
heathen Europe. Indeed the earliest proof of the observance of these
bonfire ceremonies in Europe is afforded by the attempts made by
Christian synods in the 7th and 8th centuries to suppress them as pagan.
Thus the third council of Constantinople (A.D. 680), by its 65th canon,
orders: "Those fires that are kindled by certaine people on new moones
before their shops and houses, over which also they use ridiculously and
foolishly to leape, by a certaine antient custome, we command them from
henceforth to cease." And the Synodus Francica under Pope Zachary, A.D.
742, forbids "those sacrilegious fires which they call _Nedfri_ (or
bonefires), and all other observations of the Pagans whatsoever."
Leaping over the fires is mentioned among the superstitious rites used
at the Palilia (the feast of Pales, the shepherds' goddess) in Ovid's
_Fasti_, when the shepherds lit heaps of straw and jumped over them as
they burned. The lighting of the bonfires in Christian festivals was
significant of the compromise made with the heathen by the early Church.
In Cornwall bonfires are lighted on the eve of St John the Baptist and
St Peter's day, and midsummer is thence called in Cornish _Goluan_,
which means both "light" and "festivity." Sometimes effigies are burned
in these fires, or a pretence is made of burning a living person in
them, and there are grounds for believing that anciently human
sacrifices were actually made in the bonfires. Spring and midsummer are
the usual times at which these bonfires are lighted, but in some
countries they are made at Hallowe'en (October 31) and at Christmas. In
spring the 1st Sunday in Lent, Easter eve and the 1st of May are the
commonest dates.
See J.G. Frazer, _Golden Bough_, vol. iii., for a very full account of
the bonfire customs of Europe, &c.
BONGARS, JACQUES (1554-1612), French scholar and diplomatist, was born
at Orleans, and was brought up in the reformed faith. He obtained his
early education at Marburg and Jena, and returning to France continued
his studies at Orleans and Bourges. After spending some time in Rome he
visited eastern Europe, and subsequently made the acquaintance of Ségur
Pardaillan, a representative of Henry, king of Navarre, afterwards Henry
IV. of France. He entered the service of Pardaillan, and in 1587 was
sent on a mission to many of the princes of northern Europe, after which
he visited England to obtain help from Queen Elizabeth for Henry of
Navarre. He continued to serve Henry as a diplomatist, and in 1593
became the representative of the French king at the courts of the
imperial princes. Vigorously seconding the efforts of Henry to curtail
the power of the house of Habsburg, he spent health and money
ungrudgingly in this service, and continued his labours until the king's
murder in 1610. He then returned to France, and died at Paris on the
29th of July 1612. Bongars wrote an abridgment of Justin's abridgment of
the history of Trogus Pompeius under the title _Justinus, Trogi Pompeii
Historiarum Philippicarum epitoma de manuscriptis codicibus emendatior
et prologis auctior_ (Paris, 1581). He collected the works of several
French writers who as contemporaries described the crusades, and
published them under the title _Gesta Dei per Francos_ (Hanover, 1611).
Another collection made by Bongars is the _Rerum Hungaricarum scriptores
varii_ (Frankfort, 1600). His _Epistolae_ were published at Leiden in
1647, and a French translation at Paris in 1668-1670. Many of his papers
are preserved in the library at Bern, to which they were presented in
1632, and a list of them was made in 1634. Other papers and copies of
instructions are now in several libraries in Paris; and copies of other
instructions are in the British Museum.
See H. Hagen, _Jacobus Bongarsius_ (Bern, 1874); L. Anquez, _Henri IV
et l'Allemagne_ (Paris, 1887).
BONGHI, RUGGERO (1828-1895), Italian scholar, writer and politician, was
born at Naples on the 20th of March 1828. Exiled from Naples in
consequence of the movement of 1848, he took refuge in Tuscany, whence
he was compelled to flee to Turin on account of a pungent article
against the Bourbons. At Turin he resumed his philosophic studies and
his translation of Plato, but in 1858 refused a professorship of Greek
at Pavia, under the Austrian government, only to accept it in 1859 from
the Italian government after the liberation of Lombardy. In 1860, with
the Cavour party, he opposed the work of Garibaldi, Crispi and Bertani
at Naples, and became secretary of Luigi Carlo Farini during the
latter's lieutenancy, but in 1865 assumed contemporaneously the
editorship of the _Perseveranza_ of Milan and the chair of Latin
literature at Florence. Elected deputy in 1860 he became celebrated by
the biting wit of his speeches, while, as journalist, the acrimony of
his polemical writings made him a redoubtable adversary. Though an
ardent supporter of the historic Right, and, as such, entrusted by the
Lanza cabinet with the defence of the law of guarantees in 1870, he was
no respecter of persons, his caustic tongue sparing neither friend nor
foe. Appointed minister for public instruction in 1873, he, with
feverish activity, reformed the Italian educational system, suppressed
the privileges of the university of Naples, founded the Vittorio
Emanuele library in Rome, and prevented the establishment of a Catholic
university in the capital. Upon the fall of the Right from power in 1876
he joined the opposition, and, with characteristic vivacity, protracted
during two months the debate on Baccelli's University Reform Bill,
securing, single-handed, its rejection. A bitter critic of King Humbert,
both in the _Perseveranza_ and in the _Nuova Antologia_, he was, in
1893, excluded from court, only securing readmission shortly before his
death on the 22nd of October 1895. In foreign policy a Francophil, he
combated the Triple Alliance, and took considerable part in the
organization of the inter-parliamentary peace conference. (H. W. S.)
BONGO (DOR or DERAN), a tribe of Nilotic negroes, probably related to
the Zandeh tribes of the Welle district, inhabiting the south-west
portion of the Bahr-el-Ghazal province, Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. G.A.
Schweinfurth, who lived two years among them, declares that before the
advent of the slave-raiders, c. 1850, they numbered at least 300,000.
Slave-raiders, and later the dervishes, greatly reduced their numbers,
and it was not until the establishment of effective control by the Sudan
government (1904-1906) that recuperation was possible. The Bongo
formerly lived in countless little independent and peaceful communities,
and under the Sudan government they again manage their own affairs.
Their huts are well built, and sometimes 24 ft. high. The Bongo are a
race of medium height, inclined to be thick-set, with a red-brown
complexion--"like the soil upon which they reside"--and black hair.
Schweinfurth declares their heads to be nearly round, no other African
race, to his knowledge, possessing a higher cephalic index. The women
incline to steatopygia in later life, and this deposit of fat, together
with the tail of bast which they wore, gave them, as they walked,
Schweinfurth says, the appearance of "dancing baboons." The Bongo men
formerly wore only a loin-cloth, and many dozen iron rings on the arms
(arranged to form a sort of armour), while the women had simply a
girdle, to which was attached a tuft of grass. Both sexes now largely
use cotton cloths as dresses. The tribal ornaments consist of nails or
plugs which are passed through the lower lip. The women often wear a
disk several inches in diameter in this fashion, together with a ring or
a bit of straw in the upper lip, straws in the _alae_ of the nostrils,
and a ring in the _septum_. The Bongo, unlike other of the upper Nile
Negroes, are not great cattle-breeders, but employ their time in
agriculture. The crops mostly cultivated are sorghum, tobacco, sesame
and durra. The Bongo eat the fruits, tubers and fungi in which the
country is rich. They also eat almost every creature--bird, beast,
insect and reptile, with the exception of the dog. They despise no
flesh, fresh or putrid. They drive the vulture from carrion, and eat
with relish the intestinal worms of the ox. Earth-eating, too, is
common among them. They are particularly skilled in the smelting and
working of iron. Iron forms the currency of the country, and is
extensively employed for all kinds of useful and ornamental purposes.
Bongo spears, knives, rings, and other articles are frequently fashioned
with great artistic elaboration. They have a variety of musical
instruments--drums, stringed instruments, and horns--in the practice of
which they take great delight; and they indulge in a vocal recitative
which seems intended to imitate a succession of natural sounds.
Schweinfurth says that Bongo music is like the raging of the elements.
Marriage is by purchase; and a man is allowed to acquire three wives,
but not more. Tattooing is partially practised. As regards burial, the
corpse is bound in a crouching position with the knees drawn up to the
chin; men are placed in the grave with the face to the north, and women
with the face to the south. The form of the grave is peculiar,
consisting of a niche in a vertical shaft, recalling the mastaba graves
of the ancient Egyptians. The tombs are frequently ornamented with rough
wooden figures intended to represent the deceased. Of the immortality of
the soul they have no defined notion; and their only approach to a
knowledge of a beneficent deity consists in a vague idea of luck. They
have, however, a most intense belief in a great variety of petty goblins
and witches, which are essentially malignant. Arrows, spears and clubs
form their weapons, the first two distinguished by a multiplicity of
barbs. Euphorbia juice is used as a poison for the arrows. Shields are
rare. Their language is musical, and abounds in the vowels o and a; its
vocabulary of concrete terms is very rich, but the same word has often a
great variety of meanings. The grammatical structure is simple. As a
race the Bongo are gentle and industrious, and exhibit strong family
affection.
See G.A. Schweinfurth, _The Heart of Africa_ (London, 1873); W.
Junker, _Travels in Africa_ (Eng. edit., London, 1890-1892).
BONGO (_Boöcercus eurycerus_), a West African bushbuck, the largest of
the group. The male is deep chestnut, marked on the body with narrow
white stripes, on the chest with a white crescent, and on the face by
two white spots below the eye. In the East African bongo (_B. e.
Isaaei_) the body hue is stronger and richer. There is, as yet, no
evidence as to whether the females of the true bongo bear horns, though
it is probable they do; but as the horns are present in both sexes of
the East African form, Mr Oldfield Thomas has made that the type of the
genus.[1]
FOOTNOTE:
[1] _Annals and Mag. Nat. Hist._ vol. x. (seventh series), p. 309.
BONHAM, a town and the county-seat of Fannin county, Texas, U.S.A.,
about 14 m. S. of the Red river, in the north-east part of the state,
and 70 m. N. of Dallas. Pop. (1890) 3361; (1900) 5042 (1223 being
negroes); (1910), 4844. It is served by the Missouri, Kansas & Texas,
and the Texas & Pacific railways. Bonham is the seat of Carlton College
(Christian), a woman's college founded in 1867; and its high school is
one of the best in the state. It is a trading and shipping centre of an
extensive farming territory devoted to the raising of live-stock and to
the growing of cotton, Indian corn, fruit, &c. It has large cotton gins
and compresses, a large cotton mill, flour mills, canning and ice
factories, railway repair shops, planing mills and carriage works. The
town was named in honour of J.B. Bonham, a native of South Carolina, who
was killed in the Alamo. The first settlement here was made in 1836. The
town was incorporated in 1850, and was re-incorporated in 1886.
BONHEUR [MARIE ROSALIE], ROSA (1822-1899), French painter, was born at
Bordeaux on the 22nd of March 1822. She was of Jewish origin. Jacques
Wiener, the Belgian medallist, a native of Venloo, says that he and
Raymond Bonheur, Rosa's father, used to attend synagogue in that town;
while another authority asserts that Rosa used to be known in common
parlance by the name of Rosa Mazeltov (a Hebrew term for "good luck,"
_Gallicé_ Bonheur). She was the eldest of four children, all of whom
were artists--Auguste (1824-1884) painted animals and landscape;
Juliette (1830-1891) was "honourably mentioned" at the exhibition of
1855; Isidore, born in 1827, was a sculptor of animals. Rosa at an early
age was taught to draw by her father (who died in 1849), and he,
perceiving her very remarkable talent, permitted her to abandon the
business of dressmaking, to which, much against her will, she had been
put, in order to devote herself wholly to art. From 1840 to 1845 she
exhibited at the salon, and five times received a prize; in 1848 a medal
was awarded to her. Her fame dates more especially from the exhibition
of 1855; from that time Rosa Bonheur's works were much sought after in
England, where collectors and public galleries competed eagerly for
them. What is chiefly remarkable and admirable in her work is that, like
her contemporary, Jacques Raymond Brascassat (1804-1867), she represents
animals as they really are, as she saw them in the country. Her gift of
accurate observation was, however, allied to a certain dryness of style
in painting; she often failed to give a perfect sense of atmosphere. On
the other hand, the anatomy of her animals is always faultlessly true.
There is nothing feminine in her handling; her treatment is always manly
and firm. Of her many works we may note the following:--"Ploughing in
the Nivernais" (1848), in the Luxembourg gallery; "The Horse Fair"
(1853), one of the two replicas of which is in the National Gallery,
London, the original being in the United States; and "Hay Harvest in
Auvergne" (1835). She was decorated with the Legion of Honour by the
empress Eugénie, and was subsequently promoted to the rank of "officer"
of the order. After 1867 Rosa Bonheur exhibited but once in the salon,
in 1899, a few weeks before her death. She lived quietly at her country
house at By, near Fontainebleau, where for some years she had held
gratuitous classes for drawing. She left at her death a considerable
number of pictures, studies, drawings and etchings, which were sold by
auction in Paris in the spring of 1900. (H. Fr.)
BONHEUR DU JOUR, the name for a lady's writing-desk, so called because,
when it was introduced in France about 1760, it speedily became
intensely fashionable. The bonheur du jour is always very light and
graceful; its special characteristic is a raised back, which may form a
little cabinet or a nest of drawers, or may simply be fitted with a
mirror. The top, often surrounded with a chased and gilded bronze
gallery, serves for placing small ornaments. Beneath the writing surface
there is usually a single drawer. The details vary greatly, but the
general characteristics are always traceable. The bonheur du jour has
never been so delicate, so charming, so coquettish as in the quarter of
a century which followed its introduction. The choicer examples of the
time are inlaid with marqueterie, edged with exotic woods, set in gilded
bronze, or enriched with panels of Oriental lacquer.
BONI (_Boné_), a vassal state of the government of Celebes, Dutch East
Indies, in the south-west peninsula of Celebes, on the Gulf of Boni.
Area, 2600 sq. m. It produces rice, tobacco, coffee, cotton and
sugar-cane, none of them important as exports. The breeds of buffaloes
and horses in this state are highly esteemed. The chief town, Boni, lies
80 m. N.E. of Macassar, and 2½ m. from the east coast of the peninsula.
The native race of Bugis (q.v.), whose number within this area is
about 70,000, is one of the most interesting in the whole archipelago.
Boni was once the most powerful state of Celebes, all the other princes
being regarded as vassals of its ruler, but its history is not known in
detail. In 1666 the rajah Palakkah, whose father and grandfather had
been murdered by the family of Hassan, the tyrant of Sumatra, made
common cause with the Dutch against that despot. From that date till the
beginning of the 19th century Dutch influence in the state remained
undisputed. In 1814, however, Boni fell into the hands of the British,
who retained it for two years; but by the European treaties concluded on
the downfall of Napoleon it reverted to its original colonizers. Their
influence, however, was resisted more than once by the natives. An
expedition in 1825, under General van Geen, was not fully successful in
enforcing it; and in 1858 and the following year two expeditions were
necessary to oppose an attempt by the princess regent towards
independence. In 1860 a new prince, owning allegiance to the Dutch, was
set up. As in other native states in Celebes, succession to the throne
in the female line has precedence over the male line.
For the wars in Boni, see Perelaer, _De Bonische expeditiën,
1859-1860_ (Leiden, 1872); and Meyers, in the _Militaire Spectator_
(1880).
BONIFACE, SAINT (680-754), the apostle of Germany, whose real name was
Wynfrith, was born of a good Saxon family at Crediton or Kirton in
Devonshire. While still young he became a monk, and studied grammar and
theology first at Exeter, then at Nutcell near Winchester, under the
abbot Winberht. He soon distinguished himself both as scholar and
preacher, and had every inducement to remain in his monastery, but in
716 he followed the example of other Saxon monks and set out as
missionary to Frisia. He was soon obliged to return, however, probably
owing to the hostility of Radbod, king of the Frisians, then at war with
Charles Martel. At the end of 717 he went to Rome, where in 719 Pope
Gregory II. commissioned him to evangelize Germany and to counteract the
influence of the Irish monks there. Crossing the Alps, Boniface visited
Bavaria and Thuringia, but upon hearing of the death of Radbod he
hurried again to Frisia, where, under the direction of his countryman
Willibrord (d. 738), the first bishop of Utrecht, he preached
successfully for three years. About 722 he visited Hesse and Thuringia,
won over some chieftains, and converted and baptized great numbers of
the heathen. Having sent special word to Gregory of his success, he was
summoned to Rome and consecrated bishop on the 30th of November 722,
after taking an oath of obedience to the pope. Then his mission was
enlarged. He returned with letters of recommendation to Charles Martel,
charged not only to convert the heathen but to suppress heresy as well.
Charles's protection, as he himself confessed, made possible his great
career. Armed with it he passed safely into heathen Germany and began a
systematic crusade, baptizing, overturning idols, founding churches and
monasteries, and calling from England a band of missionary helpers,
monks and nuns, some of whom have become famous: St Lull, his successor
in the see at Mainz; St Burchard, bishop of Würzburg; St Gregory, abbot
at Utrecht; Willibald, his biographer; St Lioba, St Walburge, St Thecla.
In 732 Boniface was created archbishop. In 738 for the third time he
went to Rome. On his return he organized the church in Bavaria into the
four bishoprics of Regensburg, Freising, Salzburg and Passau. Then his
power was extended still further. In 741 Pope Zacharias made him legate,
and charged him with the reformation of the whole Frankish church. With
the support of Carloman and Pippin, who had just succeeded Charles
Martel as mayors of the palace, Boniface set to work. As he had done in
Bavaria, he organized the east Frankish church into four bishoprics,
Erfurt, Würzburg, Buraburg and Eichstädt, and set over them his own
monks. In 742 he presided at what is generally counted as the first
German council. At the same period he founded the abbey of Fulda, as a
centre for German monastic culture, placing it under the Bavarian Sturm,
whose biography gives us so many picturesque glimpses of the time, and
making its rule stricter than the Benedictine. Then came a theological
and disciplinary controversy with Virgil, the Irish bishop of Salzburg,
who held, among other heresies, that there were other worlds than ours.
Virgil must have been a most remarkable man; in spite of his leanings
toward science he held his own against Boniface, and was canonized after
his death. Boniface was more successful in France. There a certain
Adalbert or Aldebert, a Frankish bishop of Neustria, had caused great
disturbance. He had been performing miracles, and claimed to have
received his relics, not from Rome like those of Boniface, but directly
from the angels. Planting crosses in the open fields he drew the people
to desert the churches, and had won a great following throughout all
Neustria. Opinions are divided as to whether he was a Culdee, a
representative of a national Frankish movement, or simply the charlatan
that Boniface paints him. At the instance of Pippin, Boniface secured
Adalbert's condemnation at the synod of Soissons in 744; but he, and
Clement, a Scottish missionary and a heretic on predestination,
continued to find followers in spite of legate, council and pope, for
three or four years more.
Between 746 and 748 Boniface was made bishop of Mainz, and became
metropolitan over the Rhine bishoprics and Utrecht, as well as over
those he had established in Germany--thus founding the pre-eminence of
the see of Mainz. In 747 a synod of the Frankish bishops sent to Rome a
formal statement of their submission to the papal authority. The
significance of this act can only be realized when one recalls the
tendencies toward the formation of national churches, which had been so
powerful under the Merovingians. Boniface does not seem to have taken
part in the anointing of Pippin as king of the Franks in 752. In 754 he
resigned his archbishopric in favour of Lull, and took up again his
earliest plan of a mission to Frisia; but on the 5th of June 754 he and
his companions were massacred by the heathen near Dockum. His remains
were afterwards taken to Fulda.
St Boniface has well been called the proconsul of the papacy. His
organizing genius, even more than his missionary zeal, left its mark
upon the German church throughout all the middle ages. The missionary
movement which until his day had been almost independent of control,
largely carried on by schismatic Irish monks, was brought under the
direction of Rome. But in so welding together the scattered centres and
binding them to the papacy, Boniface seems to have been actuated by
simple zeal for unity of the faith, and not by a conscious political
motive.
Though pre-eminently a man of action, Boniface has left several literary
remains. We have above all his Letters (_Epistolae_), difficult to date,
but extremely important from the standpoint of history, dogma, or
literature; see Dümmler's edition in the _Monumenta Germaniae
historica_, 1892. Besides these there are a grammar (_De octo partibus
orationibus_, ed. Mai, in _Classici Auctores_, t. vii.), some sermons of
contested authenticity, some poems (_Aenigmata_, ed. Dümmler, _Poetae
latini aevi Carolini_, i. 1881), a penitential, and some _Dicta
Bonifacii_ (ed. Nürnberger in _Theologische Quartalschrift_, Tübingen,
vol. 70, 1888), the authenticity of which it is hard to prove or to
refute. Migne in his _Patrologia Latina_ (vol. 89) has reproduced the
edition of Boniface's works by Giles (London, 1844).
There are very many monographs on Boniface and on different phases of
his life (see Potthast, _Bibliotheca medii aevi_, and Ulysse
Chevalier's _Bibliographie_, 2nd ed. for indications), but none that
is completely satisfactory. Among recent studies are those of B.
Kuhlmann, _Der heilige Bonifatius, Apostel der Deutschen_ (Paderborn,
1895), and of G. Kurth, _Saint Boniface_ (2nd ed., 1902). W. Levison
has edited the _Vitae sancti Bonifatii_ (Hanover, 1905).
(J. T. S.*)
BONIFACE (_Bonifacius_), the name of nine of the popes.
BONIFACE I., bishop of Rome from 418 to 422. At the death of Pope
Zosimus, the Roman clergy were divided into two factions, one of which
elected the deacon Eulalius, and the other the priest Boniface. The
imperial government, in the interests of public order, commanded the two
competitors to leave the town, reserving the decision of the case to a
council. Eulalius having broken his ban, the emperor Honorius decided to
recognize Boniface, and the council was countermanded. But the faction
of Eulalius long continued to foment disorders, and the secular
authority was compelled to intervene.
BONIFACE II., pope from 530 to 532, was by birth a Goth, and owed his
election to the nomination of his predecessor, Felix IV., and to the
influence of the Gothic king. The Roman electors had opposed to him a
priest of Alexandria called Dioscorus, who died a month after his
election, and thus left the position open for him. Boniface endeavoured
to nominate his own successor, thus transforming into law, or at least
into custom, the proceeding by which he had benefited; but the clergy
and the senate of Rome forced him to cancel this arrangement.
BONIFACE III. was pope from the 15th of February to the 12th of November
606. He obtained from Phocas recognition of the "headship of the church
at Rome," which signifies, no doubt, that Phocas compelled the patriarch
of Constantinople to abandon (momentarily) his claim to the title of
oecumenical patriarch.
BONIFACE IV. was pope from 608 to 615. He received from the emperor
Phocas the Pantheon at Rome, which was converted into a Christian
church.
BONIFACE V., pope from 619 to 625, did much for the christianizing of
England. Bede mentions (_Hist. Eccl._) that he wrote encouraging letters
to Mellitus, archbishop of Canterbury, and Justus, bishop of Rochester,
and quotes three letters--to Justus, to Eadwin, king of Northumbria, and
to his wife Æthelberga. William of Malmesbury gives a letter to Justus
of the year 625, in which Canterbury is constituted the metropolitan see
of Britain for ever.
BONIFACE VI. was elected pope in April 896, and died fifteen days
afterwards.
BONIFACE VII. was pope from August 984 to July 985. His family name was
Franco. In 974 he was substituted by Crescentius and the Roman barons
for Benedict VI., who had been assassinated. He was ejected by Count
Sicco, the representative of the emperor Otto II., and fled to
Constantinople. On the death of Otto (983) he returned, seized Pope John
XIV., threw him into prison, and installed himself in his place.
(L. D.*)
BONIFACE VIII. (Benedetto Gaetano), pope from 1294 to 1303, was born of
noble family at Anagni, studied canon and civil law in Italy and
possibly at Paris. After being appointed to canonicates at Todi (June
1260) and in France, he became an advocate and then a notary at the
papal court. With Cardinal Ottoboni, who was to aid the English king,
Henry III., against the bishops of the baronial party, he was besieged
in the Tower of London by the rebellious earl of Gloucester, but was
rescued by the future Edward I., on the 27th of April 1267. Created
cardinal deacon in 1281, and in 1291 cardinal priest (SS. Sylvestri et
Martini), he was entrusted with many diplomatic missions and became very
influential in the Sacred College. He helped the ineffective Celestine
V. to abdicate, and was himself chosen pope at Naples on the 24th of
December 1294. Contrary to custom, the election was not made unanimous,
probably because of the hostility of certain French cardinals. Celestine
attempted to rule in extreme monastic poverty and humility; not so
Boniface, who ardently asserted the lordship of the papacy over all the
kingdoms of the world. He was crowned at Rome in January 1295 with great
pomp. He planned to pacify the West and then recover the Holy Land from
the infidel; but during his nine years' reign, so far from being a
peacemaker, he involved the papacy itself in a series of controversies
with leading European powers. Avarice, lofty claims and frequent
exhibitions of arrogance made him many foes. The policy of supporting
the interests of the house of Anjou in Sicily proved a grand failure.
The attempt to build up great estates for his family made most of the
Colonna his enemies. Until 1303 he refused to recognize Albert of
Austria as the rightful German king. Assuming that he was overlord of
Hungary, he declared that its crown should fall to the house of Anjou.
He humbled Eric VI. of Denmark, but was unsuccessful in the attempt to
try Edward I., the conqueror of Scotland, on the charge of interfering
with a papal fief; for parliament declared in 1301 that Scotland had
never been a fief of Rome. The most noted conflict of Boniface was that
with Philip IV. of France. In 1296, by the bull _Clericis laicos_, the
pope forbade the levying of taxes, however disguised, on the clergy
without his consent. Forced to recede from this position, Boniface
canonized Louis IX. (1297). The hostilities were later renewed; in 1302
Boniface himself drafted and published the indubitably genuine bull
_Unam sanctam_, one of the strongest official statements of the papal
prerogative ever made. The weight of opinion now tends to deny that any
part of this much-discussed document save the last sentence bears the
marks of an infallible utterance. The French vice-chancellor Guillaume
de Nogaret was sent to arrest the pope, against whom grave charges had
been brought, and bring him to France to be deposed by an oecumenical
council. The accusation of heresy has usually been dismissed as a
slander; but recent investigations make it probable, though not quite
certain, that Boniface privately held certain Averroistic tenets, such
as the denial of the immortality of the soul. With Sciarra Colonna,
Nogaret surprised Boniface at Anagni, on the 7th of September 1303, as
the latter was about to pronounce the sentence of excommunication
against the king. After a nine-hours' truce the palace was stormed, and
Boniface was found lying in his bed, a cross clasped to his breast; that
he was sitting in full regalia on the papal throne is a legend. Nogaret
claimed that he saved the pope's life from the vengeful Colonna.
Threatened, but not maltreated, the pope had remained three days under
arrest when the citizens of Anagni freed him. He was conducted to Rome,
only to be confined in the Vatican by the Orsini. He died on the 11th or
12th of October 1303, not eighty-six years old, as has commonly been
believed, but perhaps under seventy, at all events not over
seventy-five. "He shall come in like a fox, reign like a lion, die like
a dog," is a gibe wrongly held to be a prophecy of his unfortunate
predecessor. Dante, who had become embittered against Boniface while on
a political mission in Rome, calls him the "Prince of the new Pharisees"
(_Inferno_, 27, 85), but laments that "in his Vicar Christ was made a
captive," and was "mocked a second time" (_Purgatory_, 20, 87 f.).
AUTHORITIES.--Digard, Faucon and Thomas, _Les Registres de Boniface
VIII_ (Paris, 1884 ff.); Wetzer and Welte, _Kirchenlexikon_, vol. ii.
(2nd ed., Freiburg, 1883), 1037-1062; Herzog-Hauck,
_Realencyklopadie_, vol. iii. (3rd ed., Leipzig, 1897), 291-300,
contains an elaborate bibliography; J. Loserth, _Geschichte des
spateren Mittelalters_ (Munich, 1903), 206-232; H. Finke, _Aus den
Tagen Bonifaz VIII._ (Münster, 1902) is dreary but epoch-making;
_Göttingische gelehrte Anzeigen_, Jahrgang 166, 857-869 (Berlin,
1904); R. Scholz, _Die Publizistik zur Zeit Philipps des Schönen und
Bonifaz VIII._ (Stuttgart, 1903); K. Wenck, "War Bonifaz VIII. ein
Ketzer?" in von Sybel's _Historische Zeitschrift_, vol. xciv. (Munich,
1905), 1-66. Special literature on _Unam Sanctum_: C. Mirbt, _Quellen
zur Geschichte des Papsttums_ (2nd ed., Tübingen, 1901), 148 f.;
_Kirchenlexikon_, xii. (1901), 229-240, an exhaustive discussion; H.
Finke, 146-190; J.H. Robinson, _Readings in European History_, vol. i.
(Boston, 1904), 346 ff. On _Clericis laicos_: Gee and Hardy,
_Documents Illustrative of English Church History_ (London, 1896), 87
ff. (W. W. R.*)
BONIFACE IX. (Piero Tomacelli), pope from 1389 to 1404, was born at
Naples of a poor but ancient family. Created cardinal by Urban VI., he
was elected successor to the latter on the 2nd of November 1389. In 1391
he canonized Birgitta of Sweden. He was able to restore Roman authority
in the major part of the papal states, and in 1398 put an end to the
republican liberties of the city itself. Boniface won Naples, which had
owed spiritual allegiance to the antipopes Clement VII. and Benedict
XIII. of Avignon, to the Roman obedience. In 1403 he ventured at last to
confirm the deposition of the emperor Wenceslaus and the election of
Rupert. Negotiations for the healing of the Great Schism were without
result. In spite of his inferior education, the contemporaries of
Boniface trusted his prudence and moral character; yet when in financial
straits he sold offices, and in 1399 transformed the annates into a
permanent tax. In 1390 he celebrated the regular jubilee, but a rather
informal one held in 1400 proved more profitable. Though probably not
personally avaricious, he was justly accused of nepotism. He died on the
1st of October 1404, being still under sixty years of age.
(W. W. R.*)
BONIFACE OF SAVOY (d. 1270), archbishop of Canterbury, became primate in
1243, through the favour of Henry III., of whose queen, Eleanor of
Provence, he was an uncle. Boniface, though a man of violent temper and
too often absent from his see, showed some sympathy with the reforming
party in the English church. Though in 1250 he provoked the English
bishops by claiming the right of visitation in their dioceses, he took
the lead at the council of Merton (1258) in vindicating the privileges
of his order. In the barons' war he took the royalist side, but did not
distinguish himself by great activity.
See Matthew Paris, _Chronica Majora_; François Mugnier, _Les Savoyards
en Angleterre_ (Chambéry, 1890).
BONIFACIO, a maritime town at the southern extremity of Corsica, in the
arrondissement of Sartène, 87 m. S.S.E. of Ajaccio by road. Pop. (1906)
2940. Bonifacio, which overlooks the straits of that name separating
Corsica from Sardinia, occupies a remarkable situation on the summit of
a peninsula of white calcareous rock, extending parallel to the coast
and enclosing a narrow and secure harbour. Below the town and in the
cliffs facing it the rock is hollowed into caverns accessible only by
boat. St Dominic, a church built in the 13th century by the Templars,
and the cathedral of Santa Maria Maggiore which belongs mainly to the
12th century, are the chief buildings. The fortifications and citadel
date from the 16th and 17th centuries. A massive medieval tower serves
as a powder-magazine. The trade of Bonifacio, which is carried on
chiefly with Sardinia, is in cereals, wine, cork and olive-oil of fine
quality. Cork-cutting, tobacco-manufacture and coral-fishing are carried
on. The olive is largely cultivated in the neighbourhood and there are
oil-works in the town.
Bonifacio was founded about 828 by the Tuscan marquis whose name it
bears, as a defence against the Saracen pirates. At the end of the 11th
century it became subject to Pisa, and at the end of the 12th was taken
and colonized by the Genoese, whose influence may be traced in the
character of the population. In 1420 it heroically withstood a
protracted siege by Alphonso V. of Aragon. In 1554 it fell into the
hands of the Franco-Turkish army.
BONIFACIUS (d. 432), the Roman governor of the province of Africa who is
generally believed to have invited the Vandals into that province in
revenge for the hostile action of Placidia, ruling in behalf of her son
the emperor Valentinian III. (428-429). That action is by Procopius
attributed to his rival Aëtius, but the earliest authorities speak of a
certain Felix, chief minister of Placidia, as the calumniator of
Bonifacius. Whether he really invited the Vandals or not, there is no
doubt that he soon turned against them and bravely defended the city of
Hippo from their attacks. In 432 he returned to Italy, was received into
favour by Placidia, and appointed master of the soldiery. Aëtius,
however, resented his promotion, the two rivals met, perhaps in single
combat, and Bonifacius, though victorious, received a wound from the
effects of which he died three months later.
The authorities for the extremely obscure and difficult history of
these transactions are well discussed by E.A. Freeman in an article in
the _English Historical Review_, July 1887, to which the reader is
referred. But compare also Gibbon, _Decline and Fall of the Roman
Empire_, vol. iii. pp. 505-506, edited by J.B. Bury (London, 1897).
BONIN ISLANDS, called by the Japanese OGASAWARA-JIMA, a chain of small
islands belonging to Japan, stretching nearly due north and south, a
little east of 142 E., and from 26° 35' to 27° 45' N., about 500 m. from
the mainland of Japan. They number twenty, according to Japanese
investigations, and have a coast-line of 174.65 m. and a superficies of
28.82 sq. m. Only ten of them have any appreciable size, and these are
named--commencing from the north--Muko-shima (Bridegroom Island),
Nakadachi-shima (Go-between Island[1]), Yome-shima (Bride Island),
Ototo-jima (Younger-brother Island), Ani-shima (Elder-brother Island),
Chichi-jima (Father Island), Haha-jima (Mother Island), Mei-jima (Niece
Island), Ani-jima (Elder-sister Island) and Imoto-jima (Younger-sister
Island). European geographers have been accustomed to divide the islands
into three groups for purposes of nomenclature, calling the northern
group the Parry Islands, the central the Beechey Islands and the
southern the Coffin or Bailey Islands. The second largest of all,
Chichi-jima, in Japanese cartography was called Peel Island in 1827 by
Captain Beechey, and the same officer gave the name of Stapleton Island
to the Ototo-jima of the Japanese, and that of Buckland Island to their
Ani-jima. To complete this account of Captain Beechey's nomenclature, it
may be added that he called a large bay on the south of Peel Island
Fitton Bay, and a bay on the south-west of Buckland Island Walker
Bay.[2] Port Lloyd, the chief anchorage (situated on Peel Island), is
considered by Commodore Perry--who visited the islands in 1853 and
strongly urged the establishment of a United States coaling station
there--to have been formerly the crater of a volcano from which the
surrounding hills were thrown up, the entrance to the harbour being a
fissure through which lava used to pour into the sea. The islands are,
indeed, plainly volcanic in their nature.
_History._--The diversity of nomenclature indicated above suggests that
the ownership of the islands was for some time doubtful. According to
Japanese annals they were discovered towards the close of the 16th
century, and added to the fief of a Daimyo, Ogasawa Sadayori, whence the
name Ogasawara-jima. They were also called _Bunin-jima_ (corrupted by
foreigners into Bonin) because of their being without (_bu_) inhabitants
(_nin_). Effective occupation did not take place, however, and
communications with the islands ceased altogether in 1635, as was a
natural consequence of the Japanese government's veto against the
construction of sea-going vessels. In 1728 fitful communication was
restored by the then representative of the Ogasawara family, only to be
again interrupted until 1861, when an unsuccessful attempt was made to
establish a Japanese colony at Port Lloyd. Meanwhile, Captain Beechey
visited the islands in the "Blossom," assigned names to some of them,
and published a description of their features. Next a small party
consisting of two British subjects, two American citizens, and a Dane,
sailed from the Sandwich Islands for Port Lloyd in 1830, taking with
them some Hawaiian natives. These colonists hoisted the British flag on
Peel Island (Chichi-jima), and settled there. When Commodore Perry
arrived in 1853, there were on Peel Island thirty-one inhabitants, four
being English, four American, one Portuguese and the rest natives of the
Sandwich Islands, the Ladrones, &c.; and when Mr Russell Robertson
visited the place in 1875, the colony had grown to sixty-nine, of whom
only five were pure whites. Mr Robertson found them without education,
without religion, without laws and without any system of government, but
living comfortably on clearings of cultivated land. English was the
language of the settlers, and they regarded themselves as a British
colony. But in 1861 the British government renounced all claim to the
islands in recognition of Japan's right of possession. There is now
regular steam communication; the affairs of the islands are duly
administered, and the population has grown to about 4500. There are no
mountains of any considerable height in the Ogasawara Islands, but the
scenery is hilly with occasional bold crags. The vegetation is almost
tropically luxuriant--palms, wild pineapples, and ferns growing
profusely, and the valleys being filled with wild beans and patches of
taro. Mr Robertson catalogues a number of valuable timbers that are
obtained there, among them being Tremana, cedar, rose-wood, iron-wood
(red and white), box-wood, sandal and white oak. The kekop tree, the
orange, the laurel, the juniper, the wild cactus, the curry plant, wild
sage and celery flourish. No minerals have been discovered. The shores
are covered with coral; earthquakes and tidal waves are frequent, the
latter not taking the form of bores, but of a sudden steady rise and
equally sudden fall in the level of the sea; the climate is rather
tropical than temperate, but sickness is almost unknown among the
residents. (F. By.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Referring to the Japanese custom of employing a go-between to
arrange a marriage.
[2] These details are taken from _The Bonin Islands_ by Russell
Robertson, formerly H.B.M. consul in Yokohama, who visited the
islands in 1875.
BONITZ, HERMANN (1814-1888), German scholar, was born at Langensalza in
Saxony on the 29th of July 1814. Having studied at Leipzig under G.
Hermann and at Berlin under Böckh and Lachmann, he became successively
teacher at the Blochmann institute in Dresden (1836), Oberlehrer at the
Friedrich-Wilhelms gymnasium (1838) and the Graues Kloster (1840) in
Berlin, professor at the gymnasium at Stettin (1842), professor at the
university of Vienna (1849), member of the imperial academy (1854),
member of the council of education (1864), and director of the Graues
Kloster gymnasium (1867). He retired in 1888, and died on the 25th of
July in that year at Berlin. He took great interest in higher education,
and was chiefly responsible for the system of teaching and examination
in use in the high schools of Prussia after 1882. But it is as a
commentator on Plato and Aristotle that he is best known outside
Germany. His most important works in this connexion are: _Disputationes
Platonicae Duae_ (1837); _Platonische Studien_ (3rd ed., 1886);
_Observations Criticae in Aristotelis Libros Metaphysicos_ (1842);
_Observationes Criticae in Aristotelis quae feruntur Magna Moralia et
Ethica Eudemia_ (1844); _Alexandri Aphrodisiensis Commentarius in Libras
Metaphysicos Aristotelis_ (1847); _Aristotelis Metaphysica_ (1848-1849);
_Über die Kategorien des A._ (1853); _Aristotelische Studien_
(1862-1867); _Index Aristotelicus_ (1870). Other works: _Über den
Ursprung der homerischen Gedichte_ (5th ed., 1881); _Beiträge zur
Erklärung des Thukydides_ (1854), _des Sophokles_ (1856-1857). He also
wrote largely on classical and educational subjects, mainly for the
_Zeitschrift für die österreichischen Gymnasien_.
A full list of his writings is given in the obituary notice by T.
Gompertz in the _Biographisches Jahrbuch für Altertumskunde_ (1890).
BONIVARD, FRANÇOIS (1493-1570), the hero of Byron's poem, _The Prisoner
of Chillon_, was born at Seyssel of an old Savoyard family. Bonivard has
been described as "a man of the Renaissance who had strayed into the age
of the Reformation." His real character and history are, however, widely
different from the legendary account which was popularized by Byron. In
1510 he succeeded his uncle, who had educated him, as prior of the
Cluniac priory of St Victor, close to Geneva. He naturally, therefore,
opposed the attempts of the duke of Savoy, aided by his relative, the
bishop of the city, to maintain his rights as lord of Geneva. He was
imprisoned by the duke at Gex from 1519 to 1521, lost his priory, and
became more and more anti-Savoyard. In 1530 he was again seized by the
duke and imprisoned for four years underground, in the castle of
Chillon, till he was released in 1536 by the Bernese, who then wrested
Vaud from the duke. He had been imprisoned for political reasons, for he
did not become a Protestant till after his release, and then found that
his priory had been destroyed in 1534. He obtained a pension from
Geneva, and was four times married, but owing to his extravagances was
always in debt. He was officially entrusted in 1542 with the task of
compiling a history of Geneva from the earliest times. In 1551 his MS.
of the _Chroniques de Genève_ (ending in 1530) was submitted to Calvin
for correction, but it was not published till 1831. The best edition is
that of 1867. The work is uncritical and partial, but is his best title
to fame.
BONN, a town of Germany, in the Prussian Rhine province, on the left
bank of the Rhine, 15 m. S. by E. from Cologne, on the main line of
railway to Mainz, and at the junction of the lines to the Eifel and (by
ferry) to the right bank of the Rhine. Pop. (1885) 35,989; (1905)
81,997. The river is here crossed by a fine bridge (1896-1898), 1417 ft.
in length, flanked by an embankment 2 m. long, above and parallel with
which is the Coblenzer-strasse, with beautiful villas and pretty gardens
reaching down to the Rhine. The central part of the town is composed of
narrow streets, but the outskirts contain numerous fine buildings, and
the appearance of the town from the river is attractive. There are six
Roman Catholic and two Protestant churches, the most important of which
is the Münster (minster), an imposing edifice of grey stone, in the
Romanesque and Transition styles, surmounted by five towers, of which
the central, rising to a height of 315 ft., is a landmark in the Rhine
valley. The church dates from the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries, was
restored in 1875 and following years and in 1890-1894 was adorned with
paintings. Among other churches are the Stiftskirche (monasterial
church), rebuilt 1879-1884; the Jesuitenkirche (1693); the
Minoritenkirche (1278-1318), the Herz Jesu-kirche (1862) and the
Marienkirche (1892). There is also a synagogue, and the university
chapel serves as an English church. The town also possesses a town hall
situate on the market square and dating from 1737, a fine block of
law-court buildings, several high-grade schools and a theatre.
By far the finest of the buildings, however, is the famous university,
which occupies the larger part of the southern frontage of the town. The
present establishment only dates from 1818, and owes its existence to
King Frederick William III. of Prussia; but as early as 1786 the academy
which had been founded about nine years before was raised by Archbishop
Maximilian Frederick of Cologne to the rank of a university, and
continued to exercise its functions till 1794, when it was dissolved by
the last elector. The building now occupied by the university was
originally the electoral palace, constructed about 1717 out of the
materials of the old fortifications. It was remodelled after the town
came into Prussian possession. There are five faculties in the
university--a legal, a medical, and a philosophic, and one of Roman
Catholic and another Protestant theology. The library numbers upwards of
230,000 volumes; and the antiquarian museum contains a valuable
collection of Roman relics discovered in the neighbourhood. Connected
with the university are also physiological, pathological and chemical
institutes, five clinical departments and a laboratory. An academy of
agriculture, with a natural history museum and botanic garden attached,
is established in the palace of Clemensruhe at Poppelsdorf, which is
reached by a fine avenue about a mile long, bordered on both sides by a
double row of chestnut trees. A splendid observatory, long under the
charge of Friedrich Wilhelm Argelander, stands on the south side of the
road. The Roman Catholic archiepiscopal theological college, beautifully
situated on an eminence overlooking the Rhine, dates from 1892.
Beethoven was born in Bonn, and a statue was erected to him in the
Münster-platz in 1845. B.G. Niebuhr is buried in the cemetery outside of
the Sterntor, where a monument was placed to his memory by Frederick
William IV. Here are also the tombs of A.W. von Schlegel, the
diplomatist Christian Karl von Bunsen, Robert Schumann, Karl Simrock,
E.M. Arndt and Schiller's wife. The town is adorned with a marble
monument commemorating the war of 1870-71, a handsome fountain, and a
statue of the Old Catholic bishop Reinkens. In 1889 a museum of
Beethoven relics was opened in the house in which the composer was born.
There are further a municipal museum, arranged in a private house since
1882, an academic art museum (1884), with some classic originals, a
creation of F.G. Welcker, and the provincial museum, standing near the
railway station, which contains a collection of medieval stone monuments
and works of art, besides a small picture gallery.
One of the most conspicuous features of Bonn, viewed from the river, is
the pilgrimage (monastic) church of Kreuzberg (1627), behind and above
Poppelsdorf; it has a flight of 28 steps, which pilgrims used to ascend
on their knees. "Der alte Zoll," commanding a magnificent view of the
Siebengebirge, is the only remaining bulwark of the old fortifications,
the Sterntor having been removed in order to open up better
communication with the rapidly increasing western suburbs and the
terminus of the light railway to Cologne.
But for its university Bonn would be a place of comparatively little
importance, its trade and commerce being of moderate dimensions. Its
principal industries are jute spinning and weaving, and the manufacture
of porcelain, flags, machinery and beer, and it has some trade in wine.
There are considerable numbers of foreign residents, notably English,
attracted by the natural beauty of the place and by the educational
facilities it affords.
Bonn (_Bonna_ or _Castra Bonnensia_), originally a town of the Ubii,
became at an early period the site of a Roman military settlement, and
as such is frequently mentioned by Tacitus. It was the scene, in A.D.
70, of a battle in which the Romans were defeated by Claudius Civilis,
the valiant leader of the Batavians. Greatly reduced by successive
barbarian inroads, it was restored about 359 by the emperor Julian. In
the centuries that followed the break-up of the Roman empire it again
suffered much from barbarian attacks, and was finally devastated in 889
by bands of Norse raiders who had sailed up the Rhine. It was again
fortified by Konrad von Hochstaden, archbishop of Cologne (1238-1261),
whose successor, Engelbert von Falkenburg (d. 1274), driven out of his
cathedral city by the townspeople, established himself here (1265); from
which time until 1794 it remained the residence of the electors of
Cologne. During the various wars that devastated Germany in the 16th,
17th and 18th centuries, the town was frequently besieged and occupied
by the several belligerents, but continued to belong to the electors
till 1794, when the French took possession of it. At the peace of
Lunéville they were formally recognized in their occupation; but in 1815
the town was made over by the congress of Vienna to Prussia. The
fortifications had been dismantled in 1717.
See F. Ritter, _Entstehung der drei ältesten Städte am Rhein: Köln,
Bonn und Mainz_ (Bonn, 1851); H. von Sybel, _Die Gründung der
Universität Bonn_ (1868); and _Führer von Hesse_ (10th ed., 1901).
BONNAT, LÉON JOSEPH FLORENTIN (1833- ), French painter, was born at
Bayonne on the 20th of June 1833. He was educated in Spain, under
Madrazo at Madrid, and his long series of portraits shows the influence
of Velasquez and the Spanish realists. In 1869 he won a medal of honour
at Paris, where he became one of the leading artists of his day, and in
1888 he became professor of painting at the École des Beaux Arts. In May
1905 he succeeded Paul Dubois as director. His vivid portrait-painting
is his most characteristic work, but his subject pictures, such as the
"Martyrdom of St Denis" in the Panthéon, are also famous.
BONNE-CARRÈRE, GUILLAUME DE (1754-1825), French diplomatist, was born at
Muret in Languedoc on the 13th of February 1754. He began his career in
the army, but soon entered the diplomatic service under Vergennes. A
friend of Mirabeau and of Dumouriez, he became very active at the
Revolution, and Dumouriez re-established for him the title of
director-general of the department of foreign affairs (March 1792). He
remained at the ministry, preserving the habits of the diplomacy of the
old régime, until December 1792, when he was sent to Belgium as agent of
the republic, but he was involved in the treason of Dumouriez and was
arrested on the 2nd of April 1793. To justify himself, he published an
account of his conduct from the beginning of the Revolution. He was
freed from prison in July 1794. Napoleon did not trust him, and gave him
only some unimportant missions. After 1815 Bonne-Carrère retired into
private life, directing a profitable business in public carriages
between Paris and Versailles.
BONNER, EDMUND (1500?-1569), bishop of London, was perhaps the natural
son of George Savage, rector of Davenham, Cheshire, by Elizabeth
Frodsham, who was afterwards married to Edmund Bonner, a sawyer of
Hanley in Worcestershire. This account, which was printed with many
circumstantial details by Strype (_Eccles. Mem._ III. i. 172-173), was
disputed by Strype's contemporary, Sir Edmund Lechmere, who asserted on
not very satisfactory evidence (_ib. Annals_, I. ii. 300)that Bonner was
of legitimate birth. He was educated at Broadgates Hall, now Pembroke
College, Oxford, graduating bachelor of civil and canon law in June
1519. He was ordained about the same time, and admitted D.C.L. in 1525.
In 1529 he was Wolsey's chaplain, and he was with the cardinal at Cawood
at the time of his arrest. Subsequently he was transferred, perhaps
through Cromwell's influence, to the service of the king, and in January
1532 he was sent to Rome to obstruct the judicial proceedings against
Henry in the papal curia. In October 1533 he was entrusted with the
unmannerly task of intimating to Clement VII., while he was the guest of
Francis I. at Marseilles, Henry's appeal from the pope to a general
council; but there seems to be no good authority for Burnet's story that
Clement threatened to have him burnt alive. For these and other services
Bonner had been rewarded by the grant of several livings, and in 1535 he
was made archdeacon of Leicester.
Towards the end of that year he was sent to further what he called "the
cause of the Gospel" (_Letters and Papers_, 1536, No. 469) in North
Germany; and in 1536 he wrote a preface to Gardiner's _De vera
Obedientia_, which asserted the royal, denied the papal, supremacy, and
was received with delight by the Lutherans. After a brief embassy to the
emperor in the spring of 1538, Bonner superseded Gardiner at Paris, and
began his mission by sending Cromwell a long list of accusations against
his predecessor (_ib_. 1538, ii. 144). He was almost as bitter against
Wyatt and Mason, whom he denounced as a "papist," and the violence of
his conduct led Francis I. to threaten him with a hundred strokes of the
halberd. He seems, however, to have pleased his patron, Cromwell, and
perhaps Henry, by his energy in seeing the king's "Great" Bible in
English through the press in Paris. He was already king's chaplain; his
appointment at Paris had been accompanied by promotion to the see of
Hereford, and before he returned to take possession he was translated to
the bishopric of London (October 1539).
Hitherto Bonner had been known as a somewhat coarse and unscrupulous
tool of Cromwell, a sort of ecclesiastical Wriothesley, He is not known
to have protested against any of the changes effected by his masters; he
professed to be no theologian, and was wont, when asked theological
questions, to refer his interrogators to the divines. He had graduated
in law, and not in theology. There was nothing in the Reformation to
appeal to him, except the repudiation of papal control; and he was one
of those numerous Englishmen whose views were faithfully reflected in
the Six Articles. He became a staunch Conservative, and, apart from his
embassy to the emperor in 1524-1543, was mainly occupied during the last
years of Henry's reign in brandishing the "whip with six strings."
The accession of Edward VI opened a fresh and more creditable chapter in
Bonner's career. Like Gardiner, he could hardly repudiate that royal
supremacy, in the establishment of which he had been so active an agent;
but he began to doubt that supremacy when he saw to what uses it could
be put by a Protestant council, and either he or Gardiner evolved the
theory that the royal supremacy was in abeyance during a royal minority.
The ground was skilfully chosen, but it was not legally nor
constitutionally tenable. Both he and Gardiner had in fact sought fresh
licences to exercise their ecclesiastical jurisdiction from the young
king; and, if he was supreme enough to confer jurisdiction, he was
supreme enough to issue the injunctions and order the visitation to
which Bonner objected. Moreover, if a minority involved an abeyance of
the royal supremacy in the ecclesiastical sphere, it must do the same in
the temporal sphere, and there could be nothing but anarchy. It was on
this question that Bonner came into conflict with Edward's government.
He resisted the visitation of August 1547, and was committed to the
Fleet; but he withdrew his opposition, and was released in time to take
an active part against the government in the parliament of November
1547. In the next session, November 1548-March 1549, he was a leading
opponent of the first Act of Uniformity and Book of Common Prayer. When
these became law, he neglected to enforce them, and on the 1st of
September 1549 he was required by the council to maintain at St Paul's
Cross that the royal authority was as great as if the king were forty
years of age. He failed to comply, and after a seven days' trial he was
deprived of his bishopric by an ecclesiastical court over which Cranmer
presided, and was sent to the Marshalsea. The fall of Somerset in the
following month raised Bonner's hopes, and he appealed from Cranmer to
the council. After a struggle the Protestant faction gained the upper
hand, and on the 7th of February 1550 Bonner's deprivation was confirmed
by the council sitting in the Star Chamber, and he was further condemned
to perpetual imprisonment.
He was released by Mary's accession, and was at once restored to his
see, his deprivation being regarded as invalid and Ridley as an
intruder. He vigorously restored Roman Catholicism in his diocese, made
no difficulty about submitting to the papal jurisdiction which he had
forsworn, and in 1555 began the persecution to which he owes his fame.
His apologists explain that his action was merely "official," but Bonner
was one of those who brought it to pass that the condemnation of
heretics to the fire should be part of his ordinary official duties. The
enforcement of the first Book of Common Prayer had also been part of his
official duties; and the fact that Bonner made no such protest against
the burning of heretics as he had done in the former case shows that he
found it the more congenial duty. Tunstal was as good a Catholic as
Bonner; he left a different repute behind him, a clear enough indication
of a difference in their deeds.
On the other hand, Bonner did not go out of his way to persecute; many
of his victims were forced upon him by the council, which sometimes
thought that he had not been severe enough (see _Acts of the P.C.
1554-1556_, pp. 115, 139; _1556-1558_, pp. 18, 19, 216, 276). So
completely had the state dominated the church that religious
persecutions had become state persecutions, and Bonner was acting as an
ecclesiastical sheriff in the most refractory district of the realm.
Even Foxe records instances in which Bonner failed to persecute. But he
had no mercy for a fallen foe; and he is seen at his worst in his
brutal jeers at Cranmer, when he was entrusted with the duty of
degrading his former chief. It is a more remarkable fact that, in spite
of his prominence, neither Henry VIII. nor Mary should ever have
admitted him to the privy council. He seems to have been regarded by his
own party as a useful instrument, especially in disagreeable work,
rather than as a desirable colleague.
On her accession Elizabeth refused to allow him to kiss her hand; but he
sat and voted in the parliament and convocation of 1559. In May he
refused to take the oath of supremacy, acquiring like his colleagues
consistency with old age. He was sent to the Marshalsea, and a few years
later was indicted on a charge of praemunire on refusing the oath when
tendered him by his diocesan, Bishop Horne of Winchester. He challenged
the legality of Horne's consecration, and a special act of parliament
was passed to meet the point, while the charge against Bonner was
withdrawn. He died in the Marshalsea on the 5th of September 1569, and
was buried in St George's, Southwark, at midnight to avoid the risk of a
hostile demonstration.
See _Letters and Papers of Henry VIII._ vols. iv.-xx.; _Acts of the
Privy Council_ (1542-1569); _Lords' Journals_, vol. i.; Wilkins'
_Concilia_; Foxe's _Acts and Monuments_, ed. Townsend; Burnet, ed.
Pocock; Strype's Works; Gough's _Index to Parker Soc. Publ._; S.R.
Maitland's _Essays on the Ref._; Froude's and R.W. Dixon's
_Histories_; Pollard's _Cranmer_ and _England under Somerset_; other
authorities cited in _Dict. Nat. Biogr_. (A. F. P.)
BONNET, CHARLES (1720-1793), Swiss naturalist and philosophical writer,
was born at Geneva on the 13th of March 1720, of a French family driven
into Switzerland by the religious persecution in the 16th century. He
made law his profession, but his favourite pursuit was the study of
natural science. The account of the ant-lion in N.A. Pluche's _Spectacle
de la nature_, which he read in his sixteenth year, turned his attention
to insect life. He procured R.A.F. de Réaumur's work on insects, and
with the help of live specimens succeeded in adding many observations to
those of Réaumur and Pluche. In 1740 Bonnet communicated to the academy
of sciences a paper containing a series of experiments establishing what
is now termed parthenogenesis in _aphides_ or tree-lice, which obtained
for him the honour of being admitted a corresponding member of the
academy. In 1741 he began to study reproduction by fusion and the
regeneration of lost parts in the freshwater hydra and other animals;
and in the following year he discovered that the respiration of
caterpillars and butterflies is performed by pores, to which the name of
_stigmata_ has since been given. In 1743 he was admitted a fellow of the
Royal Society; and in the same year he became a doctor of laws--his last
act in connexion with a profession which had ever been distasteful to
him.
His first published work appeared in 1745, entitled _Traité
d'insectologie_, in which were collected his various discoveries
regarding insects, along with a preface on the development of germs and
the scale of organized beings. Botany, particularly the leaves of
plants, next attracted his attention; and after several years of
diligent study, rendered irksome by the increasing weakness of his
eyesight, he published in 1754 one of the most original and interesting
of his works, _Recherches sur l'usage des feuilles dans les plantes_; in
which among other things he advances many considerations tending to show
(as has quite recently been done by Francis Darwin) that plants are
endowed with powers of sensation and discernment. But Bonnet's eyesight,
which threatened to fail altogether, caused him to turn to philosophy.
In 1754 his _Essai de psychologie_ was published anonymously in London.
This was followed by the _Essai analytique sur les facultés de l'âme_
(Copenhagen, 1760), in which he develops his views regarding the
physiological conditions of mental activity. He returned to physical
science, but to the speculative side of it, in his _Considérations sur
les corps organisés_ (Amsterdam, 1762), designed to refute the theory of
epigenesis, and to explain and defend the doctrine of pre-existent
germs. In his _Contemplation de la nature_ (Amsterdam, 1764-1765;
translated into Italian, German, English and Dutch), one of his most
popular and delightful works, he sets forth, in eloquent language, the
theory that all the beings in nature form a gradual scale rising from
lowest to highest, without any break in its continuity. His last
important work was the _Palingénésie philosophique_ (Geneva, 1769-1770);
in it he treats of the past and future of living beings, and supports
the idea of the survival of all animals, and the perfecting of their
faculties in a future state.
Bonnet's life was uneventful. He seems never to have left Switzerland,
nor does he appear to have taken any part in public affairs except for
the period between 1752 and 1768, during which he was a member of the
council of the republic. The last twenty five years of his life he spent
quietly in the country, at Genthod, near Geneva, where he died after a
long and painful illness on the 20th of May 1793. His wife was a lady of
the family of De la Rive.
They had no children, but Madame Bonnet's nephew, the celebrated H.B. de
Saussure, was brought up as their son.
Bonnet's philosophical system may be outlined as follows. Man is a
compound of two distinct substances, mind and body, the one immaterial
and the other material. All knowledge originates in sensations;
sensations follow (whether as physical effects or merely as sequents
Bonnet will not say) vibrations in the nerves appropriate to each; and
lastly, the nerves are made to vibrate by external physical stimulus. A
nerve once set in motion by a particular object tends to reproduce that
motion; so that when it a second time receives an impression from the
same object it vibrates with less resistance. The sensation accompanying
this increased flexibility in the nerve is, according to Bonnet, the
condition of memory. When reflection--that is, the active element in
mind--is applied to the acquisition and combination of sensations, those
abstract ideas are formed which, though generally distinguished from,
are thus merely sensations in combination only. That which puts the mind
into activity is pleasure or pain; happiness is the end of human
existence. Bonnet's metaphysical theory is based on two principles
borrowed from Leibnitz--first, that there are not successive acts of
creation, but that the universe is completed by the single original act
of the divine will, and thereafter moves on by its own inherent force;
and secondly, that there is no break in the continuity of existence. The
divine Being originally created a multitude of germs in a graduated
scale, each with an inherent power of self-development. At every
successive step in the progress of the universe, these germs, as
progressively modified, advance nearer to perfection; if some advanced
and others did not there would be a gap in the continuity of the chain.
Thus not man only but all other forms of existence are immortal. Nor is
man's mind alone immortal; his body also will pass into the higher
stage, not, indeed, the body he now possesses, but a finer one of which
the germ at present exists within him. It is impossible, however, to
reach absolute perfection, because the distance is infinite. In this
final proposition Bonnet violates his own principle of continuity, by
postulating an interval between the highest created being and the
Divine. It is also difficult to understand whether the constant advance
to perfection is performed by each individual, or only by each race of
beings as a whole. There seems, in fact, to be an oscillation between
two distinct but analogous doctrines--that of the constantly increasing
advancement of the individual in future stages of existence, and that of
the constantly increasing advancement of the race as a whole according
to the successive evolutions of the globe.
Bonnet's complete works appeared at Neuchâtel in 1779-1783, partly
revised by himself. An English translation of certain portions of the
_Palingénésie philosophique_ was published in 1787, under the title,
_Philosophical and Critical Inquiries concerning Christianity_. See
also A. Lemoine, _Charles Bonnet_ (Paris, 1850); the duc de Caraman,
_Charles Bonnet, philosophe et naturaliste_ (Paris, 1859); Max Offner,
_Die Psychologie C. B._ (Leipzig, 1893); Joh. Speck, in _Arch. f.
Gesch. d. Philos._ x. (1897), xi. (1897), pp. 58 foll., xi. (1898) pp.
1-211; J. Trembley, _Vie privée et littéraire de C. B._ (Bern, 1794).
BONNET (from Lat. _bonetum_, a kind of stuff, then the cap made of this
stuff), originally a soft cap or covering for the head, the common term
in English till the end of the 17th century; this sense survives in
Scotland, especially as applied to the cap known as a "glengarry." The
"bonnet" of a ship's sail now means an additional piece laced on to the
bottom, but it seems to have formerly meant a piece laced to the top,
the term "to vail the bonnet" being found at the beginning of the 16th
century to mean "strike sail" (from the Fr. _avaler_), to let down. In
modern times "bonnet" has come to be used of a type of head-covering for
women, differentiated from "hat" by fitting closely to the head and
often having no brim, but varying considerably in shape according to the
period and fashion. The term, by a natural extension, is also applied to
certain protective devices, as in a steam-engine or safety-lamp, or in
slang use to a gambler's accomplice, a decoy.
BONNEVAL, CLAUDE ALÉXANDRE, COMTE DE (1675-1747), French adventurer,
known also as AHMED PASHA, was the descendant of an old family of
Limousin. He was born on the 14th of July 1675, and at the age of
thirteen joined the Royal Marine Corps. After three years he entered the
army, in which he rose to the command of a regiment. He served in the
Italian campaigns under Catinat, Villeroi and Vendôme, and in the
Netherlands under Luxemburg, giving proofs of indomitable courage and
great military ability. His insolent bearing towards the minister of war
was made matter for a court-martial (1704). He was condemned to death,
but saved himself by flight to Germany. Through the influence of Prince
Eugene he obtained a general's command in the Austrian army, and fought
with great bravery and distinction against France, and afterwards
against Turkey. He was present at Malplaquet, and was severely wounded
at Peterwardein. The proceedings against him in France were then allowed
to drop, and he visited Paris, and married a daughter of Marshal de
Biron. He returned, however, after a short time to the Austrian army,
and fought with distinction at Belgrade. He might now have risen to the
highest rank, had he not made himself disagreeable to Prince Eugene, who
sent him as master of the ordnance to the Low Countries. There his
ungovernable temper led him into a quarrel with the marquis de Prié,
Eugene's deputy governor in the Netherlands, who answered his challenge
by placing him in confinement. A court-martial was again held upon him,
and he was condemned to death; but the emperor commuted the sentence to
one year's imprisonment and banishment. Bonneval, soon after his
release, offered his services to the Turkish government, professed the
Mahommedan faith, and took the name of Ahmed. He was made a pasha, and
appointed to organize and command the artillery. He rendered valuable
services to the sultan in his war with Russia, and with the famous Nadir
Shah. As a reward he received the governorship of Chios, but he soon
fell under the suspicion of the Porte, and was banished for a time to
the shores of the Black Sea. He was meditating a return to Europe and
Christianity when he died at Constantinople on the 23rd of March 1747.
The _Memoirs_ published under his name are spurious. See Prince de
Ligne, _Mémoire sur le comte de Bonneval_ (Paris, 1817); and A.
Vandal, _Le Pacha Bonneval_ (Paris, 1885).
BONNEVILLE, BENJAMIN L.E. (1795-1878), American military engineer and
explorer, was born in France about 1795. He emigrated to the United
States in early youth, and graduated at the United States Military
Academy at West Point in 1815. He was engaged in the construction of
military roads in the south-west, and became a captain of infantry in
1825. In 1831-1836, having obtained leave of absence from the army, he
conducted, largely on his own responsibility, an exploring expedition to
the Rocky Mountains, proceeding up the Platte river through parts of the
later states of Colorado and Wyoming into the Great Salt Lake basin and
thence into California. After being absolutely cut off from civilization
for several years, and having his name struck from the army list, he
returned with an interesting and valuable account of his adventures,
which was edited and amplified by Washington Irving and published under
the title _The Rocky Mountains: or Scenes, Incidents, and Adventures in
the Far West; from the Journal of Captain Benjamin L.E. Bonneville of
the Army of the United States_ (2 vols., 1837), subsequent editions
bearing the title _The Adventures of Captain Bonneville, U.S.A., in the
Rocky Mountains and the Far West._ Bonneville became a major in 1845,
and was breveted lieutenant-colonel for gallantry in the battles of
Contreras and Churubusco during the Mexican War. He became a colonel in
1855, commanded the Gila river expedition against the Apaches in 1857,
and from 1858 to 1861 commanded the department of New Mexico. He was
retired in 1861, but served during the Civil War as recruiting officer
and commandant of barracks at St Louis, Missouri, receiving the brevet
rank of brigadier-general in 1865. He died at Fort Smith, Arkansas, on
the 12th of June 1878. The extinct glacial lake which once covered what
is now north-western Utah has been named in his honour.
BONNEY, THOMAS GEORGE (1833- ), English geologist, eldest son of the
Rev. Thomas Bonney, master of the grammar school at Rugeley, was born in
that town on the 27th of July 1833. Educated at Uppingham and St John's
College, Cambridge, he graduated as 12th wrangler in 1856, and was
ordained in the following year. From 1856 to 1861 he was mathematical
master at Westminster school, and geology was pursued by him only as a
recreation, mainly in Alpine regions. In 1868 he was appointed tutor at
St John's College and lecturer in geology. His attention was specially
directed to the study of the igneous and metamorphic rocks in Alpine
regions and in various parts of England, in the Lizard, at Salcombe, in
Charnwood Forest, in Wales and the Scottish Highlands. In 1877 he was
chosen professor of geology in University College, London. He became
secretary and afterwards president of the Geological Society
(1884-1886), secretary of the British Association (1881-1885), president
of the Mineralogical Society and of the Alpine Club. He was also in 1887
appointed honorary canon of Manchester. His purely scientific works are:
_Cambridgeshire Geology_ (1875); _The Story of our Planet_ (1893);
_Charles Lyell and Modern Geology_ (1895); _Ice Work, Past and Present_
(1896); _Volcanoes_ (1899). In addition to many papers published in the
_Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society_ and _Geological Magazine_,
he wrote several popular works on Alpine Regions, on English and Welsh
scenery, as well as on theological subjects.
See _Geological Magazine_ for September 1901 (with bibliography).
BONNIER, ANGE ELISABETH LOUIS ANTOINE (1749-1799), French diplomatist,
was a member of the Legislative Assembly and of the Convention, where he
voted with the majority. During the Directory he was charged with
diplomatic missions, first to Lille and then to the congress of Rastadt
(October 1797), where the negotiations dragged wearily along and were
finally broken. On the 28th of April 1799 the plenipotentiaries on
leaving Rastadt were assailed at the gates of the town by Hungarian
hussars, probably charged to secure their papers. Bonnier and one of his
colleagues, Claude Roberjot, were killed. The other, Jean Debry, was
wounded.
See Huefer, _Der Rastadtergesandtenmord_ (Bonn, 1896).
BONNIVET, GUILLAUME GOUFFIER, SEIGNEUR DE (c. 1488-1525), French
soldier, was the younger brother of Artus Gouffier, seigneur de Boisy,
tutor of Francis I. of France. Bonnivet was brought up with Francis, and
after the young king's accession he became one of the most powerful of
the royal favourites. In 1515 he was made admiral of France. In the
imperial election of 1519 he superintended the candidature of Francis,
and spent vast sums of money in his efforts to secure the votes of the
electors, but without success. He was the implacable enemy of the
constable de Bourbon and contributed to his downfall. In command of the
army of Navarre in 1521, he occupied Fuenterrabia and was probably
responsible for its non-restoration and for the consequent renewal of
hostilities. He succeeded Marshal Lautrec in 1523 in the command of the
army of Italy and entered the Milanese, but was defeated and forced to
effect a disastrous retreat, in which the chevalier Bayard perished. He
was one of the principal commanders of the army which Francis led into
Italy at the end of 1524, and died at the battle of Pavia on the 24th of
February 1525. Brantôme says that it was at Bonnivet's suggestion that
the battle of Pavia was fought, and that, seeing the disaster he had
caused, he courted and found death heroically in the fight. In spite of
his failures as a general and diplomatist, his handsome face and
brilliant wit enabled him to retain throughout his life the intimacy and
confidence of his king. He was a man of licentious life. According to
Brantôme he was the successful rival of the king for the favours of
Madame de Châteaubriand, and if we may believe him to have been--as is
very probable--the hero of the fourth story of the _Heptameron_,
Marguerite d'Angoulême had occasion to resist his importunities.
AUTHORITIES.--Bonnivet's correspondence in the Bibliothèque Nationale,
Paris; memoirs of the time; complete works of Brantôme, vol. iii.,
published by Ludovic Lalanne for the Société de l'Histoire de France
(1864 seq.). See also Ernest Lavisse, _Histoire de France_, vol. v.,
by H. Lemonnier (1903-1904).
BONOMI, GIUSEPPI (1739-1808), English architect, was born at Rome on the
19th of January 1739. After attaining a considerable reputation in
Italy, he came in 1767 to England, and finally settled in practice
there. He was the innocent cause of the retirement of Sir Joshua
Reynolds from the presidency of the Royal Academy. Sir Joshua wished him
to become a full Academician, regarding him as a fitting occupant of the
then vacant chair of perspective. But the majority of the Academicians
were opposed to this suggestion, and Bonomi was elected an associate
only, and that merely by the president's casting vote. Bonomi was
largely responsible for the revival of classical architecture in
England. His most famous work was the Italian villa at Roseneath,
Dumbartonshire, designed for the duke of Argyll. In 1804 he was
appointed honorary architect to St Peter's at Rome. He died in London on
the 9th of March 1808.
His son, GIUSEPPI BONOMI (1796-1878), studied art in London at the Royal
Academy, and became a sculptor, but is best known as an illustrator of
the leading Egyptological publications of his day. From 1824 to 1832 he
was in Egypt, making drawings of the monuments in the company of Burton,
Lane and Wilkinson. In 1833 he visited the mosque of Omar, returning
with detailed drawings, and from 1842 to 1844 was again in Egypt,
attached to the Prussian government exploration expedition under
Lepsius. He assisted in the arrangement of the Egyptian court at the
Crystal Palace in 1853, and in 1861 was appointed curator of the Soane
Museum. He died on the 3rd of March 1878.
BONONCINI (or BUONONCINI), GIOVANNI BATTISTA (1672?-1750?), Italian
musical composer, was the son of the composer Giovanni Maria Bononcini,
best known as the author of a treatise entitled _Il Musico Prattico_
(Bologna, 1673), and brother of the composer Marc' Antonio Bononcini,
with whom he has often been confused. He is said to have been born at
Modena in 1672, but the date of his birth must probably be placed some
ten years earlier. He was a pupil of his father and of Colonna, and
produced his first operas, _Tullo Ostilio_ and _Serse_, at Rome in 1694.
In 1696 he was at the court of Berlin, and between 1700 and 1720 divided
his time between Vienna and Italy. In 1720 he was summoned to London by
the Royal Academy of Music, and produced several operas, enjoying the
protection of the Marlborough family. About 1731 it was discovered that
he had a few years previously palmed off a madrigal by Lotti as his own
work, and after a long correspondence he was obliged to leave the
country. He remained for several years in France, and in 1748 was
summoned to Vienna to compose music in honour of the peace of
Aix-la-Chapelle. He then went to Venice as a composer of operas, and
nothing more is known of his life.
Bononcini's rivalry with Handel will always ensure him immortality, but
he was in himself a musician of considerable merit, and seems to have
influenced the style, not only of Handel but even of Alessandro
Scarlatti. Either he or his brother (our knowledge of the two composers'
lives is at present not sufficient to distinguish their works clearly)
was the inventor of that sharply rhythmical style conspicuous in _Il
Trionfo di Camilla_ (1697), the success of which at Naples probably
induced Scarlatti to adopt a similar type of melody. It is noticeable in
the once popular air of Bononcini, _L'esperto nocchiero_, and in the air
_Vado ben spesso_, long attributed to Salvator Rosa, but really by
Bononcini.
BONONIA (mod. _Bologna_), the chief town of ancient Aemilia (see
AEMILIA, VIA), in Italy. It was said by classical writers to be of
Etruscan origin, and to have been founded, under the name Felsina, from
Perusia by Aucnus or Ocnus. Excavations of recent years have, however,
led to the discovery of some 600 ancient Italic (Ligurian?) huts, and of
cemeteries of the same and the succeeding (Umbrian) periods (800-600?
B.C.), of which the latter immediately preceded the Etruscan
civilization (c. 600-400 B.C.). An extensive Etruscan necropolis, too,
was discovered on the site of the modern cemetery (A. Zannoni, _Scavi
della Certosa_, Bologna, 1876), and others in the public garden and on
the Arnoaldi Veli property (_Notizie degli Scavi, indice_ 1876-1900,
s.v. "Bologna"). In 196 B.C., when the town first appears in history,
it was already in the possession of the Boii, and had probably by this
time changed its name, and in 189 B.C. it became a Roman colony. After
the conquest of the mountain tribes, its importance was assured by its
position on the Via Aemilia, by which it was connected in 187 B.C. with
Ariminum and Placentia, and on the road, constructed in the same year,
to Arretium; while another road was made, perhaps in 175 B.C., to
Aquilelia. It thus became the centre of the road system of north Italy.
In 90 B.C. it acquired Roman citizenship. In 43 B.C. it was used as his
base of operations against Decius Brutus by Mark Antony, who settled
colonists here; Augustus added others later, constructing a new aqueduct
from the Letta, a tributary of the Rhenus, which was restored to use in
1881 (G. Gozzadini in _Notizie degli Scavi_, 1881, 162). After a fire in
A.D. 53 the emperor Claudius made a subvention of 10 million sesterces
(£1,087,500). Bononia seems, in fact, to have been one of the most
important cities of ancient Italy, as Bologna is of modern Italy. It was
able to resist Alaric in 410 and to preserve its existence during the
general ruin. It afterwards belonged to the Greek exarchate of Ravenna.
Of remains of the Roman period, however, there are none above ground,
though various discoveries have been made from time to time within the
city walls, the modern streets corresponding more or less, as it seems,
with the ancient lines. Remains of the bridge of the Via Aemilia over
the Rhenus have also been found--consisting of parts of the parapets on
each side, in brick-faced concrete which belong to a restoration, the
original construction (probably by Augustus in 2 B.C.) having been in
blocks of Veronese red marble--and also of a massive protecting wall
slightly above it, of late date, in the construction of which a large
number of Roman tombstones were used. The bed of the river was found to
have risen at least 20 ft. since the collapse of this bridge (about A.D.
1000), the total length of which must have been about 650 ft. and the
width between the parapets 38½ ft.
See E. Brizio in _Notizie degli Scavi_ (1896), 125, 450; (1897) 330;
(1898) 465; (1902) 532. (T. As.)
BONPLAND, AIMÉ JACQUES ALEXANDRE (1773-1858), French traveller and
botanist, whose real name was GOUJAND, was born at La Rochelle on the
22nd of August 1773. After serving as a surgeon in the French army and
studying under J.N. Corvisart at Paris, he accompanied A. von Humboldt
during five years of travel in Mexico, Colombia and the districts
bordering on the Orinoco and Amazon. In these explorations he collected
and classified about 6000 plants till then mostly unknown in Europe,
which he afterwards described in _Plantes équinoxiales_, &c. (Paris,
1808-1816). On returning to Paris he received a pension and the
superintendence of the gardens at Malmaison, and published _Monographie
des Mélastomées_ (1806), and _Description des plantes rares de Navarre_
(1813). In 1816 he set out, taking with him various European plants, for
Buenos Aires, where he was elected professor of natural history, an
office which he soon quitted in order to explore central South America.
While journeying to Bolivia he was arrested in 1821, by command of Dr
Francia, the dictator of Paraguay, who detained him until 1831. On
regaining liberty he resided at San Borga in the province of Corrientes,
until his removal in 1853 to Santa Anna, where he died on the 4th of May
1858.
BONSTETTEN, CHARLES VICTOR DE (1745-1832), Swiss writer, an excellent
type of a liberal patrician, more French than Swiss, and a good
representative of the Gallicized Bern of the 18th century. By birth a
member of one of the great patrician families of Bern, he was educated
in his native town, at Yverdon, and (1763-1766) at Geneva, where he came
under the influence of Rousseau and of Charles Bonnet, and imbibed
liberal sentiments. Recalled to Bern by his father, he was soon sent to
Leiden, and then visited (1769) England, where he became a friend of the
poet Gray. After his father's death (1770) he made a long journey in
Italy, and on his return to Bern (1774) entered political life, for
which he was unfitted by reason of his liberal ideas, which led him to
patronize and encourage Johannes Müller, the future Swiss historian. In
1779 he was named the Bernese bailiff of Saanen or Gessenay (here he
wrote his _Lettres pastorales sur une contrée de la Suisse_, published
in German in 1781), and in 1787 was transferred in a similar capacity to
Nyon, from which post he had to retire after taking part (1791) in a
festival to celebrate the destruction of the Bastille. From 1795 to 1797
he governed (for the Swiss Confederation) the Italian-speaking districts
of Lugano, Locarno, Mendrisio and Val Maggia, of which he published
(1797) a pleasing description, and into which he is said to have
introduced the cultivation of the potato. The French revolution of 1798
in Switzerland drove him again into private life. He spent the years
1798 to 1801 in Denmark, with his friend Fredirika Brun, and then
settled down in 1803 in Geneva for the rest of his life. There he
enjoyed the society of many distinguished persons, among whom was
(1809-1817) Madame de Staël. It was during this period that he published
his most celebrated work, _L'Homme du midi et l'homme du nord_ (1824), a
study of the influence of climate on different nations, the north being
exalted at the expense of the south. Among his other works are the
_Recherches sur la nature et les lois de l'imagination_ (1807), and the
_Études de l'homme, ou Recherches sur les facultés de penser et de
sentir_ (1821), but he was better as an observer than as a philosopher.
Lives by A. Steinlen (Lausanne, 1860), by C. Morell (Winterthur,
1861), and by R. Willy (Bern, 1898). See also vol. xiv. of
Sainte-Beuve's _Causeries du Lundi_. (W. A. B. C.)
BONUS (a jocular application of the Lat. _bonus_, for _bonum_, "a good
thing"), a sum paid to shareholders in a joint-stock company, as an
addition to the ordinary dividend, and generally given out of
accumulated profits, or out of profits gained from exceptional
transactions. As used by insurance companies, the word denotes the
addition made to the amount of a policy by a distribution _pro rata_ of
accumulated profits or surplus. In a more general sense, bonus is any
payment or remuneration over and above what is due and promised.
BONZE (from Japanese _bonzo_, probably a mispronunciation of Chinese
_fan sung_, "religious person"), the European name for the members of
the Buddhist religious orders of Japan and China. The word is loosely
used of all the Buddhist priests in those and the neighbouring
countries.
BOOK, the common name for any literary production of some bulk, now
applied particularly to a printed composition forming a volume, or, if
in more than one volume, a single organic literary work. The word is
also used descriptively for the internal divisions or sections of a
comprehensive work.
The word "book" is found with variations of form and gender in all the
Teutonic languages, the original form postulated for it being a strong
feminine _Bôks_, which must have been used in the sense of a
writing-tablet. The most obvious connexion of this is with the old
English _bóc_, a beech tree, and though this is not free from
philological difficulties, no probable alternative has been suggested.
As early as 2400 B.C., in Babylonia, legal decisions, revenue accounts,
&c. were inscribed in cuneiform characters on clay tablets and placed in
jars, arranged on shelves and labelled by clay tablets attached by
straws. In the 7th century B.C. a library of literary works written on
such tablets existed at Nineveh, founded by Sargan (721-705 B.C.). As in
the case of the "Creation" series at the British Museum the narrative
was sometimes continued from one tablet to another, and some of the
tablets are inscribed with entries forming a catalogue of the library.
These clay tablets are perhaps entitled to be called books, but they are
out of the direct ancestry of the modern printed book with which we are
here chiefly concerned. One of the earliest direct ancestors of this
extant is a roll of eighteen columns in Egyptian hieratic writing of
about the 25th century B.C. in the Musée de Louvre at Paris, preserving
the maxims of Ptah-hetep. Papyrus, the material on which the manuscript
(known as the Papyrus Prisse) is written, was made from the pith of a
reed chiefly found in Egypt, and is believed to have been in use as a
writing material as early as about 4000 B.C. It continued to be the
usual vehicle of writing until the early centuries of the Christian era,
was used for pontifical bulls until A.D. 1022, and occasionally even
later; while in Coptic manuscripts, for which its use had been revived
in the 7th century, it was employed as late as about A.D. 1250. It was
from the name by which they called the papyrus, [Greek: bublos] or
[Greek: biblos], that the Greeks formed [Greek: biblion], their word for
a book, the plural of which (mistaken for a feminine singular) has given
us our own word Bible. In the 2nd century B.C. Eumenes II., king of
Pergamus, finding papyrus hard to procure, introduced improvements into
the preparations of the skins of sheep and calves for writing purposes,
and was rewarded by the name of his kingdom being preserved in the word
_pergamentum_, whence our "parchment," by which the dressed material is
known. In the 10th century the supremacy which parchment had gradually
established was attacked by the introduction from the East of a new
writing material made from a pulp of linen rags, and the name of the
vanquished papyrus was transferred to this new rival. Paper-mills were
set up in Europe in the 12th century, and the use of paper gained
ground, though not very rapidly, until on the invention of printing, the
demand for a cheap material for books, and the ease with which paper
could be worked on a press, gave it a practical monopoly. This it
preserved until nearly the end of the 19th century, when substances
mainly composed of wood-pulp, esparto grass and clay largely took its
place, while continuing, as in the transition from papyrus to
linen-pulp, to pass under the same name (see PAPER).
So long as the use of papyrus was predominant the usual form of a book
was that of the _volumen_ or roll, wound round a stick, or sticks. The
modern form of book, called by the Latins _codex_ (a word originally
used for the stump of a tree, or block of wood, and thence for the
three-leaved tablets into which the block was sawn) was coming into
fashion in Martial's time at Rome, and gained ground in proportion as
parchment superseded papyrus. The _volumen_ as it was unrolled revealed
a series of narrow columns of writing, and the influence of this
arrangement is seen in the number of columns in the earliest codices.
Thus in the Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus of the Bible, both of
the 4th century, there are respectively four and three columns to a
page; in the Codex Alexandrinus (5th century) only two; in the Codex
Bezae (6th century) only one, and from this date to the invention of
printing, while there were great changes in handwriting, the arrangement
of books changed very little, single or double columns being used as was
found convenient. In the external form of books there was much the same
conservatism. In the Codex Amiatinus written in England in the 8th
century one of the miniatures shows a book in a red leather cover, and
the arrangement of the pattern on this curiously resembles that of the
15th-century red leather bindings predominant in the Biblioteca
Laurenziana at Florence, in which the codex itself is preserved. In the
same way some of the small stamps used in Oxford bindings in the 15th
century are nearly indistinguishable from those used in England three
centuries earlier. Much fuller details as to the history of written
books in these as well as other respects will be found in the article
MANUSCRIPT, to which the following account of the fortunes of books
after the invention of printing must be regarded as supplementary.
Between a manuscript written in a formal book-hand and an early printed
copy of the same work, printed in the same district as the manuscript
had been written, the difference in general appearance was very slight.
The printer's type (see TYPOGRAPHY) would as a rule be based on a
handwriting considered by the scribes appropriate to works of the same
class; the chapter headings, headlines, initial-letters, paragraph
marks, and in some cases illustrations, would be added by hand in a
style which might closely resemble the like decorations in the
manuscript from which the text was being printed; there would be no
title-page, and very probably no statement of any kind that the book was
printed, or as to where, when or by whom it was produced. Information as
to these points, if given at all, was reserved for a paragraph at the
end of the book, called by bibliographers a colophon (q.v.), to which
the printer often attached a device consisting of his arms, or those of
the town in which he worked, or a fanciful design. These devices are
sometimes beautiful and often take the place of a statement of the
printer's name. Many facsimiles or copies of them have been
published.[1] The first dated title-page known[2] is a nine-line
paragraph on an otherwise blank page giving the title of the book,
_Sermo ad populum predicabilis in festo presentacionis Beatissime Marie
Semper Virginis_, with some words in its praise, the date 1470 in roman
numerals, and a reference to further information on the next page. The
book in which this title-page occurs was printed by Arnold ther Hoernen
at Cologne. Six years later Erhard Ratdolt and his partners at Venice
printed their names and the date, together with some verses describing
the book, on the title-page of a Latin calendar, and surrounded the
whole with a border in four pieces. For another twenty years, however,
when title-pages were used at all, they usually consisted merely of the
short title of the book, with sometimes a woodcut or the printer's
(subsequently the publisher's) device beneath it, decoration being more
often bestowed on the first page of text, which was sometimes surrounded
by an ornamental border. Title-pages completed by the addition of the
name and address of printer or publisher, and also by the date, did not
become common till about 1520.
While the development of the title-page was thus slow the completion of
the book, independently of handwork, in other respects was fairly rapid.
Printed illustrations appear first in the form of rude woodcuts in some
small books produced at Bamberg by Albrecht Pfister about 1461.
Pagination and headlines were first used by ther Hoernen at Cologne in
1470 and 1471; printed signatures to guide binders in arranging the
quires correctly (see BIBLIOGRAPHY AND BIBLIOLOGY) by Johann Koelhoff,
also at Cologne in 1472. Illustrations abound in the books printed at
Augsburg in the early 'seventies, and in the 'eighties are common in
Germany, France and the Low Countries, while in Italy their full
development dated from about 1490. Experiments were made in both Italy
and France with illustrations engraved on copper, but in the 15th
century these met with no success.
Bound with wooden boards covered with stamped leather, or with half of
the boards left uncovered, many of the earliest printed books are
immensely large and heavy, especially the great choir-books, the Bibles
and the Biblical and legal commentaries, in which a great mass of notes
surrounds the text. The paper on which these large books were printed
was also extraordinarily thick and strong. For more popular books small
folio was at first a favourite size, but towards the end of the century
small thin quartos were much in vogue. Psalters, books of hours, and
other prayer-books were practically the only very small books in use.
Owing to changes, not only in the value of money but in the coinage, the
cost of books in the 15th century is extremely difficult to ascertain. A
vellum copy of the first printed Bible (Mainz, c. 1455) in two large
folio volumes, when rubricated and illuminated, is said to have been
worth 100 florins. In 1467 the bishop of Aleria writing to Pope Paul II.
speaks of the introduction of printing having reduced prices to
one-fifth of what they had previously been. Fifteen "Legends" bequeathed
by Caxton to St Margaret's, Westminster, were sold at prices varying
from 6s. 8d. to 5s. This would be cheap for a large work like the
_Golden Legend_, but the bequest was more probably of copies of the
Sarum _Legenda_, or Lectionary, a much smaller book.
_16th Century._--The popularization of the small octavo by Aldus at
Venice in 1501 and the introduction in these handy books of a new type,
the italic, had far-reaching consequences. Italics grew steadily in
favour during the greater part of the century, and about 1570 had almost
become the standard vernacular type of Italy. In France also they were
very popular, the attempt to introduce a rival French cursive type
(_lettres de civilité_) attaining no success. In England they gained
only slight popularity, but roman type, which had not been used at all
in the 15th century, made steady progress in its contest with black
letter, which by the end of the century was little used save for Bibles
and proclamations. The modern practice in the use of i and j, u and v
dates from about 1580, though not firmly established till the reign of
Charles I.
In the second quarter of the 16th century the French printers at Paris
and Lyons halved the size of the Aldine octavos in their small
sextodecimos, which found a ready market, though not a lasting one, the
printers of Antwerp and Leiden ousting them with still smaller books in
24mo or small twelves. These little books were printed on paper much
thinner than had previously been used. The size and weight of books was
also reduced by the substitution of pasteboards for wooden sides. Gold
tooling came into use on bindings, and in the second half of the century
very elaborate decoration was in vogue in France until checked by a
sumptuary law. On the other hand a steady decline in the quality of
paper combined with the abandonment of the old simple outline woodcuts
for much more ambitious designs made it increasingly difficult for
printers to do justice to the artists' work, and woodcuts, at first in
the Low Countries and afterwards in England and elsewhere, were
gradually superseded by copper-plates printed separately from the text.
At the beginning of this century in England a ballad or Christmas carol
sold for a halfpenny and thin quarto chapbooks for 4d. (a price which
lasted through the century), the Great Bible of 1541 was priced at 10s.
in sheets and 12s. bound, Edward VI.'s prayer-book (1549) at 2s. 2d.
unbound, and 3s. 8d. in paste or boards; Sidney's _Arcadia_ and other
works in 1598 sold for 9s.
_17th Century._--Although the miniature editions issued by the Elzevirs
at Leiden, especially those published about 1635, have attracted
collectors, printing in the 17th century was at its worst, reaching its
lowest depths in England in the second quarter. After this there was a
steady improvement, partly due to slight modifications of the old
printing presses, adopted first in Holland and copied by the English
printers. In the first half of the century many English books, although
poorly printed, were ornamented with attractive frontispieces, or
portraits, engraved on copper. During the same period, English
prayer-books and small Bibles and New Testaments were frequently covered
with gay embroideries in coloured silks and gold or silver thread. In
the second half of the century the leather bindings of Samuel Mearne, to
some extent imitated from those of the great French binder Le Gascon,
were the daintiest England had yet produced. For trade bindings rough
calf and sheepskin were most used, and the practice of lettering books
on the back, instead of on the sides or fore-edges or not at all, came
gradually into favour. Owing to the increase of money, and in some cases
to the action of monopolists, in others to the increased payments made
to authors, book-prices rather rose than fell. Thus church Bibles, which
had been sold at 10s. in 1541, rose successively to 25s., 30s. and (in
1641) to 40s. Single plays in quarto cost 6d. each in Shakespeare's
time, 1s. after the Restoration. The Shakespeare folio of 1623 is said
to have been published at £1. Bishop Walton's polyglot Bible in six
large volumes was sold for £10 to subscribers, but resulted in a heavy
loss. Izaak Walton's _Compleat Angler_ was priced at 1s. 6d. in
sheepskin, _Paradise Lost_ at 3s., _The Pilgrim's Progress_ at 1s. 6d.;
Dryden's _Virgil_ was published by subscription at £5:5s. It was a
handsome book, ornamented with plates; but in the case of this and other
subscription books a desire to honour or befriend the author was mainly
responsible for the high price.
_18th Century._--During this century there was a notable improvement
alike in paper, type and presswork in both France and England, and
towards the end of the century in Germany and Italy also. Books became
generally neat and sometimes elegant. Book-illustration revived with the
French _livres-à-vignettes_, and English books were illustrated by
Gravelot and other French artists. In the last quarter of the century
the work of Bewick heralded a great revival in woodcut illustrations, or
as the use of the graver now entitled them to be called, wood
engravings. The best 18th-century binders, until the advent of Roger
Payne, were inferior to those of the 17th century, but the technique of
the average work was better. In trade bindings the use of sheepskin and
calf became much less common, and books were mostly cased in paper
boards. The practice of publishing poetry by subscription at a very high
price, which Dryden had found lucrative, was followed by Prior and Pope.
Single poems by Pope, however, were sold at 1s. and 1s. 6d. Novels were
mostly in several volumes. The price at the beginning of the century was
mostly 1s. 6d. each. It then remained fairly steady for many years, and
at the close of the century rose again. Thus Miss Burney's _Evelina_ (3
vols., 1778) sold for 7s. 5d., her _Cecilia_ (5 vols., 1782) for 12s.
6d., and her _Camilla_ (5 vols., 1796) for £1:1s. Johnson's _Dictionary_
(2 vols. folio, 1755) cost £4:4s. in sheets, £4:15s. in boards.
_19th Century._--great change in the appearance of books was caused by
the use first of glazed calico (about 1820), afterwards (about 1830) of
cloth for the cases of books as issued by their publishers. At first the
lettering was printed on paper labels, but soon it was stamped in gilt
on the cloth, and in the last quarter of the century many very beautiful
covers were designed for English and American books. The designs for
leather bindings were for many years chiefly imitated from older work,
but towards the end of the 'eighties much greater originality began to
be shown. Book illustrations passed through many phases. As subsidiary
methods colour-prints, line engravings, lithographs and etchings were
all used during the first half of the century, but the main reliance was
on wood-engraving, in which extraordinary technical skill was developed.
In the 'sixties and the years which immediately preceded and followed
them many of the chief English artists supplied the engravers with
drawings. In the last decade of the century wood-engraving was
practically killed by the perfection attained by photographic methods of
reproduction (see PROCESS), the most popular of these methods entailing
the use of paper heavily coated with china clay. During the century
trade-printing, both in England and America, steadily improved, and the
work done by William Morris at his Kelmscott Press (1891-1896), and by
other amateur printers who imitated him, set a new standard of beauty of
type and ornament, and of richness of general effect. On the other hand
the demand for cheap reprints of famous works induced by the immense
extension of the reading public was supplied by scores of pretty if
flimsy editions at 1s. 6d. and 1s. and even less. The problem of how to
produce books at moderate prices on good paper and well sewn, was left
for the 20th century to settle. About 1894 the number of such
medium-priced books was greatly increased in England by the substitution
of single-volume novels at 6s. each (subject to discount) for the
three-volume editions at 31s. 6d. The preposterous price of 10s. 6d. a
volume had been adopted during the first popularity of the _Waverly
Novels_, and despite the example of France, where the standard price was
3 fr. 50, had continued in force for the greater part of the century.
Even after novels were sold at reasonable rates artificial prices were
maintained for books of travel and biographies, so that the circulating
libraries were practically the only customers for the first editions.
(See PUBLISHING and BOOKSELLING). (A. W. Po.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Works especially devoted to these facsimiles are:--Berjeau's
_Early Dutch, German and English Printers' Marks_ (London, 1866); W.
Roberts's _Printers' Marks_ (London, 1893); Silvestre's _Marques
typographiques_ (French; Paris, 1853-1867); _Die Büchermarken oder
Buchdrucker und Verlegerzeichen_ (Strassburg, 1892-1898), the
successive parts containing the devices used in Alsace, Italy, Basel,
Frankfort, Mainz and Cologne; and _Marques typographiques des
imprimeurs et libraires qui ont exercé dans les Pays-Bas_ (Gand,
1894). Numerous devices are also reproduced in histories of printing
and in volumes of facsimiles of early types.
[2] An edition of a bull of Pope Pius II. in the John Rylands
library, Manchester, in types used by Fust and Schoeffer at Mainz,
bears printed on the top of the first page the words "Dis ist die bul
zu dutsch die unser allerheiligster vatter der bapst Pius herusgesant
hait widder die snoden ungleubigen turcken." This is attributed to
the year 1463, and is claimed as the first book with a printed
title-page.
BOOKBINDING.
Origins.
Bindings or covers to protect written or printed matter have always
followed the shapes of the material on which the writing or printing was
done. Very early inscriptions on rocks or wood needed no coverings, and
the earliest instances of protective covers are to be found among the
smaller Assyrian tablets of about the 8th century B.C. These tablets,
with cuneiform inscriptions recording sales of slaves, loans of money
and small matters generally, are often enclosed in an outer shell of the
same shape and impressed with a short title. Egyptian papyrus rolls were
generally kept in roll form, bound round with papyrus tape and often
sealed with seals of Nile mud; and the rolls in turn were often
preserved in rectangular hollows cut in wood. The next earliest material
to papyrus used for writing upon was tree bark. Bark books, still
commonly used by uncultured nations, often consisting of collections of
magical formulae or medical receipts, are generally rolls, folded
backwards and forwards upon themselves like the sides of a concertina.
At Pompeii in 1875 several diptychs were found, the wooden leaves
hollowed on the inner sides, filled with blackened wax, and hinged
together at the back with leather thongs. Writings were found scratched
on the wax, one of them being a record of a payment to Umbricia Januaria
in A.D. 55. This is the earliest known Latin manuscript. The diptychs
are the prototypes of the modern book. From about the 1st to the 6th
century, ornamental diptychs were made of carved ivory, and presented to
great personages by the Roman consuls.
[Illustration: Plate.
FIG. 1.--WINCHESTER DOMESDAY BOOK OF THE 12TH CENTURY.
Dark brown morocco, blind stamped.
FIG. 2.--ST. CUTHBERT'S GOSPELS.
Red leather with repoussé design, probably the work of the 7th or
8th century. The fine lines are impressed by hand, and painted blue
and yellow.
FIG. 4.--BINDING MADE FOR JAMES I.
Dark blue morocco, gold tooled. The red in the coat-of-arms inlaid
with red morocco.
FIG. 3.--BINDING MADE FOR JEAN GROLIER.
Pale brown morocco, gold tooled.
FIG. 5.--COMMON PRAYER (LONDON, 1678).
Smooth red morocco, gold tooled with black fillets. Bound by Samuel
Mearne.
FIG. 6.--LE LIVRE DES STATUTS ET ORDONNANCES DE L'ORDRE DU BENVIST
SAINCT ESPRIT (PARIS, 1578).
Brown morocco, gold tooled, arms of Henry III., King of France.
Bound by Nicholas Eve.
FIG. 7.--CATALOGUE OF THE PICTURES AT HAGLEY HALL.
Red niger morocco, gold tooled. Bound by Douglas Cockerell.
FIG. 8.-WALTON'S COMPLEAT ANGLER (1772).
Golden brown morocco, gold tooled. Bound by Miss E.M. MacColl.]
Rolls of papyrus, vellum or paper were written upon in three ways, (1)
In short lines, at right angles to the length of the roll. (2) In long
lines each the entire length of the roll. (3) In short lines parallel to
the length of the roll, each column or page of writing having a space
left on each side of it. Rolls written in the first of these ways were
simply rolled up and kept in cylinders of like shape, sometimes several
together, with a title tag at the end of each, in a box called a
scrinium. In the case of the second form, the most obvious instances of
which are to be found in the Buddhist prayer-wheels, the rolls were and
are kept in circular boxes with handles through the centres so that they
can revolve easily. In the third manner of arranging the manuscript the
page forms show very clearly, and it is still used in the scrolls of the
law in Jewish synagogues, kept on two rollers, one at each end. But this
form of writing also developed a new method for its own more convenient
preservation. A roll of this kind can be folded up, backwards and
forwards, the bend coming in the vacant spaces between the columns of
writing. When this is done it at once becomes a book, and takes the
Chinese and Japanese form known as _orihon_--all the writing on one side
of the roll or strip of paper and all the other side blank. Some books
of this kind are simply guarded by two boards, but generally they are
fastened together along one of the sides, which then becomes the back of
the book. The earliest fastening of such books consists of a lacing with
some cord or fibre run through holes stabbed right through the substance
of the roll, near the edge. Now the _orihon_ is complete, and it is the
link between the roll and the book. This "stabbed" form of binding is
the earliest method of keeping the leaves of a book together; it occurs
in the case of a Coptic papyrus of about the 8th century found at
Thebes, but it is rarely used in the case of papyrus, as the material is
too brittle to retain the threads properly.
The method of folding vellum into pages seems to have been first
followed about the 5th century. The sheets were folded once, and
gatherings of four or more folded sheets were made, so that stitches
through the fold at the back would hold all the sheets together and each
leaf could be conveniently turned over. Very soon an obvious plan of
fixing several of these gatherings, or quires, together was followed by
the simple expedient of fastening the threads at the back round a strong
strip of leather or vellum held at right angles to the line of the
backs. This early plan of "sewing" books is to-day used in the case of
valuable books; it is known as "flexible" work, and has never been
improved upon.
As soon as the method of sewing quires together in this way became well
understood, it was found that the projecting bands at the back needed
protection, so that when all the quires were joined together and, so
far, finished, strips of leather were fastened all over the back. But it
was also found that vellum leaves were apt to curl strongly, and to
counteract this tendency strong wooden boards were put on each side. The
loose ends of the bands were fastened to the boards, which hinged upon
them, and the protecting strip of leather at the back was drawn over the
boards far enough to cover the hinge. So we get the medieval
"half-binding" which shows the strip of leather over the back of the
book, projecting for a short way over the boards, the rest of which is
left uncovered. The boards were usually kept closed by means of clasps
in front.
The leather strip soon developed, and covered the whole of the boards,
"whole" binding as it is called, and it was quickly found that these
fine flat pieces of leather offered a splendid field for artistic
decoration.
Progress of artistic binding.
The first ornamentation on leather bindings was probably made by means
of impressions from small metal points or lines, pressed upon the
leather. This in time led to the purposeful cutting of small decorative
stamps to be used in the same way. It is considered that English binders
excelled in this art of "blind" stamping, that is, without the use of
gold leaf. Most of the stamps were cut intaglio, so that their
impressions are in cameo form. Such bindings were made to perfection
during the 12th and 13th centuries at Durham, Oxford, Cambridge, London
and other places. One of the most charming examples left is the binding
of the Winchester Domesday Book of the 12th century (Plate, fig. 1), now
belonging to the Society of Antiquaries of London.
From about the 7th to the 16th century illuminated manuscripts were held
in the greatest esteem. Among them can be found not only exquisite
calligraphy but exquisite miniature painting. Moreover, the gorgeousness
of the illuminations inside suggested gorgeousness of the outside
coverings, so we find splendid work in metals with jewels, enamels and
carved ivory, dating from the 7th-century _Gospels of Theodolinda_ at
Monza, the Irish cumdach of the _Stowe Missal_, the _Lindau Gospels_ now
in America, and the _Gospels of Charlemagne_ in the Victoria and Albert
Museum at South Kensington, to the magnificent bindings of 14th-century
Limoges enamel in the British Museum. Such English bindings of this
kind--intrinsically precious--as may have existed have all
disappeared,--most likely they were melted up by Henry VIII. or Edward
VI.; but at Stonyhurst there is a book known as _St Cuthbert's Gospels_,
which is bound in red leather with a repoussé design upon it, and is
probably the work of the 7th or 8th century (Plate, fig. 2).
When printing was introduced into Europe about the middle of the 15th
century, there was very soon a reaction against the large, beautiful and
valuable illuminated MSS. and their equally precious covers. Printing
brought small books, cheap books, ugly books, generally bound in calf,
goatskin or sheepskin, and ornamented with large panel stamps in blind.
But a new art came into birth very shortly, namely the art of gold
tooling on leather, which in capable hands is almost a great art, and
specimens of the work of the few great masters that have practised it
are now much sought after and likely to increase in estimation and
value. All this, as usual, brings a school of skilled _faussaires_ into
the field, and already the collector of fine bindings must be wary, or
he may easily give thousands of pounds for forged or made-up objects
that are worth but little.
In the matter of leather bindings with gold tooling, an art which was
probably brought to Venice from the East, the finest examples are to be
found in late 15th-century Italian work. The art quickly spread, and
Thomas Berthelet, Royal Binder to Henry VIII., seems to have been the
first binder who practised it in England. Berthelet's work is strongly
Italian in feeling, especially at first, and it is likely that he was
taught the new art by an Italian master; he worked until about 1558.
During the late 15th and the 16th century in England, numbers of fine
printed books were bound in velvet and satin, sometimes set with
enamels, sometimes embroidered. These books, having strong threads of
metal freely used upon them, have lasted much better than would be
expected, and instances of such work made for Henry VIII. are still in
excellent condition, and most decorative.
The fashion of ornamenting English royal books with heraldic designs,
which is considered to have begun in the reign of Edward IV., has
continued without break. The same fashion in books belonging to private
owners was first followed during the later Tudor period, and then
numbers were made, and have been, more or less, ever since.
During the whole Tudor period several small bindings of gold ornamented
with enamels were made. Some of these still exist, and they are charming
little jewels. They were always provided with a ring at the top, no
doubt for attaching to the girdle.
Aldus Manutius, the great Venetian printer, had several of his books
charmingly bound in dark morocco with "Aldine" knot leaves and small
dolphins both in blind and gold tooling; and Giunta, a Florentine
printer, had his books bound in a similar way but without the dolphins.
Many early Venetian bindings have recessed panels, made by the use of
double boards, the upper of which is pierced, finished in true oriental
fashion.
Jean Grolier, viscount d'Aguisy, treasurer of France in 1545, was a
great collector of fine books, most of which were bound for himself, and
bear upon them his legend, _Portio mea domine sit in terra viventium_,
and also his name, Io Grolierii et Amicorum (Plate, fig. 3). Tommaso
Maioli, an Italian collector of about the same time, used the same form
of legend. Books bound for him are curiously marked with atoms of gold
remaining in the irregularities of the leather.
Demetrio Canevari, physician to Pope Urban VIII., had his books bound in
dark green or deep red morocco, and upon them is a fine cameo stamp with
a design of Apollo driving a chariot with one white horse and one black
horse towards a mountain on which is a silver Pegasus. The stamp was
coloured, but in most cases the colour has now worn off. Round the stamp
is the legend [Greek: ORTHOS KAI MAE LOXIOS].
The Italian bindings which were made for popes and cardinals are always
of much interest and often of high merit, but as a rule later Italian
bindings are disappointing.
Geoffrey Tory, printer and engraver to Francis I. of France, designed
some fine bindings, some for himself and quite possibly some for Jean
Grolier.
For Henry II. of France much highly decorative work in binding was done,
richly gilded and coloured. These bindings have upon them the king's
initials, the initials of his queen, Catherine de' Medici, and the
emblems of crescents and bows. Henry's device was a crescent with the
legend, _Donec impleat totum orbem_. Bindings of similar style were made
for Diane de Poitiers, duchesse de Valentinois, with her initials and
the same devices of crescents and bows. They are always fine work.
German bindings are mostly in pigskin, finely stamped in blind. Several
are, however, in calf. Gilding, when it exists, is generally bad.
In England during the 17th century much fine work was done in binding,
most of it in morocco, but Henry, prince of Wales, always had his books
bound in calf. The Jacobean style is heraldic, with semis of small
stamps and heavy corners, but James I. has left some very fine bindings
in another style (Plate, fig. 4), very possibly done for him by John
Gibson, who bound the royal books while James was king of Scotland only.
During the reign of Charles I. Nicholas Ferrar founded his curious
establishment at Little Gidding, and there his niece Mary Collet and her
sisters set up a bindery. They made large scrap-books, harmonies of the
Gospels and other parts of the Bible, with illustrations, and bound them
magnificently in velvet stamped in gold and silver. They were taught by
a binder who worked for John and Thomas Buck, printers to the university
of Cambridge, and the Little Gidding stamps are often identical with
Buck's.
Samuel Mearne (d. 1683) was royal binder to Charles II., and invented
the cottage style of decoration, a style which has lasted till the
present day; the Bible on which Edward VII. took the coronation oath was
ornamented in that way. An inner rectangle is run parallel to the edges
of the book, and the upper and lower lines are broken outwards into the
outline of a gable roof. Mearne's work as a binder (Plate, fig. 5) is of
the highest merit. Many of his books have their fore-edge painted in
such a way that the work is invisible when the book is shut, and only
shows when the edges are fanned out.
In France 16th- and 17th-century binding is distinguished by the work of
such masters as Nicholas Eve, who bound the beautiful _Livre des Statuts
et Ordonnances de l'ordre du Benvist Sainct Esprit_ for Henry III.
(Plate, fig. 6); Clovis Eve, who is credited with the invention of the
style known as "fanfare," a delicate tracery over the boards of a book,
filled out with spirals of leafy stems; and Le Gascon, who invented the
dotted work which has been used more or less ever since. Le Gascon
caused his small gilding tools--curves and arabesques--to be scored
across, so that when impressions were made from them a dotted line
showed instead of a right line. Florimond Badier worked in a style very
similar to that of Le Gascon and sometimes signed his work, which Le
Gascon never did. Le Gascon had many imitators, the best and closest
being Poncyn and Magnus, Dutch binders who worked at Amsterdam in the
17th century, and his style has been continuously followed to the
present day.
The bindings of Padeloup le Jeune often have small tickets with his name
upon them; they usually have borders of lace-like gold tooling known as
"dentelle" and are often inlaid. He belonged to a family of binders, all
of whom were excellent workmen, and lived in the 17th and 18th
centuries.
The Deromes were another of the great French families of binders; the
most celebrated was Nicholas Denis, called "Le Jeune," born in 1731. He
used dentelle borders resembling those of Padeloup, but with little
birds interspersed among the arabesques--"dentelles à l'oiseau."
Among the many French binders of the 18th century who used delicate
inlays of coloured leathers, Jean Charles le Monnier was perhaps the
most skilled. He often signed his bindings in small capitals impressed
in gold somewhere about the inlaid part.
Eliot and Chapman bound the library of Robert Harley, earl of Oxford,
about the middle of the 18th century. The bindings are in morocco, with
broad, richly gold-tooled borders, and usually a diamond-shaped
centre-piece. This is known as the Harleian style.
Thomas Hollis had his books bound in fine red morocco, ornamented with
small, well-cut stamps engraved by Thomas Pingo, the medallist. These
stamps comprise a cap of liberty, a figure of liberty, a figure of
Britannia and several smaller ones.
Towards the end of the 18th century, when binding in England was
decoratively at a low level, Roger Payne, a native of Windsor, came to
London and set up as a bookbinder. He was a splendid workman, and
introduced richly gold-tooled corner-pieces, ornamental "doublures" or
inside linings, and also invented the graining of morocco, graining it,
however, in one direction only, known as the "straight grain." It is
said that Payne cut his own binding tools of iron; they certainly are
exquisitely made, and in many of his bindings he has put a written
description of loving work he has done upon them. Payne was,
unfortunately, a drunkard, but he has in spite of this rendered an
immortal service to the art of bookbinding in England.
In 1785 John Edwards of Halifax patented a method of making vellum
transparent, and using it as a covering over delicate paintings. He also
painted pictures on the fore-edges of many of his books in the same
manner as that followed by Samuel Mearne in the 17th century, so that
they did not show until the book was opened. John Whitaker used calf for
his bindings, but ornamented the calf in a curious way with strong acids
and with prints from engraved metal plates. Both Edwards and Whitaker
liked classical borders and ornaments, and their bindings are in
consequence often known as "Etruscan."
The main styles used in England at the beginning of the 19th century
were nothing more than distant imitations of Roger Payne. Kalthoeber,
Staggemeier, Walther and Hering were all disciples of this master, but
Charles Lewis worked on original lines. He developed arabesques and paid
particular attention to richly gold-tooled doublures. He also used gold
end papers, and the bands at the back of his bindings are often double
and always broad, flat and gold-tooled. His workmanship is excellent; he
worked largely for Thomas Grenville and other great collectors.
French binding of the 19th century is remarkable for wonderful technical
excellence in every part. Among the most skilled of these admirable
workmen and artists may be particularly mentioned Thouvenin, Bauzonnet,
Lortic, Niedrée, Capé and Duru, and fortunately they generally sign
their work in small gold lettering either on the back of their bindings
or inside along the lower edge.
Modern methods.
Recent years have witnessed a marked revival of interest in the art of
bookbinding, but modern binders have two serious difficulties to contend
with. One of these is the prevalence of bad paper, overladen with clay
and with wood pulp, and also the fact that many of the modern leathers
are badly prepared and dangerously treated with sulphuric acid, which in
time inevitably rots the fibre. The Society of Arts has appointed
committees of experts to report upon both of these evils, and the
published accounts of both inquiries are of much value, and it is to be
hoped that the results may be beneficial. Concurrently with the revival
of the artistic side of the subject, there has also arisen a remarkable
development in the technical processes, owing to the invention of
ingenious and delicate machinery which is capable of executing the work
which had hitherto been always laboriously done by hand. The processes
of folding the printed sheets, and sewing them together on bands,
rounding the backs when sewn, and of making the outer cases, covering
them with cloth or leather and stamping designs upon them, can now all
be efficiently executed by means of machines. The saving in time and
labour thus effected is very great, although it must be said that the
old methods of carrying out the process of sewing and rounding the backs
of books by hand labour were safer and stronger, as well as being much
less liable to bruise and injure the paper. These processes
unfortunately are not only slow but also necessitate highly skilled
labour. Already the larger trade binders utilize machines extensively
and advantageously, but exclusively high-class trade binders do not as
yet materially depart from the older methods. Private binders have
naturally no reason to use machines at all. Fine and delicate examples
of large metal blocks or dies have been very successfully used for the
decoration of covers measuring about 11½ by 8 in.
Besides the large trade binders working mainly by the help of machinery,
and producing a great quantity of bound work which is not expected to
last long, there also exists in London, Paris, New York and other large
cities, a small class of art binders who work throughout upon the
principles which have been continuously in use for first-class work ever
since about the 5th century. The initial impetus to this school can be
traced to William Morris, who himself made some beautiful designs for
bookbindings, to be executed both in gold and in blind. Although he
probably did not fully appreciate either the peculiar limitations or the
possibilities of the art of gold-tooling on leather, nevertheless his
genius guided him truly as to the spirit in which the designs should be
conceived. The revived art soon reached its first stage of development
under the guidance of Mr T.J. Cobden-Sanderson, who may fairly be
considered as the founder of the modern school of design for
gold-tooling on book-covers, the pre-eminence and individuality of his
work in this direction being proved by the number of his imitators.
Among the most successful of his pupils is Mr Douglas Cockerell, whose
work (Plate, fig. 7) is distinguished by a marked originality of
treatment, while it shows a scholarly appreciation of ancient methods.
Mr Alfred de Sauty has succeeded in developing a new and admirable style
in inlaid leathers, combined with delicate pointille work. A number of
women artists, both in England and in America, have already discovered
in bookbinding a fitting and lucrative field for their energies. One,
Miss Sarah Prideaux, is not only skilled and original in her own work,
but she has also given us much valuable literature on her subject. Miss
E.M. MacColl may claim to be the inventor of the small curved gold line
produced by means of a tiny wheel, for though the possibility of
producing such a line in blind was known for a long time, it was rarely
used. The graceful curves and lines found on Miss MacColl's work have
been designed for her by her brother, Mr D.S. MacColl (Plate, fig. 8).
Miss Joanna Birkenruth recalls the highly decorative medieval binding by
her use of jewels cut _en cabochon_, but set in morocco instead of gold
or silver, and there are many others who are working well and earnestly
at art binding with delicate skill and taste. Outside the inner circle
of professional bookbinders there has grown up a new profession, that of
the designer for pictorial book-covers, especially those intended to be
shown in colour on cloth or paper. Among notable designers may be
mentioned Lewis F. Day, A.A. Turbayne, Walter Crane and Charles
Ricketts.
[Illustration: FIG. 9.--Book-sewing Machine.]
_Machine-binding._--The principal types of machine for commercial
binding are described below. They are almost all due to American or
German ingenuity. It may be noted that, while books sewn by hand on
bands have the loose ends of the bands actually drawn through the
boards and strongly fastened to them through their substance, no
machines for covering sewn books will do this so effectively. All they
will do as a rule is to paste down to the inner surfaces of the boards
the loose ends of the tapes on which the sewing is done. So that,
although it may last a long time if not much used, a "cased" book is
likely to slip out of its cover as soon as the paste fixing it
perishes. Modern bookbinding machines of all kinds are usually driven
by power, and in consequence of the necessary setting of most of them
accurately to some particular size of book, they are not suitable for
binding books of different sizes; the full advantage of them can only
be taken where there is a large edition of one book.
Sewing.
Book-sewing machines (fig. 9) are of two kinds one sews the books on
bands, either flat or round, and the other supplies the place of bands
by a kind of chain stitch. The band-working machines bring the return
thread back by pulling it through the upper and lower edges of the
back of each section, thereby to some extent weakening each section,
but at the same time this weakening can be to some extent neutralized
by careful head-banding. The other system, where the band is replaced
by a chain stitch, brings back the return thread inside each section;
the objection to this is that there is a flattening out of the back of
the book, which becomes a difficulty when the subsequent operation of
covering the book begins. The sections are sewn continuously in a long
line, and are afterwards cut apart. The threads catch into hooked
needles and are drawn through holes made by piercers set to a certain
distance; a shuttle like that used in an ordinary sewing-machine sews
the inner thread backwards and forwards. Each section is placed upon a
sort of metal saddle by the hand of the operator, one after the other,
the machine working continuously unless the action is cut off or
controlled by a foot-lever or pedal. This machine is much quieter to
work, and although the inner threads are too bulky to be quite
satisfactory, this is not a serious matter like the cutting of the
upper and lower edges of the back already described, and, moreover, is
probably capable of being either improved away or so minimized that it
will become of small importance.
The Martini book-sewing machine, which sews books on tape without
cutting up head or tail--a most important improvement--and also forms
complete Kettle stitches, will sew books of any size up to 18 in. The
needles are straight, and the necessary adjustments for various sizes
of books are very simple.
Rounding and backing.
The machine for rounding and backing sewn books requires a rather
elaborate and very careful setting of several parts to the exact
requirement of each size to be worked. The sewn book with the back
glued is caught in a clip and forced between two tight rollers, the
result being that the hitherto flat back is automatically turned into
a rounded shape (figs. 10 and 11). The book is then drawn forward, by
a continuance of the onward movement, until it reaches the rounding
plate, which is a block of steel with a polished groove a little
larger than the size required. This rounding plate moves within a
small arc by means of heavy counter-weights, and on the back of the
book being strongly pressed against it, it receives the permanent form
of the groove cut in it, at the same time a strong grip on each side
of the book causes the ledge to rise up along each outer edge of the
back. This ledge it is which enables the boards to be subsequently
fixed in such a way as to hinge on a line outside the actual and
natural boundary of the book. Before the discovery of the possibility
of producing this ledge, the boards of books hinged upon a line
coincident with the inner edges of the back, the result of which was
that when the book was opened there was an invariable tendency to open
and pull away the few outer sections of the paper or vellum itself--a
destructive and disagreeable peculiarity. These machines are capable,
after they are properly set, of rounding and backing about 750 volumes
of the same size within an hour.
[Illustration: FIG. 10.--Section of back of book sewn on bands.]
[Illustration: FIG. 11.--Section of same book after it has passed
through the machine for rounding and backing.]
[Illustration: FIG. 12.--Case-making Machine.]
The machine for making cases, or "case" covers (fig. 12), for books is
large and complicated, but beautifully effective. It contains
altogether over fifty springs, some of which are very small, like
watch fittings, while others are large and powerful. The machine is
fed with pieces of cardboard cut exactly to the sizes of the required
boards, other pieces cut to the size of the back, and a long roll of
the cloth with which the cases are to be covered, and when set working
the roll of cloth is gradually unwound and glued by contact with a
roller, which is drawn along until it reaches a point where the two
boards are ingeniously dropped upon it one by one, then on again to
where a long arm swings backwards and forwards, at each movement
picking up a piece of cardboard for the back and placing it gently
exactly upon the glued bed left for it between the two boards already
fixed. Next, as the cloth passes along, it comes under the sharp
influence of two rectangular gouges which cut out the corners, the
remaining side pieces being gradually but irresistibly turned up by
hollow raisers and flattened down by small rollers, a very delicate
piece of machinery finishing the corners in a masterly way. Then,
lastly, an arrangement of raisers and rollers acting at right angles
to the last mentioned turn over and press out the remaining pieces of
cloth. Of course each piece of cloth is cut across at the proper point
before the turning up begins. This machine is capable of producing
1200 cases in an hour of any size that the machine will take.
[Illustration: FIG. 13.--Smyth Casing-in Machine.
A. Cases.
B. Side of Case Hopper.
C. Paste box.
D. Head Clamp Rod.
E. Head Clamp.
1. 1st position.
2. 2nd position.
3. 3rd position and finished book. When in 2nd position the book
drops to level of paste box.]
The Smyth casing-in machine (fig. 13) pastes the sides of a book as
required and then attaches the cover over all. Cleverly arranged
rollers catch the book, and by a carefully regulated pressure fix the
cover in the proper position. There is a "jointing-in" device which at
a critical moment forces the joints in the cover into the joints in
the book. It will work books from 4 to 22 in. in length and from ¼ to
3 in. in thickness, and can cover from 10 to 15 books per minute.
Here may also be mentioned the Sheridan wrappering machine, which
covers magazines and pamphlets ranging from 5 to 12 in. in length at
the rate of 40 a minute.
Wiring.
Wiring is a cheap method of keeping together thin parts of periodicals
or tracts. The machine that executes it is simple in construction and
use. It drives a short wire pin, bent at right angles at each end,
through the folds of the sections of a book or through the entire
thickness, sideways, after the manner of stabbing. The projecting
ends, when through the substance of the paper, are bent over and
flattened so as to grip firmly. The metal used for these pins was at
first very liable to rust, and consequently did much damage to the
paper near it, but this defect has now been largely remedied. At the
same time the principle of using hard metal wire instead of flexible
hempen thread is essentially vicious, and should only be used as a
temporary expedient for publications of little value.
Blocking.
The machines (fig. 14) now used for blocking designs upon book-covers
are practically the same as have been employed for many years. Several
small improvements have been introduced as to better inking of the
rollers for colour work, and better heating of the blocks used for
gold work. A blocking press is now, in consequence of the size of many
of the blocks, a large and cumbersome machine. The block itself is
fixed firmly in a strong metal bed, and a movable table in front of it
is fitted with gauges which keep the cover exactly in its right place.
For gold work the block is kept at the proper temperature by means of
gas jets, and the cover being properly overlaid with gold leaf is
passed, on its table, directly under the block and then pressed
steadily upwards against it, lowered, drawn out, and the superfluous
gold rubbed off. The same process is followed in the case of colour
blocks, only now the block need not be heated, but is inked by means
of a roller for each impression. A separate printing is necessary for
each colour. These printings always require great care on the part of
the operator, who has to watch the working of each pull very
carefully, and if any readjustment is wanted, to make it at once, so
that it is difficult to estimate at what rate they can be made. In the
matter of gold blocking there must be great care exercised in the
matter of the heat of the block, for if it is too hot the gold will
adhere where it is not wanted, and if too cool it will not adhere
where it is required. Great nicety is also necessary as to the exact
pressure required as well as the precise number of moments during
which the block should be in contact with the gold, which is fastened
to the cloth or leather by means of the solidification by heat of egg
albumen. Blocking presses are mainly of German make, but Scottish and
English presses are also largely used.
[Illustration: FIG. 14.--Blocking Machine.]
AUTHORITIES.--See the _Anglo-Saxon Review_ (1899-1901); C.J.
Davenport, _Royal English Bookbindings_ (1896), _Cantor Lectures on
Bookbinding_ (1898), _English Embroidered Bookbindings_ (1899), _Life
of Thomas Berthelet_ (1901), _Life of Samuel Mearne_ (1906); W.Y.
Fletcher, _English Bookbindings in the British Museum_ (1895),
_Foreign Bookbindings in the British Museum_ (1896); L. Gruel, _Manuel
de l'amateur de relieures_ (1887); H.P. Horne, _The Binding of Books_
(1894); S.T. Prideaux, _Historical Sketch of Bookbinding_ (1893); E.
Thoinan, _Les Relieurs français_ (1893); O. Uzanne, _La Relieure
moderne_ (1887); H.B. Wheatley, _Remarkable Bindings in the British
Museum_ (1889); J.W. Zaehnsdorf, _The Art of Bookbinding_ (1880).
(C. D.)
BOOKCASE, an article of furniture, forming a shelved receptacle, usually
perpendicular or horizontal, for the storage of books. When books, being
written by hand, were excessively scarce, they were kept in small
coffers which the great carried about with them on their journeys. As
manuscript volumes accumulated in the religious houses or in regal
palaces, they were stored upon shelves or in cupboards, and it is from
these cupboards that the bookcase of to-day directly descends. At a
somewhat later date the doors were, for convenience' sake, discarded,
and the evolution of the bookcase made one step forward. Even then,
however, the volumes were not arranged in the modern fashion. They were
either placed in piles upon their sides, or if upright, were ranged with
their backs to the wall and their edges outwards. The band of leather,
vellum or parchment which closed the book was often used for the
inscription of the title, which was thus on the fore-edge instead of on
the back. It was not until the invention of printing had greatly
cheapened books that it became the practice to write the title on the
back and place the edges inwards. Early bookcases were usually of oak,
which is still deemed to be the most appropriate wood for a stately
library. The oldest bookcases in England are those in the Bodleian
library at Oxford, which were placed in position in the last year or two
of the 16th century; in that library are the earliest extant examples of
shelved galleries over the flat wall-cases. Long ranges of book-shelves
are necessarily somewhat severe in appearance, and many attempts have
been made by means of carved cornices and pilasters to give them a more
_riant_ appearance--attempts which were never so successful as in the
hands of the great English cabinet-makers of the second half of the 18th
century.
Both Chippendale and Sheraton made or designed great numbers of
bookcases, mostly glazed with little lozenges encased in fret-work
frames often of great charm and elegance. The alluring grace of some of
Sheraton's satinwood bookcases has very rarely indeed been equalled. The
French cabinet-makers of the same period were also highly successful
with small ornamental cases. Mahogany, rosewood, satinwood and even
choicer exotic timbers were used; they were often inlaid with
marqueterie and mounted with chased and gilded bronze. Dwarf bookcases
were frequently finished with a slab of choice marble at the top. In the
great public libraries of the 20th century the bookcases are often of
iron, as in the British Museum where the shelves are covered with
cowhide, of steel, as in the library of Congress at Washington, or of
slate, as in the Fitzwilliam library at Cambridge. There are three
systems of arranging bookcases--flat against the wall; in "stacks" or
ranges parallel to each other with merely enough space between to allow
of the passage of a librarian; or in bays or alcoves where cases jut out
into the room at right angles to the wall-cases. The stack system is
suitable only for public libraries where economy of space is essential;
the bay system is not only handsome but utilizes the space to great
advantage. The library of the city of London at the Guildhall is a
peculiarly effective example of the bay arrangement.
The whole question of the construction and arrangement of bookcases
was learnedly discussed in the light of experience by W.E. Gladstone
in the Nineteenth Century for March 1890. (J. P.-B.)
BOOK-COLLECTING, the bringing together of books which in their contents,
their form or the history of the individual copy possess some element of
permanent interest, and either actually or prospectively are rare, in
the sense of being difficult to procure. This qualification of rarity,
which figures much too largely in the popular view of book-collecting,
is entirely subordinate to that of interest, for the rarity of a book
devoid of interest is a matter of no concern. On the other hand so long
as a book (or anything else) is and appears likely to continue to be
easily procurable at any moment, no one has any reason for collecting
it. The anticipation that it will always be easily procurable is often
unfounded; but so long as the anticipation exists it restrains
collecting, with the result that Horn-books are much rarer than First
Folio Shakespeares. It has even been laid down that the ultimate rarity
of books varies in the inverse ratio of the number of copies originally
printed, and though the generalization is a little sweeping, it is not
far from the truth. To triumph over small difficulties being the chief
element in games of skill, the different varieties of book-collecting,
which offer almost as many varieties of grades of difficulty, make
excellent hobbies. But in its essence the pastime of a book-collector is
identical with the official work of the curator of a museum, and thus
also with one branch of the duties of the librarian of any library of
respectable age. In its inception every library is a literary workshop,
with more or less of a garden or recreation ground attached according as
its managers are influenced by the humanities or by a narrow conception
of utility. As the library grows, the books and editions which have been
the tools of one generation pass out of use; and it becomes largely a
depository or storehouse of a stock much of which is dead. But from out
of this seemingly dead stock preserved at haphazard, critics and
antiquaries gradually pick out books which they find to be still alive.
Of some of these the interest cannot be reproduced in its entirety by
any mere reprint, and it is this salvage which forms the literary
museum. Book-collectors are privileged to leap at once to this stage in
their relations with books, using the dealers' shops and catalogues as
depositories from which to pick the books which will best fit with the
aim or central idea of their collection. For in the modern private
collection, as in the modern museum, the need for a central idea must be
fully recognized. Neither the collector nor the curator can be content
to keep a mere curiosity-shop. It is the collector's business to
illustrate his central idea by his choice of examples, by the care with
which he describes them and the skill with which they are arranged. In
all these matters many amateurs rival, if they do not outstrip, the
professional curators and librarians, and not seldom their collections
are made with a view to their ultimate transference to public ownership.
In any case it is by the zeal of collectors that books which otherwise
would have perished from neglect are discovered, cared for and
preserved, and those who achieve these results certainly deserve well of
the community.
History.
Whenever a high degree of civilization has been attained book-lovers
have multiplied, and to the student with his modest desire to read his
favourite author in a well-written or well-printed copy there has been
added a class of owners suspected of caring more for the externals of
books than for the enjoyment to be obtained by reading them. But
although adumbrations of it existed under the Roman empire and towards
the end of the middle ages, book-collecting, as it is now understood, is
essentially of modern growth. A glance through what must be regarded as
the medieval text-book on the love of books, the _Philobiblon_,
attributed to Richard de Bury (written in 1345), shows that it deals
almost exclusively with the delights of literature, and Sebastian
Brant's attack on the book-fool, written a century and a half later,
demonstrates nothing more than that the possession of books is a poor
substitute for learning. This is so obviously true that before
book-collecting in the modern sense can begin it is essential that there
should be no lack of books to read, just as until cups and saucers
became plentiful there was no room for the collector of old china. Even
when the invention of printing had reduced the cost of books by some
80%, book-collectors did not immediately appear. There is a natural
temptation to imagine that the early book-owners, whose libraries have
enriched modern collectors with some of their best-known treasures, must
necessarily have been collectors themselves. This is far from being the
case. Hardly a book of all that Jean Grolier (1479-1565) caused to be
bound so tastefully for himself and his friends reveals any antiquarian
instincts in its liberal owner, who bought partly to encourage the best
printers of his day, partly to provide his friends with the most recent
fruits of Renaissance scholarship. In England Archbishop Cranmer, Lords
Arundel and Lumley, and Henry, prince of Wales (1594-1612), in France
the famous historian Jacques Auguste de Thou (1553-1617), brought
together the best books of their day in all departments of learned
literature, put them into handsome leather jackets, and enriched them
with their coats of arms, heraldic badges or other marks of possession.
But they brought their books together for use and study, to be read by
themselves and by the scholars who frequented their houses, and no
evidence has been produced that they appreciated what a collector might
now call the points of a book other than its fine condition and literary
or informational merits. Again, not a few other more or less famous men
have been dubbed collectors on the score of a scanty shelf-full of
volumes known to have been stamped with their arms. Collecting, as
distinct both from the formation of working libraries and from casual
ownership of this latter kind, may perhaps be said to have begun in
England at the time of the antiquarian reaction produced by the
book-massacres when the monasteries were dissolved by Henry VIII., and
the university and college libraries and the parish service books were
plundered and stript by the commissioners of Edward VI. To rescue good
books from perishing is one of the main objects of book-collecting, and
when Archbishop Parker and Sir Robert Cotton set to work to gather what
they could of the scattered records of English statecraft and
literature, and of the decorative art bestowed so lavishly on the books
of public and private devotion, they were book-collectors in a sense and
on a scale to which few of their modern imitators can pretend. Men of
more slender purses, and armed with none of Archbishop Parker's special
powers, worked according to their ability on similar lines. Humphrey
Dyson, an Elizabethan notary, who collected contemporary proclamations
and books from the early English presses, and George Thomason (d. 1666),
the bookseller who bought, stored and catalogued all the pamphlet
literature of the Civil War, were mindful of the future historians of
the days in which they lived. By the end of the 17th century
book-collecting was in full swing all over Europe, and much of its
apparatus had come into existence. In 1676 book auctions were introduced
into England from Holland, and soon we can trace in priced catalogues
the beginning of a taste for Caxtons, and the books prized by collectors
slowly fought their way up from amid the heavy volumes of theology by
which they were at first overwhelmed.
While book-collecting thus came into existence it was rather as an added
grace in the formation of a fine library than as a separate pursuit.
Almost all the large book-buyers of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries
bought with a public object, or were rewarded for their zeal by their
treasures being thought worthy of a public resting-place. Sir Thomas
Smith (d. 1577) bequeathed his books to Queens' College, Cambridge;
Archbishop Parker's were left under severe restrictions to Corpus
Christi College in the same university; Sir Thomas Bodley refounded
during his lifetime the university library at Oxford, to which also Laud
gave liberally and Selden bequeathed his books. The library of
Archbishop Williams went to St John's College, Cambridge; that of
Archbishop Usher was bought for Trinity College, Dublin. The
mathematical and scientific books of Thomas Howard, earl of Norfolk (d.
1646), were given by his grandson to the Royal Society; the heraldic
collections of Ralph Sheldon (d. 1684) to Heralds' College; the library
in which Pepys took so much pleasure to Magdalene College, Cambridge.
Bishop Moore's books, including a little volume of Caxton quartos,
almost all unique, were bought by George I. and presented to the
university library at Cambridge. Archbishop Marsh, who had previously
bought Stillingfleet's printed books (his manuscripts went to Oxford),
founded a library at Dublin. The immense accumulations of Thomas
Rawlinson (d. 1725) provided materials for a series of auctions, and
Harley's printed books were sold to Osbourne the bookseller. But the
trend was all towards public ownership. While Richard Rawlinson (d.
1755) allowed his brother's books to be sold, the best of his own were
bequeathed to Oxford, and the Harleian MSS. were offered to the nation
at a sum far below their value. A similar offer of the great collections
formed by Sir Hans Sloane, including some 50,000 printed books, together
with the need for taking better care of what remained of the Cotton
manuscripts, vested in trustees for public use in 1702 and partially
destroyed by fire in 1731, led to the foundation of the British Museum
in 1753, and this on its opening in 1757 was almost immediately enriched
by George II.'s gift of the old royal library, formed by the kings and
queens of England from Henry VII. to Charles II., and by Henry, prince
of Wales, son of James I., who had bought the books belonging to
Archbishop Cranmer and Lords Arundel and Lumley. A few notable
book-buyers could not afford to bequeath their treasures to libraries,
e.g. Richard Smith, the secondary of the Poultry Compter (d. 1675), at
whose book-sale (1682) a dozen Caxtons sold for from 2 S. to 18 S.
apiece, Dr Francis Bernard (d. 1698), Narcissus Luttrell(d. 1732) and Dr
Richard Mead (d. 1754). At the opposite end of the scale, in the earls
of Sunderland (d. 1722) and Pembroke (d. 1733), we have early examples
of the attempts, seldom successful, of book-loving peers to make their
libraries into permanent heirlooms. But as has been said, the drift up
to 1760 was all towards public ownership, and the libraries were for the
most part general in character, though the interest in typographical
antiquities was already well marked.
When George III. came to the throne he found himself bookless, and the
magnificent library of over 80,000 books and pamphlets and 440
manuscripts which he accumulated shows on a large scale the catholic and
literary spirit of the book-lovers of his day. As befitted the library
of an English king it was rich in English classics as well as in those
of Greece and Rome, and the typographical first-fruits of Mainz, Rome
and Venice were balanced by numerous works from the first presses of
Westminster, London and Oxford. This noble library passed in 1823 to the
British Museum, which had already received the much smaller but
carefully chosen collection of the Rev. C.M. Cracherode (d. 1799), and
in 1846 was further enriched by the wonderful library formed by Thomas
Grenville, the last of its great book-loving benefactors, who died in
that year, aged ninety-one. A few less wealthy men had kept up the old
public-spirited tradition during George III.'s reign, Garrick
bequeathing his fine collection of English plays and Sir Joseph Banks
his natural history books to the British Museum, while Capell's
Shakespearian treasures enriched Trinity College, Cambridge, and those
of Malone went to the Bodleian library at Oxford, the formation of these
special collections, in place of the large general library with a
sprinkling of rarities, being in itself worth noting. But the noble
book-buyers celebrated by the Rev. Thomas Frognall Dibdin in his
numerous bibliographical works kept mainly on the old lines, though with
aims less patriotic than their predecessors. The duke of Roxburghe's
books were sold in 1812, and the excitement produced by the auction,
more especially by the competition between Lord Spencer and the duke of
Marlborough (at that time marquess of Blandford) for an edition of
Boccaccio printed by Valdarfer at Venice in 1471, led to the formation
of the Roxburghe Club at a commemorative dinner. In 1819 the duke of
Marlborough's books were sold, and the Boccaccio for which he had paid
£2260 went to Earl Spencer (d. 1834) for £750, to pass with the rest of
his rare books to Mrs Rylands in 1892, and by her gift to the John
Rylands library at Manchester in 1899. The books of Sir M.M. Sykes were
sold in 1824, those of J.B. Inglis in 1826 (after which he collected
again) and those of George Hibbert in 1829. The 150,000 volumes brought
together by Richard Heber at an expense of about £100,000 were disposed
of by successive sales during the years 1834-1837 and realized not much
more than half their cost. The wonderful library of William Beckford (d.
1844), especially rich in fine bindings, bequeathed to his daughter, the
duchess of Hamilton, was sold in 1882, with the Hamilton manuscripts,
for the most part to the German government. Their dispersal was preceded
in 1881 by that of the Sunderland collection, already mentioned. The
library of Brian Fairfax (d. 1749), which had passed to the earls of
Jersey, was sold in 1885, that of Sir John Thorold (d. 1815) in 1884,
his "Gutenberg" Bible fetching £3900 and his Mainz Psalter £4950. The
great collection of manuscripts formed by Sir Thomas Phillipps (d. 1872)
has furnished materials for numerous sales. The printed books of the
earl of Ashburnham (d. 1878) kept the auctioneers busy in 1897 and 1898;
his manuscripts were sold, some to the British government (the Stowe
collection shared between the British Museum and Dublin), the German
government (part of the Libri and Barrois collection, all, save one MS.
of 13th century German ballads, resold to France), the Italian
government (the rest of the Libri collection) Mr Yates Thompson (the
MSS. known as the Appendix) and Mr J. Pierpont Morgan (the Lindau
Gospels). The collections formed by Mr W.H. Miller (d. 1848, mainly
English poetry), the duke of Devonshire (d. 1858) and Mr Henry Huth (d.
1878), are still intact.
Among the book-buyers of the reign of George III., John Ratcliffe, an
ex-coal-merchant, and James West had devoted themselves specially to
Caxtons (of which the former possessed 48 and the latter 34) and the
products of other early English presses. The collections of Capell and
Garrick were also small and homogeneous. Each section, moreover, of some
of the great libraries that have just been enumerated might fairly be
considered a collection in itself, the union of several collections in
the same library being made possible by the wealth of their purchaser
and the small prices fetched by most classes of books in comparison with
those which are now paid. But perhaps the modern cabinet theory of
book-collecting was first carried out with conspicuous skill by Henry
Perkins (d. 1855), whose 865 fine manuscripts and specimens of early
printing, when sold in 1870, realized nearly £26,000. If surrounded by a
sufficient quantity of general literature the collection might not have
seemed noticeably different from some of those already mentioned, but
the growing cost of books, together with difficulties as to house-room,
combined to discourage miscellaneous buying on a large scale, and what
has been called the "cabinet" theory of collecting, so well carried out
by Henry Perkins, became increasingly popular among book buyers, alike
in France, England and the United States of America. Henri Béraldi, in
his catalogue of his own collection (printed 1892), has described how in
France a little band of book-loving amateurs grew up who laughed at the
_bibliophile de la vieille roche_ as they disrespectfully called their
predecessors, and prided themselves on the unity and compactness of
their own treasures. In place of the miscellaneous library in which
every class of book claimed to be represented, and which needed a
special room or gallery to house it, they aimed at small collections
which should epitomize the owner's tastes and require nothing bulkier
than a neat bookcase or cabinet to hold them. The French bibliophiles
whom M. Béraldi celebrated applied this theory with great success to
collecting the dainty French illustrated books of the 18th century which
were their especial favourites. In England Richard Fisher treated his
fine examples of early book-illustration as part of his collection of
engravings, etchings and woodcuts (illustrated catalogue printed 1879),
and Frederick Locker (Locker-Lampson) formed in two small bookcases such
a gathering of first editions of English imaginative literature that the
mere catalogue of it (printed in 1886) produced the effect of a stately
and picturesque procession. Some of the book-hoards of previous
generations could have spared the equivalent of the Locker collection
without seeming noticeably the poorer, but the compactness and unity of
this small collection, in which every book appears to have been bought
for a special reason and to form an integral part of the whole, gave it
an artistic individuality which was a pleasant triumph for its owner,
and excited so much interest among American admirers of Mr Locker's
poetry that it may be said to have set a fashion. As another example of
the value of a small collection, both for delight and for historical and
artistic study, mention may be made of the little roomful of manuscripts
and incunabula which William Morris brought together to illustrate the
history of the bookish arts in the middle ages before the Renaissance
introduced new ideals. Many living collectors are working in a similar
spirit, and as this spirit spreads the monotony of the old libraries, in
which the same editions of the same books recurred with wearisome
frequency, should be replaced by much greater individuality and variety.
Moreover, if they can be grouped round some central idea cheap books may
yield just as good sport to the collector as expensive ones, and the
collector of quite modern works may render admirable service to
posterity. The only limitation is against books specially manufactured
to attract him, or artificially made rare. A quite wholesome interest in
contemporary first editions was brought to nought about 1889 by the
booksellers beginning to hoard copies of Browning's _Asolando_ and Mr
Lang's _Blue Fairy Book_ on the day of publication, while a graceful but
quite minor poet was made ridiculous by £100 being asked for a set of
his privately printed _opuscula_. The petty gambling in books printed
at the Kelmscott and Doves' presses, and in the fine paper copies of a
certain _Life of Queen Victoria_, for which a premium of 250% was asked
before publication, is another proof that until the manufacturing stage
is over collecting cannot safely begin. But with this exception the
field is open, and the 19th century offers as good a hunting ground as
any of its predecessors.
Objects and methods.
While book-collecting may thus take an endless variety of forms the
heads under which these may be grouped are few and fairly easily
defined. They may be here briefly indicated together with some notes as
to the literature which has grown up round them. The development which
bibliographical literature has taken is indeed very significant of the
changed ideals of collectors. Brunet's _Manuel du libraire_, first
published in 1810, attained its fifth edition in 1860-1864, and has
never since been re-edited (supplement, 1878-1880). The _Bibliographer's
Manual of English Literature_ by W.T. Lowndes, first published in 1834,
was revised by H.G. Bohn in 1857-1864, and of this also no further
edition has been printed. These two works between them gave all the
information the old-fashioned collectors required, the _Trésor de livres
rares et précieux_ by J.G.T. Graesse (Dresden, 1859-1867, supplementary
volume in 1869) adding little to the information given by Brunet. The
day of the omnivorous collector being past, the place of these general
manuals has been taken by more detailed bibliographies and handbooks on
special books, and though new editions of both Lowndes and Brunet would
be useful to librarians and booksellers no publisher has had the courage
to produce them.
To attract a collector a book must appeal to his eye, his mind or his
imagination, and many famous books appeal to all three. A book may be
beautiful by virtue of its binding, its illustrations or the simple
perfection and harmony of its print and paper. The attraction of a fine
binding has always been felt in France, the high prices quoted for
Elzevirs and French first editions being often due much more to their
17th and 18th century jackets than to the books themselves. The
appreciation of old bindings has greatly increased in England since the
exhibition of them at the Burlington Fine Arts Club in 1891 (illustrated
catalogue printed the same year), English blind stamped bindings,
embroidered bindings, and bindings attributable to Samuel Mearne
(_temp._ Charles II.) being much more sought after than formerly. (See
BOOKBINDING.)
Illustrated books of certain periods are also much in request, and with
the exception of a few which early celebrity has prevented becoming rare
have increased inordinately in price. The primitive woodcuts in
incunabula are now almost too highly appreciated, and while the
_Nuremburg Chronicle_ (1493) seldom fetches more than £30 or the
_Hypnerotomachia Poliphili_ (Venice, 1499) more than £120, rarer books
are priced in hundreds. The best books on the subject are: for Italy,
Lippmann's _Wood Engraving in Italy in the 15th Century_ (1888),
Kristeller's _Early Florentine Woodcuts_ (1897), the duc de Rivoli's
(Prince d'Essling's) _Bibliographie des livres à figures vénitiens
1469-1525_ (1892, new edition 1906); for Germany, Muther's _Die deutsche
Bücherillustration der Gothik und Frührenaissance_ (1884); for Holland
and Belgium, Sir W.M. Conway's _The Woodcutters of the Netherlands in
the 15th Century_ (1884); for France the material will all be found in
Claudin's _Histoire de l'imprimerie en France_ (1900, &c.). Some
information on the illustrated books of the early 16th century is given
in Butsch's _Die Bücherornamentik der Renaissance_ (1878), but the
pretty French books of the middle of the century and the later Dutch and
English copper-engraved book illustrations (for the latter see Colvin's
_Early Engraving and Engravers in England_, 1905) have been imperfectly
appreciated. This cannot be said of the French books of the 18th century
chronicled by H. Cohen, _Guide de l'amateur de livre à gravures du
XVIII^e siècle_ (5th ed., 1886), much of the same information, with a
little more about English books, being given in Lewine's _Bibliography
of Eighteenth Century Art and Illustrated Books_ (1898). English books
with coloured illustrations, for which there has arisen a sudden
fashion, are well described in Martin Hardie's _English Colour Books_
(1906). Bewick's work has been described by Mr Austin Dobson.
Appreciation of finely printed books has seldom extended much beyond the
15th century. In addition to the works mentioned in the article on
incunabula(q.v.), note may be made of Humphrey's _Masterpieces of the
Early Printers and Engravers_ (1870), while Lippmann's _Druckschriften
des XV. bis XVIII Jahrhunderts_ (1884-1887) covers, though not very
fully, the later period.
Among books which make an intellectual appeal to the collectors may be
classed all works of historical value which have not been reprinted, or
of which the original editions are more authentic, or convincing, than
modern reprints. It is evident that these cover a vast field, and that
the collector in taking possession of any corner of it is at once the
servant and rival of historical students. Lord Crawford's vast
collections of English, Scottish and Irish proclamations and of papal
bulls may be cited as capital instances of the work which a collector
may do for the promotion of historical research, and the philological
library brought together by Prince Lucien Bonaparte (_An Attempt at a
Catalogue_ by V. Collins, published 1894) and the Foxwell collection of
early books on political economy (presented to the university of London
by the Goldsmiths' Company) are two other instances of recent date. Much
collecting of this kind is now being carried on by the libraries of
institutes and societies connected with special professions and studies,
but there is ample room also for private collectors to work on these
lines.
Of books which appeal to a collector's imagination the most obvious
examples are those which can be associated with some famous person or
event. A book which has belonged to a king or queen (more especially one
who, like Mary queen of Scots, has appealed to popular sympathies), or
to a great statesman, soldier or poet, which bears any mark of having
been valued by him, or of being connected with any striking incident in
his life, has an interest which defies analysis. Collectors themselves
have a natural tenderness for their predecessors, and a copy of a famous
work is all the more regarded if its pedigree can be traced through a
long series of book-loving owners. Hence the production of such works as
_Great Book-Collectors_ by Charles and Mary Elton (1893), _English
Book-Collectors_ by W.Y. Fletcher (1902) and Guigard's _Nouvel armorial
du bibliophile_ (1890). Books condemned to be burnt, or which have
caused the persecution of their authors, have an imaginative interest of
another kind, though one which seems to have appealed more to writers of
books than to collectors. As has already been noted, most of the books
specially valued by collectors make a double or triple appeal to the
collecting instinct, and the desire to possess first editions may be
accounted for partly by their positive superiority over reprints for
purposes of study, partly by the associations which they can be proved
to possess or which imagination creates for them. The value set on them
is at least to some extent fanciful. It would be difficult, for
instance, to justify the high prices paid by collectors of the days of
George III. for the first printed editions of the Greek and Latin
classics. With few exceptions these are of no value as texts, and there
are no possible associations by which they can be linked with the
personality of their authors. It may be doubted whether any one now
collects them save as specimens of printing, though no class of books
which has once been prized ever sinks back into absolute obscurity. On
the other hand the prestige of the first editions of English and French
literary masterpieces has immensely increased. A first folio Shakespeare
(1623) was in 1906 sold separately for £3000, and the MacGeorge copies
of the first four folios (1623, 1632, 1663-1664 and 1685) fetched
collectively the high price of £10,000. The quarto editions of
Shakespeare plays have appreciated even more, several of these little
books, once sold at 6d. apiece, having fetched over £1000, while the
unknown and unique copy of the 1594 edition of _Titus Andronicus_,
discovered in Sweden, speedily passed to an American collector for
£2000. Information as to early editions of famous English books will be
found in Lowndes' _Bibliographer's Manual_, in Hazlitt's _Handbook to
the Popular Poetical and Dramatic Literature of Great Britain from the
Invention of Printing to the Restoration_ (1867) and his subsequent
_Collections and Notes_ (1876-1903), and as to more recent books in
Slater's _Early Editions, a bibliographical survey of the works of some
popular modern authors_ (1894), while French classics have found an
excellent chronicler in Jules Le Petit (_Bibliographie des principales
éditions originales d'ècrivains français du XV^e au XVIII^e siècle_,
1888).
In most cases there is a marked falling off in the interest with which
early editions other than the first are regarded, and consequently in
the prices paid for them, though important changes in the text give to
the edition in which they first occur some shadow of the prestige
attaching to an original issue. One of the recognized byways of
book-collecting, however, used to be the collection of as many editions
as possible of the same work. When this result in the acquisition of
numerous late editions of no value for the text its only usefulness
would appear to be the index it may offer to the author's popularity.
But in translations of the Bible, in liturgical works, and in editions
published during the author's life the aid offered to the study of the
development of the final text by a long row of intermediate editions may
be very great.
Another instance in which imagination reinforces the more positive
interest a book may possess is in the case of editions which can be
connected with the origin, diffusion or development of printing. Piety
suggests that book-lovers should take a special interest in the history
of the art which has done so much for their happiness, and in this
respect they have mostly shown themselves religious. The first book
printed in any town is reasonably coveted by local antiquaries, and the
desire to measure the amount and quality of the work of every early
printer has caused the preservation of thousands of books which would
otherwise have perished. (See INCUNABULA.)
The financial side of book-collecting may be studied in Slater's
_Book-Prices Current_, published annually since 1887, and in
Livingston's _American Book Prices Current_, and in the same author's
_Auction Prices of Books_ (1905). While largely influenced by fashion
the prices given for books are never wholly unreasonable. They are
determined, firstly by the positive or associative interest which can be
found in the book itself, secondly by the infrequency with which copies
come into the market compared with the number and wealth of their
would-be possessors, and thirdly, except in the case of books of the
greatest interest and rarity, by the condition of the copy offered in
respect to completeness, size, freshness and absence of stains.
(A. W. Po.)
BOOK-KEEPING, a systematic record of business transactions, in a form
conveniently available for reference, made by individuals or
corporations engaged in commercial or financial operations with a view
to enabling them with the minimum amount of trouble and of dislocation
to the business itself to ascertain at any time (1) the detailed
particulars of the transactions undertaken, and (2) the cumulative
effect upon the business and its financial relations to others.
Book-keeping, sometimes described as a science and sometimes as an art,
partakes of the nature of both. It is not so much a discovery as a
growth, the crude methods of former days having been gradually improved
to meet the changing requirements of business, and this process of
evolution is still going on. The ideal of any system of book-keeping is
the maximum of record combined with the minimum of labour, but as
dishonesty has to be guarded against, no system of book-keeping can be
regarded as adequate which does not enable the record to be readily
verified as a true and complete statement of the transactions involved.
Such a verification is called an audit, and in the case of public and
other large concerns is ordinarily undertaken by professional
accountants (q.v.). Where the book-keeping staff is large it is
usually organized so that its members, to some extent at least, check
each other's work, and to that extent an audit, known as a "staff audit"
or "internal check," is frequently performed by the book-keeping staff
itself.
Formerly, when credit was a considerably less important factor than now
in commercial transactions, book-keeping was frequently limited to an
account of receipts and payments of money; and in early times, before
money was in use, to an account of the receipt and issue of goods of
different kinds. Even now what may be called the "cash system" of
accounts is almost exclusively used by governments, local authorities,
and charitable and other institutions; but in business it is equally
necessary to record movements of credit, as a mere statement of receipts
and payments of money would show only a part of the total number of
transactions undertaken. As for practical purposes some limit must be
placed upon the daily record of transactions, certain classes show only
a record of cash receipts and payments, which must, when it is desired
to ascertain the actual position of affairs, be adjusted by bringing
into account those transactions which have not yet been completed by the
receipt or payment of money. For instance, it is usual to charge
customers with goods sold to them at the date when the sale takes place,
and to give them credit for the amount received in payment upon the date
of receipt (thus completely recording every phase of the transaction as
and when it occurs); but in connexion (say) with wages it is not usual
to give each workman credit for the services rendered by him from day to
day, but merely to charge up the amounts, when paid, to a wages account,
which thus at any date only shows the amounts which have actually been
paid, and takes no cognisance of the sums accruing due. When, therefore,
it is desired to ascertain the actual expenditure upon wages for any
given period, it is necessary to allow for the payments made during that
period in respect of work previously performed, and to add the value of
work performed during the current period which remains unpaid. In the
majority of businesses those accounts which deal with various forms of
standing expenses are thus dealt with, and in consequence the record, as
it appears from day to day, is _pro tanto_ incomplete. Another very
important series of transactions which is not included in the ordinary
day-to-day record is that representing the loss gradually accruing by
reason of waste, or depreciation, of assets or general equipment of the
business; proper allowance for these losses must of course be made
whenever it is desired to ascertain the true position of affairs.
History.
The origin of book-keeping is lost in obscurity, but recent researches
would appear to show that some method of keeping accounts has existed
from the remotest times. Babylonian records have been found dating back
as far as 2600 B.C., written with a stylus on small slabs of clay, and
it is of interest to note (_Records of the Past_, xi. 89) that these
slabs or tablets "usually contain impressions from cylinder seals, and
nail marks, which were considered to be a man's natural seal," thus
showing that the modern method of identifying criminals by finger prints
had its counterpart in Babylonia some 4500 years ago. Egyptian records
were commonly written on papyrus, and contemporary pictures show a
scribe keeping account of the quantities of grain brought into and
removed from the government store-houses. It will thus be seen that some
form of book-keeping existed long before bound books were known, and
therefore the more general term _accounting_ would seem to be
preferable--the more so as the most modern developments are in the
direction of again abandoning the bound book in favour of loose or
easily detached sheets of paper or card, thus capable of being
rearranged as circumstances or convenience may dictate. Most of the
earlier accounting records are in the nature of a mere narrative of
events, which--however complete in itself--failed to fulfil the second
requirement of an adequate system of book-keeping already referred to.
Prior to the use of money nothing in this direction could of course well
be attempted; but for a long time after its employment became general
money values were recorded in Roman figures, which naturally did not
lend themselves to ready calculation.
At the present-time it may be generally stated that all book-keeping
records are kept in three distinct columns, dealing respectively with
the date of the transaction, its nature, and its money value. The
earliest extant example of accounts so kept is probably a ledger in the
Advocates' library at Edinburgh, dated 1697, which, it is of interest to
note, is ruled by hand. Prior to that time, however, double-entry
book-keeping had been in general use. The exact date of its introduction
is unknown; but it was certainly not, as has been frequently stated, the
invention of Lucas de Bergo, in or about 1494. This, however, is the
date of the first issue (at Venice) of a printed book entitled
_Everything about Arithmetic, Geometry and Proportion_, by Luca Paciolo,
which contains _inter alia_ an explanation of book-keeping by
double-entry as then understood; but in all probability, the system had
then been in use for something like 200 years. It is perhaps unfortunate
that from 1494 until comparatively recent times the literature of
accounting has been provided by theorists and students, rather than by
practical business men, and it may well be doubted, therefore, whether
it accurately describes contemporary procedure. Another illusion which
it is necessary to expose in the interests of truth is the value
attached to _Jones's English System of Book-keeping by Single or Double
Entry_, published at Bristol in 1796. Before publishing this book, E.T.
Jones issued a prospectus, stating that he had patented an entirely new
and greatly improved system, and that subscribers (at a guinea a copy)
would be entitled to a special licence empowering them to put the new
invention into practice in their own book-keeping. With this bait he
secured thousands of subscribers, but so far as can be gathered his
system was entirely without merit, and it is chiefly of interest as
indicating the value, even then, of advertising.
Modern methods.
It is impossible here to describe fully all the improvements that have
been made in methods of accounting during recent years, but it is
proposed to deal with the more important of these improvements, after
the general principles upon which all systems of book-keeping are based
have been briefly described.
The centre of all book-keeping systems is the _ledger_, and it may be
said that all other books are only kept as a matter of practical
convenience--hence the name "subsidiary books" that is frequently
applied thereto. Inasmuch, however, as the transactions are first
recorded in these subsidiary books, and afterwards classified therefrom
into the ledger, the names _books of entry_ or _books of first entry_
are often employed. Subsidiary books which do not form the basis of
subsequent entries into the ledger, but are merely used for statistical
purposes, are known as _statistical_ or _auxiliary books_. In the early
days of book-keeping the ledger comprised merely those accounts which it
was thought desirable to keep accessible, and was not a complete record
of all transactions. Thus in many instances records were only kept of
transactions with other business houses, known as _personal accounts_.
In the earliest examples transactions tending to reduce indebtedness
were recorded in order of date, as they occurred underneath transactions
recording the creation of the indebtedness; and the amount of the
reduction was subtracted from the sum of the indebtedness up to that
date. This method was found to be inconvenient, and the next step was to
keep one account of the transactions recording the creation of
indebtedness and another account (called the _contra account_) of those
transactions reducing or extinguishing it. For convenience these two
accounts were kept on opposite sides of the ledger, and thus was evolved
the _Dr._ and _Cr._ account as at present in general use:--
_Dr._ A.B. Contra. _Cr._
-------+-------------+---------++-------+------------+---------
Date. | Narrative. | Amount. || Date. | Narrative. | Amount.
-------+-------------+---------++-------+------------+---------
| | £ s. d. || | | £ s. d.
| | || | |
| | || | |
| | || | |
In this form of account all transactions creating indebtedness due from
the person named therein to the business--that is to say, all benefits
received by that person from the buisness--are recorded upon the
left-hand, or _Dr._ side, and _per contra_ all transactions representing
benefits imparted by him, giving rise to a liability on the part of the
business, are recorded upon the _Cr._ side. The account may run on
indefinitely, but as a matter of convenience is usually ruled off each
time all indebtedness is extinguished, and also at certain periodical
intervals, so that the state of the account may then be readily
apparent.
Single-entry accounts.
A mere collection of _personal accounts_ is, however, obviously a very
incomplete record of the transactions of any business, and does not
suffice to enable a statement of its financial position to be prepared.
So at an early date other accounts were added to the ledger, recording
the acquisition of and disposal of different classes of property, such
accounts being generally known as _real accounts_. These accounts are
kept upon the same principle as personal accounts, in that all
expenditure upon the part of the business is recorded upon the _Dr._
side, and all receipts upon the _Cr._ side; the excess of the debit
entries over the credit entries thus showing the value placed upon those
assets that still remain the property of the business. With the aid of
personal and real accounts properly written up to date, it is possible
at any time to prepare a statement of assets and liabilities showing the
financial position of a business, and the following is an example of
such a statement, which shows also how the profit made by the business
may be thus ascertained, assuming that the financial position at the
commencement of the current financial period, and the movements of
capital into and out of the business during the period, are capable of
being ascertained.
STATE OF AFFAIRS AS AT 31ST DECEMBER 1906
+----+--------------------+----------------++------------------+---------------
| | _Liabilities._ | || _Assets._ |
| | | || |
| | Trade Creditors | £4,961 10 0 || Fixtures, Furni- |
| | Bills Payable | 2,620 18 4 || ture, &c. | £1,269 4 3
| | Balance, being ex- | || Stock on hand | 5,751 3 10
| | cess of assets | || Trade Debtors | 3,842 7 9
| | over liabilities | || Bills Recievable | 7,468 14 3
| | (or "Capital") | || Cash at Bank | 4,169 5 5
| | at this date | || |
| | carried down | 14,918 7 4 || |
| | +----------------++ +---------------
| | |£22,500 15 6 || |£22,500 15 6
| | +----------------++ +---------------
| | Amount of Capi- | || Balance brought |
| | tal on 1st Jan. | || down |£14,918 7 2
| | 1906 |£15,010 1 7 || |
| | Balance, being net | || Amount drawn |
| | profit for the | || out of business|
| | year ended this | || during year |
| | date | 1,408 5 7 || ended this date| 1,500 0 0
| | +----------------++ +---------------
| | |£16,418 7 2 || |£16,418 7 2
+----+--------------------+----------------++------------------+---------------
The method of accounting hitherto described represents _single-entry_,
which--albeit manifestly incomplete--is still very generally used by
small business houses, and particularly by retail traders. Its essential
weakness is that it provides no automatic check upon the clerical
accuracy of the record, and, should any mistake be made in the keeping
of the books, or in the extraction therefrom of the lists of assets and
liabilities, the statement of assets and liabilities and the profit or
loss of the current financial period, will be incorrect to an equal
extent. It was to avoid this obvious weakness of single-entry that the
system of double-entry was evolved.
Double-entry.
The essential principle of double-entry is that it constitutes a
complete record of _every_ business transaction, and as these
transactions are invariably cross-dealings--involving simultaneously the
receipt of a benefit by some one and the imparting of a benefit by some
one--a complete record of transactions from both points of view
necessitates an entry of equal amount upon debit and credit sides of the
ledger. Hence it follows that, if the clerical work be correctly
performed, the aggregate amount entered up upon the debit side of the
ledger must at all times equal the aggregate amount entered up upon the
credit side; and thus a complete list of all ledger balances will show
an agreement of the total debit balances with the total credit balances.
Such a list is called a _trial balance_, an example of which is given
below. It should be observed, however, that the test supplied by the
_trial balance_ is a purely mechanical one, and does not prove the
absolute accuracy of the ledger as a record of transactions. Thus
transactions which have actually taken place may have been omitted from
the books altogether, or they may have been recorded to the wrong
accounts, or the money values attached to them may be incorrect; or, yet
again, fictitious records may be entered in the ledger of transactions
which have never taken place. A _trial balance_ is thus no very adequate
safeguard against fraud, nor does it bring to light mistakes in the
monetary value attaching to the various transactions recorded. This last
point is of especial importance, in that the monetary value of
transactions may have been correctly recorded in the first instance, but
owing to altered circumstances may have become inaccurate at a later
date. This of course means that the altered circumstances constitute an
additional "transaction" which has been omitted.
TRIAL BALANCE, 31ST DECEMBER 1906
----+-------------------------+---------------+--------------
| | _Dr._ | _Cr._
1 | Capital account | | £15,010 1 7
5 | Drawings | 1,500 0 0 |
20 | Trade creditors | | 4,961 10 0
24 | Fixtures, furniture, &c.| 1,269 4 3 |
27 | Bills payable | | 2,620 18 4
40 | Bad debts | 71 4 2 |
44 | Stock 1st Jan. 1906 | 4,078 16 4 |
50 | Discounts allowed | 975 3 3 |
53 | Trade debtors | 3,842 7 9 |
60 | Discounts received | | 1,117 17 8
65 | Wages and salaries | 1,865 12 0 |
75 | Depreciation | 141 0 5 |
78 | Rent, rates and taxes | 1,242 13 8 |
82 | General expenses | 1,087 8 0 |
90 | Bills receivable | 7,468 14 3 |
97 | Purchases | 44,731 2 10 |
100 | Sales | | 48,732 4 9
C56 | Cash at bank | 4,169 5 5 |
| +---------------+--------------
| | £72,442 12 4 | £72,442 12 4
----+-------------------------+---------------+--------------
Balance sheet.
It will be observed, therefore, that in order to complete the record of
the transactions by double-entry, it has become necessary to introduce
into the ledger a third class of accounts, known as _impersonal_ or
_nominal accounts_. These accounts record the transferences of money, or
of money's worth, which, so far from representing a mere reshuffling of
assets and liabilities, involve an increase in or a reduction of the
amount invested in the business, i.e. a profit or a loss. Transactions
representing profits are recorded upon the _Cr._ side of nominal
accounts, and those representing losses (including expenses) upon the
_Dr._ side. This is consistent with the rules already laid down in
connexion with real and nominal accounts, inasmuch as expenditure which
does not result in the acquisition of an asset is a loss, whereas
receipts which do not involve the creation of liabilities represent
profits. All debit balances therefore that are not assets are losses,
and _per contra_ all credit balances that are not liabilities are
profits. So that, inasmuch as double-entry provides _inter alia_ a
complete statement under suitable headings of all profits and all
losses, it is possible by aggregating these results to deduce therefrom
the net profit or loss of carrying on the business--and that by a method
entirely distinct from that previously described in connexion with
single-entry, thus constituting a valuable additional check. Taking the
trial balance shown above, the following represent the _trading
account_, _profit and loss account_, and _balance sheet_ compiled
therefrom. The trading account may be variously regarded as the account
recording the movements of goods which represent the stock-in-trade, and
as a preliminary to (or a subdivision of) the profit and loss account.
The balance sheet is a statement of the assets and liabilities;
but--inasmuch as, by transferring the balance of the profit and loss
account to the capital account, it is possible to bring the latter
account up to date and to show the credit balance representing the
surplus of assets over liabilities to date--the balance sheet, instead
of showing a difference, or a "balance," representing what is _assumed
to be_ the amount of the capital to date, shows an absolute agreement of
assets upon the one hand and of liabilities _plus_ capital upon the
other. The two sides of the account thus balance--hence the name.
_Dr._ TRADING ACCOUNT for the Year ended 31st December 1906 _Cr._
------+-------------------------------------+-------------++-------+-----------------------------+-------------
| To Stock on hand, 1st Jan. 1906 | £4,078 16 4|| | By Sales |£48,732 4 9
| " Purchases | 44,731 2 10|| | " Stock on hand 31st Dec. |
| " Gross Profit, transferred | || | 1906 | 5,751 3 10
| to Profit and Loss account | 5,673 9 5|| | |
| |-------------++ | +-------------
| |£54,483 8 7|| | |£54,483 8 7
------+-------------------------------------+-------------++-------+-----------------------------+-------------
_Dr._ PROFIT AND LOSS ACCOUNT for the Year ended 31st December 1906 _Cr._
------+-------------------------------------+-------------++-------+-----------------------------+-------------
| To Rent, rates and taxes £1,242 13 8| || | By Gross Profit as per |
| " Salaries and wages 1,865 12 0| || | Trading Account | £5,673 9 5
| " General expenses 1,087 8 0| || | " Discount received | 1,117 17 8
| ----------+ £4,195 13 8|| | |
| " Discounts allowed | 975 3 3|| | |
| " Bad debts | 71 4 2|| | |
| " Deprecation | 141 0 5|| | |
| " Net Profit for the year trans- | || | |
| ferred to Capital account | 1,408 5 7|| | |
| +-------------++ | +-------------
| | £6,791 7 1|| | | £6,791 7 1
------+-------------------------------------+-------------++-------+-----------------------------+-------------
_Dr._ BALANCE SHEET as at 31st December 1906 _Cr._
------+-------------------------------------+-------------++-------+-----------------------------+-------------
| To A.B., Capital account |£14,918 7 2|| | By Fixtures, furniture, &c. | £1,269 4 3
| " Trade creditors | 4,961 10 0|| | " Stock on hand | 5,751 3 10
| " Bills payable | 2,620 18 4|| | " Trade debtors | 3,842 7 9
| | || | " Bills receivable | 7,468 14 3
| | || | " Cash at bank | 4,169 5 5
| +-------------++ | +-------------
| |£22,500 15 6|| | |£22,500 15 6
------+-------------------------------------+-------------++-------+-----------------------------+-------------
_Dr._ A.B., CAPITAL ACCOUNT _Cr._
------+-------------------------------------+-------------++-------+-----------------------------+-------------
| || 1906. | |
1906. | To Drawings account | £1,500 0 0||Jan. 1 | By balance from last account|£15,010 1 7
Dec 31| " Balance carried down | 14,918 7 2||Dec. 31| " Profit and Loss account, |
| | || | being net profit for the |
| || | year ended this date | 1,408 5 7
| +-------------++ | +-------------
| |£16,418 7 2|| | |£16,418 7 2
| +-------------++ | +-------------
| | || 1907. | |
| | ||Jan. 1 | By Balance brought down |£14,918 7 2
------+-------------------------------------+-------------++-------+-----------------------------+-------------
In the foregoing example the customary method has been followed of
deducting withdrawals of capital from the capital account and of adding
profits thereto. Sometimes, however, the balance of the capital account
remains constant, and the drawings and net profits are transferred to a
separate account called _current account_. This plan is but rarely
observed in the case of undertakings owned by individuals, or private
firms, but is invariably adopted in connexion with joint-stock
companies, although in such cases the name _appropriation of profit
account_ is generally employed.
Journal.
Although it is now usual to employ several books of first-entry, in the
case of comparatively small businesses one such book is sufficient for
all purposes, in that it is practicable for one person to record all the
transactions that take place as and when they occur. A book of this
description is called the _journal_, and for many years represented the
only book of first-entry employed in book-keeping. An example of the
journal is given below. The entries appearing therein are such as would
be necessary to prepare the trading and profit and loss accounts from
the trial balance shown above, and to bring the capital account up to
date.
In modern times, however, with the growth of business, it was soon found
impracticable to keep one book of first-entry for all transactions, and
accordingly it became necessary either to treat the journal as an
intermediate book, in which the transactions might be brought together
and focused as a preliminary to being recorded in the ledger, or else to
split up the journal into numerous books of first-entry, each of which
might in that case be employed for the record of a particular class of
transaction. The first method has been generally adopted in the
continental countries of Europe, as will be shown later on, whereas in
Great Britain and in North America the latter method more generally
obtains; that is, instead of having one journal in which all classes of
transactions are recorded in the first instance, it is usual to employ
several journals, as follows:--a _sales journal, sales book_ or _day
book_, to record particulars of goods sold; a _bought journal, invoice
book_ or _purchases book_, to record particulars of goods purchased; a
_returns inwards book_, to record particulars of goods sold but
subsequently returned by customers; a _returns outwards book_, to record
the like particulars with regard to goods purchased and subsequently
returned; a _bills receivable book_, to record particulars of bills of
exchange received from debtors; and a _bills payable book_, to record
particulars of bills of exchange given to creditors.
JOURNAL 1906
-------+----------------------------+----+---------------+---------------+
| | | _Dr._ | _Cr._ |
Dec. 31|Trading account |110 | £48,809 19 2 | |
| To Stock account | 44 | | £ 4,078 16 4 |
| " Purchases account | 97 | | 44,731 2 10 |
+----------------------------+ | | |
" |Sales account |100 | 48,732 4 9 | |
|Stock account | 44 | 5,751 3 10 | |
| To Trading account |110 | | 54,483 8 7 |
+----------------------------+ | | |
" |Trading account |110 | 5,673 9 5 | |
| To Profit and Loss | | | |
| account |120 | | 5,673 9 5 |
+----------------------------+ | | |
" |Profit and Loss account |120 | 5,383 1 6 | |
| To Rent, rates and taxes | 78 | | 1,242 13 8 |
| " Salaries and wages | 65 | | 1,865 12 0 |
| " General expenses | 82 | | 1,087 8 0 |
| " Discounts allowed | 50 | | 975 3 3 |
| " Bad debts | 40 | | 71 4 2 |
| " Depreciation | 75 | | 141 0 5 |
+----------------------------+ | | |
" |Discounts received | 60 | 1,117 17 8 | |
| To Profit and Loss account|120 | | 1,117 17 8 |
+----------------------------+ | | |
" |Profit and Loss account |120 | 1,408 5 7 | |
| To A.B., Capital account | 1 | | 1,408 5 7 |
+----------------------------+ | | |
|A.B., Captial account | 1 | 1,500 0 0 | |
| To Drawings account | 5 | | 1,500 0 0 |
| | +---------------+---------------+
| | |£118,376 1 11 |£118,376 1 11 |
------------------------------------+----+---------------+---------------+
DAY BOOK 1906
-----+----------------------------------+---------+-----------
| Forward | |£3761 7 8
+--------- 27th December. ---------+ |
| A. Brown, | |
| 492 New Street, Walworth-- | |
471 | 2 doz. V.C. port 31/- | £3 2 0 |
| 1 " A.C. pale brandy 49/- | 2 9 0 |
| | |
-----+--------- 28th December. ---------+---------+ 5 11 0
| Fredk. Newton, | |
| Farleigh House, Epsom-- | |
216 | 1 gall. E. Pale sherry 13/6 | £0 13 6 |
| 2 doz. O.B. Heidsieck 1892 160/- | 16 0 0 |
| 2 gall. P. Scotch 21/- | 2 2 0 |
-----+----------------------------------+---------+ 18 15 6
| Robert French, | |
| 214 High Road, Sutton-- | |
408 | 6 doz. F.D. Pommard, 1899 30/- | £9 0 0 |
| 1 " M.F. Margaux, 1893 66/- | 3 6 0 |
| 2 " A. Niersteiner 24/- | 2 8 0 |
| +---------+ 14 14 0
| | +-----------
| | |£3800 8 2
| | +-----------
| | |
| | | 100
| | |
-----+----------------------------------+---------+-----------
With a view still further to split up the work, thus enabling a large
staff to be simultaneously engaged, the ledger itself is now generally
kept in sections. Thus the cash account and the bank account are
frequently bound together in one separate book called the _cash book_,
showing in parallel columns the movements of office cash and of cash at
the bank, and by the addition of a third column for discounts the
necessity of keeping an additional book of first entry as a _discount
journal_ may also be avoided. Of late years, however, most businesses
pay all moneys received into their bankers without deduction, and pay
all accounts by cheque; the necessity of an account for office cash thus
no longer exists, save in connexion with petty payments, which are
recorded in a separate book called the _petty cash book_. With regard to
the remaining ledger accounts, personal accounts--which are the most
numerous--are frequently separated from the real and nominal accounts,
and are further subdivided so that customers' accounts are kept separate
from the accounts of trade creditors. The customers' accounts are kept
in a ledger (or, if need be, in several ledgers) called _sales ledgers_,
or _sold ledgers_; while the accounts of trade creditors are similarly
kept in _purchases ledgers_ or _bought ledgers_. The nominal and real
accounts, if together, are kept in what is called the _general ledger_;
but this may be further subdivided into a _nominal ledger_ and a
_private ledger_. This last subdivision is, however, rarely made upon a
scientific basis, for such accounts as the profit and loss account and
trading account are generally kept in the private ledger although
strictly speaking nominal accounts; while the bills receivable account
and the bills payable account are generally kept in the nominal ledger,
so as to reduce to a minimum the amount of clerical work in connexion
with the private ledger, which is kept either by the principal himself
or by his confidential employee. By the employment of _adjustment
accounts_, which complete the double-entry record in each ledger, these
various ledgers may readily be made self-balancing, thus enabling
clerical errors to be localized and responsibility enforced.
Tabular book-keeping.
Of recent years considerable attention has been devoted to further
modifications of book-keeping methods with a view to reducing clerical
work, increasing the speed with which results are available, and
enabling them to be handled more quickly and with greater certainty.
_Tabular book-keeping_ is a device to achieve one or more of these ends
by the substitution of books ruled with numerous columns for the more
usual form. The system may be applied either to books of first entry or
to ledgers. As applied to books of first-entry it enables the same book
to deal conveniently with more than one class of transaction; thus if
the trading of a business is divided into several departments, by
providing a separate column for the sales of each department it is
possible readily to arrive at separate totals for the aggregate sales of
each, thus simplifying the preparation of departmental trading accounts.
As applied to ledgers, the application of the system may be best
described by the aid of the above example (the proceedings of the
columns being given only), which shows how a very large number of
personal accounts may be recorded upon a single opening of a ledger
provided the number of entries to be made against each individual be
few.
-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------
(a) | (b) | (c) | (d) | (e) | (f) | (g) | (h) | (i) | (j) | (k) | (l)
-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------
| |£ s. d.|£ s. d.|£ s. d.| |£ s. d.|£ s. d.|£ s. d.|£ s. d.|£ s. d.|
| | | | | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | | | | |
(a) Reference No. (b) Name of Debtor.
(c) Amount due on 1st Oct. 1906 (d) Charges for Current Quarter.
(e) Total Debit. (f) Date received.
(g) Amount Received. (h) Discounts.
(i) Allowances. (j) Bad Debts.
{k} Amount due on 31st Dec. 1906 (l) Remarks.
[Illustration: FIG 1.--Card-Ledger Tray (Librry Bureau System).]
Slip system.
Another important application of modern methods consists of what may be
described as the _slip system_, which is in many respects a reversion to
the method of keeping records upon movable slabs or tablets, as in the
Babylonian accounts referred to at the beginning of this article. This
system may be applied to books of first-entry, or to ledgers, or to
both. As applied to books of first-entry it aims at so modifying the
original record of the transaction--whether it represents an invoice for
goods sold or an acknowledgment given for money received--that a
facsimile duplicate may be taken of the original entry by the aid of a
carbon sheet, which instead of being immovably bound up in a book is
capable of being handled separately and placed in any desired order or
position, and thus more readily recorded in the ledger. Postings are
thus made direct from the original slips, which have been first sorted
out into an order convenient for that purpose, and afterwards resorted
so that the total sales of each department may be readily computed;
after which they are filed away in a form convenient for reference.
Sometimes the process is carried a step further, and the original slips,
filed away with suitable guide-cards indicating the nature of the
account, themselves constitute the ledger record--which in such cases is
to be found scattered over a number of sheets, one for each transaction,
instead of, as in the case of the ordinary book ledger, a considerable
number of transactions being recorded upon a single page. This
adaptation of the slip system is impracticable except in cases where the
transactions with each individual are few in number, and is not worth
adoption unless the exceedingly large number of personal accounts makes
it important as far as possible to avoid all duplication of clerical
work. The more usual adaptation of the slip system to ledgers is to be
found in the employment of _card ledgers_ or _loose-leaf ledgers_. With
card ledgers (fig. 1) each ledger account is upon an independent sheet
of cardboard suitably arranged in drawers or cabinets. The system is
advantageous as allowing all dead matter to be eliminated from the
record continuously in use, and as permitting the order in which the
accounts stand to be varied from time to time as convenience dictates,
thus (if necessary) enabling the accounts to be always kept in
alphabetical order in spite of the addition of new accounts and the
dropping out of old ones. An especial convenience of the card system is
that in times of pressure any desired number of book-keepers may be
simultaneously employed, whereas the maximum number that can be usefully
employed upon any bound book is two. The loose-leaf ledger (fig. 2) may
be described as midway between card and bound ledgers. It consists of a
number of sheets in book form, so bound as to be capable of being
readily separated when desired. The loose-leaf ledger thus embraces most
of the advantages of the card ledger, while remaining sufficiently like
the more old-fashioned book ledger as to enable it to be readily handled
by those whose previous experience has been confined to the latter. Both
the card and loose-leaf systems will be frequently found of value for
records in connexion with cost and stores accounts, quite irrespective
of their advantages in connexion with the book-keeping records pure and
simple of certain businesses.
[Illustration: FIG. 2.--Loose-Leaf Ledger (Library Bureau System.)]
Legislative Requirements.
All book-keeping methods rest upon the same fundamental principles, but
their development in practice in different countries is to some extent
influenced by the manner in which business is there conducted, and by
the legislative requirements imposed by the several states. In France
traders are required by the Code of Commerce to keep three books--a
journal, an inventory and a letter book, somewhat elaborate provisions
being made to identify these books, and to prevent substitution. The
compulsory journal makes the employment of numerous books of first-entry
impossible without an undesirable amount of duplication, and wherever
this provision obtains the book-keeping methods are in an accordingly
comparatively backward state. The inventory book comprises periodical
lists of ledger balances and the balance sheet, records which are
invariably kept under every adequate system, although not always in a
book specially set aside for that purpose. In Germany the statutory
requirements are similar to those in France, save that the journal is
not compulsory; but there is an additional provision that the accounts
are to be kept in _bound_ books with the pages numbered consecutively--a
requirement which makes the introduction of card or loose-leaf ledgers
of doubtful legality. A balance sheet must be drawn up every year; but
where a stock-in-trade is from its nature or its size difficult to take,
it is sufficient for an inventory to be taken every two years. In
Belgium the law requires every merchant to keep a journal recording his
transactions from day to day, which (with the balance book) must be
initialled by a prescribed officer. All letters and telegrams received,
and copies of all such sent, must be preserved for ten years. The
Commercial Code of Spain requires an inventory, journal, ledger, letter
book and invoice book to be kept; while that of Portugal prescribes the
use of a balance book, journal, ledger and copy-letter book. The law of
Holland requires business men to keep books in which are correctly
recorded their commercial transactions, letters received and copies of
letters sent. It also provides for the preparation of an annual balance
sheet. The law of Rumania makes the employment of journal, inventory
book and ledger compulsory, a small tax per page being charged on the
two first named. There are no special provisions as to book-keeping
contained in the Russian law, nor in the United States law, but in
Russia public companies have to supply the government with copies of
their annual accounts, which are published in a state newspaper, and in
the United States certain classes of companies have to submit their
accounts to an official audit. In general terms it may be stated that at
the present time the employment of card and loose-leaf ledger systems is
more general in the United States than in Great Britain.
Education.
Apart from the organizations of professional accountants, there is none
of note devoted to the scientific study of book-keeping other than
purely educational institutions. Among the universities those in the
United States were the first to include accounting as part of their
curriculum; while in Great Britain the London School of Economics
(university of London), the university of Birmingham, and the Victoria
University of Manchester have, so far, alone treated the subject
seriously and upon adequate lines. Quite recently Japan has been making
a movement in the same direction, and other countries will doubtless
follow suit. In England there have for a number of years past been
various bodies--such for instance as the Society of Arts, the London
Chamber of Commerce and Owens College, Manchester--which hold
examinations in book-keeping and grant diplomas to successful
candidates, while most of the polytechnics and technical schools give
instruction in book-keeping; these latter, however, for the most part
regard it as a "craft" merely.
AUTHORITIES.--Those interested in the bibliography of book-keeping are
referred to the catalogue of the library of the Institute of Chartered
Accountants in England and Wales, which probably contains the most
complete collection in existence of ancient and modern works on
accounting, both British and foreign. The following short list
comprises those most likely to be found of general interest: G. van de
Linde, _Book-keeping_ (1898); L.R. Dicksee, _Book-keeping_ (5th ed.,
1906) and _Advanced Accounting_ (2nd ed., 1905); _Encyclopaedia of
Accounting_, ed. by G. Lisle (1903); _Accountants' Library_, ed. by
the editor of _The Accountant_ (1901); J.W. Heaps, _The Antiquity of
Book-keeping_ (1898); _History of Accounting and Accountants_, ed. by
R. Brown (1905). (L. R. D.)
BOOK-PLATES. The book-plate, or _ex-libris_, a printed label intended to
indicate ownership in individual volumes, is nearly as old as the
printed book itself. It bears very much the same relation to the
hand-painted armorial or otherwise symbolical personal device found in
medieval manuscripts that the printed page does to the scribe's work.
The earliest known examples of book-plates are German. According to
Friedrich Warnecke, of Berlin (one of the best authorities on the
subject), the oldest movable _ex-libris_ are certain woodcuts
representing a shield of arms supported by an angel (fig. 1), which were
pasted in books presented to the Carthusian monastery of Buxheim by
Brother Hildebrand Brandenburg of Biberach, about the year 1480--the
date being fixed by that of the recorded gift. The woodcut, in imitation
of similar devices in old MSS., is hand-painted. In France the most
ancient _ex-libris_ as yet discovered is that of one Jean Bertaud de la
Tour-Blanche, the date of which is 1529; and in England that of Sir
Nicholas Bacon, a gift-plate for the books he presented to the
university of Cambridge (fig. 2). Holland comes next with the plate of
a certain Anna van der Aa, in 1597; then Italy with one attributed to
the year 1622. The earliest known American example is the plain printed
label of one John Williams, 1679.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.--Gift-plate of Hildebrand Brandenburg of Biberach
to the Monastery of Buxheim (c. 1480).]
[Illustration: FIG. 2.--Book-plate of Sir Nicholas Bacon (slightly
reduced).]
A sketch of the history of the book-plate, either as a minor work of
symbolical and decorative art, or as an accessory to the binding of
books, must obviously begin in Germany, not only because the earliest
examples known are German, but also because they are found in great
numbers long before the fashion spread to other countries, and are often
of the highest artistic interest. Albrecht Dürer is known to have
actually engraved at least six plates (some of very important size)
between 1503 and 1516 (fig. 3), and to have supplied designs for many
others. Several notable plates are ascribed to Lucas Cranach and to Hans
Holbein, and to that bevy of so-called Little Masters, the Behams,
Virgil Solis, Matthias Zundt, Jost Amman, Saldörfer, Georg Hüpschmann
and others. The influence of these draughtsmen over the decorative
styles of Germany has been felt through subsequent centuries down to the
present day, notwithstanding the invasion of successive Italian and
French fashions during the 17th and 18th centuries, and the marked
effort at originality of composition observable among modern designers.
The heavy, over-elaborated German style never seems to have affected
neighbouring countries; but since it was undoubtedly from Germany that
was spread the fashion of ornamental book-plates as marks of possession,
the history of German _ex-libris_ remains on that account one of high
interest to all those who are curious in the matter.
[Illustration: FIG. 3.--Book-plate of Lazarus Spengler, by Albrecht
Dürer, 1515 (reduced).]
It was not before the 17th century that the _movable ex-libris_ became
tolerably common in France. Up to that time the more luxurious habit of
stamping the cover with a personal device had been in such general
favour with book-owners as to render the use of labels superfluous. From
the middle of the century, however, the _ex-libris_ proper became quite
naturalized; examples of that period are very numerous, and, as a rule,
are very handsome. It may be here pointed out that the expression
_ex-libris_, used as a substantive, which is now the recognized term for
book-plate everywhere on the continent, found its origin in France. The
words only occur in the personal tokens of other nationalities long
after they had become a recognized inscription on French labels.
In many ways the consideration of the English book-plate, in its
numerous styles, from the late Elizabethan to the late Victorian period,
is peculiarly interesting. In all its varieties it reflects with great
fidelity the prevailing taste in decorative art at different epochs. Of
English examples, none thus far seems to have been discovered of older
date than the gift-plate of Sir Nicholas Bacon; for the celebrated,
gorgeous, hand-painted armorial device attached to a folio that once
belonged to Henry VIII., and now reposes in the King's library, British
Museum, does not come under the head of book-plate in its modern sense.
The next is that of Sir Thomas Tresham, dated 1585. Until the last
quarter of the 17th century the number of authentic English plates is
very limited. Their composition is always remarkably simple, and
displays nothing of the German elaborateness. They are as a rule very
plainly armorial, and the decoration is usually limited to a symmetrical
arrangement of mantling, with an occasional display of palms or wreaths.
Soon after the Restoration, however, a book-plate seems to have suddenly
become an established accessory to most well-ordered libraries.
Book-plates of that period offer very distinctive characteristics. In
the simplicity of their heraldic arrangements they recall those of the
previous age; but their physiognomy is totally different. In the first
place, they invariably display the tincture lines and dots, after the
method originally devised in the middle of the century by Petra Sancta,
the author of _Tesserae Gentilitiae_, which by this time had become
adopted throughout Europe. In the second, the mantling assumes a much
more elaborate appearance--one that irresistibly recalls that of the
periwig of the period--surrounding the face of the shield. This style
was undoubtedly imported from France, but it assumed a character of its
own in England. As a matter of fact, thenceforth until the dawn of the
French Revolution, English modes of decoration in book-plates, as in
most other chattels, follow at some years' distance the ruling French
taste. The main characteristics of the style which prevailed during the
Queen Anne and early Georgian periods are:--ornamental frames suggestive
of carved oak, a frequent use of fish-scales, trellis or diapered
patterns, for the decoration of plain surfaces; and, in the armorial
display, a marked reduction in the importance of the mantling. The
introduction of the scallop-shell as an almost constant element of
ornamentation gives already a foretaste of the _Rocaille-Coquille_, the
so-called Chippendale fashions of the next reign. As a matter of fact,
during the middle third of the century this rococo style (of which the
Convers plate [fig. 4] gives a tolerably typical sample) affects the
book-plate as universally as all other decorative objects. Its chief
element is a fanciful arrangement of scroll and shell work with
curveting acanthus-like sprays--an arrangement which in the examples of
the best period is generally made asymmetrical in order to give freer
scope for a variety of countercurves. Straight or concentric lines and
all appearances of flat surface are studiously avoided; the helmet and
its symmetrical mantling tends to disappear, and is replaced by the
plain crest on a fillet. The earlier examples of this manner are
tolerably ponderous and simple. Later, however, the composition becomes
exceedingly light and complicated; every conceivable and often
incongruous element of decoration is introduced, from cupids to dragons,
from flowerets to Chinese pagodas. During the early part of George
III.'s reign there is a return to greater sobriety of ornamentation, and
a style more truly national, which may be called _the urn style_, makes
its appearance. Book-plates of this period have invariably a physiognomy
which at once recalls the decorative manner made popular by architects
and designers such as Chambers, the Adams, Josiah Wedgwood, Hepplewhite
and Sheraton. The shield shows a plain spade-like outline, manifestly
based upon that of the pseudo-classic urn then so much to the fore. The
ornamental accessories are symmetrical palms and sprays, wreaths and
ribands. The architectural boss is also an important factor. In many
plates, indeed, the shield of arms takes quite a subsidiary position by
the side of the predominantly architectural urn. From the beginning of
the 19th century, until comparatively recent days, no special style of
decoration seems to have established itself. The immense majority of
examples display a plain shield of arms with motto on a scroll below,
and crest on a fillet above. Of late years, however, a rapid impetus
appears to have been given to the designing of _ex-libris_; a new era,
in fact, has begun for the book-plate, one of great interest.
[Illustration: FIG. 4.--Book-plate of P.A. Convers, 1762.]
[Illustration: FIG. 5.--Book-plate of Francis Gwyn of Lansanor, 1698.]
The main styles of decoration (and these, other data being absent, must
always in the case of old examples remain the criteria of date) have
already been noticed. It is, however, necessary to point out that
certain styles of composition were also prevalent at certain periods.
Many of the older plates (like the majority of the most modern ones)
were essentially pictorial. Of this kind the best-defined English genus
may be recalled: _the library interior_--a term which explains
itself--and _book-piles_, exemplified by the _ex-libris_ (fig. 6) of W.
Hewer, Samuel Pepys's secretary. We have also many _portrait-plates_, of
which, perhaps, the most notable are those of Samuel Pepys himself and
of John Gibbs, the architect; _allegories_, such as were engraved by
Hogarth, Bartolozzi, John Pine and George Vertue; _landscape-plates_, by
wood engravers of the Bewick school (see Plate), &c. In most of these
the armorial element plays but a secondary part.
[Illustration: FIG. 6.--Book-plate of William Hewer, 1699.]
The value attached to book-plates, otherwise than as an object of purely
personal interest, is comparatively modern. The study of and the taste
for collecting these private tokens of book-ownership hardly date
farther back than the year 1875. The first real impetus was given by the
appearance of the _Guide to the Study of Book-Plates_, by Lord de Tabley
(then the Hon. Leicester Warren) in 1880. This work, highly interesting
from many points of view, established what is now accepted as the
general classification of styles: _early armorial_ (i.e. previous to
Restoration, exemplified by the Nicholas Bacon plate); _Jacobean_, a
somewhat misleading term, but distinctly understood to include the heavy
decorative manner of the Restoration, Queen Anne and early Georgian days
(the Lansanor plate, fig. 5, is typically Jacobean); _Chippendale_ (the
style above described as _rococo_, tolerably well represented by the
French plate of Convers); _wreath and ribbon_, belonging to the period
described as that of the urn, &c. Since then the literature on the
subject has grown considerably. Societies of collectors have been
founded, first in England, then in Germany and France, and in the United
States, most of them issuing a journal or archives: _The Journal of the
Ex-libris Society_ (London), the _Archives de la société française de
collectionneurs d'ex-libris_ (Paris), both of these monthlies; the
_Ex-libris Zeitschrift_ (Berlin), a quarterly.
Much has been written for and against book-plate collecting. If, on the
one hand, the more enthusiastic ex-librists (for such a word has
actually been coined) have made the somewhat ridiculous claim of science
for "ex-librisme," the bitter animadversion, on the other, of a certain
class of intolerant bibliophiles upon the vandalism of removing
book-plates from old books has at times been rather extravagant.
Book-plates are undoubtedly very often of high interest (and of a value
often far greater than the odd volume in which they are found affixed),
either as specimens of bygone decorative fashion or as personal relics
of well-known personages. There can be no question, for instance, that
engravings or designs by artists such as Holbein and Dürer and the
Little Masters of Germany, by Charles Eisen, Hubert François
Bourguignon, _dit_ Gravelot, D.N. Chodowiecki or Simon Gribelin; by W.
Marshall, W. Faithorne, David Loggan, Sir Robert Strange, Francesco
Piranesi; by Hogarth, Cipriani, Bartolozzi, John Keyse Sherwin, William
Henshaw, Hewitt or Bewick and his imitators; or, to come to modern
times, that the occasional examples traced to the handicraft of Thomas
Stothard, Thackeray, Millais, Maclise, Bell Scott, T.G. Jackson, Walter
Crane, Caldecott, Stacy Marks, Edwin Abbey, Kate Greenaway, Gordon
Browne, Herbert Railton, Aubrey Beardsley, Alfred Parsons, D.Y. Cameron,
Paul Avril--are worth collecting.
[Illustration: PLATE.
BOOK-PLATE OF ROBERT PINKNEY. By Thoma Bewick.
BOOK-PLATE OF FREIHERR V. LIPPERHEIDE. By Karl Rickelt.
BOOK-PLATE OF CHARLES DEXTER ALLEN. By E.D. French.
BOOK-PLATE OF SIR ARTHUR VICARS. By C.W. Sherborn.]
Until the advent of the new taste the devising of book-plates was almost
invariably left to the routine skill of the heraldic stationer. Of late
years the composition of personal book-tokens has become recognized as a
minor branch of a higher art, and there has come into fashion an
entirely new class of designs which, for all their wonderful variety,
bear as unmistakable a character as that of the most definite styles of
bygone days. Broadly speaking, it may be said that the purely heraldic
element tends to become subsidiary and the allegorical or symbolic to
assert itself more strongly. Among modern English artists who have more
specially paid attention to the devising of book-plates, and have
produced admirable designs, may be mentioned C.W. Sherborn, G.W. Eve,
Robert Anning Bell, J.D. Batten, Erat Harrison, J. Forbes Nixon, Charles
Ricketts, John Vinycomb, John Leighton and Warrington Hogg. The
development in various directions of process work, by facilitating and
cheapening the reproduction of beautiful and elaborate designs, has no
doubt helped much to popularize the book-plate--a thing which in older
days was almost invariably restricted to ancestral libraries or to
collections otherwise important. Thus the great majority of modern
plates are reproduced by process. There are, however, a few artists left
who devote to book-plates their skill with the graver. Some of the work
they produce challenges comparison with the finest productions of bygone
engravers. Of these the best-known are C.W. Sherborn (see Plate) and
G.W. Eve in England, and in America J.W. Spenceley of Boston, Mass.,
K.W.F. Hopson of New Haven, Conn., and E.D. French of New York City (see
Plate).
AUTHORITIES.--The curious in the matter of book-plate composition will
find it treated in the various volumes of the Ex-libris Series
(London). See also A. Poulet-Malassis, _Les Ex-libris français_
(1875); Hon. J. Leicester Warren (Lord de Tabley), _A Guide to the
Study of Book-plates_ (1880); Sir A.W. Franks, _Notes on Book-plates_,
1574-1800 (private, 1887); Friedrich Warnecke, _Die deutschen
Bücherzeichen_ (1890); Henri Bouchot, _Les Ex-libris et les marques de
possession du livre_ (1891); Egerton Castle, _English Book-plates_
(1892); Walter Hamilton, _French Book-plates_ (1892), _Dated
Book-plates_ (1895); H.W. Fincham, _Artists and Engravers of British
and American Book-plates_ (1897); _German Book-plates_, by Count K.E.
zu Leiningen-Westerburg, translated by G.R. Denis (1901). (E. Ca.)
BOOK-SCORPION, or FALSE SCORPION, minute arachnids superficially
resembling tailless scorpions and belonging to the order
Pseudoscorpiones of the class Arachnida. Occurring in all temperate and
tropical countries, book-scorpions live for the most part under stones,
beneath the bark of trees or in vegetable detritus. A few species,
however, like the common British forms _Chelifer cancroides_ and
_Chiridium museorum_, frequent human dwellings and are found in books,
old chests, furniture, &c; others like _Ganypus littoralis_ and allied
species may be found under stones or pieces of coral between tide-marks;
while others, which are for the most part blind, live permanently in
dark caves. Their food consists of minute insects or mites. It is
possibly for the purpose of feeding on parasitic mites that
book-scorpions lodge themselves beneath the wing-cases of large tropical
beetles; and the same explanation, in default of a better, may be
extended to their well-known and oft-recorded habit of seizing hold of
the legs of horse-flies or other two-winged insects. For safety during
hibernation and moulting, book-scorpions spin a small spherical cocoon.
They are oviparous; and the eggs after being laid are carried about by
the mother, attached to the lower surface of her body, the young
remaining with their parent until they have acquired their definite
form and are able to shift for themselves. (R. I. P.)
BOOKSELLING. The trade in books is of a very ancient date. The early
poets and orators recited their effusions in public to induce their
hearers to possess written copies of their poems or orations. Frequently
they were taken down _viva voce_, and transcripts sold to such as were
wealthy enough to purchase. In the book of Jeremiah the prophet is
represented as dictating to Baruch the scribe, who, when questioned,
described the mode in which his book was written. These scribes were, in
fact, the earliest booksellers, and supplied copies as they were
demanded. Aristotle, we are told, possessed a somewhat extensive
library; and Plato is recorded to have paid the large sum of one hundred
minae for three small treatises of Philolaus the Pythagorean. When the
Alexandrian library was founded about 300 B.C., various expedients were
resorted to for the purpose of procuring books, and this appears to have
stimulated the energies of the Athenian booksellers, who were termed
[Greek: biblion kapaeloi]. In Rome, towards the end of the republic, it
became the fashion to have a library as part of the household furniture;
and the booksellers, _librarii_ (Cic. _D. Leg._ iii. 20) or
_bibliopolae_ (Martial iv. 71, xiii. 3), carried on a flourishing trade.
Their shops (_taberna librarii_, Cicero, _Phil._ ii. 9) were chiefly in
the Argiletum, and in the Vicus Sandalarius. On the door, or on the side
posts, was a list of the books on sale; and Martial (i. 118), who
mentions this also, says that a copy of his First Book of Epigrams might
be purchased for five denarii. In the time of Augustus the great
booksellers were the Sosii. According to Justinian (ii. I. 33), a law
was passed securing to the scribes the property in the materials used;
and in this may, perhaps, be traced the first germ of the modern law of
copyright.
The spread of Christianity naturally created a great demand for copies
of the Gospels and other sacred books, and later on for missals and
other devotional volumes for church and private use. Benedict Biscop,
the founder of the abbey at Wearmouth in England, brought home with him
from France (671) a whole cargo of books, part of which he had "bought,"
but from whom is not mentioned. Passing by the intermediate ages we find
that previous to the Reformation, the text writers or stationers
(_stacyoneres_), who sold copies of the books then in use--the ABC, the
Paternoster, Creed, Ave Maria and other MS. copies of prayers, in the
neighbourhood of St Paul's, London,--were, in 1403, formed into a gild.
Some of these "stacyoneres" had stalls or stations built against the
very walls of the cathedral itself, in the same manner as they are still
to be found in some of the older continental cities. In Henry Anstey's
_Munimenta Academica_, published under the direction of the master of
the rolls, we catch a glimpse of the "sworn" university bookseller or
stationer, John More of Oxford, who apparently first supplied pupils
with their books, and then acted the part of a pawnbroker. Anstey says
(p. 77), "The fact is that they (the students) mostly could not afford
to buy books, and had they been able, would not have found the advantage
so considerable as might be supposed, the instruction given being almost
wholly oral. The chief source of supplying books was by purchase from
the university sworn stationers, who had to a great extent a monopoly.
Of such books there were plainly very large numbers constantly changing
hands." Besides the sworn stationers there were many booksellers in
Oxford who were not sworn; for one of the statutes, passed in the year
1373, expressly recites that, in consequence of their presence, "books
of great value are sold and carried away from Oxford, the owners of them
are cheated, and the sworn stationers are deprived of their lawful
business." It was, therefore, enacted that no bookseller except two
sworn stationers or their deputies, should sell any book being either
his own property or that of another, exceeding half a mark in value,
under a pain of imprisonment, or, if the offence was repeated, of
abjuring his trade within the university.
"The trade in bookselling seems," says Hallam, "to have been established
at Paris and Bologna in the 12th century; the lawyers and universities
called it into life. It is very improbable that it existed in what we
properly call the dark ages. Peter of Blois mentions a book which he
had bought of a public dealer (_a quodam publico mangone librorum_); but
we do not find many distinct accounts of them till the next age. These
dealers were denominated _stationarii_, perhaps from the open stalls at
which they carried on their business, though _statio_ is a general word
for a shop in low Latin. They appear, by the old statutes of the
university of Paris, and by those of Bologna, to have sold books upon
commission, and are sometimes, though not uniformly, distinguished from
the _librarii_, a word which, having originally been confined to the
copyists of books, was afterwards applied to those who traded in them.
They sold parchment and other materials of writing, which have retained
the name of stationery, and they naturally exercised the kindred
occupations of binding and decorating. They probably employed
transcribers; we find at least that there was a profession of copyists
in the universities and in large cities."
The modern system of bookselling dates from soon after the introduction
of printing. The earliest printers were also editors and booksellers;
but being unable to sell every copy of the works they printed, they had
agents at most of the seats of learning. Antony Koburger, who introduced
the art of printing into Nuremberg in 1470, although a printer, was more
of a bookseller; for, besides his own sixteen shops, we are informed by
his biographers that he had agents for the sale of his books in every
city of Christendom. Wynkyn de Worde, who succeeded to Caxton's press in
Westminster, had a shop in Fleet Street.
The religious dissensions of the continent, and the Reformation in
England under Henry VIII. and Edward VI., created a great demand for
books; but in England neither Tudor nor Stuart could tolerate a free
press, and various efforts were made to curb it. The first patent for
the office of king's printer was granted to Thomas Berthelet by Henry
VIII. in 1529, but only such books as were first licensed were to be
printed. At that time even the purchase or possession of an unlicensed
book was a punishable offence. In 1556 the Company of Stationers was
incorporated, and very extensive powers were granted in order that
obnoxious books might be repressed. In the following reigns the Star
Chamber exercised a pretty effectual censorship; but, in spite of all
precaution, such was the demand for books of a polemical nature, that
many were printed abroad and surreptitiously introduced into England.
Queen Elizabeth interfered but little with books except when they
emanated from Roman Catholics, or touched upon her royal prerogatives;
and towards the end of her reign, and during that of her pedantic
successor, James, bookselling flourished. Archbishop Laud, who was no
friend to booksellers, introduced many arbitrary restrictions; but they
were all, or nearly all, removed during the time of the Commonwealth. So
much had bookselling increased during the Protectorate that, in 1658,
was published _A Catalogue of the most Vendible Books in England,
digested under the heads of Divinity, History, Physic, &c., with School
Books, Hebrew, Greek and Latin, and an Introduction, for the use of
Schools_, by W. London. A bad time immediately followed. The Restoration
also restored the office of Licenser of the Press, which continued till
1694.
In the first English Copyright Act (1709), which specially relates to
booksellers, it is enacted that, if any person shall think the published
price of a book unreasonably high, he may thereupon make complaint to
the archbishop of Canterbury, and to certain other persons named, who
shall thereupon examine into his complaint, and if well founded reduce
the price; and any bookseller charging more than the price so fixed
shall be fined £5 for every copy sold. Apparently this enactment
remained a dead letter.
For later times it is necessary to make a gradual distinction between
_booksellers_, whose trade consists in selling books, either by retail
or wholesale, and _publishers_, whose business involves the production
of the books from the author's manuscripts, and who are the
intermediaries between author and bookseller, just as the booksellers
(in the restricted sense) are intermediaries between the author and
publisher and the public. The article on PUBLISHING (q.v.) deals more
particularly with this second class, who, though originally booksellers,
gradually took a higher rank in the book-trade, and whose influence
upon the history of literature has often been very great. The
convenience of this distinction is not impaired by the fact either that
a publisher is also a wholesale bookseller, or that a still more recent
development in publishing (as in the instance of the direct sale in
1902, by the London _Times_, of the supplementary volumes to the 9th
edition of the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_, which were also "published"
by _The Times_) started a reaction to some extent in the way of
amalgamating the two functions. The scheme of _The Times_ Book Club
(started in 1905) was, again, a combination of a subscription library
with the business of bookselling (see NEWSPAPERS); and it brought the
organization of a newspaper, with all its means of achieving publicity,
into the work of pushing the sale of books, in a way which practically
introduced a new factor into the bookselling business.
During the 19th century it remains the fact that the distinction between
publisher and bookseller--literary promoter and shopkeeper--became
fundamental. The booksellers, as such, were engaged either in wholesale
bookselling, or in the retail, the old or second-hand, and the
periodical trades.
Coming between the publisher and the retail bookseller is the
important distributing agency of the _wholesale bookseller_. It is to
him that the retailer looks for his miscellaneous supplies, as it is
simply impossible for him to stock one-half of the books published. In
Paternoster Row, London, which has for over a hundred years been the
centre of this industry, may be seen the collectors from the shops of
the retail booksellers, busily engaged in obtaining the books ordered
by the book-buying public. It is also through these agencies that the
country bookseller obtains his miscellaneous supplies. At the leading
house in this department of bookselling almost any book can be found,
or information obtained concerning it. At one of these establishments
over 1,000,000 books are constantly kept in stock. It is here that the
publisher calls first on showing or "subscribing" a new book, a
critical process, for by the number thus subscribed the fate of a book
is sometimes determined.
What may be termed the third partner in publishing and its
ramification is the _retail bookseller_; and to protect his interests
there was established in 1890 a London booksellers' society, which had
for its object the restriction of discounts to 25%, and also to
arrange prices generally and control all details connected with the
trade. The society a few years afterwards widened its field of
operations so as to include the whole of the United Kingdom, and its
designation then became "The Associated Booksellers of Great Britain
and Ireland."
The trade in old or (as they are sometimes called) second-hand books
is in a sense, no doubt, a higher class of business, requiring a
knowledge of bibliography, while the transactions are with individual
books rather than with numbers of copies. Occasionally dealers in this
class of books replenish their stocks by purchasing remainders of
books, which, having ceased from one cause or another to sell with the
publisher, they offer to the public as bargains. The periodical trade
grew up during the 19th century, and was in its infancy when the
_Penny Magazine_, _Chambers's Journal_, and similar publications first
appeared. The growth of this important part of the business was
greatly promoted by the abolition of the newspaper stamp and of the
duty upon paper, the introduction of attractive illustrations, and the
facilities offered for purchasing books by instalments.
The history of bookselling in America has a special interest. The
Spanish settlements drew away from the old country much of its
enterprise and best talent, and the presses of Mexico and other cities
teemed with publications mostly of a religious character, but many
others, especially linguistic and historical, were also published.
Bookselling in the United States was of a somewhat later growth,
although printing was introduced into Boston as early as 1676,
Philadelphia in 1685, and New York in 1693. Franklin had served to make
the trade illustrious, yet few persons were engaged in it at the
commencement of the 19th century. Books chiefly for scholars and
libraries were imported from Europe; but after the second war
printing-presses multiplied rapidly, and with the spread of newspapers
and education there also arose a demand for books, and publishers set to
work to secure the advantages offered by the wide field of English
literature, the whole of which they had the liberty of reaping free of
all cost beyond that of production. The works of Scott, Byron, Moore,
Southey, Wordsworth, and indeed of every author of note, were reprinted
without the smallest payment to author or proprietor. Half the names of
the authors in the so-called "American" catalogue of books printed
between 1820 and 1852 are British. By this means the works of the best
authors were brought to the doors of all classes in the cheapest
variety of forms. In consequence of the Civil War, the high price of
labour, and the restrictive duties laid on in order to protect native
industry, coupled with the frequent intercourse with England, a great
change took place, and American publishers and booksellers, while there
was still no international copyright, made liberal offers for early
sheets of new publications. Boston, New York and Philadelphia still
retained their old supremacy as bookselling centres. Meanwhile, the
distinct publishing business also grew, till gradually the conditions of
business became assimilated to those of Europe.
In the course of the 16th and 17th centuries the Low Countries for a
time became the chief centre of the bookselling world, and many of the
finest folios and quartos in our libraries bear the names of Jansen,
Blauw or Plantin, with the imprint of Amsterdam, Utrecht, Leiden or
Antwerp, while the Elzevirs besides other works produced their charming
little pocket classics. The southern towns of Douai and St Omer at the
same time furnished polemical works in English.
Under PUBLISHING are noticed various further developments of this
subject. Much interesting information on the history of the book trade
will be found in Charles Knight's _Biography of William Caxton_, and
in the same author's _Shadows of the Old Booksellers_ (1865). See also
Henry Curwen, _History of Booksellers_ (1873); and Heinrich Lempertz,
_Bilder-Hefte zur Geschichte des Bücherhandels_ (Cologne, 1854).
BOOLE, GEORGE (1815-1864), English logician and mathematician, was born
in Lincoln on the 2nd of November 1815. His father was a tradesman of
limited means, but of studious character and active mind. Being
especially interested in mathematical science, the father gave his son
his first lessons; but the extraordinary mathematical powers of George
Boole did not manifest themselves in early life. At first his favourite
subject was classics. Not until the age of seventeen did he attack the
higher mathematics, and his progress was much retarded by the want of
efficient help. When about sixteen years of age he became
assistant-master in a private school at Doncaster, and he maintained
himself to the end of his life in one grade or other of the scholastic
profession. Few distinguished men, indeed, have had a less eventful
life. Almost the only changes which can be called events are his
successful establishment of a school at Lincoln, its removal to
Waddington, his appointment in 1849 as professor of mathematics in the
Queen's College at Cork, and his marriage in 1855 to Miss Mary Everest,
who, as Mrs Boole, afterwards wrote several useful educational works on
her husband's principles.
To the public Boole was known only as the author of numerous abstruse
papers on mathematical topics, and of three or four distinct
publications which have become standard works. His earliest published
paper was one upon the "Theory of Analytical Transformations," printed
in the _Cambridge Mathematical Journal_ for 1839, and it led to a
friendship between Boole and D.F. Gregory, the editor of the journal,
which lasted until the premature death of the latter in 1844. A long
list of Boole's memoirs and detached papers, both on logical and
mathematical topics, will be found in the _Catalogue of Scientific
Memoirs_ published by the Royal Society, and in the supplementary volume
on _Differential Equations_, edited by Isaac Todhunter. To the
_Cambridge Mathematical Journal_ and its successor, the _Cambridge and
Dublin Mathematical Journal_, Boole contributed in all twenty-two
articles. In the third and fourth series of the _Philosophical Magazine_
will be found sixteen papers. The Royal Society printed six important
memoirs in the _Philosophical Transactions_, and a few other memoirs are
to be found in the _Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh_ and
of the _Royal Irish Academy_, in the _Bulletin de l'Académie de
St-Pétersbourg_ for 1862 (under the name G. Boldt, vol. iv. pp.
198-215), and in _Crelle's Journal_. To these lists should be added a
paper on the mathematical basis of logic, published in the _Mechanic's
Magazine_ for 1848. The works of Boole are thus contained in about fifty
scattered articles and a few separate publications.
Only two systematic treatises on mathematical subjects were completed by
Boole during his lifetime. The well-known _Treatise on Differential
Equations_ appeared in 1859, and was followed, the next year, by a
_Treatise on the Calculus of Finite Differences_, designed to serve as a
sequel to the former work. These treatises are valuable contributions to
the important branches of mathematics in question, and Boole, in
composing them, seems to have combined elementary exposition with the
profound investigation of the philosophy of the subject in a manner
hardly admitting of improvement. To a certain extent these works embody
the more important discoveries of their author. In the 16th and 17th
chapters of the _Differential Equations_ we find, for instance, a lucid
account of the general symbolic method, the bold and skilful employment
of which led to Boole's chief discoveries, and of a general method in
analysis, originally described in his famous memoir printed in the
_Philosophical Transactions_ for 1844. Boole was one of the most eminent
of those who perceived that the symbols of operation could be separated
from those of quantity and treated as distinct objects of calculation.
His principal characteristic was perfect confidence in any result
obtained by the treatment of symbols in accordance with their primary
laws and conditions, and an almost unrivalled skill and power in tracing
out these results.
During the last few years of his life Boole was constantly engaged in
extending his researches with the object of producing a second edition
of his _Differential Equations_ much more complete than the first
edition; and part of his last vacation was spent in the libraries of the
Royal Society and the British Museum. But this new edition was never
completed. Even the manuscripts left at his death were so incomplete
that Todhunter, into whose hands they were put, found it impossible to
use them in the publication of a second edition of the original
treatise, and wisely printed them, in 1865, in a supplementary volume.
With the exception of Augustus de Morgan, Boole was probably the first
English mathematician since the time of John Wallis who had also written
upon logic. His novel views of logical method were due to the same
profound confidence in symbolic reasoning to which he had successfully
trusted in mathematical investigation. Speculations concerning a
calculus of reasoning had at different times occupied Boole's thoughts,
but it was not till the spring of 1847 that he put his ideas into the
pamphlet called _Mathematical Analysis of Logic_. Boole afterwards
regarded this as a hasty and imperfect exposition of his logical system,
and he desired that his much larger work, _An Investigation of the Laws
of Thought, on which are founded the Mathematical Theories of Logic and
Probabilities_ (1854), should alone be considered as containing a mature
statement of his views. Nevertheless, there is a charm of originality
about his earlier logical work which no competent reader can fail to
appreciate. He did not regard logic as a branch of mathematics, as the
title of his earlier pamphlet might be taken to imply, but he pointed
out such a deep analogy between the symbols of algebra and those which
can be made, in his opinion, to represent logical forms and syllogisms,
that we can hardly help saying that logic is mathematics restricted to
the two quantities, 0 and 1. By unity Boole denoted the universe of
thinkable objects; literal symbols, such as x, y, z, v, u, &c., were
used with the elective meaning attaching to common adjectives and
substantives. Thus, if x=horned and y=sheep, then the successive acts of
election represented by x and y, if performed on unity, give the whole
of the class _horned sheep_. Boole showed that elective symbols of this
kind obey the same primary laws of combination as algebraical symbols,
whence it followed that they could be added, subtracted, multiplied and
even divided, almost exactly in the same manner as numbers. Thus, 1 - x
would represent the operation of selecting all things in the world
except _horned things_, that is, _all not horned things_, and (1 - x)(1
- y) would give us _all things neither horned nor sheep_. By the use of
such symbols propositions could be reduced to the form of equations, and
the syllogistic conclusion from two premises was obtained by eliminating
the middle term according to ordinary algebraic rules.
Still more original and remarkable, however, was that part of his
system, fully stated in his _Laws of Thought_, which formed a general
symbolic method of logical inference. Given any propositions involving
any number of terms, Boole showed how, by the purely symbolic treatment
of the premises, to draw any conclusion logically contained in those
premises. The second part of the _Laws of Thought_ contained a
corresponding attempt to discover a general method in probabilities,
which should enable us from the given probabilities of any system of
events to determine the consequent probability of any other event
logically connected with the given events.
Though Boole published little except his mathematical and logical works,
his acquaintance with general literature was wide and deep. Dante was
his favourite poet, and he preferred the _Paradiso_ to the _Inferno_.
The metaphysics of Aristotle, the ethics of Spinoza, the philosophical
works of Cicero, and many kindred works, were also frequent subjects of
study. His reflections upon scientific, philosophical and religious
questions are contained in four addresses upon _The Genius of Sir Isaac
Newton_, _The Right Use of Leisure_, _The Claims of Science_ and _The
Social Aspect of Intellectual Culture_, which he delivered and printed
at different times.
The personal character of Boole inspired all his friends with the
deepest esteem. He was marked by the modesty of true genius, and his
life was given to the single-minded pursuit of truth. Though he received
a medal from the Royal Society for his memoir of 1844, and the honorary
degree of LL.D. from the university of Dublin, he neither sought nor
received the ordinary rewards to which his discoveries would entitle
him. On the 8th of December 1864, in the full vigour of his intellectual
powers, he died of an attack of fever, ending in suffusion on the lungs.
An excellent sketch of his life and works, by the Rev. R. Harley,
F.R.S., is to be found in the _British Quarterly Review_ for July
1866, No. 87. (W. S. J.)
BOOM, a word of Teutonic origin (cf. the Ger. _Baum_, tree, and the Eng.
_beam_) for a pole, bar or barrier, used especially as a nautical term,
for a long spar, used to extend a sail at the foot (main-boom, jib-boom,
&c.). The "boom" of a cannon (note of a bell, cry of the bittern) is
distinct from this, being onomatopoeic. In the sense of a barrier, a
boom is generally formed of timber lashed together, or of chains, built
across the mouth of a river or harbour as a means of defence. Possibly
from the metaphor of a breaking boom, and the accompanying rush and
roar, or from the rush of rising waters (mingled with the onomatopoeic
use), "boom" began in America to be used of a sudden "spurt" or access
of industrial activity, as in the phrase "a boom in cotton." Hence the
verb "to boom," meaning to advertise or push into public favour.
BOOMERANG, a missile weapon of the Australian aborigines and other
peoples. The word is taken from the native name used by a single tribe
in New South Wales, and was mentioned in 1827 by Captain King as "the
Port Jackson term" (_Nav. Surv. Coasts Austral._ i. 355) It has been
erroneously connected with the _womera_ or spear-thrower, and equally
erroneously regarded as onomatopoeic--for it does not "boom" but
whistles in the air. Two main types may be distinguished: (a) the return
boomerang; (b) the non-return or war boomerang. Both types are found in
most parts of Australia; the return form was, according to General
Pitt-Rivers, used in ancient Egypt; and a weapon which has a close
resemblance to the boomerang survives to the present day in North-East
Africa, whence it has spread in allied forms made of metal (throwing
knives). Among the Dravidians of South India is found a boomerang-shaped
instrument which can be made to return. It is, however, still uncertain
whether the so-called boomerangs of Egypt and India have any real
resemblance to the Australian return boomerang. The Hopis (Moquis) of
Arizona use a non-return form. The general form of both weapons is the
same. They are sickle-shaped, and made of wood (in India of ivory or
steel), so modelled that the thickness is about 1/6th of the breadth,
which again is 1/12th of the length, the last varying from 6 in. to 3 or
4 ft. The return boomerang, which may have two straight arms at an angle
of from 70° to 120°, but in Australia is always curved at an angle of
90° or more, is usually 2 to 3 ft. in length and weighs some 8 oz.; the
arms have a skew, being twisted 2° or 3° from the plane running through
the centre of the weapon, so that B and D (fig. 1) are above it, A and E
below it; the ends AB and DE are also to some extent raised above the
plane of the weapon at C; the cross section is asymmetrical, the upper
side in the figure being convex, the lower flat or nearly so; this must
be thrown with the right hand. The non-return boomerang has a skew in
the opposite direction but is otherwise similar.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.]
The peculiarity of the boomerang's flight depends mainly on its skew.
The return boomerang is held vertically, the concave side forward, and
thrown in a plane parallel to the surface of the ground, as much
rotation as possible being imparted to it. It travels straight for 30
yds. or more, with nearly vertical rotation; then it inclines to the
left, lying over on the flat side and rising in the air; after
describing a circle of 50 or more yards in diameter it returns to the
thrower. Some observers state that it returns after striking the object;
it is certainly possible to strike the ground without affecting the
return. Throws of 100 yds. or more, before the leftward curve begins,
can be accomplished by Australian natives, the weapon rising as much as
150 ft. in the air and circling five times before returning. The
non-return type may also be made to return in a nearly straight line by
throwing it at an angle of 45°, but normally it is thrown like the
return type, and will then travel an immense distance. No accurate
measurements of Australian throws are available, but an English throw of
180 yds. has been recorded, compared with the same thrower's 70 yds.
with the cricket ball.
[Illustration: FIG. 2.--Flight in Horizontal Plane.]
[Illustration: FIG. 3.--Flight in Vertical Plane.]
The war boomerang in an expert's hand is a deadly weapon, and the
lighter hunting boomerang is also effective. The return boomerang is
chiefly used as a plaything or for killing birds, and is often as
dangerous to the thrower as to the object at which it is aimed.
See Pitt-Rivers (Lane Fox) in _Anthropological and Archaeological
Fragments_, "Primitive Warfare"; also in _Journ. Royal United Service
Inst._ xii. No. 51; _British Ass. Report_ (1872); _Catalogue of
Bethnal Green Collection_, p. 28; Buchner in _Globus_, lxxxviii. 39,
63; G.T. Walker in _Phil. Trans._ cxc. 23; _Wide World Mag._ ii. 626;
_Nature_, xiv. 248, lxiv. 338; Brough Smyth, _Aborigines of Victoria_,
i. 310-329; Roth, _Ethnological Studies_. (N. W. T.)
BOONE, DANIEL (1734-1820), American pioneer and backwoodsman, of English
descent, was born near the present city of Reading, Pennsylvania, on the
2nd of November (N.S.) 1734. About 1751 his father, Squire Boone, with
his family settled in the Yadkin Valley in what is now Davie county,
North Carolina, then on the frontier. Daniel worked on his father's
farm, and spent much of his time hunting and trapping. In 1755 he served
as a wagoner and blacksmith in Braddock's disastrous expedition against
the Indians. In 1765 he visited Florida, and in 1767 he first visited
the Kentucky region. With several companions, including John Finley, who
had been there as early as 1752, he spent two years, 1769-1771, roaming
about what is now Kentucky, meeting with numberless adventures, coming
in conflict with roving bands of Indians, and collecting bear, beaver
and deer skins. He served in Lord Dunmore's War (1774), and in 1775 led
to Kentucky the party of settlers who founded Boonesborough, long an
important settlement. On the 7th of February 1778 he, and the party he
led, were captured by a band of Shawnees. He was adopted into the
Shawnee tribe, was taken to Detroit, and on the return from that place
escaped, reaching Boonesborough, after a perilous journey of 160 m.,
within four days, in time to give warning of a formidable attack by his
captors. In repelling this attack, which lasted from the 8th to the 17th
of September, he bore a conspicuous part. He also took part in the
sanguinary "Battle of Blue Licks" in 1782. For a time he represented the
settlers in the Virginia legislature (Kentucky then being a part of
Virginia), and he also served as deputy surveyor, sheriff and county
lieutenant of Fayette county, one of the three counties into which
Kentucky was then divided. Having lost all his land through his
carelessness in regard to titles, he removed in 1788 to Point Pleasant,
Virginia (now W. Va.), whence about 1799 he removed to a place in what
is now Missouri, about 45 m. west of St Louis, in territory then owned
by Spain. He received a grant of 1000 arpents (about 845 acres) of land,
and was appointed syndic of the district. After the United States gained
possession of "Louisiana" in 1803, Boone's title was found to be
defective, and he was again dispossessed. He died on the 22nd of
September 1820, and in 1845 his remains were removed to Frankfort,
Kentucky, where a monument has been erected to his memory. Boone was a
typical American pioneer and backwoodsman, a great hunter and trapper,
highly skilled in all the arts of woodcraft, familiar with the Indians
and their methods of warfare, a famous Indian fighter, restless,
resourceful and fearless. His services, however, have been greatly
over-estimated, and he was not, as is popularly believed, either the
first to explore or the first to settle the Kentucky region.
The best biography is that by Reuben G. Thwaites, _Daniel Boone_ (New
York, 1902).
BOONE, a city and the county-seat of Boone county, Iowa, U.S.A., a short
distance from the Des Moines river and near the centre of the state.
Pop. (1890) 6520; (1900) 8880; (1905, state census) 9500 (1334
foreign-born); (1910) 10,347. It is served by the Chicago &
North-Western (which has construction and repair shops here), the
Chicago, Milwaukee & St Paul railways, and by the Fort Dodge, Des Moines
& Southern (inter-urban) railway, which connects with Des Moines, Ames,
&c. Boone is an important coal centre; bricks and tiles are manufactured
from the clay obtained near by; there is a packing plant for the
manufacture of beef and pork products; and from the rich farming section
by which the city is surrounded come large quantities of grain, some of
which is milled here, and live-stock. Boone was laid out in 1865, was
incorporated as a town in 1866, and was chartered as a city in 1868.
BOONVILLE, a city and the county-seat of Cooper county, Missouri,
U.S.A., on the right bank of the Missouri river, about 210 m. W. by N.
of St Louis. Pop. (1890) 4141; (1900) 4377, including 1111 negroes;
(1910) 4252. It is served by the Missouri Pacific, and the Missouri,
Kansas & Texas railways. The city lies along a bluff about 100 ft. above
the river. It is the seat of the Missouri training school for boys
(1889), and of the Kemper military school (1844). Among its manufactures
are earthenware, tobacco, vinegar, flour, farm-gates (iron), sash and
doors, marble and granite monuments, carriages and bricks. Iron, zinc
and lead are found in the vicinity, and some coal is mined. Boonville,
named in honour of Daniel Boone, was settled in 1810, was laid out in
1817, incorporated as a village in 1839, and chartered as a city of the
third class in 1896. Here on the 17th of June 1861, Captain
(Major-General) Nathaniel Lyon, commanding about 2000 Union troops,
defeated a slightly larger, but undisciplined Confederate force under
Brigadier-General John S. Marmaduke. David Barton (d. 1837), one of the
first two United States senators from Missouri, was buried here.
BOORDE (or BORDE), ANDREW (1490?-1549), English physician and author,
was born at Boord's Hill, Holms Dale, Sussex. He was educated at Oxford,
and was admitted a member of the Carthusian order while under age. In
1521 he was "dispensed from religion" in order that he might act as
suffragan bishop of Chichester, though he never actually filled the
office, and in 1529 he was freed from his monastic vows, not being able
to endure, as he said, the "rugorosite off your relygyon." He then went
abroad to study medicine, and on his return was summoned to attend the
duke of Norfolk. He subsequently visited the universities of Orleans,
Poitiers, Toulouse, Montpellier and Wittenberg, saw the practice of
surgery at Rome, and went on pilgrimage with others of his nation to
Compostella in Navarre. In 1534 Boorde was again in London at the
Charterhouse, and in 1536 wrote to Thomas Cromwell, complaining that he
was in "thraldom" there. Cromwell set him at liberty, and after
entertaining him at his house at Bishops Waltham in Hampshire, seems to
have entrusted him with a mission to find out the state of public
feeling abroad with regard to the English king. He writes to Cromwell
from various places, and from Catalonia he sends him the seeds of
rhubarb, two hundred years before that plant was generally cultivated in
England. Two letters in 1535 and 1536 to the prior of the Charterhouse
anxiously argue for his complete release from monastic vows. In 1536 he
was studying medicine at Glasgow and gathering his observations about
the Scots and the "devellyshe dysposicion of a Scottysh man, not to love
nor favour an Englishe man." About 1538 Boorde set out on his most
extensive journey, visiting nearly all the countries of Europe except
Russia and Turkey, and making his way to Jerusalem. Of these travels he
wrote a full itinerary, lost unfortunately by Cromwell, to whom it was
sent. He finally settled at Montpellier and before 1542 had completed
his _Fyrst Boke of the Introduction of Knowledge_, which ranks as the
earliest continental guide book, his _Dietary_ and his _Brevyary_. He
probably returned to England in 1542, and lived at Winchester and
perhaps at Pevensey. John Ponet, bishop of Winchester, in an _Apology_
against Bishop Gardiner, relates as matter of common knowledge that in
1547 Doctor Boord, a physician and a holy man, who still kept the
Carthusian rules of fasting and wearing a hair shirt, was convicted in
Winchester of keeping in his house three loose women. For this offence,
apparently, he was imprisoned in the Fleet, where he made his will on
the 9th of April 1549. It was proved on the 25th of the same month.
Thomas Hearne (_Benedictus Abbas_, i, p. 52) says that he went round
like a quack doctor to country fairs, and therefore rashly supposed him
to have been the original merry-andrew.
Andrew Boorde was no doubt a learned physician, and he has left two
amusing and often sensible works on domestic hygiene and medicine, but
his most entertaining book is _The Fyrst Boke of the Introduction of
Knowledge. The whyche dothe teache a man to speake parte of all maner of
languages, and to know the usage and fashion of all maner of countreys.
And for to know the moste parte of all maner of coynes of money, the
whych is currant in every region. Made by Andrew Borde, of Physycke
Doctor. Dedycated to the right honourable, and gracious lady Mary
daughter of our soverayne Lorde Kyng Henry the eyght_ (c. 1547). The
Englishman describes himself and his foibles--his fickleness, his
fondness for new fashions and his obstinacy--in lively verse. Then
follows a geographical description of the country, followed by a model
dialogue in the Cornish language. Each country in turn is dealt with on
similar lines. His other authentic works are: _Here foloweth a
Compendyous Regimente or Dyetary of health, made in Mountpyllor_ (Thomas
Colwell, 1562), of which there are undated and doubtless earlier
editions; _The Brevyary of Health_ (1547?); _The Princyples of
Astronamy_ (1547?); "The Peregrination of Doctor Board," printed by
Thomas Hearne in _Benedictus Abbas Petroburgensis_, vol. ii. (1735); _A
Pronostycacyon or an Almanacke for the yere of our lorde MCCCCCXLV. made
by Andrew Boorde_. His _Itinerary of Europe_ and _Treatyse upon Berdes_
are lost. Several jest-books are attributed to him without
authority--_The Merie Tales of the Mad Men of Gotam_ (earliest extant
edition, 1630), _Scogin's Jests_ (1626), _A mery jest of the Mylner of
Abyngton, with his wyfe, and his daughter, and of two poore scholers of
Cambridge_ (printed by Wynkyn de Worde), and a Latin poem, _Nos
Vagabunduli_.
See Dr F.J. Furnivall's reprint of the _Introduction_ and some other
selections for the Early English Text Society (new series, 1870).
BOOS, MARTIN (1762-1825), German Roman Catholic theologian, was born at
Huttenried in Bavaria on the 25th of December 1762. Orphaned at the age
of four, he was reared by an uncle at Augsburg, who finally sent him to
the university of Dillingen. There he laid the foundation of the modest
piety by which his whole life was distinguished. After serving as priest
in several Bavarian towns, he made his way in 1799 to Linz in Austria,
where he was welcomed by Bishop Gall, and set to work first at Leonding
and then at Waldneukirchen, becoming in 1806 pastor at Gallneukirchen.
His pietistic movement won considerable way among the Catholic laity,
and even attracted some fifty or sixty priests. The death of Gall and
other powerful friends, however, exposed him to bitter enmity and
persecution from about 1812, and he had to answer endless accusations in
the consistorial courts. His enemies followed him when he returned to
Bavaria, but in 1817 the Prussian government appointed him to a
professorship at Düsseldorf, and in 1819 gave him the pastorate at Sayn
near Neuwied. He died on the 29th of August 1825.
See _Life_ by J. Gossner (1831).
BOOT, (1) (From the O. Eng. _bót_, a word common to Teutonic languages,
e.g. Goth, _bóta_, "good, advantage," O.H.G. _Buoza_, Mod. Ger.
_Busse_, "penance, fine"; cf. "better," the comparative of "good"),
profit or advantage. The word survives in "bootless," i.e. useless or
unavailing, and in such expressions, chiefly archaistic, as "what boots
it?" "Bote," an old form, survives in some old compound legal words,
such as "house-bote," "fire-bote," "hedge-bote," &c., for particular
rights of "estover," the Norman French word corresponding to the Saxon
"bote" (see ESTOVERS and COMMONS). The same form survives also in such
expressions as "thief-bote" for the Old English customary compensation
paid for injuries.
(2) (A word of uncertain origin, which came into English through the O.
Fr. _bote_, modern _botte_; Med. Lat. _botta_ or _bota_), a covering for
the foot. Properly a boot covers the whole lower part of the leg,
sometimes reaching to or above the knee, but in common usage it is
applied to one which reaches only above the ankle, and is thus
distinguished from "shoe" (see COSTUME and SHOE).
The "boot" of a coach has the same derivation. It was originally applied
to the fixed outside step, the French _botte_, then to the uncovered
spaces on or beside the step on which the attendants sat facing
sideways. Both senses are now obsolete, the term now being applied to
the covered receptacles under the seats of the guard and coachman.
THE BOOT, BOOTS or BOOTIKIN was an instrument of torture formerly in use
to extort confessions from suspected persons, or obtain evidence from
unwilling witnesses. It originated in Scotland, but the date of its
first use is unknown. It was certainly frequently employed there in the
latter years of the 16th century. In a case of forgery in 1579 two
witnesses, a clergyman and an attorney, were so tortured. In a letter
dated 1583 at the Record Office in London, Walsingham instructs the
English ambassador at Edinburgh to have Father Holt, an English Jesuit,
"put to the boots." It seems to have fallen into disuse after 1630, but
was revived in 1666 on the occasion of the Covenanters' rebellion, and
was employed during the reigns of Charles II. and James II. Upon the
accession of William III. the Scottish convention denounced "the use of
torture, without evidence and in ordinary crimes, as contrary to law."
However, a year or so later, one Neville Payne, an Englishman suspected
of treasonable motives for visiting Scotland, was put to the torture
under the authority of a warrant signed by the king. This is the last
recorded case of its use, torture being finally abolished in Scotland in
1709. It was not used in England after 1640. The boot was made of iron
or wood and iron fastened on the leg, between which and the boot wedges
were driven by blows from a mallet. After each blow a question was put
to the victim, and the ordeal was continued until he gave the
information or fainted. The wedges were usually placed against the calf
of the leg, but Bishop Burnet says that they were sometimes put against
the shin-bone. A similar instrument, called "Spanish boots," was used in
Germany. There were also iron boots which were heated on the victim's
foot. A less cruel form was a boot or buskin made wet and drawn upon the
legs and then dried with fire.
BOÖTES (Gr. [Greek: bootaes], a ploughman, from [Greek: bous], an ox), a
constellation of the northern hemisphere, mentioned by Eudoxus (4th
century B.C.) and Aratus (3rd century B.C.), and perhaps alluded to in
the book of Job (see ARCTURUS), and by Homer and Hesiod. The ancient
Greeks symbolized it as a man walking, with his right hand grasping a
club, and his left extending upwards and holding the leash of two dogs,
which are apparently barking at the Great Bear. Ptolemy catalogues
twenty-three stars, Tycho Brahe twenty-eight, Hevelius fifty-two. In
addition to Arcturus, the brightest in the group, the most interesting
stars of this constellation are: _[epsilon] Boötis_, a beautiful double
star composed of a yellow star of magnitude 3, and a blue star of
magnitude 6½; _[xi] Boötis_, a double star composed of a yellow star,
magnitude 4½, and a purple star, magnitude 6½; and _W. Boötis_, an
irregularly variable star. This constellation has been known by many
other names--Arcas, Arctophylax, Arcturus minor, Bubuleus, Bubulus,
Canis latrans, Clamator, Icarus, Lycaon, Philometus, Plaustri custos,
Plorans, Thegnis, Vociferator; the Arabs termed it Aramech or Archamech;
Hesychius named it Orion; Jules Schiller, St Sylvester; Schickard,
Nimrod; and Weigelius, the Three Swedish Crowns.
BOOTH, BARTON (1681-1733), English actor, who came of a good Lancashire
family, was educated at Westminster school, where his success in the
Latin play _Andria_ gave him an inclination for the stage. He was
intended for the church; but in 1698 he ran away from Trinity College,
Cambridge, and obtained employment in a theatrical company in Dublin,
where he made his first appearance as Oroonoko. After two seasons in
Ireland he returned to London, where Betterton, who on an earlier
application had withheld his active aid, probably out of regard for
Booth's family, now gave him all the assistance in his power. At
Lincoln's Inn Fields (1700-1704) he first appeared as Maximus in
_Valentinian_, and his success was immediate. He was at the Haymarket
with Betterton from 1705 to 1708, and for the next twenty years at Drury
Lane. Booth died on the 10th of May 1733, and was buried in Westminster
Abbey. His greatest parts, after the title-part of Addison's _Cato_,
which established his reputation as a tragedian, were probably Hotspur
and Brutus. His Lear was deemed worthy of comparison with Garrick's. As
the ghost in _Hamlet_ he is said never to have had a superior. Among his
other Shakespearian rôles were Mark Antony, Timon of Athens and Othello.
He also played to perfection the gay Lothario in Rowe's _Fair Penitent_.
Booth was twice married; his second wife, Hester Santlow, an actress of
some merit, survived him.
See Cibber, _Lives and Characters of the most eminent Actors and
Actresses_ (1753); Victor, _Memoirs of the Life of Barton Booth_
(1733).
BOOTH, CHARLES (1840- ), English sociologist, was born at Liverpool on
the 30th of March 1840. In 1862 he became a partner in Alfred Booth &
Company, a Liverpool firm engaged in the Brazil trade, and subsequently
chairman of the Booth Steamship Company. He devoted much time, and no
inconsiderable sums of money, to inquiries into the statistical aspects
of social questions. The results of these are chiefly embodied in a work
entitled _Life and Labour of the People in London_ (1891-1903), of which
the earlier portion appeared under the title of _Life and Labour_ in
1889. The book is designed to show "the numerical relation which
poverty, misery and depravity bear to regular earnings and comparative
comfort, and to describe the general conditions under which each class
lives." It contains a most striking series of maps, in which the varying
degrees of poverty are represented street by street, by shades of
colour. The data for the work were derived in part from the detailed
records kept by school-board "visitors," partly from systematic
inquiries directed by Mr Booth himself, supplemented by information
derived from relieving officers and the Charity Organization Society. Mr
Booth also paid much attention to a kindred subject--the lot of the aged
poor. In 1894 he published a volume of statistics on the subject, and,
in 1891 and 1899, works on Old-age pensions, his scheme for the latter
depending on a general provision of pensions of five shillings a week to
all aged persons, irrespective of the cost to the state. He married, in
1871, the daughter of Charles Zachary Macaulay. In 1904 he was made a
privy councillor.
BOOTH, EDWIN [THOMAS] (1833-1893), American actor, was the second son of
the actor Junius Brutus Booth, and was born in Belair, Maryland, on the
13th of November 1833. His father (1796-1852) was born in London on the
1st of May 1796, and, after trying printing, law, painting and the sea,
made his first appearance on the stage in 1813, and appeared in London
at Covent Garden in 1815. He became almost at once a great favourite,
and a rival of Kean, whom he was thought to resemble. To Kean's Othello
nevertheless he played Iago on several occasions. Richard III., Hamlet,
King Lear, Shylock and Sir Giles Overreach were his best parts, and in
America, whither he removed in 1821, they brought him great popularity.
His eccentricities sometimes bordered on insanity, and his excited and
furious fencing as Richard III. and as Hamlet frequently compelled the
Richmond and Laertes to fight for their lives in deadly earnest.
Edwin Booth's first regular appearance was at the Boston Museum on the
10th of September 1849, as Tressel to his father's Richard, in Colley
Cibber's version of _Richard III._ He was lithe and graceful in figure,
buoyant in spirits; his dark hair fell in waving curls across his brow,
and his eyes were soft, luminous and most expressive. His father watched
him with great interest, but with evident disappointment, and the
members of the theatrical profession, who held the acting of the elder
Booth in great reverence, seemed to agree that the genius of the father
had not descended to the son. Edwin Booth's first appearance in New York
was in the character of Wilford in _The Iron Chest_, which he played at
the National theatre in Chatham Street, on the 27th of September 1850. A
year later, on the illness of the father, the son took his place in the
character of Richard III. It was not until after his parent's death that
the son conquered for himself an unassailable position on the stage.
Between 1852 and 1856 he played in California, Australia and the
Sandwich Islands, and those who had known him in the east were surprised
when the news came that he had captivated his audiences with his
brilliant acting. From this time forward his dramatic triumphs were
warmly acknowledged. His Hamlet, Richard and Richelieu were pronounced
to be superior to the performances of Edwin Forrest; his success as Sir
Giles Overreach in _A New Way to Pay Old Debts_ surpassed his father's.
In 1862 he became manager of the Winter Garden theatre, New York, where
he gave a series of Shakespearian productions of then unexampled
magnificence (1864-1867), including _Hamlet_, _Othello_ and _The
Merchant of Venice_. The splendour of this period in his career was
dashed for many months when in 1865 his brother, John Wilkes Booth,
assassinated President Lincoln (see LINCOLN, ABRAHAM). The three Booth
brothers, Junius Brutus (1821-1853), Edwin and John Wilkes (1839-1865),
had played together in _Julius Caesar_ in the autumn of the previous
year--the performance being memorable both for its own excellence, and
for the tragic situation into which two of the principal performers were
subsequently hurled by the crime of the third. Edwin Booth did not
reappear on the stage until the 3rd of January 1866, when he played
Hamlet at the Winter Garden theatre, the audience showing by unstinted
applause their conviction that the glory of the one brother would never
be imperilled by the infamy of the other.
In 1868-1869 Edwin Booth built a theatre of his own--Booth's theatre, at
the corner of 23rd Street and 6th Avenue, New York--and organized an
excellent stock company, which produced _Romeo and Juliet_, _The
Winter's Tale_, _Julius Caesar_, _Macbeth_, _Much Ado about Nothing_,
_The Merchant of Venice_ and other plays. In all cases Booth used the
true text of Shakespeare, thus antedating by many years a similar reform
in England. Almost invariably his ventures were successful, but he was
of a generous and confiding nature, and his management was not
economical. In 1874 the grand dramatic structure he had raised was taken
from him, and with it went his entire fortune. By arduous toil,
however, he again accumulated wealth, in the use of which his generous
nature was shown. He converted his spacious residence in Gramercy Park,
New York, into a club--The Players'--for the elect of his profession,
and for such members of other professions as they might choose. The
house, with all his books and works of art, and many invaluable mementos
of the stage, became the property of the club. A single apartment he
kept for himself. In this he died on the 7th of June 1893. Among his
parts were Macbeth, Lear, Othello, Iago, Shylock, Wolsey, Richard II.,
Richard III., Benedick, Petruccio, Richelieu, Sir Giles Overreach,
Brutus (Payne's), Bertuccio (in Tom Taylor's _The Fool's Revenge_), Ruy
Blas, Don Cesar de Bazan, and many more. His most famous part was
Hamlet, for which his extraordinary grace and beauty and his eloquent
sensibility peculiarly fitted him. He probably played the part oftener
than any other actor before or since. He visited London in 1851, and
again in 1880 and in 1882, playing at the Haymarket theatre with
brilliant success. In the last year he also visited Germany, where his
acting was received with the highest enthusiasm. His last appearance was
in Brooklyn as Hamlet in 1891. Booth was twice married: in 1860 to Mary
Devlin (d. 1863), and in 1869 to Mary F. McVicker (d. 1881). He left by
his first wife one daughter, Edwina Booth Grossman, who published _Edwin
Booth: Recollections_ (New York, 1894).
Edwin Booth's prompt-books were edited by William Winter (1878). In a
series of volumes, _Actors and Actresses of Great Britain and
America_, edited by Lawrence Hutton and Brander Matthews, Edwin Booth
contributed recollections of his father, which contain much valuable
autobiographic material. For the same series Lawrence Barrett
contributed an article on Edwin Booth. See also William Winter, _Life
and Art of Edwin Booth_ (1893); Lawrence Hutton, _Edwin Booth_ (1893);
Henry A. Clapp, _Reminiscences of a Dramatic Critic_ (Boston, 1902);
A.B. Clarke. _The Elder and the Younger Booth_ (Boston, 1882).
(J. J.*)
BOOTH, WILLIAM (1829- ), founder and "general" of the Salvation Army
(q.v.), was born at Nottingham on the 10th of April 1829. At the age
of fifteen his mind took a strongly religious turn, under the influence
of the Wesleyan Methodists, in which body he became a local preacher. In
1849 he came to London, where, according to his own account, his passion
for open-air preaching caused his severance from the Wesleyans. Joining
the Methodist New Connexion, he was ordained a minister, but, not being
employed as he wished in active "travelling evangelization," left that
body also in 1861. Meanwhile he had (1855) married Miss Catherine
Mumford, and had a family of four children. Both he and his wife
occupied themselves with preaching, first in Cornwall and then in
Cardiff and Walsall. At the last-named place was first organized a
"Hallelujah band" of converted criminals and others, who testified in
public of their conversion. In 1864 Booth went to London and continued
his services in tents and in the open air, and founded a body which was
successively known as the East London Revival Society, the East London
Christian Mission, the Christian Mission and (in 1878) the Salvation
Army. The Army operates (1) by outdoor meetings and processions; (2) by
visiting public-houses, prisons, private houses; (3) by holding meetings
in theatres, factories and other unusual buildings; (4) by using the
most popular song-tunes and the language of everyday life, &c.; (5) by
making every convert a daily witness for Christ, both in public and
private. The army is a quasi-military organization, and Booth modelled
its "Orders and Regulations" on those of the British army. Its early
"campaigns" excited violent opposition, a "Skeleton Army" being
organized to break up the meetings, and for many years Booth's followers
were subjected to fine and imprisonment as breakers of the peace. Since
1889, however, these disorders have been little heard of. The operations
of the army were extended in 1880 to the United States, in 1881 to
Australia, and spread to the European continent, to India, Ceylon and
elsewhere, "General" Booth himself being an indefatigable traveller,
organizer and speaker. His wife (b. 1829) died in 1890. By her preaching
at Gateshead, where her husband was circuit minister, in 1860, she began
the women's ministry which is so prominent a feature of the army's work.
A biography of her by Mr Booth Tucker appeared in 1892.
In 1890 "General" Booth attracted further public attention by the
publication of a work entitled _In Darkest England, and the Way Out_, in
which he proposed to remedy pauperism and vice by a series of ten
expedients: (1) the city colony; (2) the farm colony; (3) the over-sea
colony; (4) the household salvage brigade; (5) the rescue homes for
fallen women; (6) deliverance for the drunkard; (7) the prison-gate
brigade; (8) the poor man's bank; (9) the poor man's lawyer; (10)
Whitechapel-by-the-Sea. Money was liberally subscribed and a large part
of the scheme was carried out. The opposition and ridicule with which
Booth's work was for many years received gave way, towards the end of
the 19th century, to very widespread sympathy as his genius and its
results were more fully realized.
The active encouragement of King Edward VII., at whose instance in 1902
he was invited officially to be present at the coronation ceremony,
marked the completeness of the change; and when, in 1905, the "general"
went on a progress through England, he was received in state by the
mayors and corporations of many towns. In the United States also, and
elsewhere, his work was cordially encouraged by the authorities.
See T.F. Coates, _The Life Story of General Booth_ (2nd ed., London,
1906), and bibliography under SALVATION ARMY.
BOOTH (connected with a Teutonic root meaning to dwell, whence also
"bower"), primarily a temporary dwelling of boughs or other slight
materials. Later the word gained the special meaning of a market stall
or any non-permanent erection, such as a tent at a fair, where goods
were on sale. Later still it was applied to the temporary structure
where votes were registered, viz. polling-booth. Temporary booths
erected for the weekly markets naturally tended to become permanent
shops. Thus Stow states that the houses in Old Fish Street, London,
"were at first but movable boards set out on market days to show their
fish there to be sold; but procuring licence to set up sheds, they grew
to shops, and by little and little, to tall houses." As _bothy_ or
_bothie_, in Scotland, meaning generally a hut or cottage, the word was
specially applied to a barrack-like room on large farms where the
unmarried labourers were lodged. This, known as the _Bothy system_, was
formerly common in Aberdeenshire and other parts of northern Scotland.
BOOTHIA (_Boothia Felix_), a peninsula of British North America,
belonging to Franklin district, and having an area of 13,100 sq. m.,
between 69° 30' and 71° 50' N. and 91° 30' and 97° W. Its northernmost
promontory, Murchison Point, is also the northernmost point of the
American mainland. It was discovered by Captain (afterwards Sir James)
Ross, during his expedition of 1829-1833, and was named after Sir Felix
Booth, who had been chiefly instrumental in fitting out the expedition.
Boothia forms the western side of Boothia Gulf. From the main mass of
the continent the peninsula is almost separated by lakes and inlets; and
a narrow channel known as Bellot Strait intervenes between it and North
Somerset Island, which was discovered by Sir E. Parry in 1819. The
peninsula is not only interesting for its connexion with the Franklin
expedition and the Franklin search, but is of scientific importance from
the north magnetic pole having been first distinctly localized here by
Ross, on the western side, in 70° 5' N., 96° 47' W.
Boothia Gulf separates the north-western portion of Baffin Land and
Melville Peninsula from Boothia Peninsula. It is connected with Barrow
Strait and Lancaster Sound by Prince Regent Inlet, with Franklin Strait
by Bellot Strait, and with Fox Channel by Fury and Hecla Strait. The
principal bays are Committee and Pelly in the southern portion, and Lord
Mayor in the western.
BOOTLE, a municipal and county borough in the Bootle parliamentary
division of Lancashire, England; at the mouth of the Mersey, forming a
northern suburb of Liverpool. Pop. (1901) 58,566; an increase by nearly
nine times in forty years. The great docks on this, the east bank of the
Mersey, extend into the borough, but are considered as a whole under
LIVERPOOL (q.v.). Such features, moreover, as communications,
water-supply, &c., may be considered as part of the greater systems of
the same city. The chief buildings and institutions are a handsome town
hall, a museum, free libraries, technical schools, and several public
pleasure grounds. Bootle was incorporated in 1868 and was created a
county borough in 1888; the corporation consists of a mayor, 10 aldermen
and 30 councillors. A proposal to include it within the city of
Liverpool was rejected in parliament in July 1903. Area, 1576 acres.
BOOTY (apparently influenced by "boot," 0. Eng. _bot_, advantage or
profit, through an adaptation from an earlier form cognate with Ger.
_Beute_ and Fr. _butin_), plunder or gain. The phrase "to play booty,"
dating from the 16th century, means to play into a confederate's hands,
or to play intentionally badly at first in order to deceive an opponent.
BOPP, FRANZ (1791-1867), German philologist, was born at Mainz on the
14th of September 1791. In consequence of the political troubles of that
time, his parents removed to Aschaffenburg, in Bavaria, where he
received a liberal education at the Lyceum. It was here that his
attention was drawn to the languages and literature of the East by the
eloquent lectures of Karl J. Windischmann, who, with G.F. Creuzer, J.J.
Görres, and the brothers Schlegel, was full of enthusiasm for Indian
wisdom and philosophy. And further, Fr. Schlegel's book, _Über die
Sprache und Weisheit der Indier_ (Heidelberg, 1808), which was just then
exerting a powerful influence on the minds of German philosophers and
historians, could not fail to stimulate also Bopp's interest in the
sacred language of the Hindus. In 1812 he went to Paris at the expense
of the Bavarian government, with a view to devote himself vigorously to
the study of Sanskrit. There he enjoyed the society of such eminent men
as A.L. Chézy, S. de Sacy, L.M. Langlès, and, above all, of Alexander
Hamilton (1762-1824), who had acquired, when in India, an acquaintance
with Sanskrit, and had brought out, conjointly with Langlès, a
descriptive catalogue of the Sanskrit manuscripts of the Imperial
library. At that library Bopp had access not only to the rich collection
of Sanskrit manuscripts, most of which had been brought from India by
Father Pons early in the 18th century, but also to the Sanskrit books
which had up to that time issued from the Calcutta and Serampore
presses. The first fruit of his four years' study in Paris appeared at
Frankfort-On-Main in 1816, under the title _Über das Conjugationssystem
der Sanskritsprache in Vergleichung mit jenem der griechischen,
lateinischen, persischen und germanischen Sprache_, and it was
accompanied with a preface from the pen of Windischmann. In this first
book Bopp entered at once on the path on which the philological
researches of his whole subsequent life were concentrated. It was not
that he wished to prove the common parentage of Sanskrit with Persian,
Greek, Latin and German, for that had long been established; but his
object was to trace the common origin of their grammatical forms, of
their inflections from composition,--a task which had never been
attempted. By a historical analysis of those forms, as applied to the
verb, he furnished the first trustworthy materials for a history of the
languages compared.
After a brief sojourn in Germany, Bopp came to London, where he made the
acquaintance of Sir Charles Wilkins and H.T. Colebrooke, and became the
friend of Wilhelm von Humboldt, then Prussian ambassador at the court of
St James's, to whom he gave instruction in Sanskrit. He brought out, in
the _Annals of Oriental Literature_ (London, 1820), an essay entitled,
"Analytical Comparison of the Sanskrit, Greek, Latin and Teutonic
Languages," in which he extended to all parts of the grammar what he had
done in his first book for the verb alone. He had previously published a
critical edition, with a Latin translation and notes, of the story of
_Nala and Damayanti_ (London, 1819), the most beautiful episode of the
Mahabharata. Other episodes of the Mahabharata--_Indralokagamanam_,
and three others (Berlin, 1824); _Diluvium_, and three others (Berlin,
1829); and a new edition of _Nala_ (Berlin, 1832)--followed in due
course, all of which, with A.W. Schlegel's edition of the _Bhagavadgita_
(1823), proved excellent aids in initiating the early student into the
reading of Sanskrit texts. On the publication, in Calcutta, of the whole
Mahabharata, Bopp discontinued editing Sanskrit texts, and confined
himself thenceforth exclusively to grammatical investigations.
After a short residence at Göttingen, Bopp was, on the recommendation of
Humboldt, appointed to the chair of Sanskrit and comparative grammar at
Berlin in 1821, and was elected member of the Royal Prussian Academy in
the following year. He brought out, in 1827, his _Ausführliches
Lehrgebäude der Sanskrita-Sprache_, on which he had been engaged since
1821. A new edition, in Latin, was commenced in the following year, and
completed in 1832; and a shorter grammar appeared in 1834. At the same
time he compiled a Sanskrit and Latin glossary (1830) in which, more
especially in the second and third editions (1847 and 1867), account was
also taken of the cognate languages. His chief activity, however,
centred on the elaboration of his _Comparative Grammar_, which appeared
in six parts at considerable intervals (Berlin, 1833, 1835, 1842, 1847,
1849, 1852), under the title _Vergleichende Grammatik des Sanskrit,
Zend, Griechischen, Lateinischen, Litthauischen, Altslavischen,
Gothischen, und Deutschen_. How carefully this work was matured may be
gathered from the series of monographs printed in the _Transactions of
the Berlin Academy_ (1824 to 1831), by which it was preceded. They bear
the general title, _Vergleichende Zergliederung des Sanskrits und der
mit ihm verwandten Sprachen_. Two other essays (on the "Numerals," 1835)
followed the publication of the first part of the _Comparative Grammar_.
The Old-Slavonian began to take its stand among the languages compared
from the second part onwards. The work was translated into English by
E.B. Eastwick in 1845. A second German edition, thoroughly revised
(1856-1861), comprised also the Old-Armenian. From this edition an
excellent French translation was made by Professor Michel Bréal in 1866.
The task which Bopp endeavoured to carry out in his _Comparative
Grammar_ was threefold,--to give a description of the original
grammatical structure of the languages as deduced from their
intercomparison, to trace their phonetic laws, and to investigate the
origin of their grammatical forms. The first and second points were
subservient to the third. As Bopp's researches were based on the best
available sources, and incorporated every new item of information that
came to light, so they continued to widen and deepen in their progress.
Witness his monographs on the vowel system in the Teutonic languages
(1836), on the Celtic languages (1839), on the Old-Prussian (1853) and
Albanian languages (1854), on the accent in Sanskrit and Greek (1854),
on the relationship of the Malayo-Polynesian with the Indo-European
languages (1840), and on the Caucasian languages (1846). In the two last
mentioned the impetus of his genius led him on a wrong track. Bopp has
been charged with neglecting the study of the native Sanskrit grammars,
but in those early days of Sanskrit studies the requisite materials were
not accessible in the great libraries of Europe; and if they had been,
they would have absorbed his exclusive attention for years, while such
grammars as those of Wilkins and Colebrooke, from which his grammatical
knowledge was derived, were all based on native grammars. The further
charge that Bopp, in his _Comparative Grammar_, gave undue prominence to
Sanskrit may be disproved by his own words; for, as early as the year
1820, he gave it as his opinion that frequently the cognate languages
serve to elucidate grammatical forms lost in Sanskrit (_Annals of Or.
Lit._ i. 3),--an opinion which he further developed in all his
subsequent writings.
Bopp's researches, carried with wonderful penetration into the most
minute and almost microscopical details of linguistic phenomena, have
led to the opening up of a wide and distant view into the original
seats, the closer or more distant affinity, and the tenets, practices
and domestic usages of the ancient Indo-European nations, and the
science of comparative grammar may truly be said to date from his
earliest publication. In grateful recognition of that fact, on the
fiftieth anniversary (May 16, 1866) of the date of Windischmann's
preface to that work, a fund called _Die Bopp-Stiftung_, for the
promotion of the study of Sanskrit and comparative grammar, was
established at Berlin, to which liberal contributions were made by his
numerous pupils and admirers in all parts of the globe. Bopp lived to
see the results of his labours everywhere accepted, and his name justly
celebrated. But he died, on the 23rd of October 1867, a poor
man,--though his genuine kindliness and unselfishness, his devotion to
his family and friends, and his rare modesty, endeared him to all who
knew him.
See M. Bréal's translation of Bopp's _Vergl. Gramm._ (1866)
introduction; Th. Benfey, _Gesch. der Sprachwissenschaft_ (1869); A.
Kuhn in _Unsere Zeit_, Neue Folge, iv. i (1868); Lefmann, _Franz Bopp_
(Berlin, 1891-1897).
BOPPARD, a town of Germany, in the Prussian Rhine province, on the left
bank of the Rhine, 12 m. S. of Coblenz on the mainline to Cologne. Pop.
(1900) 5806. It is an old town still partly surrounded by medieval
walls, and its most noteworthy buildings are the Roman Catholic parish
church (12th and 13th centuries); the Carmelite church (1318), the
former castle, now used for administrative offices; the Evangelical
church (1851, enlarged in 1887); and the former Benedictine motnastery
of the Marienberg, founded 1123 and since 1839 a hydropathic
establishment, crowning a hill 100 ft. above the Rhine. Boppard is a
favourite tourist centre, and being less pent in by hills than many
other places in this part of the picturesque gorge of the Rhine, has in
modern times become a residential town. It has some comparatively
insignificant industries, such as tanning and tobacco manufacture; its
direct trade is in wine and fruit.
Boppard (_Baudobriga_) was founded by the Romans; under the Merovingian
dynasty it became a royal residence. During the middle ages it was a
considerable centre of commerce and shipping, and under the Hohenstaufen
emperors was raised to the rank of a free imperial city. In 1312,
however, the emperor Henry VII. pledged the town to his brother Baldwin,
archbishop-elector of Trier, and it remained in the possession of the
electors until it was absorbed by France during the Revolutionary epoch.
It was assigned by the congress of Vienna in 1815 to Prussia.
BORA, an Italian name for a violent cold northerly and northeasterly
wind, common in the Adriatic, especially on the Istrian and Dalmatian
coasts. There is always a northern tendency in the winds on the north
Mediterranean shores in winter owing to the cold air of the mountains
sliding down to the sea where the pressure is less. When, therefore, a
cyclone is formed over the Mediterranean, the currents in its
north-western area draw the air from the cold northern regions, and
during the passage of the cyclone the bora prevails. The bora also
occurs at Novorossiysk on the Black Sea. It is precisely similar in
character to the mistral which prevails in Provence and along the French
Mediterranean littoral.
BORACITE, a mineral of special interest on account of its optical
anomalies. Small crystals bounded on all sides by sharply defined faces
are found in considerable numbers embedded in gypsum and anhydrite in
the salt deposits at Lüneburg in Hanover, where it was first observed in
1787. In external form these crystals are cubic with inclined
hemihedrism, the symmetry being the same as in blende and tetrahedrite.
Their habit varies according to whether the tetrahedron (fig. 1), the
cube (fig. 2). or the rhombic dodecahedron (fig. 3) predominates.
Penetration twins with a tetrahedron face as twin-plane are sometimes
observed. The crystals vary from translucent to transparent, are
possessed of a vitreous lustre, and are colourless or white, though
often tinged with grey, yellow or green. The hardness is as high as 7 on
Mohs' scale; specific gravity 3.0. As first observed by R.J. Haüy in
1791, the crystals are markedly pyroelectric; a cube when heated becomes
positively electrified on four of its corners and negatively on the four
opposite corners. In a crystal such as represented in fig. 3, the
smaller and dull tetrahedral faces s are situated at the analogous poles
(which become positively electrified when the crystal is heated), and
the larger and bright tetrahedral faces _s'_ at the antilogous poles.
[Illustration: Fig. 1 Fig. 2 Fig. 3
Crystals of Boracite]
The characters so far enumerated are strictly in accordance with cubic
symmetry, but when a crystal is examined in polarized light, it will be
seen to be doubly refracting, as was first observed by Sir David
Brewster in 1821. Thin sections show twin-lamellae, and a division into
definite areas which are optically biaxial. By cutting sections in
suitable directions, it may be proved that a rhombic dodecahedral
crystal is really built up of twelve orthorhombic pyramids, the apices
of which meet in the centre and the bases coincide with the dodecahedral
faces of the compound (pseudo-cubic) crystal. Crystals of other forms
show other types of internal structure. When the crystals are heated
these optical characters change, and at a temperature of 265° the
crystals suddenly become optically isotropic; on cooling, however, the
complexity of internal structure reappears. Various explanations have
been offered to account for these "optical anomalies" of boracite. Some
observers have attributed them to alteration, others to internal strains
in the crystals, which originally grew as truly cubic at a temperature
above 265°. It would, however, appear that there are really two
crystalline modifications of the boracite substance, a cubic
modification stable above 265° and an orthorhombic (or monoclinic) one
stable at a lower temperature. This is strictly analogous to the case of
silver iodide, of which cubic and rhombohedral modifications exist at
different temperatures; but whereas rhombohedral as well as pseudo-cubic
crystals of silver iodide (iodyrite) are known in nature, only
pseudo-cubic crystals of boracite have as yet been met with.
Chemically, boracite is a magnesium borate and chloride with the formula
Mg7Cl2B16O30--A small amount of iron is sometimes present, and an
iron-boracite with half the magnesium replaced by ferrous iron has been
called huyssenite. The mineral is insoluble in water, but soluble in
hydrochloric acid. On exposure it is liable to slow alteration, owing to
the absorption of water by the magnesium chloride: an altered form is
known as parasite.
In addition to embedded crystals, a massive variety, known as
stassfurtite, occurs as nodules in the salt deposits at Stassfurt in
Prussia: that from the carnallite layer is compact, resembling
fine-grained marble, and white or greenish in colour, whilst that from
the kainite layer is soft and earthy, and yellowish or reddish in
colour. (L. J. S.)
BORAGE (pronounced like "courage"; possibly from Lat. _borra_, rough
hair), a herb (_Borago officinalis_) with bright blue flowers and hairy
leaves and stem, considered to have some virtue as a cordial and a
febrifuge; used as an ingredient in salads or in making claret-cup, &c.
BORAGINACEAE, an order of plants belonging to the sympetalous section of
dicotyledons, and a member of the series Tubiflorae. It is represented
in Britain by bugloss (_Echium_) (fig. 1), comfrey (_Symphytum_),
_Myosotis_, hounds-tongue (_Cynoglossum_) (fig. 2), and other genera,
while borage (_Borago officinalis_) (fig. 3) occurs as a garden escape
in waste ground. The plants are rough-haired annual or perennial herbs,
more rarely shrubby or arborescent, as in _Cordia_ and _Ehretia_, which
are tropical or sub-tropical. The leaves, which are generally alternate,
are usually entire and narrow: the radical leaves in some genera, as
_Pulmonaria_ (lungwort) and _Cynoglossum_, differ in form from the
stem-leaves, being generally broader and sometimes heart-shaped. A
characteristic feature is the one-sided (_dorsiventral_) inflorescence,
well illustrated in forget-me-not and other species of _Myosotis_; the
cyme is at first closely coiled, becoming uncoiled as the flowers open.
At the same time there is often a change in colour in the flowers, which
are red in bud, becoming blue as they expand, as in _Myosotis, Echium,
Symphytum_ and others. The flowers are generally regular; the form of
the corolla varies widely. Thus in borage it is rotate, tubular in
comfrey, funnel-shaped in hounds-tongue, and salver-shaped in alkanet
(_Anchusa_); the throat is often closed by scale-like outgrowths from
the corolla, forming the so-called corona. A departure from the usual
regular corolla occurs in _Echium_ and a few allied genera, where it is
oblique; in _Lycopsis_ it is also bent.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.--Viper's Bugloss (_Echium vulgare_), about ¼ nat.
size.
1. Single flower, about nat. size. 6. Calyx surrounding nutlets.
2. Corolla split open. 7. Same part of calyx cut away.
3. Calyx. 8. Two nutlets.
4. Pistil. 9. Same enlarged.]
5. One stamen.
The five stamens alternate in position with the lobes of the corolla.
The ovary, of two carpels, is seated on a ring-like disk which secretes
honey. Each carpel becomes divided by a median constriction in four
portions, each containing one ovule; the style springs from the centre
of the group of four divisions.
[Illustration: FIG. 2.--(1) Inflorescence of Forget-me-not; (2) ripe
fruits.]
The flowers show well-marked adaptation to insect-visits. Their colour
and tendency to arrangement on one surface, with the presence of honey,
serve to attract insects. The scales around the throat of the corolla
protect the pollen and honey from wet or undesirable visitors, and by
their difference in colour from the corolla-lobes, as in the yellow eye
of forget-me-not, may serve to indicate the position of the honey. In
most genera the fruit consists of one-seeded nutlets, generally four,
but one or more may be undeveloped. The shape of the nutlet and the
character of its coat are very varied. Thus in _Lithospermum_ the
nutlets are hard like a stone, in _Myosotis_ usually polished, in
_Cynoglossum_ covered with bristles, &c.
The order is widely spread in temperate and tropical regions, and
contains 85 genera with about 1200 species. Its chief centre is the
Mediterranean region, whence it extends over central Europe and Asia,
becoming less frequent northwards. A smaller centre occurs on the
Pacific side of North America. The order is less developed in the south
temperate zone.
[Illustration: FIG. 3.--(1) Flower of Borage; (2) same in vertical
section enlarged; (3) horizontal plan of flower; (4) flower of Comfrey
after removal of corolla, showing unripe fruit.]
The order is of little economic value. Several genera, such as borage
and _Pulmonaria_, were formerly used in medicine, and the roots yield
purple or brown dyes, as in _Alkanna tinctoria_ (alkanet). Heliotrope or
cherry-pie (_Heliotropium peruvianum_) is a well-known garden plant.
BORÅS, a town of Sweden, in the district (_län_) of Elfsborg, 45 m. E.
of Gothenburg by rail, on the river Viske. Pop. (1880) 4723; (1900)
15,837. It ranks among the first twelve towns in Sweden both in
population and in the value of its manufacturing industries. These are
principally textile, as there are numerous cotton spinning and weaving
mills, together with a technical weaving school. The town was founded in
1632 by King Gustavus Adolphus.
BORAX (sodium pyroborate or sodium biborate), Na2B4O7, a substance which
appears in commerce under two forms, namely "common" or prismatic borax,
Na_2B4O7·10H2O, and "jewellers'" or octahedral borax, Na_2B4O7·5H2O. It
is to be noted that the term "borax" was used by the alchemists in a
very vague manner, and is therefore not to be taken as meaning the
substance now specifically known by the name. Prismatic borax is found
widely distributed as a natural product (see below, _Mineralogy_) in
Tibet, and in Canada, Peru and Transylvania, while the bed of Borax
Lake, near Clear Lake in California, is occupied by a large mass of
crystallized borax, which is fit for use by the assayer without
undergoing any preliminary purification. The supply of borax is,
however, mainly derived from the boric acid of Tuscany, which is fused
in a reverberatory furnace with half its weight of sodium carbonate, and
the mass after cooling is extracted with warm water. An alternative
method is to dissolve sodium carbonate in lead-lined steam-heated pans,
and add the boric acid gradually; the solution then being concentrated
until the borax crystallizes. Borax is also prepared from the naturally
occurring calcium borate, which is mixed in a finely divided condition
with the requisite quantity of soda ash; the mixture is fused, extracted
with water and concentrated until the solution commences to crystallize.
From a supersaturated aqueous solution of borax, the pentahydrate,
Na2B4O7·5H2O, is deposited when evaporation takes place at somewhat
high temperatures. The same hydrate can be prepared by dissolving
borax in water until the solution has a specific gravity of 1.246 and
then allowing the solution to cool. The pentahydrate is deposited
between 79° C. and 56° C.; below this temperature the decahydrate or
ordinary borax, Na2B4O7·10H2O, is deposited. Crystals of ordinary
borax swell up to a very great extent on heating, losing their water
of crystallization and melting to a clear white glass. The crystals of
octahedral borax fuse more easily than those of the prismatic form and
are less liable to split when heated, so that they are preferable for
soldering or fluxing. Fused borax dissolves many metallic oxides,
forming complex borates which in many cases show characteristic
colours. Its use in soldering depends on the fact that solder only
adheres to the surface of an untarnished metal, and consequently a
little borax is placed on the surface of the metal and heated by the
soldering iron in order to remove any superficial film of oxide. It is
also used for glazing pottery, in glass-making and the glazing of
linen.
Boric acid (q.v.) being only a weak acid, its salts readily undergo
hydrolytic dissociation in aqueous solution, and this property can be
readily shown with a concentrated aqueous solution of borax, for by
adding litmus and then just sufficient acetic acid to turn the litmus
red, the addition of a large volume of water to the solution changes
the colour back to blue again. The boric acid being scarcely ionized
gives only a very small quantity of hydrogen ions, whilst the base
(sodium hydroxide) produced by the hydrolysis occasioned by the
dilution of the solution, being a "strong base," is highly ionized and
gives a comparatively large amount of hydroxyl ions. In the solution,
therefore, there is now an excess of hydroxyl ions; consequently it
has an alkaline reaction and the litmus turns blue.
_Mineralogy._--The Tibetan mineral deposits have been known since very
early times, and formerly the crude material was exported to Europe,
under the name of _tincal_, for the preparation of pure borax and other
boron salts. The most westerly of the Tibetan deposits are in the
lake-plain of Pugha on the Rulangchu, a tributary of the Indus, at an
elevation of 15,000 ft.: here the impure borax (_sohaga_) occurs over an
area of about 2 sq. m., and is covered by a saline efflorescence;
successive crops are obtained by the action of rain and snow and
subsequent evaporation. Deposits of purer material (_chú tsalé_ or water
borax) occur at the lakes of Rudok, situated to the east of the Pugha
district; also still farther to the east at the great lakes Tengri Nor,
north of Lhasa, and several other places. More recently, the extensive
deposits of borates (chiefly, however, of calcium; see COLEMANITE) in
the Mohave desert on the borders of California and Nevada, and in the
Atacama desert in South America, have been the chief commercial sources
of boron compounds. The boron contained in solution in the salt lakes
has very probably been supplied by hot springs and solfataras of
volcanic origin, such as those which at the present day charge the
waters of the lagoons in Tuscany with boric acid. The deposits formed by
evaporation from these lakes and marshes or salines, are mixtures of
borates, various alkaline salts (sodium carbonate, sulphate, chloride),
gypsum, &c. In the mud of the lakes and in the surrounding marshy soil
fine isolated crystals of borax are frequently found. For example,
crystals up to 7 in. in length and weighing a pound each have been found
in large numbers at Borax Lake in Lake county, and at Borax Lake in San
Bernardino county, both in California.
Borax crystallizes with ten molecules of water, the composition of the
crystals being Na2B4O7 + 10H2O. The crystals belong to the monoclinic
system, and it is a curious fact that in habit and angles they closely
resemble pyroxene (a silicate of calcium, magnesium and iron). There
is a perfect cleavage parallel to the orthopinacoid and less perfect
cleavages parallel to the faces of the prism. The mineral is
transparent to opaque and white, sometimes greyish, bluish or greenish
in colour. Hardness 2-2½; sp. gr. 1.69-1.72.
The optical characters are interesting, because of the striking
crossed dispersion of the optic axes, of which phenomenon borax
affords the best example. The optic figure seen in convergent
polarized light through a section cut parallel to the plane of
symmetry of a borax crystal is symmetrical only with respect to the
central point. The plane of the optic axes for red light is inclined
at 2° to that for blue light, and the angle between the optic axes
themselves is 3° greater for red than for blue light.
BORDA, JEAN CHARLES (1733-1799), French mathematician and nautical
astronomer, was born at Dax on the 4th of May 1733. He studied at La
Flèche, and at an early age obtained a commission in the cavalry. In
1756 he presented a _Mémoire sur le mouvement des projectiles_ to the
Academy of Sciences, who elected him a member. He was present at the
battle of Hastembeck, and soon afterwards joined the naval service. He
visited the Azores and the Canary Islands, of which he constructed an
admirable map. In 1782 his frigate was taken by a British squadron; he
himself was carried to England, but was almost immediately released on
parole and returned to France. He died at Paris on the 20th of February
1799. Borda contributed a long series of valuable memoirs to the Academy
of Sciences. His researches in hydrodynamics were highly useful for
marine engineering, while the reflecting and repeating circles, as
improved by him, were of great service in nautical astronomy. He was
associated with J.B.J. Delambre and P.F.A. Méchain in the attempt to
determine an arc of the meridian, and the greater number of the
instruments employed in the task were invented by him.
See J.B. Biot, "Notice sur Borda" in the _Mém. de l'Acad. des
Sciences_, iv.
BORDAGE. (i) A nautical term (from Fr. _bord_, side) for the planking on
a ship's side. (2) A feudal term (from Lat. _borda_, a cottage) for the
tenure by which a certain class of villein held their cottages; also
the services due from these villeins or "bordars." A "bordar" (Med. Lat.
_bardarius_) was a villein who obtained a cottage from his lord in
return for menial services (see VILLENAGE).
BORDEAUX, a city of south-western France, capital of the department of
Gironde, 359 m. S.S.W. of Paris by a main line of the Orléans railway
and 159 m. N.W. of Toulouse on the main line of the Southern railway.
Pop. (1906) 237,707. Bordeaux, one of the finest and most extensive
cities in France, is situated on the left or west bank of the Garonne
about 60 m. from the sea, in a plain which comprises the wine-growing
district of Médoc. The Garonne at this point describes a semicircle,
separating the city proper on the left bank from the important suburb of
La Bastide on the right bank. The river is crossed by the Pont de
Bordeaux, a fine stone structure of the early 19th century, measuring
1534 ft. in length, and by a railway bridge connecting the station of
the Orléans railway company in La Bastide with that of the Southern
company on the left bank. Looking west from the Pont de Bordeaux, the
view embraces a crescent of wide and busy quays with a background of
lofty warehouses, factories and mansions, behind which rise towers and
steeples. Almost at the centre of the line of quays is the Place des
Quinconces, round which lie the narrow, winding streets in which the
life of the city is concentrated. Outside this quarter, which contains
most of the important buildings, the streets are narrow and quiet and
bordered by the low white houses which at Bordeaux take the place of the
high tenements characteristic of other large French towns. The whole
city is surrounded by a semicircle of boulevards, beyond which lie the
suburbs of Le Bouscat, Caudéran, Mérignac, Talence and Bégles. The
principal promenades are situated close together near the centre of the
city. They comprise the beautiful public garden, the allées de Tourny
and the Place des Quinconces. The latter is planted with plane trees,
among which stand two huge statues of Montaigne and Montesquieu, and
terminates upon the quays with two rostral columns which serve as
lighthouses. On its west side there is a monument to the Girondin
deputies proscribed under the convention in 1793. At its south-west
corner the Place des Quinconces opens into the Place de la Comédie,
which contains the Grand Théâtre (18th century), the masterpiece of the
architect Victor Louis. The Place de la Comédie, the centre of business
in Bordeaux, is traversed by a street which, under the names of Cours du
Chapeau-Rouge, rue de l'Intendance and rue Judaïque, runs from the Place
de la Bourse and the quai de la Douane on the east to the outer
boulevards on the west. Another important thoroughfare, the rue Sainte
Cathérine, runs at right angles to the rue de l'Intendance and enters
the Place de la Comédie on the south. The Pont de Bordeaux is continued
by the Cours Victor Hugo, a curved street crossing the rue Sainte
Cathérine and leading to the cathedral of St André. This church, dating
from the 11th to the 14th centuries, is a building in the Gothic style
with certain Romanesque features, chief among which are the arches in
the nave. It consists of a large nave without aisles, a transept at the
extremities of which are the main entrances, and a choir, flanked by
double aisles and chapels and containing many works of art. Both the
north and south façades are richly decorated with sculpture and
statuary. Of the four towers flanking the principal portals, only those
to the north are surmounted by spires. Near the choir stands an isolated
tower. It contains the great bell of the cathedral and is known as the
Clocher Pey-Berland, after the archbishop of Bordeaux who erected it in
the 15th century. Of the numerous other churches of Bordeaux the most
notable are St Seurin (11th to the 15th centuries), with a finely
sculptured southern portal; Ste Croix (12th and 13th centuries),
remarkable for its Romanesque façade; and St Michel, a fine Gothic
building of the 15th and 16th centuries. The bell tower of St Michel,
which has the highest spire (354 ft.) in the south of France, dates from
the end of the 15th century, and, like that of the cathedral, stands
apart from its church. The palace of the Faculties of Science and of
Letters (1881-1886) contains the tomb of Michel de Montaigne. The
prefecture, the hôtel de ville, the bourse and the custom-house belong
to the 15th century. The law-courts and the hospital of St André (the
foundation of which dates from 1390) belong to the first half of the
19th century. Of greater antiquarian interest is the Palais Gallien,
situated near the public garden, consisting of remains of lofty arcades,
vaulting and fragments of wall, which once formed part of a Roman
amphitheatre. Bordeaux lost its fortifications in the 18th century, but
four of the old gateways or triumphal arches belonging to that period
still remain. Still older are the Porte de Cailhau, once the entrance to
the Palais de l'Ombrière, which before its destruction was the residence
of the duke of Aquitaine, and the Porte de l'Hôtel de Ville, the former
of the 15th, the latter of the 13th and 16th centuries.
Bordeaux is the seat of an archbishop, the headquarters of the XVIII.
army corps, the centre of an _académie_ (educational division) and the
seat of a court of appeal. A court of assizes is held there, and there
are tribunals of first instance and of commerce, a council of
trade-arbitrators, a chamber of commerce and a branch of the Bank of
France. Its educational institutions include faculties of law, of
science, of letters and of medicine and pharmacy, a faculty of Catholic
theology, lycées, training colleges, a higher school of commerce, a
chair of agriculture, a school of fine art and a naval school of
medicine. There are several museums, including one with a large
collection of pictures and sculptures, a library with over 200,000
volumes and numerous learned societies.
The trade of Bordeaux, the fourth port in France, is chiefly carried on
by sea. Its port, 5½ m. long and on the average 550 yds. wide, is formed
by the basin of the Garonne and is divided into two portions by the Pont
de Bordeaux. That to the south is used only by small craft; that to the
north is accessible to vessels drawing from 21 to 26 ft. according to
the state of the tide. From 1000 to 1200 vessels can be accommodated in
the harbour, which is lined on both sides by quays and sloping wharves
served by railway lines. At the northen extremity of the harbour, on the
left bank, there is a floating basin of 25 acres in extent, capable of
receiving the largest vessels; it has over 1900 yds. of quays and is
furnished with a repairing dock and with elaborate machinery for the
loading and unloading of goods. In 1907 the construction of new docks
behind this basin was begun. The city maintains commercial relations
with nearly all countries, but chiefly with Great Britain, Spain,
Argentina, Portugal and the United States. The most important line of
steamers using the port is the South American service of the Messageries
Maritimes. The total value of the exports and imports of Bordeaux
averages between 25 and 26 millions sterling yearly. Of this amount
exports make up 13½ millions, of which the sales of wine bring in about
one quarter. The city is the centre of the trade in "Bordeaux" wines,
and the wine-cellars of the quays are one of its principal sights. Other
principal exports are brandy, hides and skins, sugar, rice, woollen and
cotton goods, salt-fish, chemicals, oil-cake, pitwood, fruit, potatoes
and other vegetables. The chief imports are wool, fish, timber, rice,
wine, rubber, coal, oil-grains, hardware, agricultural and other
machinery and chemicals. A large fleet is annually despatched to the
cod-fisheries of Newfoundland and Iceland. The most important industry
is ship-building and refitting. Ironclads and torpedo-boats as well as
merchant vessels are constructed. Railway carriages are also built. The
industries subsidiary to the wine-trade, such as wine-mixing, cooperage
and the making of bottles, corks, capsules, straw envelopes and wooden
cases, occupy many hands. There are also flour-mills, sugar-refineries,
breweries, distilleries, oil-works, cod-drying works, manufactories of
canned and preserved fruits, vegetables and meat, and of chocolate.
Chemicals, leather, iron-ware, machinery and pottery are manufactured,
and a tobacco factory employs 1500 hands.
Bordeaux (_Burdigala_) was originally the chief town of the Bituriges
Vivisci. Under the Roman empire it became a flourishing commercial city,
and in the 4th century it was made the capital of Aquitania Secunda.
Ausonius, a writer of the 4th century, who was a native of the place,
describes it as four-square and surrounded with walls and lofty towers,
and celebrates its importance as one of the greatest educational centres
of Gaul. In the evils that resulted from the disintegration of the
empire Bordeaux had its full share, and did not recover its prosperity
till the beginning of the 10th century. Along with Guienne it belonged
to the English kings for nearly three hundred years (1154-1453), and was
for a time the seat of the brilliant court of Edward the Black Prince,
whose son Richard was born in the city. An extensive commerce was
gradually developed between the Bordeaux merchants and their
fellow-subjects in England,--London, Hull, Exeter, Dartmouth, Bristol
and Chester being the principal ports with which they traded. The
English administration was favourable to the liberties as well as to the
trade of the city. In 1235 it received the right of electing its mayors,
who were assisted in the administration by a "jurade" or municipal
council. The influence of Bordeaux was still further increased when
several important towns of the region, among them St Emilion and
Libourne, united in a federation under its leadership. The defeat of the
English at the battle of Castillon in 1453 was followed, after a siege
of three months, by the submission of Bordeaux to Charles VII. The
privileges of the city were at once curtailed, and were only partially
restored under Louis XI., who established there the parlement of
Guienne. In 1548 the inhabitants resisted the imposition of the salt-tax
by force of arms, a rebellion for which they were punished by the
constable Anne de Montmorency with merciless severity.
The reformed religion found numerous adherents at Bordeaux, and after
the massacre of St Bartholomew nearly three hundred of its inhabitants
lost their lives. The 17th century was a period of disturbance. The city
was for a time the chief support of the Fronde, and on two occasions, in
1653 and 1675, troops were sent to repress insurrections against royal
measures. In the middle of the 18th century, a period of commercial and
architectural activity for Bordeaux, the marquis de Tourny, _intendant_
of Guienne, did much to improve the city by widening the streets and
laying out public squares. It was the headquarters of the Girondists at
the Revolution, and during the Reign of Terror suffered almost as
severely as Lyons and Marseilles. Its commerce was greatly reduced under
Napoleon I. In 1814 it declared for the house of Bourbon; and Louis
XVIII. afterwards gave the title of duc de Bordeaux to his grand-nephew,
better known as the comte de Chambord. In 1870 the French government was
transferred to Bordeaux from Tours on the approach of the Germans to the
latter city.
See Camille Jullian, _Hist. de Bordeaux, depuis les origines jusqu'en
1895_ (Bordeaux, 1895); T. Malvezin, _Hist. du commerce de Bordeaux_
(Bordeaux, 1892); _Bordeaux, aperçu historique, sol, population,
industrie, commerce, administration_ (Bordeaux, 1892).
BORDEN, SIR FREDERICK WILLIAM (1847- ), Canadian statesman, was born
at Cornwallis, Nova Scotia, on the 14th of May 1847. He was educated at
King's College, Windsor, and at Harvard University, and for some years
practised medicine at Canning, Nova Scotia. In 1874 he was elected to
the Canadian parliament as Liberal member for King's county. In 1896 he
became minister of militia and defence in the Liberal ministry.
BORDEN, ROBERT LAIRD (1854- ), Canadian statesman, was born at Grand
Pré, Nova Scotia, on the 26th of June 1854. In 1878 he was called to the
bar, and became a leading lawyer in his native province. In 1896 he was
elected to the Canadian parliament for the city of Halifax, but later
lost his seat there and was elected for Carlton. In February 1901, on
the resignation of Sir Charles Tupper, he became leader of the
Conservative opposition. At the general election of 1908 he was returned
again for Halifax.
BORDENTOWN, a city of Burlington county, New Jersey, U.S.A., on the E.
bank of the Delaware river, 6 m. S. of Trenton and 28 m. N.E. of
Philadelphia. Pop. (1890) 4232; (1900) 4110; (1905) 4073; (1910) 4250.
It is served by the Pennsylvania railway, the Camden & Trenton railway
(an electric line, forming part of the line between Philadelphia and New
York) and by freight and passenger steamboat lines on the Delaware.
Bordentown is attractively situated on a broad, level plain, 65 ft.
above the river, with wide, beautifully shaded streets. The city is the
seat of the Bordentown Military Institute (with the Woodward memorial
library), of the state manual training and industrial school for
coloured youth, of the St Joseph's convent and mother-house of the
Sisters of Mercy, and of St Joseph's academy for girls. There are
ship-yards, iron foundries and forges, machine shops, shirt factories, a
pottery for the manufacture of sanitary earthenware, a woollen mill and
canning factories. The first settlers on the site of the city were
several Quaker families who came in the 18th century. Bordentown was
laid out by Joseph Borden, in whose honour it was named; was
incorporated as a borough in 1825; was re-incorporated in 1849, and was
chartered as a city in 1867. It was the home for some years of Francis
Hopkinson and of his son Joseph Hopkinson (whose residences are still
standing), and from 1817 to 1832 and in 1837-1839 was the home of Joseph
Bonaparte, ex-king of Spain, who lived on a handsome estate known as
"Bonaparte's Park," which he laid out with considerable magnificence.
Here he entertained many distinguished visitors, including Lafayette.
The legislature of New Jersey passed a special law, enabling him, as an
alien, to own real property, and it is said to have been in reference to
this that the state received its nickname "Spain." Prince Napoleon
Lucien Charles Murat, the second son of Joachim Murat, also lived here
for many years; and the estate known as "Ironsides" was long the home of
Rear-Admiral Charles Stewart. The Camden & Amboy railway, begun in 1831
and completed from Bordentown to South Amboy (34 m.) in 1832, was one of
the first railways in the United States; in September 1831 the famous
engine "Johnny Bull," built in England and imported for this railway,
had its first trial at Bordentown, and a monument now marks the site
where the first rails were laid.
See E.M. Woodward, _Bonaparte's Park and the Murats_ (Trenton, 1879).
BORDERS, THE, a name applied to the territory on both sides of the
boundary line between England and Scotland. The term has also a literary
and historical as well as a geographical sense, and is most frequently
employed of the Scottish side. The line begins on the coast of
Berwickshire at a spot 3 m. N. by W. of Berwick, and, after running a
short distance W. and S., reaches the Tweed near the village of Paxton,
whence it keeps to the river to a point just beyond Carham. There it
strikes off S.S.E. to the Cheviot Hills, the watershed of which for 35
m. constitutes the boundary, which is thereafter formed by a series of
streams--Bells Burn, the Kershope, Liddel and Esk. After following the
last named for 1 m. it cuts across country due west to the Sark, which
it follows to the river's mouth at the head of the Solway Firth. The
length of the boundary thus described is 108 m., but in a direct line
from the Solway to the North Sea the distance is only 70 m. At the
extreme east end a small district of 8 sq. m., consisting of the tract
north of the Tweed which is not included in Scotland, forms the "bounds"
or "liberties" of Berwick, or the country of the borough and town of
Berwick-on-Tweed. At the extreme west between the Sark and Esk as far up
the latter as its junction with the Liddel, there was a strip of
country, a "No man's land," for generations the haunt of outlaws and
brigands. This was called the Debatable Land, because the possession of
it was a constant source of contention between England and Scotland
until its boundaries were finally adjusted in 1552. The English Border
counties are Northumberland and Cumberland, the Scottish Berwick,
Roxburgh and Dumfries; though historically, and still by usage, the
Scottish shires of Selkirk and Peebles have always been classed as
Border shires. On the English side the region is watered by the Till,
Bowmont, Coquet, Rede and North Tyne; on the Scottish by the Tweed,
Whiteadder, Leet, Kale, Jed, Kershope, Liddel, Esk and Sark. Physically
there is a marked difference between the country on each side. On the
southern it mostly consists of lofty, bleak moorland, affording
subsistence for sheep and cattle, and rugged glens and ravines, while on
the northern there are many stretches of fertile soil, especially in the
valleys and dales, and the landscape is often romantic and beautiful.
Railway communication is supplied by the east coast route to Berwick,
the Waverley route through Liddesdale, the London & North-Western by
Carlisle, the North British branch from Berwick to St Boswells, and the
North Eastern lines from Berwick to Kelso, Alnwick to Coldstream, and
Newcastle to Carlisle.
At frequent intervals during a period of 1500 years the region was the
scene of strife and lawlessness. The Roman road of Watling Street
crossed the Cheviots at Brownhartlaw (1664 ft.), close to the camp of
_Ad Fines_, by means of which the warlike Brigantes on the south and the
Gadeni and Otadeni on the north were held in check, while another Roman
road, the Wheel Causeway, passed into Scotland near the headwaters of
the North Tyne and Liddel. (For early history see LOTHIAN; NORTHUMBRIA;
STRATHCLYDE.) In the 12th century were founded the abbeys of Hexham and
Alnwick, the priory church of Lindisfarne and the cathedral of Carlisle
on the English side, and on the Scottish the abbeys of Jedburgh, Kelso,
Melrose and Dryburgh. The deaths of Alexander III. (1286) and Margaret
the Maid of Norway (1290), whose right to the throne had been
acknowledged, plunged the country into the wars of the succession and
independence, and until the union of the crowns in 1603 the borders were
frequently disturbed. Berwick and Carlisle were repeatedly assailed, and
battles took place at Halidon Hill (1333), Otterburn (1388), Nisbet
(1402), Homildon (1402), Piperden (1435), Hedgeley Moor (1464), Flodden
(1513), Solway Moss (1542), and Ancrum Moor (1544), in addition to many
fights arising out of family feuds and raids fomented by the Armstrongs,
Eliots, Grahams, Johnstones, Maxwells and other families, of which the
most serious were the encounters at Arkenholme (Langholm) in 1455, the
Raid of Reidswire (1575), and the bloody combat at Dryfe Sands (1593).
The English expeditions of 1544 and 1545 were exceptionally disastrous,
since they involved the destruction of the four Scottish border abbeys,
the sack of many towns, and the obliteration of Roxburgh. The only other
important conflict belongs to the Covenanters' time, when the marquess
of Montrose was defeated at Philiphaugh in 1645. Partly for the defence
of the kingdoms and partly to overawe the freebooters and mosstroopers
who were a perpetual menace to the peace until they were suppressed in
the 17th century, castles were erected at various points on both sides
of the border.
Even during the period when relations between England and Scotland were
strained, the sovereigns of both countries recognized it to be their
duty to protect property and regulate the lawlessness of the borders.
The frontier was divided into the East, Middle and West Marches, each
under the control of an English and a Scots warden. The posts were
generally filled by eminent and capable men who had to keep the peace,
enforce punishment for breach of the law, and take care that neither
country encroached on the boundary of the other. The wardens usually
conferred once a year on matters of common interest, and as a rule their
meetings were conducted in a friendly spirit, though in 1575 a display
of temper led to the affair of the Raid of Reidswire. The appointment
was not only one of the most important in this quarter of the kingdom,
but lucrative as well, part of the fines and forfeits falling to the
warden, who was also entitled to ration and forage for his retinue. On
the occasion of his first public progress to London, James I. of England
attended service in Berwick church (March 27, 1603) "to return thanks
for his peaceful entry into his new dominions." Anxious to blot out all
memory of the bitter past, he forbade the use of the word "Borders,"
hoping that the designation "Middle Shires" might take its place.
Frontier fortresses were also to be dismantled and their garrisons
reduced to nominal strength. In course of time this policy had the
desired effect, though the expression "Borders" proved too convenient
geographically to be dropped, the king's proposed amendment being in
point of fact merely sentimental and, in the relative positions then and
now of England and Scotland, meaningless. Some English strongholds, such
as Alnwick, Chillingham, Ford and Naworth, have been modernized; others,
like Norham, Wark and Warkworth, are picturesque ruins; but most of the
Scottish fortresses have been demolished and their sites built over, or
are now represented by grass-grown mounds. Another familiar feature in
the landscape is the chain of peel towers crossing the country from
coast to coast. Many were homes of marauding chiefs, and nearly all were
used as beacon-stations to give alarm of foray or invasion. Early in the
18th century the Scottish gipsies found a congenial home on the
Roxburghshire side of the Cheviots; and at a later period the Scottish
border became notorious for a hundred years as offering hospitality to
runaway couples who were clandestinely married at Gretna Green,
Coldstream or Lamberton. The toll-house of Lamberton displayed the
following intimation--"Ginger-beer sold here and marriages performed on
the most reasonable terms."
Border ballads occupy a distinctive place in English literature. Many of
them were rescued from oblivion by Sir Walter Scott, who ransacked the
district for materials for his _Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border_,
which appeared in 1802 and 1803. Border traditions and folklore, and the
picturesque, pathetic and stirring incidents of which the country was so
often the scene, appealed strongly to James Hogg ("the Ettrick
Shepherd"), John Wilson ("Christopher North"), and John Mackay Wilson
(1804-1835), whose _Tales of the Borders_, published in 1835, long
enjoyed popular favour.
Besides the works just mentioned see Sir Herbert Maxwell, _History of
Dumfries and Galloway_ (1896); George Ridpath, _Border History of
England and Scotland_ (1776); Professor John Veitch, _History and
Poetry of the Scottish Border_ (1877); Sir George Douglas, _History of
the Border Counties_ (Scots), (1890): W.S. Crockett, _The Scott
Country_ (1902).
BORDIGHERA, a town of Liguria, Italy, in the province of Porto Maurizio,
91 m. S.W. of Genoa by rail, and 3 m. E.N.E. of Ventimiglia. Pop. (1901)
4673. It is a favourite winter resort, especially for visitors from
England, and is situated in beautiful coast scenery. It has fine
gardens, and its flowers and palms are especially famous: the former are
largely exported, while the latter serve for the supply of palm branches
for St Peter's at Rome and other churches on Palm Sunday. The new museum
contains a unique collection of the flora of the Riviera. From 1682
until the Napoleonic period, Bordighera was the capital of a small
republic of the villages of the neighbouring valleys.
BORDONE, PARIS (1495-1570), Venetian painter, was born at Treviso, and
entered the _bottega_ of Titian in 1509. Vasari, to whom we are indebted
for nearly all the facts of Bordone's life--later research has not added
much to our knowledge--holds that he did not spend many years with
Titian and set himself to imitate the manner of Giorgione to the utmost
of his power. As a matter of fact, the Giorgionesque traits in Bordone's
earlier works are derived entirely from Titian, whom he imitated so
closely that to this day some of his paintings pass under Titian's name.
Crowe and Cavalcaselle and Dr Bode ascribe to Bordone the "Baptism of
Christ" in the Capitoline gallery, but Morelli sees in it an early work
of Titian. Paris Bordone subsequently executed many important mural
paintings in Venice, Treviso and Vicenza, all of which have perished. In
1538 he was invited to France by Francis I., at whose court he painted
many portraits, though no trace of them is to be found in French
collections, the two portraits at the Louvre being later acquisitions.
On his return journey he undertook works of great importance for the
Fugger palace at Augsburg, which again have been lost sight of.
Bordone's pictures are of very unequal merit. They have a certain
nobility of style, and that golden harmony of colour which he derived
from Titian, together with the realistic conception of the human figure
and the dignified character of his portraiture. On the other hand, his
nudes are a little coarse in form, and the action of his figures is
frequently unnatural and affected. A true child of the Renaissance, he
also painted a number of religious pictures, numerous mythological
scenes, allegories, nymphs, cupids and subjects from Ovid's fables, but
he excelled as a portraitist. His principal surviving work is the
"Fisherman and Doge" at the Venice Academy. The National Gallery,
London, has a "Daphnis and Chloe" and a portrait of a lady, whilst a
"Holy Family" from his brush is at Bridgwater House. Other important
works of his are the "Madonna" in the Tadini collection at Lovere, the
paintings in the Duomo of Treviso, two mythological pictures at the
Villa Borghese and the Doria palace in Rome, the "Chess Players" in
Berlin, a very little-known portrait of superb quality in the possession
of the landgrave of Hesse at Kronberg, and a "Baptism of Christ" in
Philadelphia. Besides these, there are examples of his art in Bergamo,
Milan, Genoa, Padua, Siena, Venice, Florence, Munich, Dresden and
Vienna.
Beyond some references in general works on Italian painting, very
little has been written on Paris Bordone since the days of Vasari. In
1900 the committee of the fourth centenary of Paris Bordone, Treviso,
published L. Barlo and G. Biscaro's _Della Vita e delle Opere di Paris
Bordone_; and the _Nuova Antologia_ (November 16, 1900) contains a
sixteen-page paper on Paris Bordone by P.G. Molmenti. (P. G. K.)
BORE, a high tidal wave rushing up a narrow estuary or tidal river. The
bore of the Severn is produced by a tide that rises 18 ft. in an hour
and a half. This body of water becomes compressed in the narrowing
funnel-shaped estuary, and heaped up into an advancing wave extending
from bank to bank. The phenomenon is also particularly well illustrated
in the Bay of Fundy. The origin of this word is doubtful, but it is
usually referred to a Scandinavian word _bara_, a wave, billow. The
other name by which the phenomenon is known, "eagre," is also of unknown
origin. There is, of course, no connexion with "bore," to make a hole by
piercing or drilling, which is a common Teutonic word, cf. Ger.
_bohren_, the Indo-European root being seen in Lat. _forare_, to pierce,
Gr. [Greek: pharos], plough. For the making of deep holes for shafts,
wells, &c., see BORING. The substantival use of this word is generally
confined to the circular cavity of objects of tubular shape,
particularly of a gun, hence the internal diameter of a gun, its
"calibre" (see GUN). A "bore" is also a tiresome, wearying person,
particularly one who persistently harps on one subject, in or out of
season, whatever interest his audience may take in it. This has
generally been taken to be merely a metaphorical use of "bore," to
pierce. The earliest sense, however, in which it is found in English
(1766, in certain letters printed in Jesse's _Life of George Selwyn_) is
that of _ennui_, and a French origin is suggested. The _New English
Dictionary_ conjectures a possible source in Fr. _bourrer_, to stuff,
satiate.
BOREAS, in Greek mythology, a personification of the north wind. He was
described as the son of Astraeus and Eos, brother of Hesperus, Notus and
Zephyrus. His dwelling-place was on Mount Haemus in Thrace, or at
Salmydessus, near the country of the Hyperboreans. He was said to have
carried off the beautiful Oreithyia, a daughter of Erechtheus, king of
Athens, when he found her leading the dance at a festival, or gathering
flowers on the banks of the Ilissus or some other spot in the
neighbourhood of Athens. He had before wooed her in vain, and now
carried her off to Mount Haemus, where they lived as king and queen of
the winds, and had two sons, Zetes and Calaïs, and two daughters,
Cleopatra and Chione (Apollodorus iii. 15; Ovid, _Metam._ vi. 677). For
the loss of Oreithyia the Athenians in after times counted on Boreas's
friendliness, and were assured of it when he sent storms which wrecked
the Persian fleet at Athos and at Sepias (Herodotus vii. 189). For this
they erected to him a sanctuary or altar near the Ilissus, and held a
festival (Boreasmos) in his honour. Thurii also, which was a colony of
Athens, offered sacrifice to him as Euergetes every year, because he had
destroyed the hostile fleet of Dionysius the elder (Aelian, _Var. Hist._
xii. 61). In works of art Boreas was represented as bearded, powerful,
draped against cold, and winged. On the Tower of the Winds at Athens he
is figured holding a shell, such as is blown by Tritons. Boreas carrying
off Oreithyia is the subject of a beautiful bronze relief in the British
Museum, found in the island of Calymna. The same subject occurs
frequently on painted Greek vases.
BOREL, PETRUS, whose full name was PIERRE JOSEPH BOREL D'HAUTERIVE
(1809-1859), French writer, was born at Lyons on the 26th of June 1809.
His father had been ruined by taking part in the resistance offered by
the Lyonnese royalists against the Convention, and Petrus Borel was
educated in Paris to be an architect. He soon abandoned his profession
to become one of the most violent partisans of the Romantic movement.
His extravagant sentiments were illustrated in various volumes:
_Rhapsodies_ (1832), poems; _Champavert, contes immoraux_ (1833);
_Madame Putiphar_ (1839), &c. His works did not rescue him from poverty,
but through the kindness of Théophile Gautier and Mme de Girardin he
obtained a small place in the civil service. He died at Mostaganem in
Algeria on the 14th of July 1859.
See Jules Clarétie, _Petrus Borel, le Lycanthrope_ (1865); and Ch.
Asselineau, _Bibliographie romantique_ (1872).
BORELLI, GIOVANNI ALFONSO (1608-1679), Italian physiologist and
physicist, was born at Naples on the 28th of January 1608. He was
appointed professor of mathematics at Messina in 1649 and at Pisa in
1656. In 1667 he returned to Messina, but in 1674 was obliged to retire
to Rome, where he lived under the protection of Christina, queen of
Sweden, and died on the 31st of December 1679. His best-known work is
_De motu animalium_ (Rome, 1680-1681), in which he sought to explain the
movements of the animal body on mechanical principles; he thus ranks as
the founder of the iatrophysical school. In a letter, _Del movimento
della cometa apparsa il mese di decembre 1664_, published in 1665 under
the pseudonym Pier Maria Mutoli, he was the first to suggest the idea of
a parabolic path; and another of his astronomical works was _Theorica
mediceorum planetarum ex causis physicis deducta_ (Florence, 1666), in
which he considered the influence of attraction on the satellites of
Jupiter. He also wrote: _Della Causa delle Febbri maligni_ (Pisa, 1658);
_De Renum usu Judicium_ (Strassburg, 1664); _Euclides Restitutus_ (Pisa,
1658); _Apollonii Pergaei Conicorum libri v., vi. et vii._ (Florence,
1661); _De vi percussionis_ (Bologna, 1667); _Meteorologia Aetnea_
(Reggio, 1669); and _De motionibus naturalibus a gravitate pendentibus_
(Bologna, 1670).
BORGÅ (Finnish _Porvoo_), a seaport in the province of Nyland, grand
duchy of Finland, situated at the entrance of the river Borgå into the
Gulf of Finland, about 33 m. by rail N.W. of Helsingfors. Pop. (1810)
1693; (1870) 3478; (1904) 5255. It is the seat of a Lutheran bishopric
which extends over the provinces of Viborg and St Michel with portions
of Tavastehus and Nyland; it possesses a beautiful cathedral, and a high
school (where the well-known Finnish poet Runeberg lectured for many
years), and is the seat of a court of appeal. The weaving of sail-cloth
and the manufacture of tobacco are the principal industries, and the
chief articles of trade are wood, butter and furs. Borgå was once a city
of great dignity and importance, but the rapid growth of Helsingfors has
somewhat eclipsed it. In 1809, when the estates of Finland were summoned
to a special diet to decide the future of the country, Borgå was the
place of meeting, and it was in the cathedral that the emperor Alexander
I. pledged himself as grand duke of Finland to maintain the constitution
and liberties of the grand duchy.
BORGHESE, a noble Italian family of Sienese origin, first mentioned in
1238, a member of which, Marcantonio Borghese, settled in Rome and was
the father of Camillo Borghese (1550-1620), elected pope under the title
of Paul V. (1605). Paul created his nephew prince of Vivero on the 17th
of November 1609, and Philip III. of Spain conferred the title of prince
of Sulmona on him in 1610. The family took its place among the higher
Roman nobility by the marriage of the prince's son Paolo with Olimpia,
heiress of the Aldobrandini family, in 1614. In 1803 Camillo Filippo
Ludovico, Prince Borghese (b. 1775), married Pauline, sister of the
emperor Napoleon, and widow of General Leclerc. In 1806 he was made duke
of Guastalla, and for some years acted as governor of the Piedmontese
and Genoese provinces. After the fall of Napoleon he fixed his residence
at Florence, where he died in 1832. The Borghese palace at Rome is one
of the most magnificent buildings in the city, and contained a splendid
gallery of pictures, most of which have been transferred to the Villa
Borghese outside the Porto del Popolo, now Villa Umberto I., the
property of the Italian government.
See A. von Reumont, _Geschichte der Stadt Rom_, iii. 605, 609 617,
&c.; _Almanach de Gotha_ (Gotha, 1902); J.H. Douglas, _The Principal
Noble Families of Rome_ (Rome, 1905).
BORGHESI, BARTOLOMMEO (1781-1860), Italian antiquarian, was born at
Savignano, near Rimini, on the 11th of July 1781. He studied at Bologna
and Rome. Having weakened his eyesight by the study of documents of the
middle ages, he turned his attention to epigraphy and numismatics. At
Rome he arranged and catalogued several collections of coins, amongst
them those of the Vatican, a task which he undertook for Pius VII. In
consequence of the disturbances of 1821, Borghesi retired to San Marino,
where he died on the 16th of April 1860. Although mainly an enthusiastic
student, he was for some time podestà of the little republic. His
monumental work, _Nuovi Frammenti dei Fasti Consolari Capitolini_
(1818-1820), attracted the attention of the learned world as furnishing
positive bases for the chronology of Roman history, while his
contributions to Italian archaeological journals established his
reputation as a numismatist and antiquarian. Before his death, Borghesi
conceived the design of publishing a collection of all the Latin
inscriptions of the Roman world. The work was taken up by the Academy of
Berlin under the auspices of Mommsen, and the result was the _Corpus
Inscriptionum Latinarum_. Napoleon III. ordered the publication of a
complete edition of the works of Borghesi. This edition, in ten volumes,
of which the first appeared in 1862, was not completed until 1897.
BORGIA, CESARE, duke of Valentinois and Romagna (1476-1507) was the son
of Pope Alexander VI. by Vanozza dei Cattanei. He was born at Rome while
his father was cardinal, and on the latter's elevation to the papacy
(1492) he was created archbishop of Valencia, and a year later cardinal.
Cesare was Alexander's favourite son, and it was for him that the pope's
notorious nepotism was most extensively practised. In the early years of
his father's pontificate he led a profligate life at the Vatican. When
Charles VIII. left Rome for the conquest of Naples (January 25, 1495),
Cesare accompanied him as a hostage for the pope's good behaviour, but
he escaped at Velletri and returned to Rome. He soon began to give
proofs of the violence for which he afterwards became notorious; when in
1497 his brother Giovanni, duke of Gandia, was murdered, the deed was
attributed, in all probability with reason, to Cesare. It was suggested
that the motive of the murder was the brothers' rivalry in the affection
of Donna Sancha, wife of Giuffrè, the pope's youngest son, while there
were yet darker hints at incestuous relations of Cesare and the duke
with their sister Lucrezia. But it is more probable that Cesare, who
contemplated exchanging his ecclesiastical dignities for a secular
career, regarded his brother's splendid position with envy, and was
determined to enjoy the whole of his father's favours.
In July 1497 Cesare went to Naples as papal legate and crowned Frederick
of Aragon king. Now that the duke of Gandia was dead, the pope needed
Cesare to carry out his political schemes, and tried to arrange a
wealthy marriage for him. Cesare wished to marry Carlotta, the daughter
of the king of Naples, but both she and her father resolutely refused an
alliance with "a priest, the bastard of a priest." In August 1498,
Cesare in the consistory asked for the permission of the cardinals and
the pope to renounce the priesthood, and the latter granted it "for the
good of his soul." On the 1st of October he set forth for France with a
magnificent retinue as papal legate to Louis XII., to bring him the
pope's bull annulling his marriage with Jeanne of France (Louis wished
to marry Anne of Brittany). In exchange he received the duchy of
Valentinois, as well as military assistance for his own enterprises. He
found Carlotta of Naples in France, and having again tried to win her
over in vain, he had to content himself with Charlotte d'Albret, sister
of the king of Navarre (May 1499). Alexander now contemplated sending
Cesare to Romagna to subdue the turbulent local despots, and with the
help of the French king carve a principality for himself out of those
territories owing nominal allegiance to the pope. Cesare made Cesena his
headquarters, and with an army consisting of 300 French lances, 4000
Gascons and Swiss, besides Italian troops, he attacked Imola, which
surrendered at once, and then besieged Forli, held by Caterina Sforza
(q.v.), the widow of Girolamo Riario. She held out gallantly, but was
at last forced to surrender on the 22nd of January 1500; Cesare treated
her with consideration, and she ended her days in a convent. The Sforzas
having expelled the French from Milan, Cesare returned to Rome in
February, his schemes checked for the moment; his father rewarded him
for his successes by making him _gonfaloniere_ of the church and
conferring many honours on him; he remained in Rome and took part in
bull fights and other carnival festivities. In July occurred the murder
of the duke of Bisceglie, Lucrezia Borgia's third husband. He was
attacked by assassins on the steps of St Peter's and badly wounded;
attendants carried him to a cardinal's house, and, fearing poison, he
was nursed only by his wife and Sancha, his sister-in-law. Again Cesare
was suspected as the instigator of the deed, and in fact he almost
admitted it himself. Bisceglie was related to the Neapolitan dynasty,
with whose enemies the pope was allied, and he had had a quarrel with
Cesare. When it appeared that he was recovering from his wounds, Cesare
had him murdered, but not apparently without provocation, for, according
to the Venetian ambassador Cappello, the duke had tried to murder Cesare
first.
In October 1500 Cesare again set out for the Romagna, on the strength of
Venetian friendship, with an army of 10,000 men. Pandolfo Malatesta of
Rimini and Giovanni Sforza of Pesaro fled, and those cities opened their
gates to Cesare. Faenza held out, for the people were devoted to their
lord, Astorre Manfredi, a handsome and virtuous youth of eighteen.
Manfredi surrendered in April 1501, on the promise that his life should
be spared; but Cesare broke his word, and sent him a prisoner to Rome,
where he was afterwards foully outraged and put to death. After taking
Castel Bolognese he returned to Rome in June, to take part in the
Franco-Spanish intrigues for the partition of Naples. He was now lord of
an extensive territory, and the pope created him duke of Romagna. His
cruelty, his utter want of scruple, and his good fortune made him a
terror to all Italy. His avidity was insatiable and he could brook no
opposition; but, unlike his father, he was morose, silent and
unsympathetic. His next conquests were Camerino and Urbino, but his
power was now greatly shaken by the conspiracy of La Magione (a castle
near Perugia where the plotters met). Several of the princes deposed by
him, the Orsinis, and some of his own captains, such as Vitellozzo
Vitelli (q.v.), Oliverotto da Fermo, and G.P. Baglioni, who had been
given estates but feared to lose them, joined forces to conspire against
the Borgias. Risings broke out at Urbino and in Romagna, and the papal
troops were defeated; Cesare could find no allies, and it seemed as
though all Italy was about to turn against the hated family, when the
French king promised help, and this was enough to frighten the
confederates into coming to terms. Most of them had shown very little
political or military skill, and several were ready to betray each
other. But Cesare, while trusting no one, proved a match for them all.
During his operations in northern Romagna, Vitelli, Oliverotto, Paolo
Orsini, and the duke of Gravina, to show their repentance, seized
Senigallia, which still held for the duke of Urbino, in his name. Cesare
arrived at that town, decoyed the unsuspecting _condottieri_ into his
house, had them all arrested, and two of them, Vitelli and Oliverotto,
strangled (December 31, 1502).
He was back in Rome early in 1503, and took part in reducing the last
rebel Orsinis. He was gathering troops for a new expedition in central
Italy in the summer, when both he and his father were simultaneously
seized with fever. The pope died on the 18th of August, while Cesare was
still incapacitated, and this unfortunate coincidence proved his ruin;
it was the one contingency for which he had not provided. On all sides
his enemies rose up against him; in Romagna the deposed princes prepared
to regain their own, and the Orsinis raised their heads once more in
Rome. Cesare's position was greatly shaken, and when he tried to
browbeat the cardinals by means of Don Michelotto and his bravos, they
refused to be intimidated; he had to leave Rome in September, trusting
that the Spanish cardinals would elect a candidate friendly to his
house. At the conclave Francesco Todeschini-Piccolomini was elected as
Pius III., and he showed every disposition to be peaceful and
respectable, but he was old and in bad health. Cesare's dominion at
once began to fall to pieces; Guidobaldo, duke of Urbino, returned to
his duchy with Venetian help; and the lords of Piombino, Rimini and
Pesaro soon regained their own; Cesena, defended by a governor faithful
to Cesare, alone held out. Pius III. died on the 18th of October 1503,
and a new conclave was held. Cesare, who could still count on the
Spanish cardinals, wished to prevent the election of Giuliano della
Rovere, the enemy of his house, but the latter's chances were so greatly
improved that it was necessary to come to terms with him. On the 1st of
November he was elected, and assumed the name of Julius II. He showed no
ill-will towards Cesare, but declared that the latter's territories must
be restored to the church, for "we desire the honour of recovering what
our predecessors have wrongfully alienated." Venice hoped to intervene
in Romagna and establish her protectorate over the principalities, but
this Julius was determined to prevent, and after trying in vain to use
Cesare as a means of keeping out the Venetians, he had him arrested.
Borgia's power was now at an end, and he was obliged to surrender all
his castles in Romagna save Cesena, Forli and Bettinoro, whose governors
refused to accept an order of surrender from a master who was a
prisoner. Finally, it was agreed that if Cesare were set at liberty he
would surrender the castles; this having been accomplished, he departed
for Naples, where the Spaniards were in possession. The Spanish
governor, Gonzalo de Cordova, had given him a safe-conduct, and he was
meditating fresh plans, when Gonzalo arrested him by the order of
Ferdinand of Spain as a disturber of the peace of Italy (May 1504). In
August he was sent to Spain, where he remained a prisoner for two years;
in November 1506 he made his escape, and fled to the court of his
brother-in-law, the king of Navarre, under whom he took service. While
besieging the castle of Viana, held by the rebellious count of Lerin, he
was killed (March 12, 1507).
Cesare Borgia was a type of the adventurers with which the Italy of the
Renaissance swarmed, but he was cleverer and more unscrupulous than his
rivals. His methods of conquest were ferocious and treacherous; but once
the conquest was made he governed his subjects with firmness and
justice, so that his rule was preferred to the anarchy of factions and
local despots. But he was certainly not a man of genius, as has long
been imagined, and his success was chiefly due to the support of the
papacy; once his father was dead his career was at an end, and he could
no longer play a prominent part in Italian affairs. His fall proved on
how unsound a basis his system had been built up.
The chief authorities for the life of Cesare Borgia are the same as
those of Alexander VI., especially M. Creighton's _History of the
Papacy_, vol. v. (London, 1897); F. Gregorovius's _Geschichte der
Stadt Rom_, vol. vii. (Stuttgart, 1881); and P. Villari's
_Machiavelli_ (London 1892); also C. Yriarte, _César Borgia_ (Paris,
1889), an admirable piece of writing; Schubert-Soldern, _Die Borgia
und ihre Zeit_ (Dresden, 1902), which contains the latest discoveries
on the subject; and E. Alvisi, _Cesare Borgia, Duca di Romagna_
(Imola, 1878). (L. V.*)
BORGIA, FRANCIS (1510-1572), Roman Catholic saint, duke of Gandia, and
general of the order of Jesuits, was born at Gandia (Valencia) on the
10th of October 1510, and from boyhood was remarkable for his piety.
Educated from his twelfth year at Saragossa under the charge of his
uncle the archbishop, he had begun to show a strong inclination towards
the monastic life, when his father sent him in 1528 to the court of
Charles V. Here he distinguished himself, and on his marriage with
Eleanor de Castro, a Portuguese lady of high rank, he was created
marquis of Lombay, and was appointed master of the horse to the empress.
He accompanied Charles on his African expedition in 1535, and also into
Provence in 1536; and on the death of the empress in 1539 he was deputed
to convoy the body to the burial-place in Granada. This sad duty
confirmed his determination to leave the court, and also, should he
survive his consort, to embrace the monastic life. On his return to
Toledo, however, new honours were thrust upon him, much against his
will; he was made viceroy of Catalonia and commander of the order of St
James. At Barcelona, the seat of his government, he lived a life of
great austerity, but discharged his official duties with energy and
efficiency until 1543, when, having succeeded his father in the
dukedom, he at length obtained permission to resign his viceroyalty and
to retire to a more congenial mode of life at Gandia. Having already
held some correspondence with Ignatius Loyola, he now powerfully
encouraged the recently founded order of Jesus. One of his first cares
at Gandia was to build a Jesuit college; and on the death of Eleanor in
1546, he resolved to become himself a member of the society. The
difficulties arising from political and family circumstances were
removed by a papal dispensation, which allowed him, in the interests of
his young children, to retain his dignities and worldly possessions for
four years after taking the vows. In 1550 he visited Rome, where he was
received with every mark of distinction, and where he furnished the
means for building the Collegium Romanum. Returning to Spain in the
following year, he formally resigned his rank and estate in favour of
his eldest son, assumed the Jesuit habit, was ordained priest, and
entered upon a life of penance and prayer. At his own earnest request,
seconded by Loyola, a proposal that he should be created a cardinal by
Julius III. was departed from; and at the command of his superior he
employed himself in the work of itinerant preaching. In 1554 he was
appointed commissary-general of the order in Spain, Portugal and the
Indies, in which capacity he showed great activity, and was successful
in founding many new and thriving colleges. In 1556, shortly after
Charles V. retired, Borgia had an interview with him, but would not
yield to his inducements to transfer his allegiance to the older order
of Hieronymites. Some time afterwards Borgia was employed by Charles to
conduct negotiations with reference to a project which was to secure for
Don Carlos of Spain the Portuguese succession in the event of the death
of his cousin Don Sebastian. On the death of Lainez in 1565, Francis
Borgia was chosen to succeed him as third general of the Jesuits. In
this capacity he showed great zeal and administrative skill; and so
great was the progress of the society under his government that he has
sometimes been called "its second founder," The peculiarities which are
most characteristic of the order were, however, derived from Loyola and
Lainez, rather than from Borgia, whose ideal was a simple monasticism
rather than a life of manifold and influential contact with the world.
He died at Rome on the 30th of September 1572. He was beatified by Urban
VIII. in 1624, and canonized by Clement X. in 1671, his festival being
afterwards (1683) fixed by Innocent XI. for the 10th of October.
Several works by St Francis Borgia have been published, the principal
of these being a series of _Exercises_ similar to the _Exercitia
Spiritualia_ of Loyola, and a treatise _Rhetorica Concionandi_. The
_Opera Omnia_ were published at Brussels in 1675. His life was written
by his confessor Pedro de Ribadeneira. See also A. Butler's _Lives of
the Saints_, and the _Breviarium Romanum_ (second nocturn for October
10).
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Slice 2 - "Bohemia" to "Borgia, Francis"" ***
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