The Nuttall Encyclopaedia Part 77

BLUEBEARD, a wealthy seigneur, the owner of a castle; marries a beautiful woman, and leaves her in charge of the keys of the apartments in his absence, with injunctions not to unlock any of the doors, an injunction which she fails to respect, and finds to her horror the remains of his former wives locked up in one of them; her disobedience is discovered, and she is to prepare for death, but is rescued, as she lies with her head on the block, by the timely arrival of her brothers, who at once despatch the husband to his merited doom.

BLUE-BOOKS, Parliamentary doc.u.ments bound in _blue_ paper, as the corresponding doc.u.ments in France are in _yellow_; they have been published regularly since the beginning of the 18th century, those of a single session now forming a collection of some 60 folio volumes.

BLUE-COAT SCHOOL, a name given to Christ's Hospital, London, founded in the reign of Edward VI., from the blue coats worn by the boys.

BLUE-GOWN, in Scotland a beggar, a bedesman of the king, who wore a blue gown, the gift of the king, and had his license to beg.

BLUE-STOCKING, a female pedant or _femme savante_, a name derived from a learned coterie, formed in the 15th century, at Venice, who wore blue stockings as a badge.

BLUFF HAL, or HARRY, Henry VIII. of England.

BLUM, a German politician, born at Cologne; tried by court-martial and shot for abetting a political movement in Vienna in 1848, a proceeding which created a wide-spread sensation at the time all over Europe; _b_. 1807.

BLUMENBACH, JOHANN FRIEDRICH, a distinguished German naturalist and ethnologist, born at Gotha; studied at Jena; became professor at Gottingen, an office he filled for 60 years; his works gave a great impulse to scientific research in all directions; the chief were "Inst.i.tutiones Physiologicae," "Manual of Natural History," "Manual of Comparative Anatomy and Physiology"; he made craniology a special study; was a great advocate for religious liberty (1752-1840).

BLUMENTHAL, LEONARD VON, field-marshal in the Prussian army; distinguished in the wars with Denmark, Austria, and France; an eminent strategist; _b_. 1810.

BLUMI'NE, the siren that Calypsowise in "Sartor" seduced Teufelsdrockh at the commencement of his career, but who opened his eyes to see that it is not in sentiment, however fine, that the soul's cravings can find satisfaction.

BLUNT, JOHN HENRY, D.D., born at Chelsea; wrote largely on theological and ecclesiastical subjects (1823-1884).

BLUNTSCHLI, JOHANN KASPAR, a distinguished jurist, born at Zurich; an authority in international law; a liberal conservative both in Church and State; founder and president of the Protestant Union called the _Protestantenverein_ (1808-1881).

BOABDIL, or ABU-ABDALLAH, surnamed "The Unfortunate," the last Moorish king of Granada, from 1481 to 1492; expelled from his throne by Ferdinand of Castile and Aragon; as he rode off he halted on a hill called "The Last Sigh of the Moor," and wept as he looked back on the Alhambra, while his mother added to his bitterness with the cutting sarcasm, "Weep as a woman for a throne you have not been able to defend as a man"; died shortly after in Africa, recklessly throwing away his life on a field of battle.

BOADICE'A, a British heroine, queen of the Iceni, who occupied Norfolk and Suffolk; roused by indignity done to her and her people by the Romans, gathered round her an army, who, with a murderous onslaught, attacked their settlements and destroyed them; but being attacked and defeated in turn by Suetonius Paulinus, the Roman governor, she put, in her despair, an end to her life by poison, A.D. 61. Cowper made her the theme of one of his poems.

BOANERGES (i. e. Sons of Thunder), applied by Christ to the sons of Zebedee for the vehemence of their zeal.

BOAZ and JACHIN, two pillars of bra.s.s at the entrance of Solomon's Temple, signifying respectively strength and stability.

BOB'ADIL, CAPTAIN, a braggadocio in Ben Jonson's "Every Man in his Humour."

BOBeCHE, a French theatrical clown, under the Empire and the Restoration, son of an upholsterer of the St. Antoine faubourg, the type of the merry-andrew at country fairs.

BOCCACCIO, GIOVANNI, the celebrated Italian _raconteur_, born near Florence; showed early a pa.s.sion for literature; sent by his father to Naples to pursue a mercantile career; gave himself up to story-telling in prose and verse; fell in love with Maria, a beautiful woman, daughter of the king, styled by him Fiammetta, for whom he wrote several of his works, and his great work, the "Decameron"; early formed a lifelong friendship with Petrarch, along with whom he contributed to the revival and study of cla.s.sic literature; lectured on Dante in Florence; Petrarch's death deeply affected him, and he died the year after (1313-1375).

BOCCHERINI, LUIGI, a celebrated Italian musical composer, born at Lucca; was a.s.sociated with Manfredi, the violinist; his works were numerous; appears to have lived in poverty and obscurity (1740-1805).

BOCHART, SAMUEL, a Protestant divine, born at Rouen; pastor at Caen; a geographer and an Orientalist; wrote a treatise on sacred geography; celebrated for a nine-days' discussion with the Jesuit Verin (1599-1667).

BODE, JOHANN ELERT, an astronomer, born at Hamburg; was professor of Astronomy and director of Observatory at Berlin; produced a number of astronomical works, one of his best, "An Introduction to the Knowledge of the Starry Heavens;" gave name to the law of the planetary distances, called Bode's Law, although it was observed by Kepler long before his day (1747-1826).

BODEL, a celebrated troubadour of the 13th century, born at Arras.

BODENSEE, another name for the Lake of Constance, well called the filter of the Rhine.

BODIN, JEAN, a publicist and diplomatist, born at Angers; author of "The Republic," in six books, published at first in French and then in Latin, which summed up all the political philosophy of his time, and contributed to prepare the way for subsequent speculations; was the precursor of Hobbes and Montesquieu (1530-1596).

BODLEIAN LIBRARY, the university library of Oxford, founded, or rather restored, by Sir Thomas Bodley in 1593; enlarged from time to time by bequests, often munificent. It possesses 400,000 printed volumes and 30,000 MSS.

BODLEY, SIR THOMAS, born at Exeter; employed on emba.s.sies by Elizabeth on the Continent, where he collected a number of valuable books; bequeathed them and his fortune to the university library of Oxford, named after him (1545-1613).

BODMER, JOHANN JACOB, a distinguished Swiss critic, born near Zurich; the first, by study of the masters in literature of Greece and Rome, France, England, and Italy, to wake up Germany to a sense of its poverty in that line, and who aided, along with others, in the inauguration of a new era, which he did more by his republication of the Minnesingers and part of the "Nibelungen Lied" than by his advocacy (1698-1783).

BODMIN (5), the county town of Cornwall, supersedes Truro as capital; an important agricultural centre; has large annual fairs for cattle, horses, and sheep.

BODONI, an Italian printer; settled at Parma, where his press was set up in the ducal palace, whence issued magnificent editions of the cla.s.sics, Horace, Virgil, Tacitus, Ta.s.so, and, last of all, Homer. He was often tempted to Rome, but he refused to quit Parma and the patronage of the ducal house there (1740-1813).

BoDTCHER, LUDWIG, a Danish lyric poet, born at Copenhagen; lived chiefly in Italy (1793-1874).

BOECE, HECTOR, a humanist and Scottish historian, born at Dundee; professor of Philosophy at Paris; friend of Erasmus; was princ.i.p.al of university at Aberdeen; wrote "History of Bishops of Mortlach and Aberdeen," and "History of Scotland" in excellent Latin (1465-1536).

BOECKH, PHILIP AUGUST, cla.s.sical antiquary, born at Carlsruhe; professor of Ancient Literature in Berlin; a cla.s.sic of the first rank, and a contributor on a large scale to all departments of Greek cla.s.sical learning; was an eminently learned man, and an authority in different departments of learning (1785-1867).

BOEHM, SIR JOSEPH EDGAR, sculptor, born in Vienna, of Hungarian parentage; settled in England; executed a colossal statue of the Queen at Windsor, a seated statue of Carlyle on the Thames Embankment, a statue of Bunyan at Bedford, &c.; patronised by the Queen and royal family; buried in St. Paul's by the Queen's desire (1785-1869).