Encyclopaedia Britannica 11th Edition Baconthorpe To Bankruptcy
Chapter 3
fine forests, fields of rice and other cereals, and flourishing gardens. The steppes of the Kura are also fertile, but require artificial irrigation, especially for cotton. In addition to agriculture and cattle-breeding, the vine and mulberry are extensively grown. The Apsheron peninsula is dry and bare of vegetation; but within it are situated the famous petroleum wells of Baku. These, which go down to depths of 700 to 1700 ft., yield crude naphtha, from which the petroleum or kerosene is distilled; while the heavier residue (_mazut_) is used as lubricating oil and for fuel, for instance in the locomotives of the Transcaspian railway. Whereas in 1863 the output was only 5500 tons of crude naphtha, in 1904 it amounted to 9,833,600 tons; but business was much injured by a serious fire in 1905. The oil-fields lie around the town of Baku: the largest, that of Balakhany-Sabunchi-Romany (6 sq. m.), is 8-1/2 m. north of the town; that of Bibi-Eybat, is 3-1/2 m. south; the "black town" (Nobel's) is 2 m. south-east; and beyond the last names is the "white town" (Rothschild's). The lighter oil is conveyed to Batum on the Black Sea in pipes, and is there shipped for export; the heavier oils reach the same port and the ports of Novorossiysk and Poti, also on the Black Sea, in tank railway-cars. At Surakhani, 13 m. east of the town, is the now disused temple of the Parsee fire-worshippers, who were attracted thither by the natural fountains of inflammable gas.
The government is divided into six districts, the chief towns of which are Baku (the capital of the government), Geok-chai (pop. 2247 in 1897), Kuba (15,346), Lenkoran (8768), Salyany (10,168), in district of Jevat, and Shemakha (20,008). The population numbered 828,511 in 1897, of whom the major part were Tatars; other races were Russians, the Iranian tribes of the Tates (89,519) and Talysh (34,994), Armenians (52,233) and the Caucasian mountaineers known as Kurins.
BAKU, the chief town of the government of the same name, in Russian Transcaucasia, on the south side of the peninsula of Apsheron, in 40deg 21' N. and 49deg 50' E. It is connected by rail with the south Russian railway system at Beslan, the junction for Vladikavkaz (400 m.), via Derbent and Petrovsk, with Batum (560 m.) and Poti (536 m.) on the Black Sea via Tiflis. A long stone quay next the harbour is backed by the new town climbing up the slopes behind. To the west is the old town, consisting of steep, narrow, winding streets, and presenting a decidedly oriental appearance. Here are the ruins of a palace of the native khans, built in the 16th century; the mosques of the Persian shahs, built in 1078 and now converted into an arsenal; nearer the sea the "maidens' tower," transformed into a lighthouse; and not far from it remains of ancient walls projecting above the sea, and showing traces of Arabic architecture of the 9th and 10th centuries. Beside the harbour are engineering works, dry docks and barracks, stores and workshops belonging to the Russian Caspian fleet. Besides the petroleum refineries the town possesses oil-works (for fuel), flour-mills, sulphuric acid works and tobacco factories. Owing to its excellent harbour Baku is a chief depot for merchandise coming from Persia and Transcaspia--raw cotton, silk, rice, wine, fish, dried fruit and timber--and for Russian manufactured goods. The climate is extreme, the mean temperature for the year being 58deg F., for January 38deg, for July 80deg; annual rainfall 9.4 in. A wind of exceptional violence blows sometimes from the N.N.W. in winter. Pop. (1860) 13,381; (1897) 112,253; (1900) 179,133. The town is mentioned by the Arab geographer, Masudi, in the 10th century. From 1509 it was in the possession of the Persians. The Russians captured it from them in 1723, but restored it in 1735; it was incorporated in the Russian empire in 1806. In 1904-1905, [v.03 p.0231] in consequence of the general political anarchy, serious conflicts took place here between the Tatars and the Armenians, and two-thirds of the Balakhani and Bibi-Eybat oil-works were burned.
See Marvin, _The Region of the Eternal Fire_ (ed. 1891) and J. D. Henry, _Baku, an Eventful History_ (1906).
(P. A. K.)
BAKUNIN, MIKHAIL (1814-1876), Russian anarchist, was born of an aristocratic family at Torjok, in the government of Tver, in 1814. As an officer of the Imperial Guard, he saw service in Poland, but resigned his commission from a disgust of despotism aroused by witnessing the repressive methods employed against the Poles. He proceeded to Germany, studied Hegel, and soon got into touch with the leaders of the young German movement in Berlin. Thence he went to Paris, where he met Proudhon and George Sand, and also made the acquaintance of the chief Polish exiles. From Paris he journeyed to Switzerland, where he resided for some time, taking an active share in all socialistic movements. While in Switzerland he was ordered by the Russian government to return to Russia, and on his refusal his property was confiscated. In 1848, on his return to Paris, he published a violent tirade against Russia, which caused his expulsion from France. The revolutionary movement of 1848 gave him the opportunity of entering upon a violent campaign of democratic agitation, and for his participation in the Dresden insurrection of 1849 he was arrested and condemned to death. The death sentence, however, was commuted to imprisonment for life, and he was eventually handed over to the Russian authorities, by whom he was imprisoned and finally sent to eastern Siberia in 1855. He received permission to remove to the Amur region, whence he succeeded in escaping, making his way through Japan and the United States to England in 1861. He spent the rest of his life in exile in western Europe, principally in Switzerland. In 1869 he founded the Social Democratic Alliance, which, however, dissolved in the same year, and joined the International (_q.v._). In 1870 he attempted a rising at Lyons on the principles afterwards exemplified by the Paris Commune. At the Hague congress of the International in 1872 he was outvoted and expelled by the Marx party. He retired to Lugano in 1873 and died at Bern on the 13th of June 1876.
Nothing can be clearer or more frank and comprehensive in its destructiveness than the revolutionary anarchism of Bakunin. He rejects all the ideal systems in every name and shape, from the idea of God downwards; and every form of external authority, whether emanating from the will of a sovereign or from universal suffrage. "The liberty of man," he says in his _Dieu et l'Etat_ (published posthumously in 1882) "consists solely in this, that he obeys the laws of nature, because he has himself recognized them as such, and not because they have been imposed upon him externally by any foreign will whatsoever, human or divine, collective or individual." In this way will the whole problem of freedom be solved, that natural laws be ascertained by scientific discovery, and the knowledge of them be universally diffused among the masses. Natural laws being thus recognized by every man for himself, he cannot but obey them, for they are the laws also of his own nature; and the need for political organization, administration and legislation will at once disappear. Nor will he admit of any privileged position or class, for "it is the peculiarity of privilege and of every privileged position to kill the intellect and heart of man. The privileged man, whether he be privileged politically or economically, is a man depraved in intellect and heart." "In a word, we object to all legislation, all authority, and all influence, privileged, patented, official and legal, even when it has proceeded from universal suffrage, convinced that it must always turn to the profit of a dominating and exploiting minority, against the interests of the immense majority enslaved." Bakunin's methods of realizing his revolutionary programme are not less frank and destructive than his principles. The revolutionist, as he would recommend him to be, is a consecrated man, who will allow no private interests or feelings, and no scruples of religion, patriotism or morality, to turn him aside from his mission, the aim of which is by all available means to overturn the existing society. (See ANARCHISM.)
BA-KWIRI, a Bantu nation of German Cameroon, West Africa. According to tradition they are migrants from the eastward. The "Brushmen," for that is the meaning of their name, are grouped in about sixty separate clans. They are a lively intelligent people, brave fighters and daring hunters, and in their love of songs, music and elocution are superior to many negro races. Their domestic affections are strongly developed. Their chief physical peculiarity is the great disparity between the size and complexion of the sexes, most of the women being much shorter and far lighter in colour than the men. The Ba-Kwiri are generous and open-handed among themselves; but the law of blood for blood is mercilessly fulfilled, even in cases of accidental homicide. Their religion is ancestor-worship blended with witchcraft and magic. They believe in good and evil spirits, those of the forests and seas being especially feared. In common with their neighbours the Dualla (_q.v._) the Ba-Kwiri possess a curious drum language. By drum-tapping news is conveyed from clan to clan. Slaves and women are not allowed to master this language, but all the initiated are bound to repeat it so as to pass the messages on. The Ba-Kwiri have also a horn language peculiar to themselves.
BALA, a market-town and urban district of Merionethshire, N. Wales, at the north end of Bala Lake, 17 m. N.E. of Dolgelley (Dolgellau). Pop. (1901) 1554. It is little more than one wide street. Its manufactures are flannel, stockings, gloves and hosiery (for which it was well known in the 18th century). The Tower of Bala (some 30 ft. high by 50 diameter) is a tumulus or "moat-hill," formerly thought to mark the site of a Roman camp. The theological college of the Calvinistic Methodists and the grammar school (endowed), which was founded in 1712, are the chief features, together with the statue of the Rev. Thomas Charles, the distinguished theological writer, to whom was largely due the foundation of the British and Foreign Bible Society. Bala Lake, the largest in Wales (4 m. long by some 3/4 m. wide), is subject to sudden and dangerous floods, deep and clear, and full of pike, perch, trout, eel and _gwyniad_. The _gwyniad_ (Caregonus) is peculiar to certain waters, as those of Bala Lake, and is fully described by Thomas Pennant in his _Zoology_ (1776).
The lake (_Llyn Tegid_) is crossed by the Dee, local tradition having it that the waters of the two never mix, like those of Alpheus and the sea.
BALAAM ([Hebrew: BIL`AM] Bil'am; [Greek: Balaam]; Vg. _Balaam_; the etymology of the name is uncertain), a prophet in the Bible. Balaam, the son of Beor, was a Gentile seer; he appears in the history of the Israelites during their sojourn in the plains of Moab, east of Jordan, at the close of the Forty Years' wandering, shortly before the death of Moses and the crossing of the Jordan. Israel had conquered two kings of eastern Palestine--Sihon, king of the Amorites, and Og, king of Bashan. Balak, king of Moab, became alarmed, and sent for Balaam to curse Israel; Balaam came after some hesitation, but when he sought to curse Israel Yahweh compelled him to bless them.
The main passage concerning Balaam in Num. xxii-xxv.; it consists of a narrative which serves as a framework for seven oracular poems, the first four being of some length and the last three very brief. The story is doubtless based on ancient traditions, current in various forms; the Old Testament references are not wholly consistent.
The narrative in Num. xxii. ff. is held to be compiled with editorial additions from the two ancient documents (900-700 B.C.) commonly denoted by the symbols J and E The distribution of the material between the two documents is uncertain; but some such scheme as the following is not improbable. The references to portions the origin of which is especially uncertain are placed in brackets ( ).
The present narrative, therefore, is not really a single continuous story, but may be resolved into two older accounts. In combining these two and using them as a framework for the poems, the compilers have altered, added and omitted. Naturally, when both documents made statements which were nearly identical, one might be omitted; so that neither account need be given in full in the composite passage. The two older accounts, [v.03 p.0232] as far as they are given here, may have run somewhat thus: restorations of supposed omissions are given in square brackets [ ].
(i) J. xxii. 3b-5a to "Beor" (5c to "to the land"--7, 11, 17, 18). Balak, king of Moab, alarmed at the Israelite conquests, sends _elders_ of Moab and Midian to Balaam, son of Beor, to the land of _Ammon_, to induce him to come and curse Israel. He sends back word that he can only do what Yahweh commands.
The land of _Ammon_. The current Hebrew Text has the land of _ammo_, _i.e._ as EV, "his people," but _Ammon_ is read by the Samaritan Pentateuch, the Syriac and Vulgate Versions and some Hebrew MSS., and is accepted by many modern scholars.
xxii. 22-35a to "Balaam," also "Go" and "So Balaam went." Nevertheless Balaam sets out with two servants to go to Balak, but the Angel of Yahweh meets him. At first the Angel is seen only by the ass, which arouses Balaam's anger by its efforts to avoid the Angel. The ass is miraculously enabled to speak to Balaam. Yahweh at last enables Balaam to see the Angel, who tells him that he would have slain him but for the ass. Balaam offers to go back, but is told to go on.
Speaking animals are a common feature of folk-lore; the only other case in the Old Testament is the serpent in Eden. Maimonides suggested that the episode of the Angel and the conversation with the ass is an account of a vision; similar views have been held by E. W. Hengstenberg and other Christian scholars. Others, _e.g._ Volck in Hauck's _Realencyklopadie_ (s. "Bileam"), regard the statements about the ass speaking as figurative; the ass brayed, and Balaam translated the sound into words. The ordinary literal interpretation is more probable; but it does not follow that the authors of the Pentateuch intended the story to be taken as historical in its details. It need hardly be said that the exact accuracy of such narratives is not an essential part of the Christian faith; no such doctrine is laid down by the creeds and confessions.
xxii. 36, 39, xxiv. 1, 2, 10-14, 25. Balak meets Balaam and they go together [and offer sacrifices]; Balaam, however, blesses Israel by divine inspiration; Balak remonstrates, but Balaam reminds him of his message and again blesses Israel. Then Balaam goes home. (For the relation of the poems to J's narrative, see below.)
(ii.) E. xxii. 2, 3a, 5b "to Pethor, which is by the river," 8-10, 12-16, 19-21, 37a, to "unto me," 38. Balak, king of Moab, alarmed at the conquests of Israel, sends the princes of Moab to Balaam at _Pethor_ on the Euphrates, that he may come and curse Israel.
A. Jeremias, _Das Alte Testament im Lichte des alten Orients_, p. 278, adopts Marquart's view that the "River" (_nahar_) is the so-called "River" (better "Ravine" _nahal_) of Egypt or Musri, on the southern frontier of Judea. So too Winckler, in the new edition of E. Schrader's _Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament_. It has been usual to keep _nahar_ and take it in its ordinary sense when used absolutely, _i.e._ the Euphrates, and to identify _Pethor_ with a _Pitru_ on a tributary of the Euphrates, mentioned in an inscription of Shalmaneser II. Deut. xxiii. 4 places Pethor in Mesopotamia.
God appears to him in a dream and forbids him to go. The princes return and report to Balak, who sends them back to put further pressure on Balaam. God in another dream permits him to go, on condition that he speaks what God tells him. He goes with the _princes of Moab_. Balak meets them, and Balaam warns him that he can only speak what God tells him.
xxii. 40, 41, xxiii. 1-6, 11-17. Balak offers sacrifices, but Yahweh inspires Balaam with a blessing on Israel. Balak remonstrates and Balaam explains. They try to get a more favourable result by sacrificing on a different spot, and by placing Balaam on the top of Pisgah to view Israel, but he is again compelled to bless Israel. After further remonstrances and explanations [Balaam goes home]. (For the relation of the poems to E's narrative, see below.)
Deut. xxiii. 3-6[1] summarizes E's account of this incident, adding, however, the feature that the Ammonites were associated with the Moabites, possibly an imperfect reminiscence of the reference to Ammon in J. Joshua, in his farewell speech to the Israelites,[2] also refers to this episode. The Priestly Code[3] has a different story of Balaam, in which he advises the _Midianites_ how they may bring disaster on Israel by seducing the people from their loyalty to Yahweh. Later on he is slain in battle, fighting in the ranks of Midian.
It is often supposed that the name of the king of Edom,[4] Bela, son of Beor, is a corruption of Balaam, and that, therefore, one form of the tradition made him a king of Edom.
The _Poems_ fall into two groups: the first four, in xxiii. 1.-xxiv. 19, are commonly regarded as ancient lyrics of the early monarchy, perhaps in the time of David or Solomon, which J and E inserted in their narrative. Some recent critics,[5] however, are inclined to place them in the post-exilic period, in which case a late editor has substituted them for earlier, probably less edifying, oracles. But the features which are held to indicate late date may be due to editorial revision.
The first two are found in an E setting, and therefore, if ancient, formed part of E.
The _First_, xxiii. 7-10, prophesies the unique exaltation of Israel, and its countless numbers.
The _Second_, xxiii. 18-24, celebrates the moral virtue of Israel, the monarchy and its conquests.
Again the second couple are connected with J.
The _Third_, xxiv. 3-9, also celebrates the glory and conquests of the monarchy.
_Agag_, in verse 7, can hardly be the Amalekite king of 1 Sam. xv.; Amalek was too small and obscure. The Septuagint and other Greek Versions and Sam. Pent, have _Gog_, which would imply a post-exilic date, cf. Ezek. xxxix. Probably both Agag and Gog are textual corruptions. _Og_ has been suggested, but does not seem a great improvement.
The _Fourth_, xxiv. 14-19, announces the coming of a king, possibly David, who shall conquer Edom and Moab.
The remaining poems are usually regarded as later additions; thus the _Oxford Hexateuch_ on Num. xxiv. 20-24. "The three concluding oracles seem irrelevant here, being concerned neither with Israel nor Moab. It has been thought that they were added to bring the cycle up to seven."
The _Fifth_, xxiv. 20, deals with the ruin of Amalek. It is of uncertain date; if the historical Amalek is meant, it may be early; but Amalek may be symbolical.
The _Sixth_, xxiv. 21 f., deals with the destruction of the Kenite state by Assyria; also of uncertain date, Assyria being, according to some, the ancient realm of Nineveh, according to others the Seleucid kingdom of Syria, which was also called Assyria.
The _Seventh_, xxiv. 23 f., speaks of the coming of ships from the West, to attack Assur and "Eber"; it may refer to the conquest of Persia by Alexander the Great. An interesting, but doubtful, emendation makes this poem describe the ruin of Shamal, a state in N. W. Syria.
In the New Testament Balaam is cited as a type of avarice;[6] in Rev. ii. 14 we read of false teachers at Pergamum who held the "teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to cast a stumbling-block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols, and to commit fornication."
Balaam has attracted much interest, alike from Jews, Christians and Mahommedans. Josephus[7] paraphrases the story _more suo_, and speaks of Balaam as the best prophet of his time, but with a disposition ill adapted to resist temptation. Philo describes him in the _Life of Moses_ as a great magician; elsewhere[8] he speaks of "the sophist Balaam, being," _i.e._ symbolizing, "a vain crowd of contrary and warring opinions"; and again[9] as "a vain people"; both phrases being based on a mistaken etymology of the name Balaam. The later Targums and the Talmuds represent him as a typical sinner; and there are the usual worthless Rabbinical fables, _e.g._ that he was blind of one eye; that he was the Elihu of Job; that, as one of Pharaoh's counsellors, he was governor of a city of Ethiopia, and rebelled against Pharaoh; Moses was sent against him by Pharaoh at the head of an army, and stormed the city and put Balaam to flight, &c. &c.
[v.03 p.0233] Curiously enough, the Rabbinical (Yalkut) identification of Balaam with Laban, Jacob's father-in-law, has been revived from a very different standpoint, by a modern critic.[10] The Mahommedans, also, have various fables concerning Balaam. He was one of the Anakim, or giants of Palestine; he read the books of Abraham, where he got the name Yahweh, by virtue of which he predicted the future, and got from God whatever he asked. It has been conjectured that the Arabic wise man, commonly called Luqman (_q.v._), is identical with Balaam. The names of their fathers are alike, and "Luqman" means _devourer_, _swallower,_ a meaning which might be got out of Balaam by a popular etymology.
If we might accept the various theories mentioned above, Balaam would appear in one source of J as an Edomite, in another as an Ammonite; in E as a native of the south of Judah or possibly as an Aramaean; in the tradition followed by the Priestly Code probably as a Midianite. All these peoples either belong to the Hebrew stock or are closely connected with it. We may conclude that Balaam was an ancient figure of traditions originally common to all the Hebrews and their allies, and afterwards appropriated by individual tribes; much as there are various St Georges.
The chief significance of the Balaam narratives for the history of the religion of Israel is the recognition by J and E of the genuine inspiration of a non-Hebrew prophet. Yahweh is as much the God of Balaam as he is of Moses. Probably the original tradition goes back to a time when Yahweh was recognized as a deity of a circle of connected tribes of which the Israelite tribes formed a part. But the retention of the story without modification may imply a continuous recognition through some centuries of the idea that Yahweh revealed his will to nations other than Israel.
Apparently the Priestly Code ignored this feature of the story.
Taking the narratives as we now have them, Balaam is a companion figure to Jonah, the prophet who wanted to go where he was not sent, over against the prophet who ran away from the mission to which he was called.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--Ewald, _Geschichte des Volkes Israel^3_, Bd. ii. p. 298; Hengstenberg's _Die Geschichte Bileams und seine Weissagungen_ (1842); the commentaries on the scriptural passages, especially G. B. Gray on Numbers xxii.-xxiv.; and the articles on "Balaam" (Bileam) in Hamburger's _Realencyclopaedie fuer Bibel und Talmud_, Hastings' _Bible Dict._, Black and Cheyne's _Encyclopaedia Biblica_, Herozog-Hauck's _Realencyklopadie_. For the analysis into earlier documents, see also the _Oxford Hexateuch_, Estlin Carpenter and Harford-Battersby.
(W. H. BE.)
[1] Quoted Neh. xiii. 1 f.
[2] Josh. xxiv. 9, 10. E; cf. Micah vi. 5.
[3] Num. xxxi. 8 (quoted Josh. xiii. 22), 16. These references are not necessarily inconsistent with JE; but they are probably based on an independent tradition. The date of the Priestly Code is _ca._ 400 B.C.
[4] Gen. xxxvi. 32.
[5] For names and reasons, see Gray, _Numbers_, 314.
[6] 2 Peter ii. 16, 17 (also refer to the ass speaking), Jude xi.
[7] _Ant._ iv. 6.
[8] _Quod. Det. Potiori_, s. 20.
[9] _De Cherub._, s. 10.
[10] T. Steuernagel, _Einwanderung der israelitischen Staemme_ (1901).
BAL[=A]DHUR[=I] (AB[=U]-L-'ABB[=A]S AHMAD IBN YAHY[=A] IBN J[=A]BIR AL-BAL[=A]DHUR[=I]), Arabian historian, was a Persian by birth, though his sympathies seem to have been strongly with the Arabs, for Mas'[=u]d[=i] refers to one of his works in which he refuted the Shu'[=u]bites (see ABU 'UBAIDA). He lived at the court of the caliphs al-Mutawakkil and al-Musta'[=i]n and was tutor to the son of al-Mu'tazz. He died in 892 as the result of a drug called _bal[=a]dhur_ (hence his name). The work by which he is best known is the _Fut[=u]h ul-Buld[=a]n_ (Conquests of Lands), edited by M. J. de Goeje as _Liber expugnationis regionum_ (Leiden, 1870; Cairo, 1901). This work is a digest of a larger one, which is now lost. It contains an account of the early conquests of Mahomet and the early caliphs. Bal[=a]dhur[=i] is said to have spared no trouble in collecting traditions, and to have visited various parts of north Syria and Mesopotamia for this purpose. Another great historical work of his was the _Ans[=a]b ul-Ashr[=a]f_ (Genealogies of the Nobles), of which he is said to have written forty parts when he died. Of this work the eleventh book has been published by W. Ahlwardt (Greifswald, 1883), and another part is known in manuscript (see _Journal of the German Oriental Society_, vol. xxxviii. pp. 382-406). He also made some translations from Persian into Arabic.
(G. W. T.)
BALAGHAT (_i.e._ "above the _ghats_ or passes," the highlands), a district of British India in the Nagpur division of the Central Provinces. The administrative headquarters are at the town of Burha. The district contains an area of 3132 sq. m. It forms the eastern portion of the central plateau which divides the province from east to west. These highlands, formerly known as the Raigarh Bichhia tract, remained desolate and neglected until 1866, when the district of Balaghat was formed, and the country opened to the industrious and enterprising peasantry of the Wainganga valley. Geographically the district is divided into three distinct parts:--(1) The southern lowlands, a slightly undulating plain, comparatively well cultivated and drained by the Wainganga, Bagh, Deo, Ghisri and Son rivers. (2) The long narrow valley known as the Mau Taluka, lying between the hills and the Wainganga river, and comprising a long, narrow, irregular-shaped lowland tract, intersected by hill ranges and peaks covered with dense jungle, and running generally from north to south. (3) The lofty plateau, in which is situated the Raigarh Bichhia tract, comprising irregular ranges of hills, broken into numerous valleys, and generally running from east to west. The highest points in the hills of the district are as follows:--Peaks above Lanji, 2300 or 2500 feet; Tepagarh hill, about 2600 ft.; and Bhainsaghat range, about 3000 ft. above the sea. The principal rivers in the district are the Wainganga, and its tributaries, the Bagh, Nahra and Uskal; a few smaller streams, such as the Masmar, the Mahkara, &c.; and the Banjar, Halon and Jamunia, tributaries of the Nerbudda, which drain a portion of the upper plateau. In the middle of the 19th century the upper part of the district was an impenetrable waste. About that time one Lachhman Naik established the first villages on the Paraswara plateau. But a handsome Buddhist temple of cut stone, belonging to some remote period, is suggestive of a civilization which had disappeared before historic times. The population in 1901 was 326,521, showing a decrease of 15% in the decade, due to the effects of famine. A large part of the area is still covered with forest, the most valuable timber-tree being _sal_. There are few good roads. The Gondia-Jubbulpore line of the Bengal-Nagpur railway traverses the Wainganga valley in the west of the district. The district suffered very severely from the famine of 1896-1897. It suffered again in 1900, when in April the number of persons relieved rose above 100,000.
BALAGUER, VICTOR (1824-1901), Spanish politician and author, was born at Barcelona on the 11th of December 1824, and was educated at the university of his native town. His precocity was remarkable; his first dramatic essay, _Pepin el jorobado_, was placed on the Barcelona stage when he was fourteen years of age, and at nineteen he was publicly "crowned" after the production of his second play, _Don Enrique el Dadivoso_. From 1843 to 1868 he was the chief of the Liberal party in Barcelona, and as proprietor and editor of _El Conseller_ did much to promote the growth of local patriotism in Catalonia. But it was not till 1857 that he wrote his first poem in Catalan--a copy of verses to the Virgin of Montserrat. Henceforward he frequently adopted the pseudonym of "lo Trovador de Montserrat"; in 1859 he helped to restore the "Juegos Florales," and in 1861 was proclaimed _mestre de gay saber_. He was removed to Madrid, took a prominent part in political life, and in 1867 emigrated to Provence. On the expulsion of Queen Isabella, he returned to Spain, represented Manresa in the Cortes, and in 1871-1872 was successively minister of the colonies and of finance. He resigned office at the restoration, but finally followed his party in rallying to the dynasty; he was appointed vice-president of congress, and was subsequently a senator. He died at Madrid on the 14th of January 1901. Long before his death he had become alienated from the advanced school of Catalan nationalists, and endeavoured to explain away the severe criticism of Castile in which his _Historia de Cataluna y de la Corona de Aragon_ (1860-1863) abounds. This work, like his _Historia politica y literaria de los trovadores_ (1878-1879), is inaccurate, partial and unscientific; but both books are attractively written and have done great service to the cause which Balaguer once upheld. As a poet he is imitative: reminiscences of Quintana are noticeable in his patriotic songs, of Zorrilla in his historical ballads, of Byron in his lyrical poems. He wrote too hastily to satisfy artistic canons; but if he has the faults he has also the merits of a pioneer, and in Catalonia his name will endure.
[v.03 p.0234] BALAKIREV, MILI ALEXEIVICH (1836- ), Russian musical composer, was born at Nijni-Novgorod on the 31st of December 1836. He had the advantage as a boy of living with Oulibichev, author of a _Life of Mozart_, who had a private band, and from whom Balakirev obtained a valuable education in music. At eighteen, after a university course in mathematics, he went to St Petersburg, full of national ardour, and there made the acquaintance of Glinka. Round him gathered Cesar Cui (b. 1835), and others, and in 1862 the Free School of Music was established, by which, and by Balakirev's personal zeal, the modern school of Russian music was largely stimulated. In 1869 Balakirev was appointed director of the imperial chapel and conductor of the Imperial Musical Society. His influence as a conductor, and as an organizer of Russian music, give him the place of a founder of a new movement, apart even from his own compositions, which though few in number are remarkable in themselves. His works consist largely of songs and collections of folk-songs, but include a symphony (first played in England in 1901), two symphonic poems ("Russia" and "Tamara"), and four overtures, besides pianoforte pieces. His orchestral works are of the "programme-music" order, but all are brilliant examples of the highly coloured, elaborate style characteristic of modern Russian composers, and developed by Balakirev's disciples, such as Borodin and Rimsky-Korsakov.
BALAKLAVA, a village in the Crimea, east of Sevastopol, famous for a battle in the Crimean War. The action of Balaklava (October 25th, 1854) was brought about by the advance of a Russian field army under General Liprandi to attack the allied English, French and Turkish forces besieging Sevastopol. The ground on which the engagement took place was the Vorontsov ridge (see CRIMEAN WAR), and the valleys on either side of it. Liprandi's corps formed near Traktir Bridge, and early on the 25th of October its advanced guard moved southward to attack the ridge, which was weakly occupied by Turkish battalions behind slight entrenchments. The two nearest British divisions were put into motion as soon as the firing became serious, but were prevented by their orders from descending at once into the plain, and the Turks had to meet the assault of greatly superior numbers. They made a gallant resistance, but the Russians quickly cleared the ridge, capturing several guns, and their first line was followed by a heavy mass of cavalry which crossed the ridge and descended into the Balaklava plain. At this moment the British cavalry division under the earl of Lucan was in the plain, but their commander was prevented from engaging the Russians by the tenor of his orders. One of his brigades, the Heavy (4th and 5th Dragoon Guards, 1st, 2nd and 6th Dragoons) under Brigadier-General J. Y. Scarlett, was in the Balaklava plain; the other, the Light Brigade under Lord Cardigan (4th and 13th Light Dragoons now Hussars, 8th and 11th Hussars and 17th Lancers) in the valley to the north of the Vorontsov ridge. All these regiments were very weak in numbers. The Russian cavalry mass, after crossing the ridge, moved towards Balaklava; a few shots were fired into it by a Turkish battery and a moment later the Heavy Brigade charged. The attack was impeded at first by obstacles of ground, but in the _melee_ the weight of the British troopers gradually broke up the enemy, and the charge of the 4th Dragoon Guards, delivered against the flank of the Russian mass, was decisive. The whole of the Russian cavalry broke and fled to the ridge. This famous charge occupied less than five minutes from first to last, and at the same time some of the Russian squadrons, attempting to charge the 93rd Highlanders (who were near Balaklava) were met by the steady volleys of the "thin red line," and fled with the rest. The defeated troops retreated past the still inactive Light Brigade, on whose left a French cavalry brigade was now posted. The Russians were at this juncture reinforced by a mixed force on the Fedukhine heights; Liprandi's infantry occupied the captured ridge, and manned the guns taken from the Turks. The cavalry defeated by the Heavy Brigade was re-formed in the northern valley behind the field guns, and infantry, cavalry and artillery were on both the Fedukhine and the Vorontsov heights. Thus, in front of the Light Brigade was a valley over a mile long, at the end of which was the enemy's cavalry and twelve guns, and on the ridges on either side there were in all twenty-two guns, with cavalry and infantry. It was under these circumstances that an order was given by the British headquarters, which led to the charge for which above all Balaklava is remembered. It was carried to Lord Lucan by Captain L. E. Nolan, 15th Hussars, and ran as follows:--"Lord Raglan wishes the cavalry to advance rapidly to the front and try to prevent the enemy carrying away the guns ... French cavalry is on your left." Lucan, seeing no attempt on the part of the enemy to move guns, questioned Nolan, who is said to have pointed down the valley to the artillery on the plain; whereupon Lucan rode to Lord Cardigan, the commander of the Light Brigade, and repeated Lord Raglan's order and Nolan's explanation. The Light Brigade then advanced straight to its front, and soon came under fire from the guns on both flanks. Nolan was killed as he rode across the front of the brigade, perhaps with the intention of changing its direction to the Vorontsov ridge. Five minutes later the guns in front began to fire with telling effect. The pace was increased, though the "charge" was not sounded, and Cardigan and those of his men who remained mounted, rode up to and through the Russian line of guns. Small parties even charged the Russian cavalry in rear and on either flank. The French 4th _Chasseurs d' Afrique_ made a dashing charge which drove the Russians off the Fedukhine heights, though at considerable loss. Lucan had meanwhile called up the Heavy Brigade to support the Light, but it lost many men and horses and was quickly withdrawn. Only two formed bodies of the Light Brigade found their way back. The 13th Light Dragoons mustered but ten mounted men at the evening parade; the brigade as a whole had lost 247 men and 497 horses out of a total strength of 673 engaged in the charge, which lasted twenty minutes from first to last. The two infantry divisions which now approached the field were again halted, and Liprandi was left undisturbed on the Vorontsov ridge and in possession of the captured guns. The result of the day was thus unfavourable to the allies, but the three chief incidents of the engagement--the two cavalry charges and the fight of the 93rd Highlanders--gave to it all the prestige of a victory. The impression created by the conduct of the Light Brigade was forcibly expressed in Tennyson's well-known ballad, and in spite of the equally celebrated remark of the French general Bosquet, _C'est magnifique mais ce n'est pas la guerre_, it may be questioned whether the moral effect of the charge did not outweigh the very serious loss in trained men and horses involved.
BALALAIKA, a stringed instrument said to have retained its primitive form unchanged, very popular in Russia among the peasants, more especially in Ukraine. The instrument has a triangular soundboard to which is glued a vaulted back, forming a body having a triangular base, enabling it to stand upright. To the body is added a fretted neck strung with two, three or four strings, generally so tuned as to produce a minor chord when sounded together. The strings are generally plucked with the fingers, but the peasants obtain charming "glissando" effects by sweeping the strings lightly one after the other with the fingers or side of the hand. The Balalaika is common to the Slav races, who use it to accompany their folk-songs and dances. It is also to be seen in the hands of gipsies at rural festivities and fairs.
BALANCE (derived through the Fr. from the Late Lat. _bilantia_, an apparatus for weighing, from _bi_, two, and _lanx_, a dish or scale), a term originally used for the ordinary beam balance or weighing machine with two scale pans, but extended to include (with or without adjectival qualification) other apparatus for measuring and comparing weights and forces. In addition to beam and spring balances (see WEIGHING MACHINES), apparatus termed "torsion balances," in which forces are measured or compared by their twisting moment on a wire, are used, especially in gravitational, electrostatic and magnetic experiments (see GRAVITATION and ELECTROMETER). The term also connotes the idea of equality or equalization; _e.g._ in the following expressions: "balance," in bookkeeping, the amount which equalizes the debit and credit accounts; "balance wheel," [v.03 p.0235] in horology, a device for equalizing the relaxing of a watch or clock spring (see CLOCK); the "balancing of engines," the art of minimizing the total vibrations of engines when running, and consisting generally in the introduction of masses which induce vibrations opposed to the vibrations of the essential parts of the engine.
BALANCE OF POWER, a phrase in international law for such a "just equilibrium" between the members of the family of nations as should prevent any one of them from becoming sufficiently strong to enforce its will upon the rest. The principle involved in this, as Hume pointed out in his _Essay on the Balance of Power_, is as old as history, and was perfectly familiar to the ancients both as political theorists and as practical statesmen. In its essence it is no more than a precept of commonsense born of experience and the instinct of self-preservation; for, as Polybius very clearly puts it (lib. i. cap. 83): "Nor is such a principle to be despised, nor should so great a power be allowed to any one as to make it impossible for you afterwards to dispute with him on equal terms concerning your manifest rights." It was not, however, till the beginning of the 17th century, when the science of international law took shape at the hands of Grotius and his successors, that the theory of the balance of power was formulated as a fundamental principle of diplomacy. According to this the European states formed a sort of federal community, the fundamental condition of which was the preservation of the balance of power, _i.e._ such a disposition of things that no one state or potentate should be able absolutely to predominate and prescribe laws to the rest; and, since all were equally interested in this settlement, it was held to be the interest, the right and the duty of every power to interfere, even by force of arms, when any of the conditions of this settlement were infringed or assailed by any other member of the community.[1] This principle, once formulated, became an axiom of political science. It was impressed as such by Fenelon, in his _Instructions_, on the young duke of Burgundy; it was proclaimed to the world by Frederick the Great in his _Anti-Machiavel_; it was re-stated with admirable clearness in 1806 by Friedrich von Gentz in his _Fragments on the Balance of Power_. It formed the basis of the coalitions against Louis XIV. and Napoleon, and the occasion, or the excuse, for most of the wars which desolated Europe between the congress of Muenster in 1648 and that of Vienna in 1814. During the greater part of the 19th century it was obscured by the series of national upheavals which have remodelled the map of Europe; yet it underlay all the efforts of diplomacy to stay or to direct the elemental forces let loose by the Revolution, and with the restoration of comparative calm it has once more emerged as the motive for the various political alliances of which the ostensible object is the preservation of peace (see EUROPE: _History_).
An equilibrium between the various powers which form the family of nations is, in fact,--as Professor L. Oppenheim (_Internat. Law_, i. 73) justly points out--essential to the very existence of any international law. In the absence of any central authority, the only sanction behind the code of rules established by custom or defined in treaties, known as "international law," is the capacity of the powers to hold each other in check. Were this to fail, nothing could prevent any state sufficiently powerful from ignoring the law and acting solely according to its convenience and its interests.
See, besides the works quoted in the article, the standard books on International Law (_q.v._).
(W. A. P.)
[1] Emerich de Vattel, _Le Droit des gens_ (Leiden, 1758).
BALANCE OF TRADE, a term in economics belonging originally to the period when the "mercantile theory" prevailed, but still in use, though not quite perhaps in the same way as at its origin. The "balance of trade" was then identified with the sum of the precious metals which a country received in the course of its trading with other countries or with particular countries. There was no doubt an idea that somehow or other the amount of the precious metals received represented profit on the trading, and each country desired as much profit as possible. Princes and sovereigns, however, with political aims in view, were not close students of mercantile profits, and would probably have urged the acquisition of the precious metals as an object of trade even if they had realized that the country as a whole was exporting "money's worth" in order to buy the precious metals which were desired for political objects. The "mercantile theory" was exploded by Adam Smith's demonstration that gold and silver were only commodities like others with no special virtue in them, and that they would come into a country when there was a demand for them, according to the amount, in proportion to other demands, which the country could afford to pay; but the ideas in which the theory itself has originated have not died out, and the idea especially of a "balance of trade" to which the rulers of a country should give attention is to be found in popular discussions of business topics and in politics, the general notion being that a nation is prosperous when its statistics show a "trade balance" in its favour and unprosperous when the reverse is shown. In modern times the excess of imports over exports or of exports over imports, shown in the statistics of foreign trade, has also come to be identified in popular speech with the "balance of trade," and many minds are no doubt imbued with the ideas (1) that an excess of imports over exports is bad, and (2) an excess of exports over imports is the reverse, because the former indicates an "unfavourable" and the latter a "favourable" trade balance. In the former case it is urged that a nation so circumstanced is living on its capital. Exact remedies are not suggested, although the idea of preventing or hampering foreign imports as a means of developing home trade and of thus altering the supposed disastrous trade balance is obviously the logical inference from the arguments. A consideration of these ideas and of recent discussions about imports and exports, appears accordingly to be needed, although the "mercantile theory" is itself exploded.
The phrase "balance of trade," then, appears to be an application of a trader's language in his own business to the larger affairs of nations or rather of the aggregate of individuals in a nation engaged in foreign trade. A trader in his own books sets his sales against his purchases, and the amount by which the former exceed the latter is his trade balance or profit. What is true of the individual, it is assumed, must be true of a nation or of the aggregate of individual traders in a nation engaged in the foreign trade. If their collective sales amount to more than their collective purchases the trade balance will be in their favour, and they will have money to receive. Contrariwise, if their purchases amount to more than their sales, they will have to pay money, and they will presumably be living on their capital. The argument fails, however, in many ways. Even as regards the experience of the individual trader, it is to be observed that he may or may not receive his profit, if any, in money. As a rule he does not do so. As the profit accrues he may invest it either by employing labour to add to his machinery or warehouses, or by increasing his stock-in-trade, or by adding to his book debts, or by a purchase of stocks or shares outside his regular business. At the end of a given period he may or may not have an increased cash balance to show as the result of his profitable trading. Even if he has an increased cash balance, according to the modern system of business, this might be a balance at his bankers', and they in turn may have invested the amount so that there is no stock of the precious metals, of "hard money," anywhere to represent it. And the argument fails still further when applied to the transactions between nations, or rather, to use the phrase already employed, between the aggregate of individuals in nations engaged in the foreign trade. It is quite clear that if a nation, or the individuals of a nation, do make profit in their foreign trading, the amount may be invested as it accrues--in machinery, or warehouses, or stock-in-trade, or book debts, or stocks and shares purchased abroad, so that there may be no corresponding "balance of trade" to bring home. There is no doubt also that what may be is in reality what largely happens. A prosperous foreign trade carried on by any country implies a continuous investment by that country either abroad or at home, and there may or may not be a balance receivable in actual gold and silver.
[v.03 p.0236] In another particular the argument also fails. In the aggregate of individual trading with various countries, there may sometimes be purchases and sales as far as the individuals are concerned, but not purchases and sales as between the nations. For example, goods are exported from the United Kingdom, ammunition and stores and ships, which appear in the British returns as exports, and which have really been sold by individual British traders to individuals abroad; but these sales are not set off by any purchases on the other side which come into the international account, as the set-off is a loan by the people of one country to the people or government of another. The same with the export of railway and other material when goods are exported for the purpose of constructing railways or other works abroad. The sales are made by individuals in the United Kingdom to individuals abroad; but there is no set-off of purchases on the other side. _Mutatis mutandis_ the same explanation applies to the remittance of goods by one country to another, or by individuals in one country to individuals in another to pay the interest or repay the capital of loans which have been received in former times. These are all cases of the movement of goods irrespective of international sales and purchases, though the movements themselves appear in the international records of imports and exports, and therefore it seems to be assumed, though without any warrant, in the international records of the balance of trade. There is yet another failure in the comparison. The individual trader would include in his sales and purchases services such as repairs performed by him for others, and similar services which others do for himself; but no similar accounts are kept of the corresponding portions of international trade such as the earning of freights and commissions, although in strictness, it is obvious, they belong as much to international trade as the imports and exports themselves, which cannot therefore show a complete "balance of trade."
The illusions which may result then from the confusion of ideas between a balance of trade or profit, and a balance of cash paid or received, and from the identification of an excess of imports over exports or of exports over imports with the balance of trade itself, though they are not the same things, hardly need description. The believers in such illusions are not entitled to any hearing as economists, however, much they may be accepted in the market-place or among politicians.
The "balance of trade" and "the excess of imports over exports" are thus simply pitfalls for the amateur and the unwary. On the statistical side, moreover, there is a good deal more to be urged in order to impress the student with care and attention. The records of imports and exports themselves may vary from the actual facts of international purchases and sales. The actual values of the goods imported and paid for by the nation may vary from the published returns of imports, which are, by the necessity of the case, only estimated values. And so with the exports. The actual purchases and sales may be something very different. A so-called sale may prove abortive through its not being paid for at all, the debtor failing altogether. In any case the purchases of a year may not be paid for by the sales of the year, and the "squaring" of the account may take a long time. Still more the estimates of value may be so taken as not to give even an approximately correct account as far as the records go. Thus in the plan followed in the United Kingdom imports are valued as at the port where they arrive and exports at the port where they are despatched from--a plan which so far places them on an equal footing for the purpose of striking a balance of trade. But in the import and export records of the United States a different plan is followed. The imports are no longer valued as at the port of arrival with the freight and other charges included, but as at the port of shipment. The results on the balance of trade drawn out must accordingly be quite different in the two cases. With other countries similar differences arise. To deduce then from records of imports and exports any conclusions as to the excess of imports or exports at different times is a work of enormous statistical difficulty. Excellent illustrations will be found in J. Holt Schooling's _British Trade Book_ (1908).
The country which presents the most interesting questions in connexion with the study is the United Kingdom, with its largely preponderating foreign trade. Its annual imports and exports, excluding bullion, exceed 800 millions sterling, and the bullion one year with another is 100 millions more. Its excess of imports, moreover, between the middle and end of the 19th century gradually rose from a small figure to 180 millions sterling annually, and occasioned the popular discussion referred to respecting an "adverse" balance of trade, and particularly the belief existing in many quarters that the nation is living on its capital. The result has been a new investigation of the subject, so as to bring out and present the credits to which the country is entitled in its trade as a shipowner and commission merchant, and to exhibit at the same time the magnitude of British foreign investments, which cannot be less than 2000 millions sterling and must bring in an enormous annual income. Other countries such as France, Germany, Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Norway and Sweden, are in the same condition, though their foreign trade is not on the same scale, and similar rules apply to the reading of their import and export accounts. The United States is a conspicuous instance of a country which in the first decade of the 20th century was still in the position of a borrower and had a large excess of exports, though there were signs of a change in the opposite direction. New countries generally, such as Canada, Australia and the South American countries, resemble the United States. Comparisons are made difficult by the want of uniformity in the methods of stating the figures, but that different countries have to be grouped according as they are indebted or creditor countries is undeniable, and no study of the trade statistics is possible without recognition of the underlying economic circumstances.
In conclusion it may be useful to repeat the main propositions laid down as to the balance of trade, (1) A "balance of trade" to the individual trader, from whose experience the phrase comes, is not necessarily, as is supposed, a balance received or receivable in the precious metals. It may be invested as it accrues--in machinery, or warehouses, or stock-in-trade, or in book debts, or in stocks and shares or other property outside the trader's business, as well as in cash. (2) What is true of the individual trader is also true of the aggregate of individuals engaged in the foreign trade of a country. Cash is only one of the forms in which they may elect to be paid. (3) The imports and exports recorded in the statistical returns of a country do not correspond with the purchases and sales of individual traders, as the sales especially may be set off by loans, while the so-called imports may include remittances of interest and of capital repaid. (4) When capital is repaid the country receiving it need not be living on it, but may be investing it at home. (5) The foreign trading of countries may also comprise many transactions, such as the earning of freights and commissions, which ought to appear in a proper account showing a balance of trade, as similar transactions appear in an individual trader's account, but which are not treated as imports or exports in the statistical returns of a nation's foreign trade. (6) Import and export returns themselves are not the same as accounts of purchases and sales; the values are only estimates, and must not be relied on literally without study of the actual facts. (7) Import and export returns in different countries are not in all cases taken at the same point, there being important variations, for instance, in this respect between the returns of two great countries, the United Kingdom and the United States, which are often compared, but are really most difficult to compare. (8) The United Kingdom is a conspicuous instance of a country which has a great excess of imports over exports in consequence of its large lending abroad in former times; while its accounts are specially affected by the magnitude of its services as a trading nation carrying passengers and goods all over the world, which do not result, however, in so-called "exports." The United States, on the other hand, is a conspicuous instance of an indebted nation, which has or had until lately few or no sums to its credit in foreign trade except the visible exports. (9) The various countries of the world naturally fall into groups. The nations of western Europe, such as France, Germany, Belgium, Holland, Sweden and Norway, fall into a [v.03 p.0237] group with Great Britain as creditor nations, while Canada, Australasia and the South American countries fall into a group with the United States as undeveloped and indebted countries, So also of other countries, each belongs naturally to one group or another. (10) The excess of imports or exports may vary indefinitely at different times according as a creditor country is receiving or lending at the time, or according as a debtor country is borrowing or paying off its debts at the time, but the permanent characteristics are always to be considered.
(R. GN.)
BALANOGLOSSUS, the general name given to certain peculiar, opaque, worm-like animals which live an obscure life under stones, and burrow in the sand from between tide-marks down to the abyssal regions of the sea. Their colour is usually some tone of yellow with dashes of red, brown and green, and they frequently emit a pungent odour. The name has reference to the tongue-shaped muscular proboscis by which the animal works its way through the sand. The proboscis is not the only organ of locomotion, being assisted by the succeeding segment of the body, the buccal segment or collar. By the waves of contraction executed by the proboscis accompanied by inflation of the collar, progression is effected, sometimes with marvellous rapidity. The third body region or trunk may attain a great length, one or two feet, or even more, and is also muscular, but the truncal muscles are of subordinate importance in locomotion, serving principally to promote the peristaltic contractions of the body by which the food is carried through the gut. The function of alimentation is closely associated with that of locomotion, somewhat as in the burrowing earthworm; in the excavation of its burrows the sand is passed through the body, and any nutrient matter that may adhere to it is extracted during its passage through the intestine, the exhausted sand being finally ejected through the vent at the orifice of the burrow and appearing at low tide as a worm casting. In accordance with this manner of feeding, the mouth is kept permanently open and prevented from collapsing by a pair of skeletal cornua belonging to a sustentacular apparatus (the nuchal skeleton), the body of which lies within the narrow neck of the proboscis; the latter is inserted into the collar and surrounded by the anterior free flap of this segment of the body.
When first discovered by J. F. Eschscholtz at the Marshall Islands in 1825, _Balanoglossus_ was described as a worm-like animal belonging to the Echinoderm order of Holothurians or sea-cucumbers. In 1865 Kowalevsky discovered that the organs of respiration consist of numerous pairs of gill-slits leading from the digestive canal through the thickness of the body-wall to the exterior. On this account the animal was subsequently placed by Gegenbaur in a special class of Vermes, the Enteropneusta. In 1883-1886 Bateson showed by his embryological researches that the Enteropneusta exhibit chordate (vertebrate) affinities in respect of the coelomic, skeletal and nervous systems as well as in regard to the respiratory system, and, further, that the gill-slits are formed upon a plan similar to that of the gill-slits of _Amphioxus_, being subdivided by tongue-bars which depend from the dorsal borders of the slits.
_Coelom and Pore-canals_.--In correspondence with the tri-regional differentiation of the body in its external configuration, the coelom (body-cavity, perivisceral cavity) is divided into three portions completely separated from one another by septa:--(1) proboscis-coelom, or first body-cavity; (2) the collar-coelom, or second body-cavity; (3) truncal coelom, or third body-cavity. Of these divisions of the coelom the first two communicate with the exterior by means of a pair of ciliated pore-canals placed at the posterior end of their respective segments. The proboscis-pores are highly variable, and frequently only one is present, that on the left side; sometimes the pore-canals of the proboscis unite to open by a common median orifice, and sometimes their communication with the proboscis-coelom appears to be occluded, and finally the pore-canals may be quite vestigial. The collar-pores are remarkable for their constancy; this is probably owing co the fact that they have become adapted to a special function, the inhalation of water to render the collar turgid during progression. There are reasons for supposing that the truncal coelom was at one time provided with pore-canals, but supposed vestiges of these structures have only been described for one genus, _Spengelia_, in which they lie near the anterior end of the truncal coelom.
_Enteron_.--Not only is the coelom thus subdivided, but the enteron (gut, alimentary canal, digestive tube) itself shows indications of three main subsections in continuity with one another:--(1) proboscis-gut (_Eicheldarm_, stomochord, _vide infra_); (2) collar-gut (buccal cavity, throat); (3) truncal gut extending from the collar to the vent.
_Stomochord_.--The proboscis-gut occurs as an outgrowth from the anterior dorsal wall of the collar-gut, and extends forward into the basal (posterior) region of the proboscis, through the neck into the proboscis-coelom, ending blindly in front. Although an integral portion of the gut, it has ceased to assist in alimentation, its epithelium undergoes vacuolar differentiation and hypertrophy, and its lumen becomes more or less vestigial. It has, in fact, become metamorphosed into a resistant supporting structure resembling in some respects the notochord of the true Chordata, but probably not directly comparable with the latter structure, being related to it solely by way of substitution. On account of the presence and mode of origin (from the gut-wall) of this organ Bateson introduced the term hemichorda as a phyletic name for the class Enteropneusta. As the proboscis-gut appears to have undoubtedly skeletal properties, and as it also has topographical relations with the mouth, it has been designated in English by the non-committal term stomochord. It is not a simple diverticulum of the collar-gut, but a complex structure possessing paired lateral pouches and a ventral convexity (ventral caecum) which rests in a concavity at the front end of the body of the nuchal skeleton (fig. 3). In some species (_Spengelidae_) there is a long capillary vermiform extension of the stomochord in front. The nuchal skeleton is a non-cellular laminated thickening of basement-membrane underlying that portion of the stomochord which lies between the above-mentioned pouches and the orifice into the throat. At the point where the stomochord opens into the buccal cavity the nuchal skeleton bifurcates, and the two cornua thus produced pass obliquely backwards and downwards embedded in the wall of the throat, often giving rise to projecting ridges that bound a dorsal groove of the collar-gut which is in continuity with the wall of the stomochord (fig. 3).
_Nervous System_.--At the base of the epidermis (which is in general ciliated) there is over the entire surface of the body a layer of nerve-fibres, occurring immediately outside the basement-membrane which separates the epidermis from the subjacent musculature. The nervous system is thus essentially epidermal in position and diffuse in distribution; but an interesting concentration of nerve-cells and fibres has taken place in the collar-region, where a medullary tube, closed in from the outside, opens in front and behind by anterior and posterior neuropores. This is the collar nerve-tube. Sometimes the central canal is wide and uninterrupted between the two neuropores; in other cases it becomes broken up into a large number of small closed medullary cavities, and in others again it is obsolete. In one family, the _Ptychoderidae_, the medullary tube of the collar is connected at intermediate points with the epidermis by means of a variable number of unpaired outgrowths from its dorsal wall, generally containing an axial lumen derived from and in continuity with the central canal. These hollow roots terminate blindly in the dorsal epidermis of the collar, and place the nervous layer of the latter in direct connexion with the fibres of the nerve-tube. The exact significance of these roots is a matter for speculation, but it seems possible that they are epiphysial structures remotely comparable with the epiphysial (pineal) complex of the craniate vertebrates. In accordance with this view there would be also some probability in favour of regarding the collar nerve-tube of the Enteropneusta as the equivalent of the cerebral vesicle only of _Amphioxus_ and the Ascidian tadpole, and also of the primary fore-brain of vertebrates.
Special thickenings of the diffuse nervous layer of the epidermis occur in certain regions and along certain lines. In the neck of the proboscis the fibrous layer is greatly thickened, and other intensifications of this layer occur in the dorsal and ventral middle lines of the trunk extending to the posterior end of the body. The dorsal epidermal nerve-tract is continued in front into the ventral wall of the collar nerve-tube, and at the point of junction there is a circular commissural thickening following the posterior rim of the collar and affording a special connexion between the dorsal and ventral nerve-tracts. From the ventral surface of the collar nerve-tube numerous motor fibres may be seen passing to the subjacent musculature. These fibres are not aggregated into roots.
[v.03 p.0238] [Illustration: FIG. 2.--Structure of branchial region.
_bc_, coelom. _tb_, tongue-bars. _ds_, mesentery. _pr_, ridge. _vv_, vessel. _gp_, gill-pore. _dn_, dorsal nerve. _dv_, vessel. _oe_, oesophagus. _vs_, mesentery. _vn_, ventral nerve. ]
_Gill-slits_.--The possession of gill-slits is as interesting a feature in the organization of _Balanoglossus_ as is the presence of tracheae in _Peripatus_. These gill-slits occupy a variable extent of the anterior portion of the trunk, commencing immediately behind the collar-trunk septum. The branchial bars which constitute the borders of the clefts are of two kinds:--(1) Septal bars between two contiguous clefts, corresponding to the primary bars in _Amphioxus_; (2) Tongue-bars. The chief resemblances between _Balanoglossus_ and _Amphioxus_ in respect of the gill-slits may be stated briefly as follows:--([alpha]) the presence of two kinds of branchial bars in all species and also of small crossbars (synapticula) in many species; ([beta]) numerous gill-slits, from forty to more than a hundred pairs; ([gamma]) the addition of new gill-slits by fresh perforation at the posterior end of the pharynx throughout life. The chief differences are, that (a) the tongue-bar is the essential organ of the gill-slit in _Balanoglossus_, and exceeds the septal bars in bulk, while in _Amphioxus_ the reverse is the case; (b) the tongue-bar contains a large coelomic space in _Balanoglossus_, but is solid in _Amphioxus_; (c) the skeletal rods in the tongue-bars of _Balanoglossus_ are double; (d) the tongue-bar in _Balanoglossus_ does not fuse with the ventral border of the cleft, but ends freely below, thus producing a continuous U-shaped cleft. The meaning of this singular contrast between the two animals may be that we have here an instance of an interesting gradation in evolution. From serving primitively as the essential organ of the cleft the tongue-bar may have undergone reduction and modification, becoming a secondary bar in _Amphioxus_, subordinate to the primary bars in size, vascularity and development; finally, in the craniate vertebrates it would then have completed its involution, the suggestion having been made that the tongue-bars are represented by the thymus-primordia.
_Gill-pouches and Gill-pores_.--Only rarely do the gill-slits open freely and directly to the exterior (fig. 1). In most species of _Balanoglossus_ each gill-slit may be said to open into its own atrial chamber or gill-pouch; this in its turn opens to the exterior by a minute gill-pore. There are, therefore, as many gill-pouches as there are gill-slits and as many gill-pores as pouches. The gill-pores occur on each side of the dorsal aspect of the worm in a longitudinal series at the base of a shallow groove, the branchial groove. The respiratory current of water is therefore conducted to the exterior by different means from that adopted by _Amphioxus_, and this difference is so great that the theory which seeks to explain it has to postulate radical changes of structure, function and topography.
_Excretory and Vascular Systems_.--It seems likely that the coelomic pore-canals were originally excretory organs, but in the existing Enteropneusta the pore-canals (especially the collar canals) have, as we have seen, acquired new functions or become vestigial, and the function of excretion is now mainly accomplished by a structure peculiar to the Enteropneusta called the glomerulus, a vascular complex placed on either side of the anterior portion of the stomochord, projecting into the proboscis-coelom. The vascular system itself is quite peculiar, consisting of lacunae and channels destitute of endothelium, situated within the thickness of the basement-membrane of the body-wall, of the gut-wall and of the mesenteries. The blood, which is a non-corpuscular fluid, is propelled forwards by the contractile dorsal vessel and collected into the central blood-sinus; this lies over the stomochord, and is surrounded on three sides by a closed vesicle, with contractile walls, called the pericardium (_Herzblase_). By the pulsation of the pericardial vesicle (best observed in the larva) the blood is driven into the glomerulus, from which it issues by efferent vessels which effect a junction with the ventral (sub-intestinal) vessel in the trunk. The vascular system does not readily lend itself to morphological comparison between such widely different animals as _Balanoglossus_ and _Amphioxus_, and the reader is therefore referred to the memoirs cited at the end of this article for further details.
_Reproductive System_.--The sexes are separate, and when mature are sometimes distinguished by small differences of colour in the genital region. Both male and female gonads consist of more or less lobulated hollow sacs connected with the epidermis by short ducts. In their disposition they are either uniserial, biserial or multiserial. They occur in the branchial region, and also extend to a variable distance behind it. In exceptional cases they are either confined to the branchial region or excluded from it. When they are arranged in uniserial or biserial rows the genital ducts open into or near the branchial grooves in the region of the pharynx and in a corresponding position in the post-branchial region. An important feature is the occurrence in some species (_Ptychoderidae_) of paired longitudinal pleural or lateral folds of the body which are mobile, and can be approximated at their free edges so as to close in the dorsal surface, embracing both the median dorsal nerve-tract and the branchial grooves with the gill-pores, so as to form a temporary peri-branchial and medullary tube, open behind where the folds cease. On the other hand, they can be spread out horizontally so as to expose their own upper side as well as the dorsal surface of the body (fig. 1). These folds are called the genital pleurae because they contain the bulk of the gonads. Correlated with the presence of the genital pleurae there is a pair of vascular folds of the basement membrane proceeding from the dorsal wall of the gut in the post-branchial portion of the branchio-genital region, and from the dorsal angles made by the pleural folds with the body-wall in the pharyngeal region; they pass, in their most fully developed condition, to the free border of the genital pleurae. These vascular membranes are called the lateral septa. Since there are many species which do not possess these genital pleurae, the question arises as to whether their presence or their absence is the more primitive condition. Without attempting to answer this question categorically, it may be pointed out that within the limits of the family (_Ptychoderidae_) which is especially characterized by their presence there are some species in [v.03 p.0239] which the genital pleurae are quite obsolete, and yet lateral septa occur (_e.g._ _Ptychodera ruficollis_), seeming to indicate that the pleural folds have in such cases been secondarily suppressed.
_Development_.--The development of _Balanoglossus_ takes place according to two different schemes, known as direct and indirect, correlated with the occurrence in the group of two kinds of ova, large and small. Direct development, in which the adult form is achieved without striking metamorphosis by a gradual succession of stages, seems to be confined to the family _Balanoglossidae_. The remaining two families of Enteropneusta, _Ptychoderidae_ and _Spengelidae_, contain species of which probably all pursue an indirect course of development, culminating in a metamorphosis by which the adult form is attained. In these cases the larva, called _Tornaria_, is pelagic and transparent, and possesses a complicated ciliated seam, the longitudinal ciliated band, often drawn out into convoluted bays and lappets. In addition to this ciliated band the form of the _Tornaria_ is quite characteristic and unlike the adult. The Tornaria larva offers a certain similarity to larvae of Echinoderms (sea-urchins, star-fishes, and sea-cucumbers), and when first discovered was so described. It is within the bounds of possibility that _Tornaria_ actually does indicate a remote affinity on the part of the Enteropneusta to the Echinoderms, not only on account of its external form, but also by reason of the possession of a dorsal water-pore communicating with the anterior body-cavity. In the direct development Bateson showed that the three divisions of the coelom arise as pouches constricted off from the archenteron or primitive gut, thus resembling the development of the mesoblastic somites of _Amphioxus_. It would appear that while the direct development throws light upon the special plan of organization of the Enteropneusta, the indirect development affords a clue to their possible derivation. However this may be, it is sufficiently remarkable that a small and circumscribed group like the Enteropneusta, which presents such a comparatively uniform plan of composition and of external form, should follow two such diverse methods of development.
_Distribution_.--Some thirty species of _Balanoglossus_ are known, distributed among all the principal marine provinces from Greenland to New Zealand. The species which occurs in the English Channel is _Ptychodera sarniensis_. The _Ptychoderidae_ and _Spengelidae_ are predominantly tropical and subtropical, while the _Balanoglossidae_ are predominantly arctic and temperate in their distribution. One of the most singular facts concerning the geographical distribution of Enteropneusta has recently been brought to light by Benham, who found a species of _Balanoglossus_, _sensu stricto_, on the coast of New Zealand hardly distinguishable from one occurring off Japan. Finally, _Glandiceps abyssicola_ (_Spengelidae_) was dredged during the "Challenger" expedition in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Africa at a depth of 2500 fathoms.
AUTHORITIES.--W. Bateson, "Memoirs on the Direct Development of Balanoglossus," _Quart. Journ. Micr. Sci._ (vols. xxiv.-xxvi., 1884-1886); W. B. Benham, "Balanoglossus otagoensis, n. sp," _Q. J. M. S._ (vol. xlii. p. 497, 1899); Yves Delage and Ed. Herouard, _Traite de zoologie concrete_ (t. viii.), "Les Procordes" (1898); S. F. Harmer, "Note on the Name Balanoglossus," _Proc. Camb. Phil. Soc._ (x. p. 190, 1900); T. H. Morgan, "Memoirs on the Indirect Development of Balanoglossus," _Journ. Morph._ (vol. v., 1891, and vol. ix., 1894); W. E. Ritter, "_Harrimania maculosa_, a new Genus and Species of Enteropneusta from Alaska," Papers from the Harriman Alaska Exhibition (ii.), _Proc. Washington Ac._ (ii. p. 111, 1900); J. W. Spengel, "Die Enteropneusten," _Eighteenth Monograph on the Fauna und Flora des Golfes von Neapel_ (1893); A. Willey, "Enteropneusta from the South Pacific, with Notes on the West Indian Species," _Zool. Results_ (Willey), part iii., 1899; see also _Q. J. M. S._ (vol. xlii. p. 223, 1899); J. P. Hill, "The Enteropneusta of Funafuti," _Mem. Austral. Mus._ (iii., 1897-1898); M. Caullery and F. Mesnil, "Balanoglossus Kochleri, n. sp. English Channel," _C. R. Soc. Biol._ lii. p. 256 (1900).
(A. W.*)
BALARD, ANTOINE JEROME (1802-1876), French chemist, was born at Montpellier on the 30th of September 1802. He started as an apothecary, but taking up teaching he acted as chemical assistant at the faculty of sciences of his native town, and then became professor of chemistry at the royal college and school of pharmacy and at the faculty of sciences. In 1826 he discovered in sea-water a substance which he recognized as a previously unknown element and named _bromine_. The reputation brought him by this achievement secured his election as successor to L. J. Thenard in the chair of chemistry at the faculty of sciences in Paris, and in 1851 he was appointed professor of chemistry at the College de France, where he had M. P. E. Berthelot first as pupil, then as assistant and finally as colleague. He died in Paris on the 30th of April 1876. While the discovery of bromine and the preparation of many of its compounds was his most conspicuous piece of work, Balard was an industrious chemist on both the pure and applied sides. In his researches on the bleaching compounds of chlorine he was the first to advance the view that bleaching-powder is a double compound of calcium chloride and hypochlorite; and he devoted much time to the problem of economically obtaining soda and potash from sea-water, though here his efforts were nullified by the discovery of the much richer sources of supply afforded by the Stassfurt deposits. In organic chemistry he published papers on the decomposition of ammonium oxalate, with formation of oxamic acid, on amyl alcohol, on the cyanides, and on the difference in constitution between nitric and sulphuric ether.
BALA SERIES, in geology, a series of dark slates and sandstones with beds of limestone which occurs in the neighbourhood of Bala, Merionethshire, North Wales. It was first described by A. Sedgwick, who considered it to be the upper part of his Cambrian System. The series is now placed at the top of the Ordovician System, above the Llandeilo beds. The Bala limestone is from 20 to 40 ft. thick, and is recognizable over most of North Wales; it is regarded as the equivalent of the Coniston limestone of the Lake District. The series in the type area consists of the Hirnant limestone, a thin inconstant bed, which is separated by 1400 ft. of slates from the Bala limestone, below this are more slates and volcanic rocks. The latter are represented by large contemporaneous deposits of tuff and felsitic lava which in the Snowdon District are several thousand feet thick. In South Wales the Bala Series contains the following beds in descending order:--the _Trinucleus seticornis_ beds (Slade beds, Redhill shales and Sholeshook limestone), the Robeston Wathen beds, and the _Dicranograptus_ shales. The typical graptolites are, in the upper part, _Dicellograptus anceps_ and _D. complanatus_; in the lower part, _Pleurograptus linearis_ and _Dicranograptus Clingani_. In Shropshire this series is represented by the Caradoc and Chirbury Series; in southern Scotland by the Hartfell and Ardmillan Series, and by similar rocks in Ireland. See CARADOC SERIES and ORDOVICIAN SYSTEM.
BALASH (in the Greek authors, Balas; the later form of the name Vologaeses), Sassanian king in A.D. 484-488, was the brother and successor of P[=e]r[=o]z, who had died in a battle against the Hephthalites (White Huns) who invaded Persia from the east. He put down the rebellion of his brother Zareh, and is praised as a mild and generous monarch, who made concessions to the Christians. But as he did nothing against his enemies, he was, after a reign of four years, deposed and blinded, and his nephew, Kavadh I., raised to the throne.
(ED. M.)
BALASORE, a town and district of British India, in the Orissa division of Bengal. The town is the principal one and the administrative headquarters of the district, and is situated on the right bank of the river Burabalang, about 7 m. from the sea-coast as the crow flies and 16 m. by the river. There is a station on the East Coast railway. The English settlement of Balasore, formed in 1642, and that of Pippli in its neighbourhood seven years earlier, became the basis of the future greatness of the British in India. The servants of the East India Company here fortified themselves in a strong position, and carried on a brisk investment in country goods, chiefly cottons and muslins. They flourished in spite of the oppressions of the Mahommedan governors, and when needful asserted their claims to respect by arms. In 1688, affairs having come to a crisis, Captain William Heath, commander of the company's ships, bombarded the town. In the 18th century Balasore rapidly declined in importance, on account of a dangerous bar which formed across the mouth of the river. At present the bar has 12 to 15 ft. of water at spring-tides, but not more than 2 or 3 ft. at low water in the dry season. Large ships have to anchor outside in the open roadstead. The town still possesses a large maritime trade, despite the silting-up of the river mouth. Pop. (1901) 20,880.
The district forms a strip of alluvial land between the hills and the sea, varying from about 9 to 34 m. in breadth; area, 2085 sq. m. The hill country rises from the western boundary line. The district naturally divides itself into three well-defined tracts--(1) The salt tract, along the coast; (2) The arable tract, or rice country; and (3) The submontane tract, or jungle lands. The salt tract runs the whole way down the coast, and forms a desolate strip a few miles broad. Towards the beach it rises into sandy ridges, from 50 to 80 ft. high, sloping inland and covered with a [v.03 p.0240] vegetation of low scrub jungle. Sluggish brackish streams creep along between banks of fetid black mud. The sandhills on the verge of the ocean are carpeted with creepers and the wild convolvulus. Inland, it spreads out into prairies of coarse long grass and scrub jungle, which harbour wild animals in plenty; but throughout this vast region there is scarcely a hamlet, and only patches of rice cultivation at long intervals. From any part of the salt tract one may see the boundary of the inner arable part of the district fringed with long lines of trees, from which every morning the villagers drive their cattle out into the saliferous plains to graze. The salt tract is purely alluvial, and appears to be of recent date. Towards the coast the soil has a distinctly saline taste.
Salt used to be largely manufactured in the district by evaporation, but the industry is now extinct. The arable tract lies beyond the salt lands, and embraces the chief part of the district. It is a long dead-level of rich fields, with a soil lighter in colour than that of Bengal or Behar; much more friable, and apt to split up into small cubes with a rectangular cleavage. A peculiar feature of the arable tract is the _P[=a]ts_ (literally cups) or depressed lands near the river-banks. They were probably marshes that have partially silted up by the yearly overflow of the streams. These _p[=a]ts_ bear the finest crops. As a whole, the arable tract is a treeless region, except around the villages, which are encircled by fine mango, _pipal_, banyan and tamarind trees, and intersected with green shady lanes of bamboo. A few palmyras, date-palms and screw-pines (a sort of aloe, whose leaves are armed with formidable triple rows of hook-shaped thorns) dot the expanse or run in straight lines between the fields. The submontane tract is an undulating country with a red soil, much broken up into ravines along the foot of the hills. Masses of laterite, buried in hard ferruginous clay, crop up as rocks or slabs. At Kopari, in Kila Ambohata, about 2 sq. m. are almost paved with such slabs, dark-red in colour, perfectly flat and polished like plates of iron. A thousand mountain torrents have scooped out for themselves picturesque ravines, clothed with an ever-fresh verdure of prickly thorns, stunted gnarled shrubs, and here and there a noble forest tree. Large tracts are covered with sal jungle, which nowhere, however, attains to any great height.
Balasore district is watered by six distinct river systems: those of the Subanrekha, the Burabalang, the Jamka, the Kansbans and the Dhamra.
The climate greatly varies according to the seasons of the year. The hot season lasts from March to June, but is tempered by cool sea-breezes; from June to September the weather is close and oppressive; and from October to February the cold season brings the north-easterly winds, with cool mornings and evenings.
Almost the only crop grown is rice, which is largely exported by sea. The country is exposed to destructive floods from the hill-rivers and also from cyclonic storm-waves. The district is traversed throughout its entire length by the navigable Orissa coast canal, and also by the East Coast railway from Calcutta to Madras. The seaports of Balasore, Chandbali and Dhamra conduct a very large coasting trade. The exports are almost confined to rice, which is sent to Ceylon, the Maldives and Mauritius. The imports consist of cotton twist and piece goods, mineral oils, metals, betel-nuts and salt. In 1901 the population was 1,071,197, an increase of 9% in the decade.
BALASSA, BALINT, BARON OF KEKKO and GYARMAT (1551-1594), Magyar lyric poet, was born at Kekko, and educated by the reformer, Peter Bornemissza, and by his mother, the highly gifted Protestant zealot, Anna Sulyok. His first work was a translation of Michael Bock's _Wuertzgertlein fuer die krancken Seelen_, to comfort his father while in prison (1570-1572) for some political offence. On his father's release, Balint accompanied him to court, and was also present at the coronation diet of Pressburg in 1572. He then joined the army and led a merry life at the fortress of Eger. Here he fell violently in love with Anna Losonczi, the daughter of the hero of Temesvar, and evidently, from his verses, his love was not unrequited. But a new mistress speedily dragged the ever mercurial youth away from her, and deeply wounded, she gave her hand to Krisztof Ungnad. Naturally Balassa only began to realize how much he loved Anna when he had lost her. He pursued her with gifts and verses, but she remained true to her pique and to her marriage vows, and he could only enshrine her memory in immortal verse. In 1574 Balint was sent to the camp of Gaspar Bekesy to assist him against Stephen Bathory; but his troops were encountered and scattered on the way thither, and he himself was severly wounded and taken prisoner. His not very rigorous captivity lasted for two years, and he then disappears from sight. We next hear of him in 1584 as the wooer and winner of Christina Dobo, the daughter of the valiant commandant of Eger. What led him to this step we know not, but it was the cause of all his subsequent misfortunes. His wife's greedy relatives nearly ruined him by legal processes, and when in 1586 he turned Catholic to escape their persecutions they declared that he and his son had become Turks. His simultaneous desertion of his wife led to his expulsion from Hungary, and from 1589 to 1594 he led a vagabond life in Poland, sweetened by innumerable amours with damsels of every degree from cithara players to princesses. The Turkish war of 1594 recalled him to Hungary, and he died of his wounds at the siege of Esztergom the same year. Balassa's poems fall into four divisions: religious hymns, patriotic and martial songs, original love poems, and adaptations from the Latin and German. They are all most original, exceedingly objective and so excellent in point of style that it is difficult even to imagine him a contemporary of Sebastian Tinodi and Peter Ilosvay. But his erotics are his best productions. They circulated in MS. for generations and were never printed till 1874, when Farkas Deak discovered a perfect copy of them in the Radvanyi library. For beauty, feeling and transporting passion there is nothing like them in Magyar literature till we come to the age of Michael Csokonai and Alexander Petofi. Balassa was also the inventor of the strophe which goes by his name. It consists of nine lines--a a b c c b d d b, or three rhyming pairs alternating with the rhyming third, sixth and ninth lines.
See Aron Szilady, _Balint Balassa's Poems_ (Hung.) Budapest, 1879.
(R. N. B.)
BALATON (PLATTENSEE), the largest lake of middle Europe, in the south-west of Hungary, situated between the counties of Veszprem, Zala and Somogy. Its length is 48 m., average breadth 3-1/2 to 4-1/2 m., greatest breadth 7-1/2 m., least breadth a little less than 1 m. It covers 266 sq. m. and has an extreme depth of 149 ft. Its northern shores are bordered by the beautiful basaltic cones of the Bakony mountains, the volcanic soil of which produces grapes yielding excellent wine; the southern consist partly of a marshy plain, partly of downs. The most beautiful point of the lake is that where the peninsula of Tihany projects in the waters. An ancient church of the Benedictines is here situated on the top of a hill. In a tomb therein is buried Andrew I. (d. 1061), a king of the Hungarian Arpadian dynasty. The temperature of the lake varies greatly, in a manner resembling that of the sea, and many connect its origin with a sea of the Miocene period, the waters of which are said to have covered the Hungarian plain. About fifty streams flow into the lake, which drains into the Danube and is well stocked with fish. It often freezes in winter. Lake Balaton is of growing importance as a bathing resort.
BALAYAN, a town and port of entry of the province of Batangas, Luzon, Philippine Islands, at the head of the Gulf of Balayan, about 55 m. S. by W. of Manila. Pop. (1903) 8493. Subsequently in October 1903, Calatagan (pop. 2654) and Tuy (pop. 2430) were annexed. Balayan has a healthful climate, and is in the midst of a fertile district (with a volcanic soil), which produces rice, cane-sugar, cacao, coffee, pepper, cotton, Indian corn, fruit (oranges, bananas, mangoes, &c.) and native dyes. Horses and cattle are raised for market in considerable numbers. The fisheries are important. The native language is Tagalog.
BALBI, ADRIAN (1782-1848), Italian geographer, was born at Venice on the 25th of April 1782. The publication of his _Prospetto politico-geografico dello stato attuale del globo_ (Venice, [v.03 p.0241] 1808) obtained his election to the chair of professor of geography at the college of San Michele at Murano; in 1811-1813 he was professor of physics at the Lyceum of Fermo, and afterwards became attached to the customs office at his native city. In 1820 he visited Portugal, and there collected materials for his _Essai statistique sur le royaume de Portugal et d'Algarve_, published in 1822 at Paris, where the author resided from 1821 until 1832. This was followed by _Varietes politiques et statistiques de la monarchie portugaise_, which contains some curious observations respecting that country under the Roman sway. In 1826 he published the first volume of his _Atlas ethnographique du globe, ou classification des peuples anciens et modernes d'apres leurs langues_, a work of great erudition. In 1832 appeared the _Abrege de Geographie_, which, in an enlarged form, was translated into the principal languages of Europe. Balbi retired to Padua and there died on the 14th of March 1848. His son, Eugenio Balbi (1812-1884), followed a similar career, being professor of geography at Pavia, and publishing his father's _Scritti Geografici_ (Turin, 1841), and original works in _Gea, ossia la terra_ (Trieste, 1854-1867) and _Saggio di geografia_ (Milan, 1868).
BALBO, CESARE, COUNT (1789-1853), Italian writer and statesman, was born at Turin on the 21st of November 1789. His father, Prospero Balbo, who belonged to a noble Piedmontese family, held a high position in the Sardinian court, and at the time of Cesare's birth was mayor of the capital. His mother, a member of the Azeglio family, died when he was three years old; and he was brought up in the house of his great-grandmother, the countess of Bugino. In 1798 he joined his father at Paris. From 1808 to 1814 Balbo served in various capacities under the Napoleonic empire at Florence, Rome, Paris and in Illyria. On the fall of Napoleon he entered the service of his native country. While his father was appointed minister of the interior, he entered the army, and undertook political missions to Paris and London. On the outbreak of the revolution of 1821, of which he disapproved, although he was suspected of sympathizing with it, he was forced into exile; and though not long after he was allowed to return to Piedmont, all public service was denied him. Reluctantly, and with frequent endeavours to obtain some appointment, he gave himself up to literature as the only means left him to influence the destinies of his country. This accounts for the fitfulness and incompleteness of so much of his literary work, and for the practical, and in many cases temporary, element which runs through even his most elaborate productions. The great object of his labours was to help in securing the independence of Italy from foreign control. Of true Italian unity he had no expectation and no desire, but he was devoted to the house of Savoy, which he foresaw was destined to change the fate of Italy. A confederation of separate states under the supremacy of the pope was the genuine ideal of Balbo, as it was the ostensible one of Gioberti. But Gioberti, in his _Primato_, seemed to him to neglect the first essential of independence, which he accordingly inculcated in his _Speranze_ or _Hopes of Italy_, in which he suggests that Austria should seek compensation in the Balkans for the inevitable loss of her Italian provinces. Preparation, both military and moral, alertness and patience were his constant theme. He did not desire revolution, but reform; and thus he became the leader of a moderate party, and the steady opponent not only of despotism but of democracy. At last in 1848 his hopes were to some extent satisfied by the constitution granted by the king. He was appointed a member of the commission on the electoral law, and became first constitutional prime-minister of Piedmont, but only held office a few months. With the ministry of d'Azeglio, which soon after got into power, he was on friendly terms, and his pen continued the active defence of his political principles till his death on the 3rd of June 1853. The most important of his writings are historico-political, and derive at once their majesty and their weakness from his theocratic theory of Christianity. His style is clear and vigorous, and not unfrequently terse and epigrammatic. He published _Quattro Novelle_ in 1829; _Storia d'Italia sotto i Barbari_ in 1830; _Vita di Dante_, 1839; _Meditazioni Storiche_, 1842-1845; _Le Speranze d'Italia_, 1844; _Pensieri sulla Storia d'Italia_, 1858; _Della Monarchia rappresentativa in Italia_ (Florence, 1857).
See E. Ricotti, _Della Vita e degli Scritti di Cesare Balbo_ (1856); A. Vismara, _Bibliografia di Cesare Balbo_ (Milan, 1882).
BALBOA, VASCO NUNEZ DE (_c._ 1475-1517), the discoverer of the Pacific, a leading figure among the Spanish explorers and conquerors of America, was born at Jerez de los Caballeros, in Estremadura, about 1475. Though poor, he was by birth a gentleman (_hidalgo_). Little is known of his life till 1501, when he followed Rodrigo de Bastidas in his voyage of discovery to the western seas. He appears to have settled in Hispaniola, and took to cultivating land in the neighbourhood of Salvatierra, but with no great success, as his debts soon became oppressive. In 1509 the famous Ojeda (Hojeda) sailed from San Domingo with an expedition and founded the settlement of San Sebastian. He had left orders with Enciso, an adventurous lawyer of the town, to fit out two ships and convey provisions to the new settlement. Enciso set sail in 1510, and Balboa, whose debts made the town unpleasant to him, managed to accompany him by concealing himself, it is said, in a cask of "victuals for the voyage," which was conveyed from his farm to the ship. The expedition reached San Sebastian to find Ojeda gone and the settlement in ruins. While Enciso was undecided how to act, Balboa proposed that they should sail for Darien, on the Gulf of Uraba, where he had touched when with Bastidas. His proposal was accepted and a new town was founded, named Sta Maria de la Antigua del Darien; but quarrels soon broke out among the adventurers, and Enciso was deposed, thrown into prison and finally sent off to Spain with Balboa's ally, the alcalde Zamudio. Being thus left in authority, Balboa began to conquer the surrounding country, and by his bravery, courtesy, kindness of heart and just dealing gained the friendship of several native chiefs. On one of these excursions he heard for the first time, from the cacique Comogre, of the ocean on the other side of the mountains and of the gold of Peru. Soon after his return to Darien he received letters from Zamudio, informing him that Enciso had complained to the king, and had obtained a sentence condemning Balboa and summoning him to Spain. In his despair at this message Vasco Nunez resolved to attempt some great enterprise, the success of which he trusted would conciliate his sovereign. On the 1st of September 1513 he set out with one hundred and ninety Spaniards (Francisco Pizarro among them) and one thousand natives; on the 25th or 26th of September he reached the summit of the range, and sighted the Pacific. Pizarro and two others were sent on to reconnoitre; one of these scouts, Alonzo Martin, was the first European actually to embark upon the new-found ocean, in St Michael's Gulf. On the 29th of September Balboa himself arrived upon the shore, and formally took possession of the "Great South Sea" in the name of the Spanish monarch. He remained on the coast for some time, heard again of Peru, visited the Pearl Islands, and thence returned to Darien, which he entered in triumph with a great booty on the 18th of January 1514. He at once sent messengers to Spain bearing presents, to give an account of his discoveries; and the king, Ferdinand the Catholic, partly reconciled to his daring subject, named him _Adelantado of the South Sea_, or admiral of the Pacific, and governor of Panama and Coyba. None the less an expedition sailed from Spain under Don Pedro Arias de Avila (generally called Pedrarias Davila) to replace Balboa in the government of the Darien colony itself. Meanwhile the latter had crossed the isthmus and revisited the Pacific several (some say more than twenty) times; plans of the conquest of Peru and of the exploration of the western ocean began to shape themselves in his mind; and with a view to these projects, materials for shipbuilding were gathered together upon the Pacific coast, and two light brigantines were built, launched and armed. With these Vasco Nunez now took possession of the Pearl Islands, and, had it not been for the weather, would have reached the coast of Peru. But his career was stopped by the jealousy of Pedrarias, who pretended that Balboa proposed to throw off his allegiance, and enticed him to Acla, near Darien, by a crafty message. As soon as he had him in his power, he threw [v.03 p.0242] him into prison, had him tried for treason, and forced the judge to condemn him to death. The sentence was carried into execution on the public square of Acla in 1517. From a reckless adventurer, Balboa had developed into an able general, an excellent colonial administrator, and a statesman of mature judgment and brilliant foresight.
See G. F. de Oviedo, _Historia general ... de las Indias_ (1526, bk. xxxix. chs. 2, 3); D. M. T. Quintana, _Vidas de Espanoles celebres_; M. F. de Navarrete, _Coleccion de los Viajes y Descubrimientos_ (1825-1837); J. Acosta, _Compendio historico de la Nueva Granada_ (1848); O. Peschel, _Geschichte der Erdkunde_ (1865, p. 237), and _Zeitalter der Entdeckungen_, pp. 442-3 &c.; Washington Irving's _Voyages and Discoveries of the Companions of Columbus_ (1831), and Varela's notes on the same in _Biblioteca del Comercio del Plata_ (Monte Video); Ferdinand Denis, art. "Vasco Nunez de Balboa," in _Nouv. Biog. Gen._
BALBRIGGAN, a market-town and seaport of Co. Dublin, Ireland, in the north parliamentary division, 21-3/4 m. N.N.E. of Dublin by the Great Northern railway. Pop. (1901) 2236. The harbour, though dry at low tides, has a depth of 14 ft. at high-water springs, and affords a good refuge from the east or southeast gales. There are two piers, and a railway viaduct of eleven arches crosses the harbour. The town has considerable manufactures of cottons and hosiery, "Balbriggan hose" being well known. The industry was founded by Baron Hamilton in 1761. There is some coast trade in grain, &c., and sea-fishery is prosecuted. Balbriggan is much frequented as a watering-place in summer.
BALBUS, literally "stammerer," the name of several Roman families. Of the Acilii Balbi, one Manius Acilius Balbus was consul in 150 B.C., another in 114. To another family belonged T. Ampius Balbus, a supporter of Pompey, but afterwards pardoned by Julius Caesar (cf. Cic. _ad Fam._ vi. 12 and xiii. 70). We know also of Q. Antonius Balbus, praetor in Sicily in 82 B.C., and Marcus Atius Balbus, who married Julia, a sister of Caesar, and had a daughter Atia, mother of Augustus. The most important of the name were the two Cornelii Balbi, natives of Gades (Cadiz).
1. LUCIUS CORNELIUS BALBUS (called _Major_ to distinguish him from his nephew) was born early in the last century B.C. He is generally considered to have been of Phoenician origin. For his services against Sertorius in Spain, the Roman citizenship was conferred upon him and his family by Pompey. Becoming friendly with all parties, he had much to do with the formation of the First Triumvirate, and was one of the chief financiers in Rome. He was careful to ingratiate himself with Caesar, whom he accompanied when propraetor to Spain (61), and to Gaul (58) as chief engineer (_praefectus fabrum_). His position as a naturalized foreigner, his influence and his wealth naturally made Balbus many enemies, who in 56 put up a native of Gades to prosecute him for illegally assuming the rights of a Roman citizen, a charge directed against the triumvirs equally with himself. Cicero, Pompey and Crassus all spoke on his behalf, and he was acquitted. During the civil war he endeavoured to get Cicero to mediate between Caesar and Pompey, with the object of preventing him from definitely siding with the latter; and Cicero admits that he was dissuaded from doing so, against his better judgment. Subsequently, Balbus became Caesar's private secretary, and Cicero was obliged to ask for his good offices with Caesar. After Caesar's murder, Balbus seems to have attached himself to Octavian; in 43 or 42 he was praetor, and in 40 consul--an honour then for the first time conferred on an alien. The year of his death is not known. Balbus kept a diary of the chief events in his own and Caesar's life (Suetonius, _Caesar_, 81). The 8th book of the _Bell. Gall._, which was probably written by his friend Hirtius at his instigation, was dedicated to him.
Cicero, _Letters_ (ed. Tyrrell and Purser, iv. introd. p. 62) and _Pro Balbo_; see also E. Jullien, _De L. Cornelia Balbo Maiore_ (1886).
2. LUCIUS CORNELIUS BALBUS (called _Minor_), nephew of the above, received the Roman citizenship at the same time as his uncle. During the civil war, he served under Caesar, by whom he was entrusted with several important missions. He also took part in the Alexandrian and Spanish wars. He was rewarded for his services by being admitted into the college of pontiffs. In 43 he was quaestor in Further Spain, where he amassed a large fortune by plundering the inhabitants. In the same year he crossed over to Bogud, king of Mauretania, and is not heard of again until 21, when he appears as proconsul of Africa. Mommsen thinks that he had incurred the displeasure of Augustus by his conduct as praetor, and that his African appointment after so many years was due to his exceptional fitness for the post. In 19 Balbus defeated the Garamantes, and on the 27th of March in that year received the honour of a triumph, which was then for the first time granted to one who was not a Roman citizen by birth, and for the last time to a private individual. He built a theatre in the capital, which was dedicated on the return of Augustus from Gaul in 13 (Dio Cassius liv. 25; Pliny, _Nat. Hist._ xxxvi. 12, 60). Balbus appears to have given some attention to literature. He wrote a play of which the subject was his visit to Lentulus in the camp of Pompey at Dyrrhachium, and, according to Macrobius (_Saturnalia_, iii. 6), was the author of a work called [Greek: Exegetika], dealing with the gods and their worship.
See Velleius Paterculus ii. 51; Cicero, _ad Att._ viii. 9; and on both the above the exhaustive articles in Pauly-Wissowa, _Realencyclopadie_, iv. pt. i. (1900).
BALCONY (Ital. _balc[=o]ne_ from _balco_, scaffold; cf. O. H. Ger. _balcho_, beam, Mod. Ger. _Balken_, Eng. _balk_), a kind of platform projecting from the wall of a building, supported by columns or console brackets, and enclosed with a balustrade. Sometimes balconies are adapted for ceremonial purposes, _e.g._ that of St Peter's at Rome, whence the newly elected pope gives his blessing _urbi et orbi_. Inside churches balconies are sometimes provided for the singers, and in banqueting halls and the like for the musicians. In theatres the "balcony" was formerly a stage-box, but the name is now usually confined to the part of the auditorium above the dress circle and below the gallery.
BALDE, JAKOB (1604-1668), German Latinist, was born at Ensisheim in Alsace on the 4th of January 1604. Driven from Alsace by the marauding bands of Count Mansfeld, he fled to Ingolstadt where he began to study law. A love disappointment, however, turned his thoughts to the church, and in 1624 he entered the Society of Jesus. Continuing his study of the humanities, he became in 1628 professor of rhetoric at Innsbruck, and in 1635 at Ingolstadt, whither he had been transferred by his superiors in order to study theology. In 1633 he was ordained priest. His lectures and poems had now made him famous, and he was summoned to Munich where, in 1638, he became court chaplain to the elector Maximilian I. He remained in Munich till 1650, when he went to live at Landshut and afterwards at Amberg. In 1654 he was transferred to Neuberg on the Danube, as court preacher and confessor to the count palatine. In the opinion of his contemporaries, Balde revived the glories of the Augustan age, and Pope Alexander VII. and the scholars of the Netherlands combined to do him honour; even Herder regarded him as a greater poet than Horace. While such judgments are naturally exaggerated, there is no doubt that he takes a very high place among modern Latin poets. He died at Neuberg on the 9th of August 1668.
A collected edition of Balde's works in 4 vols. was published at Cologne in 1650; a more complete edition in 8 vols. at Munich, 1729; also a good selection by L. Spach (Paris and Strassburg, 1871). An edition of his Latin lyrics appeared at Regensburg in 1884. There are translations into German of his finer odes, by J. Schrott and M. Schleich (Munich, 1870). See G. Westermayer, _Jacobus Balde, sein Leben und seine Werke_ (1868); J. Bach, _Jakob Balde_ (Freiburg, 1904).
BALDER, a Scandinavian god, the son of Odin or Othin. The story of his death is given in two widely different forms, by Saxo in his _Gesta Danorum_ (ed. Holder, pp. 69 ff.) and in the prose Edda (_Gylfaginning_, cap. 49).
See F. Kauffmann, _Balder: Mythus und Sage_ (Strassburg, 1902). For other works, see TEUTONIC PEOPLES, s. 7.
BALDERIC, the name given to the author of a chronicle of the bishops of Cambrai, written in the 11th century. This _Gesta episcoporum Cambracensium_ was for some time attributed to Balderic, archbishop of Noyon, but it now seems tolerably certain that the author was an anonymous canon of Cambrai. The work is of considerable importance for the history of the north of France during the 11th century, and was first published in 1615. [v.03 p.0243] The best edition is in the _Monumenta Germaniae historica. Scriptores_, Bd. vii. (Hanover and Berlin, 1826-1892), which contains an introduction by L. C. Bethmann.
See _Histoire litteraire de la France_, tome viii. (Paris, 1865-1869).
BALDI, BERNARDINO (1533-1617), Italian mathematician and miscellaneous writer, was descended of a noble family at Urbino, in which city he was born on the 6th of June 1533. He pursued his studies at Padua with extraordinary zeal and success, and is said to have acquired, during the course of his life, no fewer than sixteen languages, though according to Tiraboschi the inscription on his tomb limits the number to twelve. The appearance of the plague at Padua obliged him to retire to his native city, whence he was, shortly afterwards, called to act as tutor to Ferrante (Ferdinand) Gonzaga, from whom he received the rich abbey of Guastalla. He held office as abbot for twenty-five years, and then retired to his native town. In 1612 he was employed by the duke as his envoy to Venice, where he distinguished himself by the congratulatory oration he delivered before the Venetian senate on the election of the new doge, Andrea Memmo. Baldi died at Urbino on the 12th of October 1617. He was, perhaps, the most universal genius of his age, and is said to have written upwards of a hundred different works, the chief part of which have remained unpublished. His various works give satisfactory evidence of his abilities as a theologian, mathematician, geographer, antiquary, historian and poet. The _Cronica dei Matematici_ (published at Urbino in 1707) is an abridgment of a larger work, on which he had bestowed twelve years of labour, and which was intended to contain the lives of more than two hundred mathematicians. His life has been written by Affo, Mazzuchelli and others.
BALDINGER, ERNST GOTTFRIED (1738-1804), German physician, was born near Erfurt on the 13th of May 1738. He studied medicine at Erfurt, Halle and Jena, and in 1761 was entrusted with the superintendence of the military hospitals connected with the Prussian encampment near Torgau. He published in 1765 a treatise _De Militum Morbis_, which met with a favourable reception. In 1768 he became professor of medicine at Jena, whence he removed in 1773 to Goettingen, and in 1785 to Marburg, where he died of apoplexy on the 21st of January 1804. Among his pupils were S. T. Soemmerring and J. F. Blumenbach. Some eighty-four separate treatises are mentioned as having proceeded from his pen, in addition to numerous papers scattered through various collections and journals.
BALDINUCCI, FILIPPO (1624-1696), Italian writer on the history of the arts, was born at Florence. His chief work is entitled _Notizie de' Professori del Disegno da Cimabue ... (dal 1260 sino al 1670)_, and was first published in six vols. 4to, 1681-1728. The capital defect of this work is the attempt to derive all Italian art from the schools of Florence. A good edition is that by Ranalli (5 vols. 8vo, Florence, 1845-1847). Baldinucci's whole works were published in fourteen vols. at Milan, 1808-1812.
BALDNESS[1] (technically _alopecia_, from [Greek: alopex], a fox, foxes often having bald patches on their coats), the result of loss of hair, particularly on the human scalp. So far as remediable alopecia is concerned, two forms may be distinguished: one the premature baldness so commonly seen in young men, due to alopecia seborrhoica, the other alopecia areata, now regarded as an epidemic disease.
Alopecia seborrhoica is that premature baldness so constantly seen, in which the condition steadily advances from the forehead backwards, until only a fringe of hair is left on the head. It is always due to the underlying disease seborrhoea, and though it progresses steadily if neglected, is yet very amenable to treatment. The two drugs of greatest value in this trouble are sulphur and salicylic acid, some eighteen grains of each added to an ounce of vaseline making a good application. This should be rubbed well into the scalp daily for a prolonged period. Where the greasiness is objected to, the following salicylic lotion may be substituted, though the vaseline application has probably the greater value: [Rx.] Ac. salicyl. [dr.] i-iv; Ol. ricini [dr.] ii-iv; Ol. ros. geran. [min.] x; Spt. vini ad [oz.] vi. The head must be frequently cleansed, and in very mild cases a daily washing with soap spirit will at times effect a cure unaided.
Alopecia areata is characterized by the development of round patches more or less completely denuded of hair. It is most commonly observed on the scalp, though it may occur on any part of the body where hair is naturally present. The patches are rounded, smooth and somewhat depressed owing to the loss of a large proportion of the follicles. At the margin of the patches short broken hairs are usually to be seen. Clinical evidence is steadily accumulating to show that this disease may be transmitted. Organisms are invariably present, in some cases few in number, but in others very abundant and forming a continuous sheath round the hair. They were first described by Dr George Thin, who gave them the name of _Bacterium decalvens_. The disease must be distinguished from ringworm--especially the bald variety; but though this is at times somewhat difficult clinically, the use of the microscope leaves no room for doubt. It must be remembered that for patients under forty years of age, time alone will generally bring about the desired end, though treatment undoubtedly hastens recovery. After forty every year added to the patient's age makes the prognosis less good. The general hygiene and mode of life of the sufferer must be very carefully attended to, and any weakness suitably treated. The following lotion should be applied daily to the affected parts, at first cautiously, later more vigorously, and in stronger solution:--[Rx.] Acidi lactici [dr.] i-[oz.] i; Ol. ricini [dr.] ii; Spt. vini ad [oz.] iv.
The loss of hair following acute fevers must be treated by keeping the hair short, applying stimulating lotions to the scalp, and attending to the general hygiene of the patient.
[1] The adjective "bald" M. E. "balled" is usually explained as literally "round and smooth like a ball," but it may be connected with a stem _bal_, white or shining. The Greek [Greek: phalakros] certainly suggests some such derivation.
BALDOVINETTI, ALESSIO (1427-1499), Florentine painter, was born on the 14th of October 1427, and died on the 29th of August 1499. He was a follower of the group of scientific realists and naturalists in art which included Andrea del Castagno, Paolo Uccello and Domenico Veneziano, the influence of the last-named master being particularly manifest in his work. Tradition, probable in itself though not attested by contemporary records, says that he assisted in the decorations of the chapel of S. Egidio in Santa Maria Nuova, carried out during the years 1441-1451 by Domenico Veneziano and in conjunction with Andrea del Castagno. That he was commissioned to complete the series at a later date (1460) is certain. In 1462 Alessio was employed to paint the great fresco of the Annunciation in the cloister of the Annunziata, which still exists in ruined condition. The remains as we see them give evidence of the artist's power both of imitating natural detail with minute fidelity and of spacing his figures in a landscape with a large sense of air and distance; and they amply verify two separate statements of Vasari concerning him: that "he delighted in drawing landscapes from nature exactly as they are, whence we see in his paintings rivers, bridges, rocks, plants, fruits, roads, fields, cities, exercise-grounds, and an infinity of other such things," and that he was an inveterate experimentalist in technical matters. His favourite method in wall-painting was to lay in his compositions in fresco and finish them _a secco_ with a mixture of yolk of egg and liquid varnish. This, says Vasari, was with the view of protecting the painting from damp; but in course of time the parts executed with this vehicle scaled away, so that the great secret he hoped to have discovered turned out a failure. In 1463 he furnished a cartoon of the Nativity, which was executed in tarsia by Giuliano de Maiano in the sacristy of the cathedral and still exists. From 1466 date the groups of four Evangelists and four Fathers of the Church in fresco, together with the Annunciation on an oblong panel, which still decorate the Portuguese chapel in the church of S. Miniato, and are given in error by Vasari to Pietro Pollaiuolo. A fresco of the risen Christ between angels inside a Holy Sepulchre in the chapel of the Rucellai family, also still existing, belongs to 1467. In 1471 Alessio undertook important works for the church of Sta Trinita on the commission of Bongianni Gianfigliazzi. First, to paint an altar-piece of the [v.03 p.0244] Virgin and Child with six saints; this was finished in 1472 and is now in the Academy at Florence: next, a series of frescoes from the Old Testament which was to be completed according to contract within five years, but actually remained on hand for fully sixteen. In 1497 the finished series, which contained many portraits of leading Florentine citizens, was valued at a thousand gold florins by a committee consisting of Cosimo Rosselli, Benozzo Gozzoli, Perugino and Filippino Lippi; only some defaced fragments of it now remain. Meanwhile Alessio had been much occupied with other technical pursuits and researches apart from painting. He was regarded by his contemporaries as the one craftsman who had rediscovered and fully understood the long disused art of mosaic, and was employed accordingly between 1481 and 1483 to repair the mosaics over the door of the church of S. Miniato, as well as several of those both within and without the baptistery of the cathedral.
These are the recorded and datable works of the master; others attributed to him on good and sufficient internal evidences are as follows:--A small panel in the Florence Academy, with the three subjects of the Baptism, the Marriage of Cana and the Transfiguration; this was long attributed to Fra Angelico, but is to all appearance early work of Baldovinetti: an Annunciation in the Uffizi, formerly in the church of S. Giorgio; unmistakably by the master's hand though given by Vasari to Peselino: several Madonnas of peculiarly fine and characteristic quality; one in the collection of Madame Andre at Paris acquired direct from the descendants of the painter, a second, formerly in the Duchatel collection and now in the Louvre, a third in the possession of Mr Berenson at Florence. All these are executed with the determined patience and precision characteristic of Baldovinetti; two, those at the Louvre and in the Andre collection, are distinguished by beautiful landscape backgrounds; and all, but especially the example in the Louvre, add a peculiar and delicate charm to the quality of grave majesty which Alessio's works share with those of Piero della Francesca and others of Domenico Veneziano's following. They probably belong to the years 1460-1465. In the later of his preserved works, while there is no abatement of precise and laborious finish, we find beginning to prevail a certain harshness and commonness of type, and a lack of care for beauty in composition, the technical and scientific searcher seeming more and more to predominate over the artist.
See also Vasari, ed. Milanesi, vol. ii.; Crowe-Cavalcaselle, _Hist. of Painting in Italy_, vol. ii.; Bernhard Berenson, _Study and Criticism of Italian Art_, 2nd series.
(S. C.)
BALDRIC (from O. Fr. _baudrei_, O. Ger. _balderich_, of doubtful origin; cognate with English "belt"), a belt worn over one shoulder, passing diagonally across the body and under the other arm, either as an ornament or a support for a sword, bugle, &c.
BALDUINUS, JACOBUS, Italian jurist of the 13th century, was by birth a Bolognese, and is reputed to have been of a noble family. He was a pupil of Azo, and the master of Odofredus, of Hostiensis, and of Jacobus de Ravanis, the last of whom has the reputation of having first applied dialectical forms to legal science. His great fame as a professor of civil law at the university of Bologna caused Balduinus to be elected _podesta_ of the city of Genoa, where he was entrusted with the reforms of the law of the republic. He died at Bologna in 1225, and has left behind him some treatises on procedure, the earliest of their kind.
BALDUS DE UBALDIS, PETRUS (1327-1406), Italian jurist, a member of the noble family of the Ubaldi (Baldeschi), was born at Perugia in 1327, and studied civil law there under Bartolus, being admitted to the degree of doctor of civil law at the early age of seventeen. Federicus Petrucius of Siena is said to have been the master under whom he studied canon law. Upon his promotion to the doctorate he at once proceeded to Bologna, where he taught law for three years; after which he was advanced to a professorship at Perugia, where he remained for thirty-three years. He taught law subsequently at Pisa, at Florence, at Padua and at Pavia, at a time when the schools of law in those universities disputed the palm with the school of Bologna. He died at Pavia on the 28th of April 1406. The extant works of Baldus hardly bear out the great reputation which he acquired amongst his contemporaries, due partly to the active part he took in public affairs, and partly to the fame he acquired by his consultations, of which five volumes have been published (Frankfort, 1589). Baldus was the master of Pierre Roger de Beaufort, who became pope under the title of Gregory XI., and whose immediate successor, Urban VI., summoned Baldus to Rome to assist him by his consultations in 1380 against the anti-pope Clement VII. Cardinal de Zabarella and Paulus Castrensis were also amongst his pupils. His _Commentary on the Liber Feudorum_, is considered to be one of the best of his works, which were unfortunately left by him for the most part in an incomplete state. His brothers Angelus (1328-1407) and Petrus (1335-1400) were of almost equal eminence with himself as jurists.
BALDWIN I. (d. 1205), emperor of Romania, count of Flanders and Hainaut, was one of the most prominent leaders of the fourth crusade, which resulted in the capture of Constantinople, the conquest of the greater part of the East Roman empire, and the foundation of the Latin empire of Romania. The imperial crown was offered to, and refused by, Henry Dandolo, doge of Venice. The choice then lay between Baldwin and Boniface of Montferrat. Baldwin was elected (9th of May 1204), and crowned a week later. He was young, gallant, pious and virtuous, one of the few who interpreted and observed his crusading vows strictly; the most popular leader in the host. The empire of Romania was organized on feudal principles; the emperor was feudal superior of the princes who received portions of the conquered territory. His own special portion consisted of Constantinople, the adjacent regions both on the European and the Asiatic side, along with some outlying districts, and several islands including Lemnos, Lesbos, Chios and Tenos. The territories had still to be conquered; and first of all it was necessary to break the resistance of the Greeks in Thrace and secure Thessalonica. In this enterprise (summer of 1204) Baldwin came into collision with Boniface of Montferrat, the rival candidate for the empire, who was to receive a large territory in Macedonia with the title of king of Saloniki. He hoped to make himself quite independent of the empire, to do no homage for his kingdom, and he opposed Baldwin's proposal to march to Thessalonica. The antagonism between Flemings and Lombards aggravated the quarrel. Baldwin insisted on going to Thessalonica; Boniface laid siege to Hadrianople, where Baldwin had established a governor; civil war seemed inevitable. An agreement was effected by the efforts of Dandolo and the count of Blois. Boniface received Thessalonica as a fief from the emperor, and was appointed commander of the forces which were to march to the conquest of Greece.
During the following winter (1204-1205) the Franks prosecuted conquests in Bithynia, in which Henry, Baldwin's brother, took part. But in February the Greeks revolted in Thrace, relying on the assistance of John (Kaloyan), king of Bulgaria, whose overtures of alliance had been unwisely rejected by the emperor. The garrison of Hadrianople was expelled. Baldwin along with Dandolo, the count of Blois, and Marshal Villehardouin, the historian, marched to besiege that city. The Bulgarian king led to its relief an army which far outnumbered that of the crusaders. The Frank knights fought desperately, but were utterly defeated (14th of April 1205); the count of Blois was slain, and the emperor captured. For some time his fate was uncertain, and in the meanwhile Henry, his brother, assumed the regency. Not till the middle of July was it definitely ascertained that he was dead. It seems that he was at first treated well as a valuable hostage, but was sacrificed by the Bulgarian monarch in a sudden outburst of rage, perhaps in consequence of the revolt of Philippopolis, which passed into the hands of the Franks. One contemporary writer says that his hands and feet were cut off, and he was thrown into a valley where he died on the third day; but the manner of his death is obscure. King John himself wrote to Pope Innocent III. that he died in prison. His brother Henry was crowned emperor in August.
AUTHORITIES.--Villehardouin, _La Conquete de Constantinople_ (ed. De Wailly, Paris, 1872; ed. Bouchet, 2 vols., Paris, 1891); Robert [v.03 p.0245] de Clari, _La Prise de Constantinople_ (in Hopf's _Chroniques greco-romaines_); Ernoul, _Chronique_ (ed. Mas Latrie, Paris, 1871); Nicetas (ed. Bonn, 1835); George Acropolites, vol. i. (ed. Heisenberg, Leipzig, 1903); Documents in Tafel and Thomas, _Urkunden zur aelteren Handels- und Staatsgeschichte der Republik Venedig_ (Vienna, 1856).
MODERN WORKS.--Ducange, _Histoire de l'empire de Constantinople sous les empereurs francais_ (Paris, 1657); Gibbon, _Decline and Fall_, vol. vi. (ed. Bury, 1898); G. Finlay, _History of Greece_, vol. iv. (Oxford, 1877); Pears, _The Fall of Constantinople_ (London, 1885); Hopf, "Griechische Geschichte," in Ersch and Gruber's _Encyklopaedie_, vol. lxxxv. (Leipzig, 1870); Gerland, _Geschichte des lateinischen Kaiserreiches von Konstantinopel_, part i. (Homburg v. d. Hoehe, 1905).
(J. B. B.)
BALDWIN II. (1217-1273), emperor of Romania, was a younger son of Yolande, sister of Baldwin I. Her husband, Peter of Courtenay, was third emperor of Romania, and had been followed by his son Robert, on whose death in 1228 the succession passed to Baldwin, a boy of eleven years old. The barons chose John of Brienne (titular king of Jerusalem) as emperor-regent for life; Baldwin was to rule the Asiatic possessions of the empire when he reached the age of twenty, was to marry John's daughter Mary, and on John's death to enjoy the full imperial sovereignty. The marriage contract was carried out in 1234. Since the death of the emperor Henry in 1216, the Latin empire had declined and the Greek power advanced; and the hopes that John of Brienne might restore it were disappointed. He died in 1237. The realm which Baldwin governed was little more than Constantinople. His financial situation was desperate, and his life was chiefly occupied in begging at European courts. He went to the West in 1236, visited Rome, France and Flanders, trying to raise money and men to recover the lost territory of his realm. His efforts met with success, and in 1240 he returned to Constantinople (through Germany and Hungary) at the head of a considerable army. Circumstances hindered him from accomplishing anything with this help, and in 1245 he travelled again to the West, first to Italy and then to France, where he spent two years. The empress Maria and Philip of Toucy governed during his absence. He was happy to be able to get money from King Louis IX. in exchange for relics. In 1249 he was with King Louis at Damietta. The extremity of his financial straits reduced him soon afterwards to handing over his only son Philip to merchants as a pledge for loans of money. Louis IX. redeemed the hostage. The rest of his inglorious reign was spent by Baldwin in mendicant tours in western Europe. In 1261 Constantinople was captured by Michael Palaeologus, and Baldwin's rule came to an end. He escaped in a Venetian galley to Negropont, and then proceeded to Athens, thence to Apulia, finally to France. As titular emperor, his role was still the same, to beg help from the western powers. In 1267 he went to Italy; his hopes were centred in Charles of Anjou. Charles seriously entertained the idea of conquering Constantinople, though various complications hindered him from realizing it. He made a definite treaty with Baldwin to this intent (May 1267). During the next year Baldwin and his son Philip lived on pensions from Charles. In October 1273 Philip married Beatrice, daughter of Charles, at Foggia. A few days later Baldwin died.
See authorities for BALDWIN I. above; also Norden, _Das Papsttum und Byzanz_ (Berlin 1903).
(J. B. B.)
BALDWIN I., prince of Edessa (1098-1100), and first king of Jerusalem (1100-1118), was the brother of Godfrey of Bouillon (_q.v._). He was originally a clerk in orders, and held several prebends; but in 1096 he joined the first crusade, and accompanied his brother Godfrey as far as Heraclea in Asia Minor. When Tancred left the main body of the crusaders at Heraclea, and marched into Cilicia, Baldwin followed, partly in jealousy, partly from the same political motives which animated Tancred. He wrested Tarsus from Tancred's grip (September 1097), and left there a garrison of his own. After rejoining the main army at Marash, he received an invitation from an Armenian named Pakrad, and moved eastwards towards the Euphrates, where he occupied Tell-bashir. Another invitation followed from Thoros of Edessa; and to Edessa Baldwin came, first as protector, and then, when Thoros was assassinated, as his successor (March 1098). For two years he ruled in Edessa (1098-1100), marrying an Armenian wife, and acting generally as the intermediary between the crusaders and the Armenians. During these two years he was successful in maintaining his ground, both against the Mahommedan powers by which he was surrounded, and from which he won Samosata and Seruj (Sarorgia), and against a conspiracy of his own subjects in 1098. At the end of 1099 he visited Jerusalem along with Bohemund I.; but he returned to Edessa in January 1100. On the death of Godfrey he was summoned by a party in Jerusalem to succeed to his brother. A lay reaction against the theocratic pretensions of Dagobert, who was counting on Norman support, was responsible for the summons; and in the strength of that reaction Baldwin was able to become the first king of Jerusalem. He was crowned on Christmas Day, 1100, by the patriarch himself; but the struggle of church and state was not yet over, and in the spring of 1101 Baldwin had Dagobert suspended by a papal legate, while later in the year the two disagreed on the question of the contribution to be made by the patriarch towards the defence of the Holy Land. The struggle ended in the deposition of Dagobert and the triumph of Baldwin (1102).
As Baldwin had secured the supremacy of the lay power in Jerusalem, so he extended into a compact kingdom the poor and straggling territories to which he had succeeded. This he did by an alliance with the Italian trading towns, especially Genoa, which supplied in return for the concession of a quarter in the conquered towns, the instruments and the skill for a war of sieges, in which the coast towns of Palestine were successively reduced. Arsuf and Caesarea were captured in 1101; Acre in 1104; Beirut and Sidon in 1110 (the latter with the aid of the Venetians and Norwegians). Meanwhile Baldwin repelled in successive years the attacks of the Egyptians (1102, 1103, 1105), and in the latter years of his reign (1115-1118) he even pushed southward at the expense of Egypt, penetrating as far as the Red Sea, and planting an outpost at Monreal. In the north he had to compose the dissensions of the Christian princes in Tripoli, Antioch and Edessa (1109-1110), and to help them to maintain their ground against the Mahommedan princes of N.E. Syria, especially Maudud and Aksunk-ur, amirs of Mosul. In this way Baldwin was able to make himself into practical suzerain of the three Christian principalities of the north, though the suzerainty was, and always continued to be, somewhat nominal. In 1118 he died, after an expedition to Egypt, during which he captured Farama, and, as old Fuller says, "caught many fish, and his death in eating them."
Baldwin was one of the "adventurer princes" of the first crusade, and as such he stands alongside of Bohemund, Tancred and Raymund. On the whole he was the most successful of his class. By his defence of the lay power against a nascent theocracy, and by his alliance with the Italian towns, he was the real founder of the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem. Events worked for him: he might never have come to the throne, unless Bohemund had fallen into the hands of Danishmend; and the dissensions among the Mahommedans alone made possible the subsequent consolidation of his kingdom. But he had _virtu_ as well as _fortuna_; and on his tombstone it was written that he was "a second Judas Maccabaeus, whom Kedar and Egypt, Dan and Damascus dreaded." As king, he still retained something of the clerk in the habit of his dress; but he was at the same time a warrior so impetuous, as to be sometimes foolhardy, and his policy was on the whole anti-clerical. He may be accused of greed: his life was not chaste; and the two defects met in his rejection of his Armenian wife and his marriage to the rich Sicilian widow Adelaide (1113). But "on the holiest soil of history, he gave his people a fatherland"; and Fulcher of Chartres, his chaplain, who paints at the beginning of Baldwin's reign the terrors of the lonely band of Christians in the midst of their foes, can celebrate at the end the formation of a new nation in the East (_qui fuimus occidentales, nunc facti sumus orientales_)--an achievement which, so far as it was the work of any one man, was the work of Baldwin I.
LITERATURE.--The _Historia Hierosolymitana_ of Fulcher, who had accompanied Baldwin as chaplain to Edessa, and had lived in [v.03 p.0246] Jerusalem during his reign, is the primary authority for Baldwin's career. There is a monograph on Baldwin by Wolff (_Koenig Baldwin I. von Jerusalem_), and his reign is sketched in R. Roehricht's _Geschichte des Koenigreichs Jerusalem_ (Innsbruck, 1898) C. i.-iv.
(E. BR.)
BALDWIN II., count of Edessa (1100-1118), king of Jerusalem (1118-1131), originally known as Baldwin de Burg, was a son of Count Hugh of Rethel, and a nephew of Godfrey of Bouillon and Baldwin I. He appears on the first crusade at Constantinople as one of Godfrey's men; and he helped Tancred to occupy Bethlehem in June 1099. After the capture of Jerusalem he served for a time with Bohemund at Antioch; but when Baldwin of Edessa became king of Jerusalem, he summoned Baldwin de Burg, and left him as count in Edessa. From Edessa Baldwin conducted continual forays against the Mahommedan princes; and in the great foray of 1104, in which he was joined by Bohemund, he was defeated and captured at Balich. Tancred became guardian of Edessa during Baldwin's captivity, and did not trouble himself greatly to procure his release. Baldwin, however, recovered his liberty at the beginning of 1108, and at once entered upon a struggle with Tancred for the recovery of Edessa. In September 1108 he regained his principality; but the struggle with Tancred continued, until it was composed by Baldwin in 1109. For the next ten years Baldwin ruled his principality with success, if not without severity. Planted in the farthest Christian outpost in northern Syria, he had to meet many attacks, especially from Mardin and Mosul, in revenge for the provocation offered by his own forays and those of the restless Tancred. In 1110 he was besieged in Edessa, and relieved by Baldwin I.; in 1114 he repelled an attack by Aksunkur of Mosul; in 1115 he helped to defeat Aksunkur at Danith. At the same time, if Matthew of Edessa may be trusted, he also carried his arms against the Armenians, and plundered in his avarice every Armenian of wealth and position. In 1118 he was on his way to spend Easter at Jerusalem, when he received the news of the death of Baldwin I.; and when he arrived at Jerusalem, he was made king, chiefly by the influence of the patriarch Arnulf. In a reign of thirteen years, Baldwin II. extended the kingdom of Jerusalem to its widest limits. His reign is marked by almost incessant fighting in northern Syria. In 1119, after the defeat and death of Roger of Antioch, he defeated the amirs of Mardin and Damascus at Danith; in subsequent years he extended his sway to the very gates of Aleppo. In 1123 he was captured by Balak of Mardin, and confined in Kharput with Joscelin, his successor in the county of Edessa, who had been captured in the previous year. During his captivity Eustace Graverius became regent of Jerusalem, and succeeded, with the aid of the Venetians, in repelling an Egyptian attack, and even in capturing Tyre, 1124. In 1124 Baldwin II. succeeded in securing his liberty, under conditions which he instantly broke; and he at once embarked on strenuous and not unsuccessful hostilities against Aleppo and Damascus (1124-1127), exacting tribute from both. During his reign he twice acted as regent in Antioch (1119, 1130), and in 1126 he married his daughter Alice to Bohemund II. In 1128 he offered the hand of his eldest daughter, Melisinda, to Fulk of Anjou, who had been recommended to him by Honorius II. In 1129 Fulk came and married Melisinda, and in 1131, on the death of Baldwin, he succeeded to the crown.
Baldwin II. had much of the churchmanship of Godfrey and Baldwin I.; but he appears most decidedly as an incessant warrior, under whom the Latin domination in the East stretched, as Ibn al-Athir writes, in a long line from Mardin in the North to el-Arish on the Red Sea--a line only broken by the Mahommedan powers of Aleppo, Hamah, Homs and Damascus. The Franks controlled the great routes of trade, and took tolls of the traders; and in 1130 their power may be regarded as having reached its height.
LITERATURE.--Fulcher of Chartres narrates the reign of Baldwin II. down to 1127; for the rest of the reign the authority is William of Tyre. R. Roehricht, _Geschichte des Koenigreichs Jerusalem_ (Innsbruck, 1898), C. vii.-x., is the chief modern authority.
(E. BR.)
BALDWIN III., king of Jerusalem (1143-1162), was the eldest son of Fulk of Jerusalem by his wife Melisinda. He was born in 1130, and became king in 1143, under the regency of his mother, which lasted till 1152. He came to the throne at a time when the attacks of the Greeks in Cilicia, and of Zengi on Edessa, were fatally weakening the position of the Franks in northern Syria; and from the beginning of his reign the power of the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem may be said to be slowly declining, though as yet there is little outward trace of its decay to be seen. Edessa was lost, however, in the year after Baldwin's accession, and the conquest by Zengi of this farthest and most important outpost in northern Syria was already a serious blow to the kingdom. Upon it in 1147 there followed the second crusade; and in that crusade Baldwin III., now some eighteen years of age, played his part by the side of Conrad III. and Louis VII. He received them in Jerusalem in 1148; with them he planned the attack on Damascus and with them he signally failed in the attack. In 1149, after the failure of the crusade, Baldwin III. appeared in Antioch, where the fall of Raymund, the husband of the princess Constance, made his presence necessary. He regulated affairs in Antioch, and tried to strengthen the north of Palestine generally against the arm of Zengi's successor, Nureddin, by renewing the old and politic alliance with Damascus interrupted since 1147, and by ceding Tellbashir, the one remnant of the county of Edessa, to Manuel of Constantinople. In 1152 came the inevitable struggle between the young king and his mother, who had ruled with wisdom and vigour during the regency and was unwilling to lay down the reins of power. Baldwin originally planned a solemn coronation, as the signal of his emancipation. Dissuaded from that course, he nevertheless wore his crown publicly in the church of the Sepulchre. A struggle followed: in the issue, Baldwin agreed to leave his mother in possession of Jerusalem and Nablus, while he retained Acre and Tyre for himself. But he repented of the bargain; and a new struggle began, in which Baldwin recovered, after some fighting, the possession of his capital. From these internal dissensions Baldwin was now summoned to the north, to regulate anew the affairs of Antioch and also those of Tripoli, where the death of Count Raymund had thrown on his shoulders the cares of a second regency. On his return to Jerusalem he was successful in repelling an attack by an army of Turcomans; and his success encouraged him to attempt the siege of Ascalon in the spring of 1153. He was successful: the "bride of Syria," which had all but become the property of the crusaders in 1099, but had since defied the arms of the Franks for half a century, became part of the kingdom of Jerusalem. From 1156 to 1158 Baldwin was occupied in hostilities with Nureddin. In 1156 he had to submit to a treaty which cut short his territories; in the winter of 1157-1158 he besieged and captured Harim, in the territory once belonging to Antioch: in 1158 he defeated Nureddin himself. In the same year Baldwin married Theodora, a near relative of the East Roman emperor Manuel; while in 1159 he received a visit from Manuel himself at Antioch. The Latin king rode behind the Greek emperor, without any of the insignia of his dignity, at the entry into Antioch; but their relations were of the friendliest, and Manuel--as great a physician as he was a hunter--personally attended to Baldwin when the king was thrown from his horse in attempting to equal the emperor's feats of horsemanship. In the same year Baldwin had to undertake the regency in Antioch once more, Raynald of Chatillon, the second husband of Constance, being captured in battle. Three years later he died (1162), without male issue, and was succeeded by his brother Amalric I.
Baldwin III. was the first of the kings of Jerusalem who was a native of the soil of Palestine. His three predecessors had all been emigrants from the West. His reign also marks a new departure from another point of view. His predecessors had been men of a type half military, half clerical--at once hard fighters and sound churchmen. Baldwin was a man of a subtler type--a man capable of dealing with the intrigues of a court and with problems of law, and, as such, suited for guiding the middle age of the kingdom, which the different qualities of his predecessors had been equally suited to found. Like his brother, Amalric I., he was a clerkly and studious king versed [v.03 p.0247] in law, and ready to discuss points of dogma. In an excellent sketch of Baldwin's character (xvi. cii.), William of Tyre tells us that he spent his spare time in reading and had a particular affection for history; that he was well skilled in the _jus consuetudinarium_ of the kingdom (afterwards recorded by lawyers like John of Ibelin and Philip of Novara as "the assizes of Jerusalem"); and that he had the royal faculty for remembering faces, and could generally be trusted to address by name anybody whom he had once met, so that he was more popular with high and low than any of his predecessors. He had, William also reports, a gift of impromptu eloquence, and a faculty both for saying witty things pleasantly at other people's expense and for listening placidly to witticisms directed against himself; while he was generous to excess without needing to make exactions in order to support his generosity, and always respected the Church. If in his youth he had been prone to gambling, and before his marriage with Theodora had been somewhat lax in his morals, when he became a man he put away childish things; his married life was a shining example to his people and he was abstemious both in food and drink, holding that "excess in either was an incentive to the worst of crimes." Even his enemy, Nureddin, said of him, when he died--"the Franks have lost such a prince that the world has not now his like."
LITERATURE.--William of Tyre is the great primary authority for his reign; Cinnamus and Ibn-al-athir (see _Bibliography_ to the article CRUSADES) give the Byzantine and Mahommedan point of view. His reign is described by R. Roehricht, _Geschichte des Koenigreichs Jerusalem_ (Innsbruck, 1898), C. xiii.-xvi.
(E. BR.)
BALDWIN IV., the son of Amalric I. by his first wife Agnes, ruled in Jerusalem from 1174 to 1183, when he had his nephew Baldwin crowned in his stead. Educated by William of Tyre, Baldwin IV. came to the throne at the early age of thirteen; and thus the kingdom came under the regency of Raymund II. of Tripoli. Happily for the kingdom whose king was a child and a leper, the attention of Saladin was distracted for several years by an attempt to wrest from the sons of Nureddin the inheritance of their father--an attempt partially successful in 1174, but only finally realized in 1183. The problems of the reign of Baldwin IV. may be said to have been two--his sister Sibylla and the fiery Raynald of Chatillon, once prince of Antioch through marriage to Constance (1153-1159), then a captive for many years in the hand of the Mahommedans, and since 1176 lord of Krak (Kerak), to the east of the Dead Sea. Sibylla was the heiress of the kingdom; the problem of her marriage was important. Married first to William of Montferrat, to whom she bore a son, Baldwin, she was again married in 1180 to Guy of Lusignan; and dissensions between Sibylla and her husband on the one side, and Baldwin IV. on the other, troubled the latter years of his reign. Meanwhile Raynald of Krak took advantage of the position of his fortress, which lay on the great route of trade from Damascus and Egypt, to plunder the caravans (1182), and thus helped to precipitate the inevitable attack by Saladin. When the attack came, Guy of Lusignan was made regent by Baldwin IV., but he declined battle and he was consequently deposed both from his regency and from his right of succession, while Sibylla's son by her first husband was crowned king as Baldwin V. in 1183. For a time Baldwin IV. still continued to be active; but in 1184 he handed over the regency to Raymund of Tripoli, and in 1185 he died.
LITERATURE.--The narrative of William of Tyre concludes with Baldwin IV.'s transfer of the regency to Raymund of Tripoli. R. Roehricht describes the reign of Baldwin IV., _Geschichte des Koenigreichs Jerusalem_ (Innsbruck, 1898), C. xix.-xxi.
(E. BR.)
BALDWIN V., the son of Sibylla (daughter of Amalric I.) by her first husband, William of Montferrat, was the nominal king of Jerusalem from 1183 to 1186, under the regency of Raymund of Tripoli. His reign is marked by the advance of Saladin and by dissensions between the government and Guy of Lusignan.
BALDWIN, JAMES MARK (1861- ), American philosopher, was born at Columbia, S.C., and educated at Princeton and several German universities. He was professor of philosophy in the university of Toronto (1889), of psychology at Princeton (1893), and subsequently (1903) of philosophy and psychology in Johns Hopkins University. Prominent among experimental psychologists, he was one of the founders of the _Psychological Review_. In 1892 he was vice-president of the International Congress of Psychology held in London, and in 1897-1898 president of the American Psychological Association; he received a gold medal from the Royal Academy of Arts and Sciences of Denmark (1897), was honorary president of the International Congress of Criminal Anthropology held in Geneva in 1896, and was made an honorary D.Sc. of Oxford University. Apart from articles in the _Psychological Review_, he has written:--_Handbook of Psychology_ (1890); translation of Ribot's _German Psychology of To-day_ (1886); _Elements of Psychology_ (1893); _Social and Ethical Interpretations in Mental Development_ (1898); _Story of the Mind_ (1898); _Mental Development in the Child and the Race_ (1896); _Thought and Things_ (London and New York, vol. i., 1906). He also contributed largely to the _Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology_ (1901-1905), of which he was editor-in-chief.
BALDWIN, ROBERT (1804-1858), Canadian statesman, was born at York (now Toronto) on the 12th of May 1804. His father, William Warren Baldwin (d. 1844), went to Canada from Ireland in 1798; though a man of wealth and good family and a devoted member of the Church of England, he opposed the religious and political oligarchy which was then at the head of Canadian affairs, and brought up his son in the same principles. Robert Baldwin was called to the Bar in 1825, and entered into partnership with his father. In 1829 he was elected a member of the parliament of Upper Canada for the town of York, but was defeated in the following year and retired for a time into private life. During the next six years, he so constantly advocated a responsible executive as the one cure for the political and economic evils of the time that he was known as "the man of one idea." In 1836 he was called by Sir Francis Bond Head (1793-1875), the lieutenant-governor, to the executive council, but finding himself without influence, and compelled to countenance measures to which he was opposed, he resigned within a month. Though a reformer, he strongly disapproved of the rebellion of 1837-1838. On the union of the two Canadas he became (1841) a member of the executive council under Lord Sydenham, but soon resigned on the question of responsible government. In 1842 he formed the first Liberal administration, in connexion with Mr (afterwards Sir) L. H. Lafontaine, but resigned the next year, after a quarrel with the governor-general, Sir Charles Metcalfe, on a question of patronage, in which he felt that of responsible government to be involved. At the general election which followed, the governor-general was sustained by a narrow majority, but in 1848 the Liberals were again returned to power, and he and Mr Lafontaine formed their second administration under Lord Elgin and carried numerous important reforms, including the freeing from sectarian control of the Provincial University and the introduction into Upper Canada of an important municipal system.
Internal dissensions soon began to appear in the Liberal party, and in 1851 Mr Baldwin resigned. The special struggle leading to his resignation was an attempt to abolish the court of chancery of Upper Canada, whose constitution was due to a measure introduced by Baldwin in 1849. The attempt, though defeated, had been supported by a majority of the representatives from Upper Canada, and Baldwin's fastidious conscience took it as a vote of want of confidence. A deeper reason was his inability to approve of the advanced views of the Radicals, or "Clear Grits," as they came to be called. On seeking re-election in York, he declined to give any pledge on the burning question of the Clergy Reserves and was defeated. In 1858 the Liberal-Conservative party, formed in 1854 by a coalition, attempted to bring him out as a candidate for the upper house, which was at this date elective, but though he had broken with the advanced reformers, he could not approve of the tactics of their opponents, and refused to stand. He died on the 9th of December 1858. Even those who most bitterly attacked his measures admitted the purity and unselfishness of his motives. After the concession of responsible government, he devoted himself to bringing about [v.03 p.0248] a good understanding between the English and French-speaking inhabitants of Canada, and his memory is held as dear among the French Canadians as in his native province of Ontario.
See J. C. Dent, _Canadian Portrait Gallery_ (1880). His life, by the Hon. Geo. W. Ross, is included in _The Makers of Canada_ series (Toronto).
BALE, JOHN (1495-1563), bishop of Ossory, English author, was born at Cove, near Dunwich in Suffolk, on the 21st of November 1495. At the age of twelve he entered the Carmelite monastery at Norwich, removing later to the house of "Holme," probably the abbey of the Whitefriars at Hulne near Alnwick. Later he entered Jesus College, Cambridge, and took his degree of B.D. in 1529. At Cambridge he came under the influence of Cranmer and of Thomas Wentworth, 1st Baron Wentworth, and became an ardent partisan of the Reformers. He laid aside his monastic habit, and, as he himself puts it with characteristically brutal violence, "that I might never more serve so execrable a beast, I took to wife the faithful Dorothy." He obtained the living of Thornden, Suffolk, but in 1534 was summoned before the archbishop of York for a sermon against the invocation of saints preached at Doncaster, and afterwards before Stokesley, bishop of London, but he escaped through the powerful protection of Thomas Cromwell, whose notice he is said to have attracted by his miracle plays. He was an unscrupulous controversialist, and in these plays he allows no considerations of decency to stand in the way of his denunciations of the monastic system and its supporters. The prayer of Infidelitas which opens the second act of his _Thre Laws_ (quoted by T. Warton, _Hist. Eng. Poetry_, sect. 41) is an example of the lengths to which he went in profane parody. These coarse and violent productions were well calculated to impress popular feeling, and no doubt Cromwell found in him an invaluable instrument. But on his patron's fall in 1540 Bale fled with his wife and children to Germany. He returned on the accession of Edward VI. He received the living of Bishopstoke, Hampshire, being promoted in 1552 to the Irish see of Ossory. He refused to be consecrated by the Roman rite, which still obtained in the Irish church, and won his point, though the dean of Dublin entered a protest against the revised office during the ceremony (see his _Vocacyon of John Bale to the Bishopperycke of Ossorie, Harl. Misc._ vol. vi.). He pushed his Protestant propaganda in Ireland with no regard to expediency, and when the accession of Mary inaugurated a reaction in matters of religion, it was with difficulty that he was got safely out of the country. He tried to escape to Scotland, but on the voyage was captured by a Dutch man-of-war, which was driven by stress of weather to St. Ives in Cornwall. Bale was arrested on suspicion of treason, but soon released. At Dover he had another narrow escape, but he eventually made his way to Holland and thence to Frankfort and Basel. During his exile he devoted himself to writing. After his return, on the accession of Elizabeth, he received (1560) a prebendal stall at Canterbury. He died in November 1563 and was buried in the cathedral.
The scurrility and vehemence with which "foul-mouthed Bale," as Wood calls him, attacked his enemies does not destroy the value of his contributions to literature, though his strong bias against Roman Catholic writers does detract from the critical value of his works. Of his mysteries and miracle plays only five have been preserved, but the titles of the others, quoted by himself in his _Catalogus_, show that they were animated by the same political and religious aims. The _Thre Laws of Nature, Moses and Christ, corrupted by the Sodomytes, Pharisees and Papystes most wicked_ (pr. 1538 and again in 1562) was a morality play. The direction for the dressing of the parts is instructive: "Let Idolatry be decked like an old witch, Sodomy like a monk of all sects, Ambition like a bishop, Covetousness like a Pharisee or spiritual lawyer, False Doctrine like a popish doctor, and Hypocrisy like a gray friar." _A Tragedye; or enterlude manyfesting the chief promyses of God unto Man ..._ (1538, printed in Dodsley's _Old Plays_, vol. 1), _The Temptacyon of our Lorde_ (ed. A. B. Grosart in _Miscellanies of the Fuller Worthies Library_, vol. i., 1870), and _A brefe Comedy or Enterlude of Johan Baptystes preachynge in the Wyldernesse, &c._ (_Harl. Misc._ vol. i.) were all written in 1538. His plays are doggerel, but he is a figure of some dramatic importance as the author of _Kynge Johan_ (_c._ 1548), which marks the transition between the old morality play and the English historical drama. It does not appear to have directly influenced the creators of the chronicle histories. To the authors of the _Troublesome Raigne of King John_ (1591) it was apparently unknown, but it is noteworthy that an attempt, however feeble, at historical drama was made fourteen years before the production of _Gorboduc_. _Kynge Johan_ (ed. J. P. Collier, Camden Soc. 1838) is itself a polemic against the Roman Catholic Church. King John is represented as the champion of English rites against the Roman see:--
"This noble Kynge Johan, as a faythfull Moses Withstode proude Pharao for his poore Israel."
But the English people remained in the bondage of Rome,--
"Tyll that duke Josue, whych was our late Kynge Henrye, Clerely brought us out in to the lande of mylke and honye."
Elsewhere John is called a Lollard and accused of "heretycall langage," and he is finally poisoned by a monk of Swinestead. Allegorical characters are mixed with the real persons. Ynglonde _vidua_, represents the nation, and the jocular element is provided by Sedwyson (sedition), who would have been the Vice in a pure morality play. One actor was obviously intended to play many parts, for stage directions such as "Go out Ynglond, and dress for Clargy" are by no means uncommon. The MS. of _Kynge Johan_ was discovered between 1831 and 1838 among the corporation papers at Ipswich, where it was probably performed, for there are references to charitable foundations by King John in the town and neighbourhood. It is described at the end of the MS. as two plays, but there is no obvious division, the end of the first act alone being noted. The first part is corrected by Bale and the latter half is in his handwriting, but his name nowhere occurs. In the list of his works, however, he gives a play _De Joanne Anglorum Rege_, written _in idiomate materno_.
But Bale's most important work is _Illustrium majoris Britanniae scriptorum, hoc est, Angliae, Cambriae, ac Scotiae Summarium ..._ (Ipswich and Wesel, for John Overton, 1548, 1549). This contained five centuries, but another edition, almost entirely rewritten and containing fourteen centuries, was printed at Basel with the title _Scriptorum illustrium majoris Britanniae ... Catalogus_ (1557-1559). The chronological catalogue of British authors and their works was partly founded on the _Collectanea_ and _Commentarii_ of John Leland, but Bale was an indefatigable collector and worker, and himself examined many of the valuable libraries of the Augustinian and Carmelite houses before their dissolution. In his notebook he records as an instance of the wholesale destruction in progress: "I have bene also at Norwyche, our second citye of name, and there all the library monuments are turned to the use of their grossers, candelmakers, sopesellers, and other worldly occupiers ... As much have I saved there and in certen other places in Northfolke and Southfolke concerning the authors names and titles of their workes, as I could, and as much wold I have done through out the whole realm, yf I had been able to have borne the charges, as I am not." His work is therefore invaluable, in spite of the inaccuracies and the abuse lavished on Catholic writers, for it contains much information that would otherwise have been hopelessly lost.
A list of Bale's works is to be found in _Athenae Cantabrigienses_ (vol. i. pp. 227 et seq.). Beside the reprints already mentioned, _The Examinations of Lord Cobham, William Thorpe and Anne Askewe, &c._ were edited by the Rev. H. Christmas for the Parker Society in 1849. Bale's autograph note-book is preserved in the Selden Collection of the Bodleian Library, Oxford. It contains the materials he collected for his two published catalogues arranged alphabetically, with no attempt at ornament of any kind, and without the personalities which deface his completed work. He also gives in most cases the sources from which his information was derived. This book was prepared for publication with notes by Dr R. Lane Poole, with the help of Miss Mary Bateson, as _Index Britanniae Scriptorum quos ... collegit Ioannes Baleus_ (Clarendon Press, 1902), forming part ix. of _Anecdota Oxoniensia_.
John Pits or Pitseus (1560-1616), an English Catholic exile, founded on Bale's work his _Relationum historicarum de rebus anglicis tomus primus_ (Paris, 1619), better known by its running title of [v.03 p.0249] _De illustribus Angliae scriptoribus_. This is really the fourth book of a more extensive work. He omits the Wycliffite and Protestant divines mentioned by Bale, and the most valuable section is the lives of the Catholic exiles resident in Douai and other French towns. He does not scruple to assert (_Nota de Joanne Bale_) that Bale's _Catalogus_ was a misrepresentation of Leland's matter, though there is every reason to believe that he was only acquainted with Leland's work at second-hand, through Bale.
BALE. (1) (A word common to Teutonic languages, in O. Eng. _balu_, cf. Icelandic _bol_), evil, suffering, a word obsolete except in poetry, and more common in the adjectival form "baleful." In early alliterative poetry it is especially used antithetically with "bliss." (2) (O. Eng. _bael_, a blazing fire, a funeral pyre), a bonfire, a northern English use more common in the tautological "bale-fire," with sometimes a confused reference from (1) to evil. (3) (A word of doubtful origin, possibly connected with "ball "), a bundle of merchandise, especially of cotton, wool or hay, packed with a cover, or fastened with bands of metal, &c. for transportation; the weight and capacity varies with the goods. (4) (Properly "bail," from Fr. _baille_, possibly connected with Lat. _bacula_, a tub), to empty water out of a boat by means of a bail or bucket.
BALEARIC ISLANDS (_Baleares_), an archipelago of four large and eleven small islands in the Mediterranean Sea, off the east coast of Spain, of which country it forms a province. Pop. (1900) 311,649; area, 1935 sq. m. The archipelago, which lies between 38deg 40' and 40deg 5' N., and between 1deg and 5deg E., comprises two distinct groups. The eastern and larger group, corresponding with the ancient Insulae Baleares, comprises the two principal members of the archipelago, Majorca (Spanish, Mallorca) and Minorca (Spanish, Menorca), with seven islets:--Aire, Aucanada, Botafoch, Cabrera, Dragonera, Pinto and El Rey. The western group, corresponding with the ancient Pityusae or Pine Islands, also comprises two relatively large islands, Iviza (Spanish, Ibiza or, formerly, Ivica) and Formentera, with the islets of Ahorcados, Conejera, Pou and Espalmador. Majorca, Minorca and Iviza are described in separate articles. Formentera is described with Iviza. The total population of the eleven islets only amounted to 171 in 1900, but all were inhabited. None of them is of any importance except Cabrera, which is full of caverns, and was formerly used as a place of banishment. In 1808 a large body of Frenchmen were landed here by their Spanish captors, and allowed almost to perish of starvation.
The origin of the name Baleares is a mere matter of conjecture; it is obvious, however, that the modern Majorca and Minorca are obtained from the Latin _Major_ and _Minor_, through the Byzantine forms [Greek: Maiorika] and [Greek: Minorika]; while Iviza is plainly the older Ebusus, a name probably of Carthaginian origin. The Ophiusa of the Greeks (Colubraria of the Romans) is now known as Formentera.
_Geology._--The strata which form the Balearic Isles fall naturally into two divisions. There is an older series, ranging from the Devonian to the Cretaceous, which is folded and faulted and forms all the higher hills, and there is a newer series of Tertiary age, which lies nearly horizontal and rests unconformably upon the older beds. The direction of the folds in the older series is in Iviza nearly west to east, in Majorca south-west to north-east, and in Minorca south to north, thus forming an arc convex towards the south-east. The Devonian is visible only in Minorca, the Trias being the oldest system represented in the other islands. The higher part of the Cretaceous is absent, and it appears to have been during this period that the principal folding of the older beds took place. The Eocene beds are nummulitic. There is a lacustrine group which has usually been placed in the Lower Eocene, but the discovery of _Anthracotherium magnum_ in the interbedded lignites proves it to be Oligocene, in part at least. The Miocene included a limestone with _Clypeaster_. Pliocene beds also occur.
_Climate, Fauna, Flora._--The climate of the archipelago, though generally mild, healthy and favourable to plant life, is by no means uniform, owing to the differences of altitude and shelter from wind in different islands. The fauna and flora resemble those of the Mediterranean coasts of Spain or France.
_Inhabitants._--The islanders are a Spanish race, very closely akin to the Catalans; but the long period of Moorish rule has left its mark on their physical type and customs. In character they are industrious and hospitable, and pique themselves on their loyalty and orthodoxy. Crime is rare. There are higher schools in the principal towns, and the standard of primary education is well up to the average of Spain. Vaccination is common except in the cities,--the women often performing the operation themselves when medical assistance cannot be got. Castilian is spoken by the upper and commercial classes; the lower and agricultural employ a dialect resembling that of the Catalans.
_Commerce._--Fruit, grain, wine and oil are produced in the islands, and there is an active trade with Barcelona in fresh fish, including large quantities of lobsters. Shoemaking is one of the most prosperous industries. There is not a very active trade direct with foreign countries, as the principal imports--cotton, leather, petroleum, sugar, coal and timber--are introduced through Barcelona. The export trade is chiefly with the Peninsula, France, Italy, Algeria and with Cuba and Porto Rico. Most of the agricultural products are sent to the Peninsula; wine, figs, marble, almonds, lemons and rice to Europe and Africa.
_Administration._--The administration of the Balearic Islands differs in no respect from that of the other Spanish provinces on the mainland. There are five judicial districts (_partidos judiciales_), named after their chief towns--Inca, Iviza, Manacor, Palma and Port Mahon.
_History._--Of the origin of the early inhabitants of the Balearic Islands nothing is certainly known, though Greek and Roman writers refer to the Boeotian and Rhodian settlements. There are numerous sepulchral and other monuments, which are generally believed to be of prehistoric origin. According to general tradition the natives, from whatever quarter derived, were a strange and savage people till they received some tincture of civilization from the Carthaginians, who early took possession of the islands and built themselves cities on their coasts. Of these cities, Port Mahon, the most important, still retains the name which is derived from the family of Mago. About twenty-three years after the destruction of Carthage the Romans accused the islanders of piracy, and sent against them Q. Caecilius Metellus, who soon reduced them to obedience, settled amongst them 3000 Roman and Spanish colonists, founded the cities of Palma and Pollentia (Pollensa), and introduced the cultivation of the olive. Besides valuable contingents of the celebrated Balearic slingers, the Romans derived from their new conquest mules (from Minorca), edible snails, sinope and pitch. Of their occupation numerous traces still exist,--the most remarkable being the aqueduct at Pollensa. In A.D. 423 the islands were seized by the Vandals and in 798 by the Moors. They became a separate Moorish kingdom in 1009, which, becoming extremely obnoxious for piracy, was the object of a crusade directed against it by Pope Paschal II., in which the Catalans took the lead. This expedition was frustrated at the time, but was resumed by James I. of Aragon, and the Moors were expelled in 1232. During their occupation the island was populous and productive, and an active commerce was carried on with Spain and Africa. King James conferred the sovereignty of the isles on his third son, under whom and his successor they formed an independent kingdom up to 1349, from which time their history merges in that of Spain. In 1521 an insurrection of the peasantry against the nobility, whom they massacred, took place in Majorca, and was not suppressed without much bloodshed. In the War of the Spanish Succession all the islands declared for Charles; the duke of Anjou had no footing anywhere save in the citadel of Mahon. Minorca was reduced by Count Villars in 1707; but it was not till June 1715 that Majorca was subjugated, and meanwhile Port Mahon was captured by the English under General Stanhope in 1708. In 1713 the island was secured to them by the peace of Utrecht; but in 1756 it was invaded by a force of 12,000 French, who, after defeating the British under Admiral Byng, captured Port Mahon. Restored to England in [v.03 p.0250] 1763, the island remained in possession of the British till 1782, when it was retaken by the Spaniards. Again seized by the British in 1798, it was finally ceded to Spain by the peace of Amiens in 1803. When the French invaded Spain in 1808, the Mallorquins did not remain indifferent; the governor, D. Juan Miguel de Vives, announced, amid universal acclamation, his resolution to support Ferdinand VII. At first the Junta would take no active part in the war, retaining the corps of volunteers that was formed for the defence of the island; but finding it quite secure, they transferred a succession of them to the Peninsula to reinforce the allies. Such was the animosity excited against the French when their excesses were known to the Mallorquins, that some of the French prisoners, conducted thither in 1810, had to be transferred with all speed to the island of Cabrera, a transference which was not effected before some of them had been killed.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--For a general account of the islands, the most valuable books are _Die Balearen geschildert in Wort und Bild_, by the archduke Ludwig Salvator of Austria (Leipzig, 1896); _Les Iles oubliees_, by G. Vuillier (Paris, 1904), the first edition of which has been translated under the title of _The Forgotten Isles_ (London, 1896)--and _Islas Baleares_, an illustrated volume of 1423 pages, by P. Pifferrer, in the series "Espana" (Barcelona, 1888). An article by George Sand in the _Revue des deux mondes_ (1841) also deserves notice. The following are monographs on special subjects:--_The Story of Majorca and Minorca_, by Sir C. R. Markham (London, 1908); _Illustrationes florae insularum Balearium_, by M. Willkomm (Stuttgart, 1881-1892); _Monuments primitifs des iles baleares_, by E. Cartailhac (_Mission scientifique du ministere de l'instruction publique_, Toulouse, 1892). The _British Foreign Office Reports for the Consular District of Barcelona_ give some account of the movement of commerce (London, annual). Much of the material available for a scientific history will be found in _La Historia general del regno balearico_, by J. Dameto and V. Mut (Majorca, 1632-1650). For the period of Moorish rule, see _Bosquejo historico de la dominacion islamita en las islas Baleares_, by A. Campaner y Fuertes (Palma, 1888). See also the elaborate treatise _Les Relations de la France avec le royaume de Majorque_, by A. Lecoy de la Marche (Paris, 1892).
BALES [BALESIUS], PETER (1547-1610?), English calligraphist, one of the inventors of shorthand writing, was born in London in 1547, and is described by Anthony Wood as a "most dexterous person in his profession, to the great wonder of scholars and others." We are also informed that "he spent several years in sciences among Oxonians, particularly, as it seems, in Gloucester Hall; but that study, which he used for a diversion only, proved at length an employment of profit." He is mentioned for his skill in micrography in Holinshed's _Chronicle_. "Hadrian Junius," says Evelyn, "speaking as a miracle of somebody who wrote the Apostles' Creed and the beginning of St John's Gospel within the compass of a farthing: what would he have said of our famous Peter Bales, who, in the year 1575, wrote the Lord's Prayer, the Creed, Decalogue, with two short prayers in Latin, his own name, motto, day of the month, year of the Lord, and reign of the queen, to whom he presented it at Hampton Court, all of it written within the circle of a single penny, inchased in a ring and borders of gold, and covered with a crystal, so accurately wrought as to be very plainly legible; to the great admiration of her majesty, the whole privy council, and several ambassadors then at court?" Bales was likewise very dexterous in imitating handwritings, and between 1576 and 1590 was employed by Secretary Walsingham in certain political manoeuvres. We find him at the head of a school near the Old Bailey, London, in 1590, in which year he published his _Writing Schoolemaster, in three Parts_. This book included an _Arte of Brachygraphie_, which is one of the earliest attempts to construct a system of shorthand. In 1595 he had a great trial of skill with one Daniel Johnson, for a golden pen of L20 value, and won it; and a contemporary author further relates that he had also the arms of calligraphy given him, which are azure, a pen or. Bales died about the year 1610.
BALFE, MICHAEL WILLIAM (1808-1870), Irish musical composer, was born on the 15th of May 1808, at Dublin. His musical gifts became apparent at an early age. The only instruction he received was from his father, who was a dancing master, and from a musician, C. E. Horn (1786-1849). Between 1814 and 1815 he played the violin for his father's dancing-classes, and at the age of seven composed a polacca. In 1817 he appeared as a violinist in public, and in this year composed a ballad, first called "Young Fanny" and afterwards, when sung in _Paul Pry_ by Madame Vestris, "The Lovers' Mistake." On the death of his father in 1823 he was engaged in the orchestra of Drury Lane, and being in possession of a small but pleasant baritone voice, he chose the career of an operatic singer. An unsuccessful debut was made at Norwich in _Der Freischuetz_. In 1825 he was taken to Rome by Count Mazzara, being introduced to Cherubini on the way. In Italy he wrote his first dramatic work, a ballet, _La Perouse_. At the close of 1827 he appeared as Figaro in Rossini's _Barbiere_, at the Italian opera in Paris. Balfe soon returned to Italy, where, during the next nine years, he remained, singing at various theatres and composing a number of operas. During this time he married Mdlle Luisa Roser, a Hungarian singer whom he had met at Bergamo. Fetis says that the public indignation roused by an attempt at "improving" Meyerbeer's opera _Il Crociato_ by interpolated music of his own compelled Balfe to throw up his engagement at the theatre La Fenice in Venice. By this time he had produced his first complete opera, _I Rivali di se stessi_, at Palermo in the carnival season of 1829-1830; the opera _Un Avvertimento ai gelosi_ at Pavia; and _Enrico Quarto_ at Milan, where he had been engaged to sing with Malibran at the Scala. He returned to England in the spring of 1833, and on the 29th of October 1835 his _Siege of Rochelle_ was produced and rapturously received at Drury Lane. Encouraged by his success, he produced _The Maid of Artois_ on the 27th of May 1836--the success of the opera being confirmed by the exquisite singing of Malibran. Balfe was a prolific composer, as may be seen from the following imperfect list of his English operas alone:--_Siege of Rochelle_ (1835); _The Maid of Artois_ (1836); _Catherine Grey_ (1837); _Joan of Arc_ (1837); _Falstaff_ (1838, Lablache in title-role); _Amelia, or the Love Test_ (1838); _Keolanthe_ (1841); _The Bohemian Girl_, his best known work (1844); _The Daughter of St. Mark_ (1844); _The Enchantress_ (1845); _The Bondman_ (1846); _The Devil's in it_ (1847); _The Maid of Honour_ (1847); _The Sicilian Bride_ (1852); _The Rose of Castile_ (1857); _Satanella_ (1858); _Bianca_ (1860); _The Puritan's Daughter_ (1861); _The Armourer of Nantes_ (1863); _Blanche de Nevers_ (1863). Balfe also wrote several operas for the Opera Comique and Grand Opera in Paris, where MM. Scribe and St George provided him with the libretti for his _Le Puits d'amour_ (1843) and his _Les Quatre Fils Aymon_ (1844). His _L'Etoile de Seville_ was written in 1845 for the Academie Royale. The fact that Balfe was an Irishman, who produced operas in English, French and Italian with conspicuous success, is in itself interesting. When to this we add the record of his operatic impersonations on the stage, the European success of his _Bohemian Girl_, his picturesque retirement into Hertfordshire in 1864 as a gentleman farmer, and above all the undeniable gift for creating such pure melodies as his songs "When other Hearts" and "I dreamt that I dwelt in marble halls," it is idle to refuse him a prominent place in the history of music. He wrote much that was trivial, but also much that was enduring. He died on the 20th of October 1870, and was buried at Kensal Green. In 1882 a medallion portrait of him was unveiled in Westminster Abbey.
BALFOUR, ARTHUR JAMES (1848- ), British statesman, eldest son of James Maitland Balfour of Whittingehame, Haddingtonshire, and of Lady Blanche Gascoyne Cecil, a sister of the third marquess of Salisbury, was born on the 25th of July 1848. He was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge. In 1874 he became M.P. in the Conservative interest for Hertford, and represented that constituency until 1885. When, in the spring of 1878, Lord Salisbury became foreign minister on the resignation of the fifteenth Lord Derby, Mr Balfour became his private secretary. In that capacity he accompanied his uncle to the Berlin congress, and gained his first experience of international politics in connexion with the settlement of the Russo-Turkish conflict. It was at this time also that he became known in the world of letters, the intellectual subtlety and literary capacity of his _Defence of Philosophic Doubt_ (1879) suggesting that he might make a reputation as a speculative thinker. Belonging, however, to a [v.03 p.0251] class in which the responsibilities of government are a traditional duty, Mr Balfour divided his time between the political arena and the study. Being released from his duties as private secretary by the general election of 1880, he began to take a rather more active part in parliamentary affairs. He was for a time politically associated with Lord Randolph Churchill, Sir Henry Drummond Wolff and Sir John (then Mr) Gorst, the quartette becoming known as the "Fourth Party," and gaining notoriety by the freedom of the criticisms directed by its leader, Lord Randolph Churchill, against Sir Stafford Northcote, Lord Cross and other prominent members of the "old gang." In these sallies, however, Mr Balfour had no direct share. He was thought to be merely amusing himself with politics. It was regarded as doubtful whether his health could withstand the severity of English winters, and the delicacy of his physique and the languor of his manner helped to create the impression that, however great his intellectual powers might be, he had neither the bodily strength nor the energy of character requisite for a political career. He was the "odd man" of the Fourth Party, apparently content to fetch and carry for his colleagues, and was believed to have no definite ambitions of his own. His reputation in the parliament of 1880-1886 was that of a dilettante, who allied himself with the three politicians already named from a feeling of irresponsibility rather than of earnest purpose; he was regarded as one who, on the rare occasions when he spoke, was more desirous to impart an academic quality to his speeches than to make any solid contribution to public questions. The House, indeed, did not take him quite seriously. Members did not suspect the reserve of strength and ability beneath what seemed to them to be the pose of a parliamentary _flaneur_; they looked upon him merely as a young member of the governing classes who remained in the House because it was the proper thing for a man of family to do. As a member of the coterie known as the "Souls" he was, so to speak, caviare to the general. Indolence was supposed to be the keynote of his character--a refined indolence, not, however, without cleverness of a somewhat cynical and superior order.
That these views were not shared by Lord Salisbury was sufficiently shown by the fact that in his first administration (June 1885-January 1886) he made Mr Balfour president of the Local Government Board, and in forming his second administration (July 1886) secretary for Scotland with a seat in the cabinet. These offices gave few opportunities for distinction, and may be regarded merely as Mr Balfour's apprenticeship to departmental responsibilities. The accidents of political life suddenly opened out to him a career which made him, next to Lord Salisbury, the most prominent, the most admired and the most attacked Conservative politician of the day. Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, who was chief secretary for Ireland, suffered from an affection of the eyes and found it desirable to resign, and Lord Salisbury appointed his nephew in his stead. The selection took the political world by surprise, and was much criticized. By the Irish Nationalists it was received with contemptuous ridicule, for none suspected Mr Balfour's immense strength of will, his debating power, his ability in attack and his still greater capacity to disregard criticism. The debates on the Crimes Bill and the Irish Land Bill quickly undeceived them, and the steady and even remorseless vigour with which the government of Ireland was conducted speedily convinced the House of Commons and the country that Mr. Balfour was in his right place as chief secretary. His policy was that of "coercion"--the fearless administration of the Crimes Act,--coupled with remedial legislation; and he enforced the one while he proceeded with the other, regardless of the risk of outrage outside the House and of insult within. Mr Balfour's work in this office covered one of the most turbulent and most exciting periods in modern parliamentary history and Irish administration. With a courage that never faltered he broke down the Plan of Campaign in Ireland, and in parliament he not only withstood the assaults of the Irish Nationalists, but waged successful warfare with the entire Home Rule party. He combined an obstinacy of will with a mastery of facts unsurpassed by any of his predecessors in the secretaryship. Events, it is true, were in his favour. The disclosures before the Parnell Commission, the O'Shea divorce proceedings, the downfall of Mr Parnell and the disruption of the Irish party, assisted him in his task; but the fact remains that by persistent courage and undeviating thoroughness he reduced crime in Ireland to a vanishing point. His work was also constructive, for he broadened the basis of material prosperity and social progress by creating the Congested Districts Board in 1890. During this period, from 1886-1892, moreover, he developed gifts of oratory which made him one of the most effective of public speakers. Impressive in matter rather than in manner of delivery, and seldom rising to the level of eloquence in the sense in which that quality was understood in a House which had listened to Bright and Gladstone, his speeches were logical and convincing, and their attractive literary form delighted a wider audience than that which listens to the mere politician.
In 1888 Mr Balfour served on the Gold and Silver Commission, currency problems from the standpoint of bimetallism being among the more academic subjects which had engaged his attention. On the death of Mr W. H. Smith in 1891 he became first lord of the treasury and leader of the House of Commons, and in that capacity introduced in 1892 a Local Government Bill for Ireland. The Conservative government was then at the end of its tether, and the project fell through. For the next three years Mr Balfour led the opposition with great skill and address. On the return of the Unionists to power in 1895 he resumed the leadership of the House, but not at first with the success expected of him, his management of the abortive education proposals of '96 being thought, even by his own supporters, to show a disinclination for the continuous drudgery of parliamentary management under modern conditions. But after the opening session matters proceeded more smoothly, and Mr Balfour regained his old position in the estimation of the House and the country. He had the satisfaction of seeing a bill pass for providing Ireland with an improved system of local government, and took an active share in the debates on the various foreign and domestic questions that came before parliament during 1895-1900. His championship of the voluntary schools, his adroit parliamentary handling of the problems opened up by the so-called "crisis in the Church" caused by the Protestant movement against ritualistic practices, and his pronouncement in favour of a Roman Catholic university for Ireland--for which he outlined a scheme that met with much adverse criticism both from his colleagues and his party,--were the most important aspects of Mr Balfour's activity during these years. His speeches and work throughout this period took a wider range than before his accession to the leadership of the Commons. During the illness of Lord Salisbury in 1898, and again in Lord Salisbury's absence abroad, he was in charge of the foreign office, and it fell to his lot to conduct the very critical negotiations with Russia on the question of railways in North China. To his firmness, and at the same time to the conciliatory readiness with which he accepted and elaborated the principles of a _modus vivendi_, the two powers owed the avoidance of what threatened to be a dangerous quarrel. As a member of the cabinet responsible for the Transvaal negotiations in 1899 he bore his full share of controversy, and when the war opened so disastrously he was the first to realize the necessity for putting the full military strength of the country into the field. At the general election of 1900 he was returned for East Manchester (which he had represented since 1885) by a majority of 2453, and continued in office as first lord of the treasury. His leadership of the House of Commons in the first session of the new parliament was marked by considerable firmness in the suppression of obstruction, but there was a slight revival of the criticisms which had been current in 1896. Mr Balfour's inability to get the maximum amount of work out of the House was largely due to the situation in South Africa, which absorbed the intellectual energies of the House and of the country and impeded the progress of legislation.
The principal achievements of the long session of 1902 (which extended to the autumn) were the passing of the Education Act,--entirely reorganizing the system of primary education, abolishing the school boards and making the county councils the local authority; new rules of procedure; and the creation [v.03 p.0252] of the Metropolitan Water Board; and on all these questions, and particularly the two first, Mr Balfour's powers as a debater were brilliantly exhibited.
On Lord Salisbury's resignation on the 11th of July 1902, Mr Balfour succeeded him as prime minister, with the cordial approval of all sections of the Unionist party. For the next three and a half years his premiership involves the political history of England, at a peculiarly interesting period both for foreign and domestic affairs. Within a few weeks Mr Balfour had reconstituted the cabinet. He himself became first lord of the treasury and lord privy seal, with the duke of Devonshire (remaining lord president of the council) as leader of the House of Lords; Lord Lansdowne remained foreign secretary, Mr (afterwards Lord) Ritchie took the place of Sir Michael Hicks-Beach (afterwards Lord St Aldwyn) as chancellor of the exchequer, Mr J. Chamberlain remained colonial secretary, his son Austen being postmaster-general with a seat in the cabinet. Mr G. Wyndham as chief secretary for Ireland was included in the cabinet; Lord Selborne remained at the admiralty, Mr St John Brodrick (afterwards Lord Midleton) war minister, Lord George Hamilton secretary for India, and Mr Akers-Douglas, who had been first commissioner of works, became home secretary; Lord Balfour of Burleigh remained secretary for Scotland, Lord Dudley succeeded Lord Cadogan as lord lieutenant of Ireland, and Lord Londonderry became president of the Board of Education (with Sir William Anson as parliamentary secretary in the House of Commons). Mr Balfour's brother Gerald (b. 1853), who had entered public life as his private secretary when at the Local Government Board, and had been chief secretary for Ireland from 1895-1900, retained his position (since 1900) as president of the Board of Trade.
The new prime minister came into power practically at the same moment as the king's coronation (see EDWARD VII.) and the end of the South African War (see TRANSVAAL). The task of clearing up after the war, both in South Africa and at home, lay before him; but his cordial relations with Mr Chamberlain (_q.v._), and the enthusiastic support of a large parliamentary majority, made the prospects fair. For a while no cloud appeared on the horizon: and the Liberal party were still disorganized (see CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN and ROSEBERY) over their attitude towards the Boers. Mr Chamberlain went to South Africa in the late autumn, with the hope that his personality would influence the settlement there; and the session of 1903 opened in February with no hint of troubles to come. A difficulty with Venezuela, resulting in British and German co-operation to coerce that refractory republic, caused an explosion of anti-German feeling in England and some restlessness in the United States, but the government brought the crisis to an end by tactful handling and by an ultimate recourse to arbitration. The two chief items of the ministerial parliamentary programme were the extension of the new Education Act to London and Mr Wyndham's Irish Land Purchase Act, by which the British exchequer should advance the capital for enabling the tenants in Ireland to buy out the landlords. Moreover, the budget was certain to show a surplus and taxation could be remitted. As events proved, it was the budget which was to provide a cause of dissension, bringing a new political movement into being, and an issue overriding all the legislative interest of the session. Mr Ritchie's remission of the shilling import-duty on corn led to Mr Chamberlain's crusade in favour of tariff reform and colonial preference, and as the session proceeded the rift grew in the Unionist ranks.
In the separate article on Mr Chamberlain the progress of this movement is sufficiently narrated. From this moment it is only necessary here to realize Mr Balfour's position. He had always admitted the onesidedness of the English free-trade system, and had supported the desirability of retaliating against unfair competition and "dumping" by foreign countries. But Mr Chamberlain's new programme for a general tariff, with new taxes on food arranged so as to give a preference to colonial products, involved a radical alteration of the established fiscal system, and such out-and-out Unionist free-traders in the cabinet as Mr Ritchie and Lord George Hamilton, and outside it, like Lord Hugh Cecil and Mr Arthur Elliot (secretary to the treasury), were entirely opposed to this. Mr Balfour was anxious to avoid a rupture, doubtful of the feeling of the country, uncertain of the details by which Mr Chamberlain's scheme could be worked out. As leader of the party and responsible for the maintenance of so great a political engine, he was anxious not to be precipitate. He was neither for nor against the new movement, and professed to hold "no settled convictions" on the subject. Mr Chamberlain rested his case largely on the alleged diminution in British trade, and the statistics therefore required investigation before the government could adopt any such programme. From the middle of May, when Mr Chamberlain began to press the matter, Mr Balfour had a difficult hand to play, so long as it was uncertain how the party would follow the new lead. The Board of Trade was asked to supply full figures, and while its report was awaited the uncertainty of attitude on the part of the government afforded grateful opportunity for opposition mischief-making, since the Liberal party had now the chance of acting as the conservative champions of orthodox economics. Another opportunity for making political capital was provided by the publication of the report of the royal commission on the Boer War under Lord Elgin's chairmanship, which horrified the country by its disclosures (August 26th) as to the political and military muddling which had gone on, and the want of any efficient system of organization.
The session ended in August without any definite action on the fiscal question, but in the cabinet the discussions continued. On the 16th of September Mr Balfour published a pamphlet on "Insular Free Trade," and on the 18th it was announced that Lord George Hamilton and Mr Ritchie had resigned, Lord Balfour of Burleigh and Mr Arthur Elliot following a day or two later. These were the strait free-traders, but at the same time Mr Chamberlain resigned also. The correspondence between Mr Chamberlain and Mr Balfour (September 9th and 16th) was published, and presented the latter in the light of a sympathizer with some form of fiscal union with the colonies, if practicable, and in favour of retaliatory duties, but unable to believe that the country was yet ready to agree to the taxation of food required for a preferential tariff, and therefore unwilling to support that scheme; at the same time he encouraged Mr Chamberlain to test the feeling of the public and to convert them by his missionary efforts outside the government. Mr Chamberlain on his side emphasized his own parliamentary loyalty to Mr Balfour. In his pamphlet on "Insular Free Trade" the prime minister reviewed the economic history since Cobden's time, pointed to the falsification of the promises of the early free-traders, and to the fact that England was still the only free-importing country, and insisted that he was "in harmony with the true spirit of free-trade" when he pleaded for "freedom to negotiate that freedom of exchange may be increased." This manifesto was at first taken, not only as the platform of the government, but also as that from which its resigning free-trade members had dissented; and the country was puzzled by a statement from Lord George Hamilton that Mr Balfour had circulated among his colleagues a second and different document, in fuller agreement with Mr Chamberlain. The situation was confused by personal suspicion and distrust as well as by economic difficulties. But the public noted that the duke of Devonshire, whose orthodoxy was considered typical, remained in the cabinet.
The crisis, however, soon developed further, owing to explanations between the free-trade Unionists. On October 1st Mr Balfour spoke at Sheffield, reiterating his views as to free-trade and retaliation, insisting that he "intended to lead," and declaring that he was prepared at all events to reverse the traditional fiscal policy by doing away with the axiom that import duties should only be levied for revenue purposes. The speech was enthusiastically received by the National Union of Conservative Associations, who had year by year flirted with protectionist resolutions, and who were known to be predominantly in sympathy with Mr Chamberlain. But the free-traders did not like Mr Balfour's formula as to reversing the traditional [v.03 p.0253] fiscal policy of import taxes for revenue only. Next day the duke of Devonshire resigned, a step somewhat bitterly resented by Mr Balfour, who clearly thought that his sacrifices in order to conciliate the duke had now been made in vain. During this critical fortnight the duke had apparently acquiesced in Mr Balfour's compromise, and had co-operated in reconstituting the ministry; his nephew and heir had been made financial secretary to the treasury, while Mr Alfred Lyttelton was appointed colonial secretary, Mr Austen Chamberlain chancellor of the exchequer, Mr Brodrick secretary for India, Mr H. O. Arnold-Forster war minister, Lord Stanley postmaster-general and Mr Graham Murray secretary for Scotland. Lord Londonderry now became president of the council, Lord Lansdowne leader of the House of Lords, and Lord Salisbury, son of the late premier, who as Lord Cranborne had for three years been under-secretary for foreign affairs, was included in the cabinet as lord privy seal.
During the remainder of 1903 the struggle within the Unionist party continued. Mr Chamberlain spoke all over the country, advocating a definite scheme for reorganizing the budget, so as to have more taxes on imports, including food, but proposing to adjust the taxation so as to improve the position of the working-classes and to stimulate employment. The free-trade Unionists, with the duke of Devonshire, Lord Goschen, Lord James and Lord Hugh Cecil, as their chief representatives, started a Free Food league in opposition to Mr Chamberlain's Tariff Reform league; and at a great meeting at Queen's Hall, London, on the 24th of November their attitude was made plain. They rejected Mr Chamberlain's food-taxes, discredited his statistics, and, while admitting the theoretical orthodoxy of retaliation, criticized Mr Balfour's attitude and repudiated his assumption that retaliation would be desirable. Finally in December came the appointment of Mr Chamberlain's Tariff Commission. There was no doubt about the obstinacy and persistency of both sections, and both were fighting, not only to persuade the public, but for the capture of the party and of its prime minister. Both sides were inclined to claim him; neither could do so without qualification. His dialectical dexterity in evading the necessity of expressing his fiscal opinions further than he had already done became a daily subject for contemptuous criticism in the Liberal press; but he insisted that in any case no definite action could be taken till the next parliament; and while he declined to go the "whole hog"--as the phrase went--with Mr Chamberlain, he did nothing to discourage Mr Chamberlain's campaign. Whether he would eventually follow in the same direction, or would come back to the straiter free-trade side, continued to be the political conundrum for month after month. Minor changes were made in the ministry in 1903, Mr Brodrick going to the India office and Mr Arnold-Forster becoming minister for war, but Mr Balfour's personal influence remained potent, the government held together, and in 1904 the Licensing Bill was successfully carried. Though a few Unionists transferred their allegiance, notably Mr. Winston Churchill, and by-elections went badly, Mr Balfour still commanded a considerable though a dwindling majority, and the various contrivances of the opposition for combining all free-traders against the government were obstructed by the fact that anything tantamount to a vote of censure would not be supported by the "wobblers" in the ministerial party, while the government could always manage to draft some "safe" amendment acceptable to most of them. This was notably shown in the debate on Mr Black's motion on the 18th of May. On the 3rd of October Mr Balfour spoke at Edinburgh on the fiscal question. The more aggressive protectionists among Mr Chamberlain's supporters had lately become very confident, and Mr Balfour plainly repudiated "protection" in so far as it meant a policy aiming at supporting or creating home industries by raising home prices; but he introduced a new point by declaring that an Imperial Conference would be called to discuss with the colonies the question of preferential tariffs if the Unionist government obtained a majority at the next general election. The Edinburgh speech was again received with conflicting interpretations, and much discussion prevailed as to the conditions of the proposed conference, and as to whether it was or was not an advance, as the Chamberlainites claimed, towards Mr Chamberlain. Meanwhile the party was getting more and more disorganized, and the public were getting tired of the apparent mystification. The opposition used the situation to make capital in the country, and loudly called for a dissolution.
It was plain indeed that the fiscal question itself was ripe for the polls; Board of Trade statistics had been issued in profusion, and the whole case was before the country. But, though Mr Chamberlain declared his desire for an early appeal to the electors, he maintained his parliamentary loyalty to Mr Balfour. There were, moreover, public reasons why a change of government was undesirable. From 1903 onwards the question of army reform had been under discussion, and the government was anxious to get this settled, though in fact Mr Brodrick's and Mr Arnold-Forster's schemes for reorganization failed to obtain any general support. And while foreign affairs were being admirably conducted by Lord Lansdowne, they were critical enough to make it dangerous to contemplate a "swopping of horses." The Russo-Japanese War might at any moment lead to complications. The exercise by Russian warships of the right of search over British ships was causing great irritation in English commercial circles during 1904; after several incidents had occurred, the stopping of the P. & O. steamer "Malacca" on July 13th in the Red Sea by the Russian volunteer cruiser "Peterburg" led to a storm of indignation, and the sinking of the "Knight Commander" (July 24th) by the Vladivostok squadron intensified the feeling. On the 23rd of October the outrageous firing by the Russian Baltic fleet on the English fishing-fleet off the Dogger Bank in the North Sea was within an ace of causing war. It was not till the 28th that Mr Balfour, speaking at Southampton, was able to announce that the Russian government had expressed regret, and that an international commission would inquire into the facts with a view to the responsible persons being punished. Apart from the importance of seeing the Russo-Japanese War through, there were important negotiations on foot for a renewal or revision of the treaty with Japan; and it was felt that on these grounds it would be a mistake for the government to allow itself to be driven into a premature dissolution, unless it found itself unable to maintain a majority in parliament. At the same time the government's tenure of office was obviously drawing to its close; the usual interpretation of the Septennial Act involved a dissolution either in 1905 or 1906, and the government whips found increased difficulty in keeping a majority at Westminster, since neither the pronounced Chamberlainites nor the convinced free-trade Unionists showed any zeal, and a large number of the uncertain Unionists did not intend to stand again for parliament.
The events of the session of 1905 soon foreshadowed the end. The opposition were determined to raise debates in the House of Commons on the fiscal question, and Mr Balfour was no less determined not to be caught in their trap. These tactics of avoidance reached their culminating point when on one occasion Mr Balfour and his supporters left the House and allowed a motion hostile to tariff reform to be passed _nem. con_. Though the Scottish Churches Bill, the Unemployed Bill and the Aliens Bill were passed, a complete fiasco occurred over the redistribution proposals, which pleased nobody and had to be withdrawn owing to a blunder as to procedure; and though on the 17th of July a meeting of the party at the foreign office resulted in verbal assurances of loyalty, only two days later the government was caught in a minority of four on the estimates for the Irish Land Commission. For a few days it was uncertain whether they would resign or dissolve, but it was decided to hold on.
The real causes, however, which kept the government in office, were gradually losing their validity. The Russo-Japanese War came to an end; the new offensive and defensive alliance with Japan was signed on the 12th of August; the successful Anglo-French agreement, concluded in April 1904, had brought out a vigorous expression of cordiality between England and France, shown in an enthusiastic exchange of naval visits; and the danger, which threatened in the early summer, of complications [v.03 p.0254] with France and Germany over Morocco, was in a fair way of being dispelled by the support given to France by Great Britain. The Liberal leaders had given public pledges of their adhesion to Lord Lansdowne's foreign policy, and the fear of their being unable to carry it on was no longer a factor in the public mind. The end came in November 1905, precipitated by a speech made by Mr Balfour at Newcastle on the 14th, appealing for unity in the party and the sinking of differences, an appeal plainly addressed to Mr Chamberlain, whose supporters--the vast majority of the Unionists--were clamouring for a fighting policy. But Mr Chamberlain was no longer prepared to wait. On the 21st of November at Bristol he insisted on his programme being adopted, and Mr Balfour was compelled to abandon the position he had held with so much tactical dexterity for two years past. Amid Liberal protests in favour of immediate dissolution, he resigned on the 4th of December; and Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, being entrusted by the king with the formation of a government, filled his cabinet with a view to a general election in January. The Unionists went to the polls with divided counsels, and sustained a crushing defeat, remarkable nevertheless for the comparative success of the tariff reformers. While Mr Chamberlain had a signal personal triumph in all the divisions of Birmingham, Mr Balfour himself was defeated by a large majority in Manchester.
Being in a miserable minority in parliament (157 Unionists against 379 Liberals, 51 Labour members, and 83 Nationalists), some form of consolidation among the Unionists was immediately necessary, and negotiations took place between Mr Balfour and Mr Chamberlain which resulted in the patching up of an agreement (expressed in a correspondence dated February 14th), and its confirmation at a meeting of the party at Lansdowne House a few days later. The new compact was indicated in Mr Balfour's letter, in which he declared that "fiscal reform is, and must remain, the first constructive work of the Unionist party; its objects are to secure more equal terms of competition for British trade and closer commercial union with the colonies; and while it is at present unnecessary to prescribe the exact methods by which these objects are to be attained, and inexpedient to permit differences of opinion as to these methods to divide the party, though other means are possible, the establishment of a moderate general tariff on manufactured goods, not imposed for the purpose of raising prices, or giving artificial protection against legitimate competition, and the imposition of a small duty on foreign corn, are not in principle objectionable, and should be adopted if shown to be necessary for the attainment of the ends in view or for purposes of revenue." Mr Balfour's leadership of the whole party was now confirmed; and a seat was found for him in the City of London by the retirement of Mr Gibbs.
The downfall of Mr Balfour's administration, and the necessity of reorganizing the Unionist forces on the basis of the common platform now adopted, naturally represented a fresh departure under his leadership, the conditions of which to some extent depended on the opportunities given to the new opposition by the proceedings of the Radical government (see CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN, SIR H.; and ASQUITH, H. H.). His own administration had been wrecked, through no initiative of his, by the dissensions over the fiscal question. But his wide range of knowledge and interests, his intellectual _finesse_, his personal hold over his supporters, his statesmanlike grasp upon imperial problems and his oratorical ability, had been proved to a remarkable degree; and in foreign affairs his tenure of power had been conspicuously successful. He left his country indeed in a position of strength abroad, which it had not held since the Crimean War. His institution of the permanent Committee of Imperial Defence, and of the new Army Council (1904), were reforms of the highest importance, resulting from the report of a "triumvirate" consisting of Lord Esher, Sir John Fisher and Sir George Clarke, appointed in November 1903. The Unionist regime as a whole, however, had collapsed. Its ministers had become "stale." The heavy taxation of the war years was still retained, to the disgust especially of the income-tax payers; and new issues arose over the Education Act, labour questions, and the introduction of Chinese labour into South Africa (in 1904), which were successfully used against the government in the constituencies. The result was an electoral defeat which indicated, no doubt, a pronounced weakening of Mr Balfour's position in public confidence. This verdict, however, was one based mainly on temporary reasons, which were soon to be overshadowed by the new issues involved in the change of ministry. As a matter of fact, a year of opposition had not passed before his power in the House of Commons, even with so small a party behind him, was once more realized. The immense Radical majority started with a feeling of contempt for the leader who had been rejected at Manchester, but by 1907 he had completely reasserted his individual pre-eminence among parliamentarians. Mr Balfour had never spoken more brilliantly, nor shone more as a debater, than in these years when he had to confront a House of Commons three-fourths of which was hostile. His speech at Birmingham (November 14, 1907), fully accepting the principles of Mr Chamberlain's fiscal policy, proved epoch-making in consolidating the Unionist party--except for a small number of free-traders, like Lord Robert Cecil, who continued to hold out--in favour of tariff reform; and during 1908 the process of recuperation went on, the by-elections showing to a marked degree the increased popular support given to the Unionist candidates. This recovery was due also to the forcible-feeble character of the Radical campaign against the House of Lords, the unpopularity of the Licensing Bill, the failure of the government to arrive at an education settlement, the incapacity of its Irish administration, its apparent domination by the "little navy" section, and its dallying with Socialism in the budget of 1909. The rejection of this budget in December by the House of Lords led to a desperate struggle at the polls in January 1910, but the confident hopes of the Unionists were doomed to disappointment. They won back over a hundred seats, returning 273 strong, but were still in a minority, the Liberals numbering 275, Labour members 40, and Irish Nationalists 82. Mr Balfour himself was elected for the City of London by an enormous majority.
Mr Balfour's other publications, not yet mentioned, include _Essays and Addresses_ (1893) and _The Foundations of Belief, being Notes introductory to the Study of Theology_ (1895). He was made LL.D. of Edinburgh University in 1881; of St Andrews University in 1885; of Cambridge University in 1888; of Dublin and Glasgow Universities in 1891; lord rector of St Andrews University in 1886; of Glasgow University in 1890; chancellor of Edinburgh University in 1891; member of the senate London University in 1888; and D.C.L. of Oxford University in 1891. He was president of the British Association in 1904, and became a fellow of the Royal Society in 1888. He was known from early life as a cultured musician, and became an enthusiastic golf player, having been captain of the Royal and Antient Golf Club of St Andrews in 1894-1895.
(H. CH.)
BALFOUR, FRANCIS MAITLAND (1851-1882), British biologist, younger brother of Arthur James Balfour, was born at Edinburgh on the 10th of November 1851. At Harrow school he showed but little interest in the ordinary routine, but in one of the masters, Mr George Griffith, he fortunately found a man who encouraged and aided him in the pursuit of natural science, a taste for which, and especially for geology, had been cultivated in him by his mother from an early age. Going into residence at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1870, he was elected a natural science scholar of his college in the following year, and although his reading was not ordered on the lines usual for the Schools, he obtained the second place in the Natural Science Tripos of December 1873. A course of lectures on embryology, delivered by Sir Michael Foster in 1871, definitely turned his attention to animal morphology, and, after his tripos, he was selected to occupy one of the two seats allocated to the university of Cambridge at the Naples zoological station. The research work which he began there contributed in an important degree to his election as a fellow of Trinity in 1874, and also afforded him material for a series of papers (published as a monograph in 1878) on the Elasmobranch fishes, which threw new light on [v.03 p.0255] the development of several organs in the Vertebrates, in particular of the uro-genital and nervous systems. His next work was to write a large treatise, _Comparative Embryology_, in two volumes; the first, published in 1880, dealing with the Invertebrates, and the second (1881) with the Vertebrates. This book displayed a vigorous scientific imagination, always controlled by a logical sense that rigidly distinguished between proved fact and mere hypothesis, and it at once won wide recognition, not only as an admirable digest of the numberless observations made with regard to the development of animals during the quarter of a century preceding its publication, but also on account of the large amount of original research incorporated in its pages. Balfour's reputation was now such that other universities became anxious to secure his services, and he was invited to succeed Professor George Rolleston at Oxford and Sir Wyville Thomson at Edinburgh. But although he was only a college lecturer, holding no official post in his university, he declined to leave Cambridge, and in the spring of 1882 the university recognized his merits by instituting a special professorship of animal morphology for his benefit. Unhappily he did not deliver a single professorial lecture. During the first term after his appointment he was incapacitated from work by an attack of typhoid fever. Going to the Alps to recruit his health, he perished, probably on the 19th of July 1882, in attempting the ascent of the Aiguille Blanche, Mont Blanc, at that time unscaled. Besides being a brilliant morphologist, Balfour was an accomplished naturalist, and had he lived would probably have taken a high place among British taxonomists.
BALFOUR, SIR JAMES, BART. (of Denmylne and Kinnaird) (_c._ 1600-1657), Scottish annalist and antiquary. He was well acquainted with Sir William Segar and with Dugdale, to whose _Monasticon_ he contributed. He was knighted by Charles I. in 1630, was made Lyon king-at-arms in the same year, and in 1633 baronet of Kinnaird. He was removed from his office of king-at-arms by Cromwell and died in 1657. Some of his numerous works are preserved in the Advocates' library at Edinburgh, together with his correspondence--from which rich collection Haig published _Balfour's Annales of Scotland_ in 4 vols. 8vo (1824-1825).
See Sibbald, _Memoria Balfouriana_ (1699).
BALFOUR, SIR JAMES (of Pittendreich) (d. 1583 or 1584), Scottish judge and politician, son of Sir Michael Balfour of Montquhanny, was educated for the legal branch of the church of Scotland. In June 1547, together with Knox and others taken at St Andrews, he was condemned to the French galleys, but was released in 1549, abjured the reformers, entered the service of Mary of Guise, and was rewarded with some considerable legal appointments. Subsequently he went over to the lords of the congregation and then betrayed their plans. After Mary's arrival in Scotland he became one of her secretaries, in 1565 being reported as her greatest favourite after Rizzio.[1] He obtained the parsonage of Flisk in Fife in 1561, was nominated a lord of session, and in 1563 one of the commissaries of the court which now took the place of the former ecclesiastical tribunal; in 1565 he was made a privy-councillor, and in 1566 lord-clerk-register, and was knighted. According to Mary his murder was intended together with Rizzio's in 1566. An adherent of Bothwell, he was deeply implicated in Darnley's murder, though not present at the commission of the crime. By his means Darnley was lodged at Kirk o' Field, his brothers' house. He was supposed to have drawn up the bond at Craigmillar for the murder; he signed it, was made under Bothwell deputy-governor of Edinburgh Castle, and is said to have drawn up the marriage-contract between Bothwell and Mary. When, however, the fall of Bothwell was seen to be impending he rapidly changed sides and surrendered the castle to Murray, stipulating for his pardon for Darnley's murder, the retention of the priory of Pittenweem, and pecuniary rewards. He was appointed president of the court of session on resigning the office of lord-clerk-register. He was present at the battle of Langside with the regent in 1568, and was accused of having advised Mary to leave Dunbar to her ruin, and of having betrayed to her enemies the casket letters. The same year, however, in consequence of renewed intrigues with Mary's faction, he was dismissed, and next year was imprisoned on the charge of complicity in Darnley's murder. He succeeded in effecting his escape by means of bribery, the expenses of which he is said to have paid by intercepting the money sent from France to Mary's aid. In August 1571, during the regency of Lennox, an act of forfeiture was passed against him, but next year he was again playing traitor and discovering the secrets of his party to Morton, and he obtained a pardon from the latter in 1573 and negotiated the pacification of Perth the same year. Distrusted by all parties, he fled to France, where he seems to have remained till 1580. In 1579 his forfeiture was renewed by act of parliament. In January 1580 he wrote to Mary offering her his services, and in June protested his desire to be useful to Elizabeth, lamented the influence of the Jesuits, and intended a journey to Dieppe to hear some good Protestant preaching.[2] On the 27th of December of the same year he returned to Scotland and effected the downfall and execution of Morton by producing a bond, probably that in defence of Bothwell and to promote his marriage with Mary, and giving evidence of the latter's knowledge of Bothwell's intention to murder Darnley. In July 1581 his cause was reheard; he was acquitted of murder by assize, and shortly afterwards in 1581 or 1582 he was restored to his estates and received at court. His career, one of the blackest in the annals of political perfidy and crime, closed shortly before the 24th of January 1584. He was the greatest lawyer of his day, and part-author at least of Balfour's _Practicks_, the earliest text-book of Scottish law, not published, however, till 1754. He married Margaret, daughter and heir of Michael Balfour of Burleigh, by whom, besides three daughters, he had six sons, the eldest of whom was created Baron Balfour of Burleigh in 1607.[3]
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--See article in the _Dict. of Nat. Biog._ and authorities there quoted; Balfour's _Practicks_ (1754) and introductory preface; A. Lang's _Hist. of Scotland_, vol. ii. and authorities (1902); Sir J. Melville's _Memoirs_ (Bannatyne Club, 1827); _Cal. of State Papers--Register of Privy Council of Scotland_, i.-iii.; _Scottish Series_ (Thorpe), i. and ii. (Bain), ii.-iv.; _The Border Papers_, i.; _Hamilton Papers_, ii. (_Foreign_).
(P. C. Y.)
[1] _Cal. of State Pap. (Scottish)_, ii. 218, 250.
[2] _Cal. of State Pap. (Foreign)_, 1579-1580, p. 294.
[3] The title was attainted in 1716, through the 5th baron's complicity in the Jacobite rising of 1715. In 1869 it was restored to Alexander Hugh Bruce (b. 1849), as 6th baron; he became one of the most influential of contemporary Scottish noblemen, on the Conservative side in politics, and was secretary for Scotland from 1895 to 1903.
BALFOUR, ROBERT (known also as BALFOREUS) (1550?-1625?), Scottish philosopher, was educated at St Andrews and the university of Paris. He was for many years principal of the Guienne College at Bordeaux. His great work is his _Commentarii in Organum Logicum Aristotelis_ (Bordeaux, 1618); the copy in the British Museum contains a number of highly-eulogistic poems in honour of Balfour, who is described as _Graium aemulus acer_. Balfour was one of the scholars who contributed to spread over Europe the fame of the _praefervidum ingenium Scotorum_. His contemporary, Dempster, called him the "phoenix of his age, a philosopher profoundly skilled in the Greek and Latin languages, and a mathematician worthy of being compared with the ancients." His _Cleomedis meteora_, with notes and Latin translation, was reprinted at Leiden as late as 1820.
See Dempster, _Historia Ecclesiastica Gent. Scotorum_; Irving's _Lives of the Scottish Writers_; Anderson's _Scottish Nation_, i. 217.
BALGUY, JOHN (1686-1748), English divine and philosopher, was born at Sheffield on the 12th of August 1686. He was educated at the Sheffield grammar school and at St John's College, Cambridge, graduated B.A. in 1706, was ordained in 1710, and in 1711 obtained the small living of Lamesley and Tanfield in Durham. He married in 1715. It was the year in which Bishop Hoadley preached the famous sermon on "The Kingdom of Christ," which gave rise to the "Bangorian controversy"; and Balguy, under the nom de plume of Silvius, began his career of authorship by taking the side of Hoadley in this controversy against some of his High Church opponents. [v.03 p.0256] In 1726 he published _A letter to a Deist concerning the Beauty and Excellency of Moral Virtue, and the Support and Improvement which it receives from the Christian Religion_, chiefly designed to show that, while a love of virtue for its own sake is the highest principle of morality, religious rewards and punishments are most valuable, and in some cases absolutely indispensable, as sanctions of conduct. In 1727 he was made a prebendary of Salisbury by his friend Hoadley. He published in the same year the first part of a tractate entitled _The Foundation of Moral Goodness_, and in the following year a second part, _Illustrating and enforcing the Principles contained in the former_. The aim of the work is two-fold--to refute the theory of Hutcheson regarding the basis of rectitude, and to establish the theory of Cudworth and Clarke, that virtue is conformity to reason--the acting according to fitnesses which arise out of the eternal and immutable relations of agents to objects. In 1729 he became vicar of Northallerton, in the county of York. His next work was an essay on _Divine Rectitude: or, a Brief Inquiry concerning the Moral Perfections of the Deity, particularly in respect of Creation and Providence_. It is an attempt to show that the same moral principle which ought to direct human life may be perceived to underlie the works and ways of God: goodness in the Deity not being a mere disposition to benevolence, but a regard to an order, beauty and harmony, which are not merely relative to our faculties and capacities, but real and absolute; claiming for their own sakes the reverence of all intelligent beings, and alone answering to the perfection of the divine ideas. Balguy wrote several other terse and readable tracts of the same nature, which he collected and published in a single volume in 1734. In 1741 he published an _Essay on Redemption_, containing somewhat advanced views. Redemption as taught in Scripture means, according to him, "the deliverance or release of mankind from the power and punishment of sin, by the meritorious sufferings of Jesus Christ," but involves no _translation of guilt_, _substitution of persons_ or _vicarious punishment_. Freed from these ideas, which have arisen from interpreting literally expressions which are properly figurative, the doctrine, he argues, satisfies deep and urgent human wants, and is in perfect consistence and agreement with reason and rectitude. His last publication was a volume of sermons, pervaded by good sense and good feeling, and clear, natural and direct in style. He died at Harrogate on the 21st of September 1748. A second volume of sermons appeared in 1750 (3rd ed. in 2 vols., 1760).
BALI, an island of the East Indies, E. of Java, from which it is separated by Bali Strait, which is shallow, and scarcely over a mile in width at its narrowest point. Bali is 93 m. in length, and its greatest breadth is 50 m. The area is 2095 sq. m. In 1882, for administrative purposes, Bali was separated from Java and combined with the island of Lombok to form the Dutch residency of Lombok and Bali. Politically its divisions are two:--(1) the two districts, Buleleng and Jembrana, on Dutch territory; and (2) the autonomous states of Klung Lung, Bangli, Mengui, Badung and Tabanan. Buleleng, on the north-west, is the chief town. The population on Dutch territory in the whole residency in the year 1905 was 523,535. Bali belongs physically to Java; the climate and soil are the same and it has mountains of proportionate height. There are several lakes of great depth and streams well fitted for the purposes of irrigation, of which full advantage is taken by the natives. The geological formation includes (like that of Java) three regions--the central volcanic, the southern peninsula of Tertiary limestone, and alluvial plains between the older formations. The highest volcanoes, Tabanan, Batur and Gunung Agung (Bali Beak), have respectively heights of 7545 ft., 7383 ft., and 10,497 ft., the central chain having an average altitude of 3282 ft. As regards flora and fauna Bali is associated with Java. The deep strait which separates it on the east from Lombok was taken by A. R. Wallace (_q.v._) as representing the so-called Wallace's Line, whereby he demarcated the Asiatic from the Australian fauna.
The natives of Bali, though of the same stock as the Javanese, and resembling them in general appearance, exceed them in stature and muscular power, as well as in activity and enterprise. They are skilful agriculturists and artisans, especially in textile fabrics and the manufacture of arms. Though native rule is tyrannical and arbitrary, especially in the principalities of Badung and Tabanan, trade and industry could not flourish if insecurity of persons and property existed to any great extent. The natives have also a remedy against the aggression of their rulers in their own hands; it is called _Metilas_, consists in a general rising and renunciation of allegiance, and proves mostly successful. Justice is administered from a written civil and criminal code. Slavery is abolished. Hinduism, which was once the religion of Java, but has been extinct there for four centuries, is still in vogue in the islands of Bali and Lombok, where the cruel custom of widow-burning (suttee) is still practised, and the Hindu system of the four castes, with a fifth or Pariah caste (called _Chandala_), adhered to. It appears partly blended with Buddhism, partly overgrown with a belief in _Kalas_, or evil spirits. To appease these, offerings are made to them either direct or through the mediation of the _Devas_ (domestic or agrarian deities); and if these avail not, the _Menyepi_ or Great Sacrifice is resorted to. In the course of this ceremony, after the sacrifice, men rush in all directions carrying torches; the women also carry fire-brands, or knock on the houses with rice-crushers and other heavy implements, and thus the evil spirits are considered to be driven away. The Mahommedan religion occurs among the coastal population. The Balinese language belongs to the same group of the Malayan class as the Javanese, Sundanese, Madurese, &c., but is as distinct from each of these as French is from Italian. It is most nearly akin to the Sasak language spoken in Lombok and on the east coast of Bali. The literary language has embodied many of its ingredients from the Old Javanese, as spoken in Java at the time of the fall of Majapahit (15th century), while the vulgar dialect has kept free from such admixture. Javanese influence is also traceable in the use of three varieties of speech, as in the Javanese language, according to the rank of the people addressed. The alphabet is with some modifications the same as the Javanese, but more complicated. The material universally used for writing on is the prepared leaf of the lontar palm. The sacred literature of the Balinese is written in the ancient Javanese or _Kawi_ language, which appears to be better understood here than it is in Java. A general decline in culture is manifest in the Balinese. Of the early history of their island the Balinese know nothing. The oldest tradition they possess refers to a time shortly after the overthrow of the Majapahit dynasty in Java, about the middle of the 15th century; but it has been supposed that there must have been Indian settlers here before the middle of the 1st century, by whom the present name, probably cognate with the Sanskrit _balin_, strong, was in all likelihood imposed. It was not till 1633 that the Dutch attempted to enter into alliance with the native princes, and their earliest permanent settlement at Port Badung only dates from 1845. Their influence was extended by the results of the war which they waged with the natives about 1847-49.
The only roadstead safe all the year round is Temukus on the north coast. The rivers are not navigable. Agriculture is the chief means of subsistence; rice being a crop of particular importance. Other crops grown for export are coffee, tobacco, cocoa and indigo. Gold-working, the making of arms and musical instruments, wood-carving, cotton, silk and gold thread weaving are of importance. There are numerous Arab and Chinese traders.
See R. Van Eck, _Schetsen van het eiland Bali_, Tijdsch. van Nederl. Indie (1878-1879); J. Jacobs, _Eeenigen tijd onder de Baliers_ (Batavia, 1883); H. Tonkes, _Volkskunde von Bali_ (Halle, 1888); Liefrinck, _De rijst cultuur op Bali_, Indische Gids. (1886).
BALIKISRI (_Balukiser_), a town of Asia Minor, capital of the Karasi sanjak in the vilayet of Brusa, altitude 575 ft., situated on rising ground above a fertile plain which drains to the Sea of Marmora. Pop. 20,000 (Moslems, 15,000; Christians, 5000). It is a centre of trade in opium, silk and cereals, communicating by carriage roads with Panderma. The sanjak is rich in mineral wealth; silver mines are worked at Balia and boracite mines at Susurlu. At or near Balikisri was the Roman town of Hadrianutherae, founded, as its name commemorates, by the emperor Hadrian.
[v.03 p.0257] BALIOL, the name of a family which played an important part in the history of Scotland. The founder of the family in England was a Norman baron, Guy or Guido de Baliol, who held the fiefs of Bailleul, Dampierre, Harcourt and Vinoy in Normandy. Coming to England with William the Conqueror, he received lands in the north of England from William II., and his son, or grandson, Bernard or Barnard de Baliol, built a fortress in Durham called Castle Barnard, around which the town of Barnard Castle grew. The first burgesses probably obtained their privileges from him. Bernard fought for King Stephen during the civil war, was present at the battle of the Standard in August 1138, and was taken prisoner at the battle of Lincoln in February 1141. The date of his death is uncertain. Dugdale only believes in the existence of one Bernard de Baliol, but it seems more probable that the Bernard de Baliol referred to after 1167 was a son of the elder Bernard, and not the same individual. If so the younger Bernard was one of the northern barons who raised the siege of Alnwick, and took William the Lion, king of Scotland, prisoner in July 1174. He also confirmed the privileges granted by his father to the burgesses of Barnard Castle, and was succeeded by his son Eustace. Practically nothing is known of Eustace, or of his son Hugh who succeeded about 1215. Hugh's son and successor, John de Baliol, who increased his wealth and position by a marriage with Dervorguila (d. 1290), daughter of Alan, earl of Galloway, is said to have possessed thirty knights' fees in England and one half of the lands in Galloway. He was one of the regents of Scotland during the minority of Alexander III., but in 1255 was deprived of this office and his lands forfeited for treason. He then appeared in England fighting for Henry III. against Simon de Montfort, and was taken prisoner at the battle of Lewes in 1264. About 1263 he established several scholarships at Oxford, and after his death in 1269 his widow founded the college which bears the name of the family. He left four sons, three of whom died without issue, and in 1278 his lands came to his son, John de Baliol (_q.v._), who was king of Scotland from 1292 to 1296, and who died in Normandy in 1315. John's eldest son by his marriage with Isabel, daughter of John de Warenne, earl of Surrey, was Edward de Baliol who shared his father's captivity in England in 1296. Subsequently crossing over to France, he appears to have lived mainly on his lands in Normandy until 1324, when he was invited to England by King Edward II., who hoped to bring him forward as a candidate for the Scottish crown. A favourable opportunity, however, did not arise until after the death of King Robert the Bruce in 1329, when Edward III. had succeeded his father on the English throne. Although Edward did not give Baliol any active assistance, the claimant placed himself at the head of some disinherited Scottish nobles, raised a small army and sailed from Ravenspur. Landing at Kinghorn in Fifeshire in August 1332, he gained a complete victory over the Scots under Donald, earl of Mar, at Dupplin Moor, took Perth, and on the 24th of September was crowned king of Scotland at Scone. He then acknowledged Edward III. as his superior, but soon afterwards was defeated at Annan (where his brother, Henry de Baliol, was slain) and compelled to fly to England. Regaining his kingdom after the defeat of the Scots at Halidon Hill in July 1333, Baliol surrendered the whole of the district formerly known as Lothian to Edward, and did homage for Scotland to the English king. His party, however, was weakened by disunion, and he won no serious support in Scotland. Entirely dependent on Edward, he again sought refuge in England, and took a very slight part in the war waged on his behalf. He returned to Scotland after the defeat of King David II. at Neville's Cross in 1346. After making an absolute surrender of Scotland to Edward III. in 1356 at Roxburgh in return for a pension, Edward de Baliol died at Wheatley near Doncaster in 1367.
A cadet branch of the Baliol family was descended from Ingelram, or Engelram, a son of the younger Bernard de Baliol. Ingelram's wife was the daughter and heiress of William de Berkeley, lord of Reidcastle in Forfarshire, and chamberlain of Scotland, and by her he had a son Henry, who became chamberlain about 1223. Henry married Lora or Lauretta, a daughter of Philip de Valoines (Valsques), lord of Panmure, and in 1234 inherited part of the rich English fiefs of the Valoines family. He sided with the English barons against John in 1215, and accompanied Henry III. to France in 1242. He died in 1246. It is probable but not certain that Henry's son was Alexander de Baliol, lord of Cavers in Teviotdale, and chamberlain of Scotland. Alexander took a leading part in Scottish affairs during the latter part of the 13th century, and is first mentioned as chamberlain in 1287. He shared in the negotiations between the Scottish nobles and Edward I. of England which culminated in the treaty of Salisbury in 1289, and the treaty of Brigham in 1290. Probably deprived of his office as chamberlain about 1296 he may have shared the imprisonment of his kinsman, John de Baliol the king. He then fought in Scotland for Edward, and was summoned to several English parliaments. His wife was Isabella de Chilham, through whom he obtained lands in Kent. He died about 1309, leaving a son, Alexander, whose son, Thomas, sold the estate of Cavers to William, earl of Douglas, in 1368. Thomas is the last of the Baliols mentioned in the Scottish records.
A late and dubious tradition asserts that the family name became so discredited owing to the pusillanimous conduct of John and Edward Baliol that it was abandoned by its owners in favour of the form Baillie.
See John of Fordun, _Chronica gentis Scotorum_, edited by W. F. Skene (Edinburgh, 1871-1872); Andrew of Wyntoun, _The Orygynale Cronykil of Scotland_, edited by David Laing (Edinburgh, 1872-1879); _Gesta Edwardi de Carnarvan_, by a canon of Bridlington, edited by W. Stubbs (London, 1883); W. Dugdale, _The Baronage of England_ (London, 1675-1676); R. Surtees, _The History of Durham_ (London, 1816-1840); _Documents and Records illustrating the History of Scotland_, edited by F. T. Palgrave (London, 1837); _Documents illustrative of the History of Scotland_ (1286-1306), edited by J. Stevenson (Edinburgh, 1870); _Calendar of Documents relating to Scotland_, edited by J. Bain (Edinburgh, 1881-1888).
BALIOL, JOHN DE (1249-1315), king of Scotland, was a son of John de Baliol (d. 1269) of Barnard Castle, Durham, by his wife Dervorguila, daughter of Alan, earl of Galloway, and became head of the Baliol family (see above) and lord of extensive lands in England, France and Scotland on his elder brother's death in 1278. Little else, however, is known of his early life. He came into prominence when the Scottish throne became vacant in 1290 owing to the death of Margaret, the "maid of Norway," a granddaughter of King Alexander III., and was one of the three candidates for the crown whose pretensions were seriously considered. Claiming through his maternal grandmother, Margaret, the eldest daughter of David, earl of Huntingdon (d. 1219), who was a grandson of King David I., Baliol's principal rival was Robert Bruce, earl of Annandale, and the dispute was the somewhat familiar one of the eldest by descent against the nearest of kin. Meanwhile the English king, Edward I., was closely watching the trend of affairs in Scotland and was invited to settle this dispute. It is doubtful what rights, if any, the English kings had over Scotland, but when Edward met the Scottish nobles at Norham in May 1291, he demanded a formal recognition of his position as overlord of Scotland. After some delay this was tacitly admitted by the nobles, and acknowledged by Baliol and the other competitors, who all agreed to abide by his decision. A court of eighty Scotsmen and twenty-four Englishmen was then appointed to try the question. Traversing the statements made in favour of Bruce, Baliol claimed by the principles of feudal law for an indivisible inheritance, and on the advice of the court Edward decided in his favour. Having sworn fealty to the English king, Baliol was crowned king of Scotland at Scone on the 30th of November 1292; in his new capacity he did homage to Edward at Newcastle, and in January 1293 released the English king from all promises and obligations made while the kingdom of Scotland was in his hands. These amicable relations were soon disturbed. A Scottish vassal carried his case to Edward as Baliol's overlord, and Baliol himself was soon summoned to the English court to answer a suit brought against him. After a short struggle he admitted Edward's right, and in May 1294 attended a parliament in London. He soon quarrelled with his overlord, the exact point at issue being doubtful, and returned [v.03 p.0258] to Scotland. Consequent on the dispute which had broken out between England and France, a council of twelve was appointed to assist him, and it was decided to defy Edward. Englishmen were dismissed from the Scottish court, their fiefs were confiscated, and an alliance was concluded with Philip IV., king of France. War broke out, but Baliol did not take the field in person. Invading Scotland, Edward met with a feeble resistance, and at Brechin in July 1296 Baliol surrendered his kingdom to Antony Bek, bishop of Durham, as the representative of the English king. About the same time he appeared before Edward at Montrose, and delivered to him a white rod, the feudal token of resignation. With his son, Edward, he was taken a prisoner to England, remaining in captivity until July 1299, when he was released at the request of Pope Boniface VIII. He lived for some time under the pope's supervision, and seems to have passed his remaining days quietly on his French estates. He died in Normandy early in 1315, leaving several children by his wife, Isabel, a daughter of John de Warenne, earl of Surrey (d. 1304).
See _Documents and Records illustrating the History of Scotland_, edited by F. T. Palgrave (London, 1837); _Documents illustrative of the History of Scotland_, 1286-1306, edited by J. Stevenson (Edinburgh, 1870), J. H. Burton, _History of Scotland_, vol. ii. (Edinburgh, 1905); A. Lang, _History of Scotland_, vol. i. (Edinburgh, 1904); Sir H. Maxwell, _Robert the Bruce_ (London, 1897); _Calendar of Documents relating to Scotland_, edited by J. Bain (Edinburgh, 1881-1888). Also SCOTLAND: _History_.
BALIUAG, a town of the province of Bulacan, Luzon, Philippine Islands, on the Quingua river, 29 m. (by rail) N.N.W. of Manila. Pop. (1903) 21,008, including the population (7072) of Bustos, which was annexed to Baliuag in that year after the census was taken. Baliuag is served by an extension of the railway between Manila and Dagupan. It is the trade centre of a fertile agricultural district, and manufactures bamboo hats, silk and native fibre goods.
BALKAN PENINSULA, the most easterly of the three large peninsulas which form the southern extremities of the European continent. Its area, 184,779 sq. m., is about 35,000 sq. m. less than that of the Iberian Peninsula, but more than twice that of the Italian. Its northern boundary stretches from the Kilia mouth of the Danube to the Adriatic Sea near Fiume, and is generally regarded as marked by the courses of the rivers Danube, Save and Kulpa. On the E. it is bounded by the Black Sea, the Sea of Marmora, and the Aegean; on the S. by the Mediterranean; on the W. by the Ionian Sea and the Adriatic. With the exception of the Black Sea coast and the Albanian littoral, its shores are considerably indented and flanked by groups of islands. The Peninsula in its general contour resembles an inverted pyramid or triangle, terminating at its apex in a subsidiary peninsula, the Peloponnesus or Morea. Its surface is almost entirely mountainous, the only extensive plains being those formed by the valleys of the Danube and Maritza, and the basin of Thessaly drained by the Salambria (ancient _Peneus_). The Danubian plain, lying, for the most part, outside the Peninsula, is enclosed, on the north, by the Carpathians; and on the south by the Balkans, from which the Peninsula derives its name. These ranges form together the great semicircular mountain-chain, known as the anti-Dacian system, through which the Danube finds a passage at the Iron Gates. The other mountain-systems display great complexity of formation; beginning with the Dinaric Alps and the parallel ranges of Bosnia, they run, as a rule, from north-west to south-east; the great chain of Rhodope traverses the centre of the Peninsula, throwing out spurs towards the Black Sea and the Aegean; farther west are the lofty Shar Dagh and the mountains of Montenegro and Albania, continued by the Pindus range and the heights of Acarnania and Aetolia. The principal summits are Olympus (9794 ft.), overlooking the Gulf of Salonica; Musalla (9631) and Popova Shapka (8855), both in the Rhodope system; Liubotrn in the Shar Dagh (8989); Elin, in the Perin Planina (8794); Belmeken in southern Bulgaria (chain of Dospat, 8562); Smolika in the Pindus range (8445); Dormitor in northern Montenegro (8294); Kaimakchalan in central Macedonia (8255); and Kiona in Aetolia (8235). Owing to the distribution of the mountain-chains, the principal rivers flow in an easterly or south-easterly direction; the Danube falls into the Black Sea, the Maritza, Mesta, Struma (_Strymon_), Vardar and Salambria into the Aegean. The only considerable rivers flowing into the Adriatic are the Narenta, Drin and Viossa. The principal lakes are those of Ochrida, Prespa, Scutari and Iannina. The climate is more severe than that of the sister peninsulas, and the temperature is liable to sudden changes. The winter, though short, is often intensely cold, especially in the Danubian plain and in Thrace, the rigorous climate of which is frequently alluded to by the Latin poets. Bitter north-easterly winds prevail in the spring, and snow is not uncommon even in the low-lying districts of Greece. The autumn weather is generally fine and clear.
_Races_.--The Peninsula is inhabited by a great variety of races, whose ethnological limits are far from corresponding with the existing political boundaries. The Turkish population, descended in part from the Ottoman invaders of the 14th and 15th centuries, in part from colonists introduced at various epochs from Asia by the Turkish government, declined considerably during the 19th century, especially in the countries withdrawn from the sultan's authority. It is diminishing in Thessaly; it has entirely disappeared in the rest of Greece, almost entirely in Servia; and it continues to decrease in Bulgaria notwithstanding the efforts of the authorities to check emigration. It is nowhere found in compact masses except in north-eastern Bulgaria and the region between Adrianople, the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmora. Elsewhere it appears in separate villages and isolated districts, or in the larger towns and their immediate neighbourhood. The total Turkish population of the Peninsula scarcely exceeds 1,800,000. The Slavonic population, including the Serbo-Croats and Bulgars, is by far the most numerous; its total aggregate exceeds 10,000,000. The majority of the Serbo-Croats left their homes among the Carpathians and settled in the Balkan Peninsula in the 7th century. The distinction between the Serbs of the more central region and the Croats of the north-west, was first drawn by the early Byzantine chroniclers, and was well established by the 12th century. It does not correspond with any valid linguistic or racial difference; but in the course of time a strong religious difference arose. Along the Croatian and Dalmatian coast there existed a well-developed Latin civilization, which was sustained by constant intercourse with Italy; and, under its influence, the Serbo-Croatian immigrants were converted to the Roman Catholic Church. In the wild and mountainous interior, however, the Byzantine Church had few or no rivals and the Orthodox creed prevailed. The Orthodox Serbs inhabit the kingdom of Servia, Old Servia (or Novibazar and north-western Macedonia), Montenegro, Herzegovina and parts of Bosnia. The Roman Catholic Croats predominate in Dalmatia, north-western Bosnia and Croatia-Slavonia. Montenegro, like the other mountainous regions, adhered to the Greek Church; it received a number of Orthodox Servian refugees at the beginning of the 15th century, when the Turks occupied Servia. The numbers of the Serbo-Croats may be estimated at about 5,600,000. The Bulgars, who descend from a fusion of the Slavonic element with a later Ugro-Finnish immigration, inhabit the kingdom of Bulgaria (including Eastern Rumelia), parts of the Dobrudja and the greater part of Macedonia, except Old Servia and the Aegean littoral. Apart from their colonies in Bessarabia and elsewhere, they may be reckoned at 4,400,000. Only a portion of the widely-spread Ruman or Vlach race, which extends over a great part of Transylvania, south Hungary and Bessarabia, as well as the Rumanian kingdom, falls within the limits of the Peninsula. It is found in numerous detached settlements in Macedonia, Albania and northern Greece, and in colonies of recent date in Servia and Bulgaria. The nomad Vlachs or Tzintzars of these countries call themselves Arumani or "Romans"; they are a remnant of the native Latinized population which received an increase from the immigration of Daco-Roman refugees, who fled southwards during the 3rd century, after the abandonment of Dacia by Aurelian. (See VLACHS.) The entire Ruman population of the Balkan countries may be set down approximately at 600,000. The Albanians, who call themselves _Shkupetar_ or _Arber_, are the representatives of the primitive Illyrian population; they inhabit the Adriatic littoral from the southern frontier of Montenegro to the northern boundary of Greece, in which country they are found in considerable numbers. They have shown a tendency to advance in a north-easterly direction towards the Servian frontier, and the movement has been encouraged for political reasons by the Turkish government. The whole Albanian nation possibly numbers from 1,500,000 to 1,600,000. The Greeks, whose immigration from Asia Minor took place in pre-historic times, are, next to the Albanians, the oldest race in the Peninsula. Their maritime and commercial instincts have led them from the earliest times to found settlements on the sea-coast and the islands. They inhabit the Black Sea littoral from Varna to the Bosporus, the shores of the Sea of Marmora and the Aegean, the Aegean archipelago, the mainland of Greece, Epirus and the western islands as far north as Corfu. In Constantinople they [v.03 p.0260] probably exceed 300,000. They are seldom found in large numbers at any great distance from the sea, and usually congregate in the principal towns and commercial centres, such as Adrianople, Constantza, Varna and Philippopolis; there are also detached colonies at Melnik, Stanimaka, Kavakly, Niegush and elsewhere. The Greek inhabitants of the Peninsula and adjacent islands probably number 4,500,000. The remainder of the population is for the most part composed of Armenians, Jews and gipsies. The Armenians, like the Greeks, congregate in the principal centres of trade, especially at Constantinople; their numbers were greatly reduced by the massacres of 1896. The Jews are most numerous at Salonica where they form half the population. The gipsies are scattered widely throughout the Peninsula; they are found not only in wandering troops, as elsewhere in Europe, but in settlements or cantonments in the neighbourhood of towns and villages.
_Religions._--Owing to the numerous conversions to Islam which followed the Turkish conquest, the Mahommedan population of the Peninsula is largely in excess of the purely Turkish element. More than half the Albanian nation and 35% of the inhabitants of Bosnia and Herzegovina adopted the creed of the conquering race. Among the Bulgars and Greeks the conversions were less numerous. The Bulgarian Mahommedans, or Pomaks, who inhabit the valleys of Rhodope and certain districts in northern Bulgaria, are numerically insignificant; the Greek followers of Islam are almost confined to Crete. The whole Moslem population of the Peninsula is about 3,300,000. The great bulk of the Christian population belongs to the Orthodox Church, of which the oecumenical patriarch at Constantinople is the nominal head, having precedence over all other ecclesiastical dignitaries. The Bulgarian, Servian, Montenegrin and Greek churches are, however, in reality autocephalous. The Bulgarian church enjoys an exceptional position, inasmuch as its spiritual chief, the exarch, who resides at Constantinople, controls the Bulgarian prelates in European Turkey as well as those in the kingdom of Bulgaria. On the other hand, the Greek prelates in Bulgaria are subject to the patriarch. Religious and political questions are intimately connected in eastern Europe. The heads of the various religious communities are the only representatives of the Christian population recognized by the Turkish government; they possess a seat in the local administrative councils and supervise the Christian schools. The efforts of the several branches of the Orthodox Church to obtain a separate organization in the Turkish dominions are to be attributed exclusively to political motives, as no difference of dogma divides them. The Serbo-Croats of Dalmatia, and Croatia-Slavonia, some of the Gheg tribes in Albania, about 21% of the Bosnians, a still smaller number of Bulgarians in the kingdom and in Macedonia and a few Greeks in the islands belong to the Roman Catholic Church. A certain number of Bulgars at Kukush in Macedonia and elsewhere form a "uniate" church, which accepts the authority and dogma of Rome, but preserves the Orthodox rite and discipline. The Armenians are divided between the Gregorian and Uniate-Armenian churches, each under a patriarch. The other Christian confessions are numerically inconsiderable. The Gagauzi in Eastern Bulgaria, a Turanian and Turkish-speaking race, profess Christianity.
_Languages._--Until comparatively recent times Turkish and Greek were the only languages systematically taught or officially recognized in the Balkan lands subject to Turkish rule. The first, the speech of the conquering race, was the official language; the second, owing to the intellectual and literary superiority of the Greeks, their educational zeal and the privileges acquired by their church, became the language of the upper classes among the Christians. The Slavonic masses, however, both Servian and Bulgarian, preserved their language, which saved these nationalities from extinction. The Servian dialect extending into regions which escaped the Turkish yoke, enjoyed certain advantages denied to the Bulgarian: in free Montenegro the first Slavonic printing-press was founded in 1493; at Ragusa, a century later, Servian literature attained a high degree of excellence. Bulgarian, for nearly four centuries, ceased to be a written language except in a few monasteries; a literary revival, which began about the middle of the 18th century, was the first symptom of returning national consciousness. The Servian, Bulgarian and Rumanian languages have borrowed largely from the Turkish in their vocabularies, but not in their structural forms, and have adopted many words from the Greek. Modern Greek has also a large number of Turkish words which are rejected in the artificial literary language. The revival of the various Balkan nationalities was in every case accompanied or preceded by a literary movement; in Servian literature, under the influence of Obradovich and Vuk Karajich, the popular idiom, notwithstanding the opposition of the priesthood, superseded the ecclesiastical Russian-Slavonic; in Bulgaria the eastern dialect, that of the Sredna Gora, prevailed. Among the Greeks, whose literature never suffered a complete eclipse, a similar effort to restore the classical tongue resulted in a kind of compromise; the conventional literary language, which is neither ancient nor modern, differs widely from the vernacular. Albanian, the only surviving remnant of the ancient Thraco-Illyrian speech, affords an interesting study to philologists. It undoubtedly belongs to the Indo-European family, but its earlier forms cannot, unfortunately, be ascertained owing to the absence of literary monuments. Certain remarkable analogies between Albanian and the other languages of the Peninsula, especially Bulgarian and Rumanian, have been supposed to point to the influence exercised by the primitive speech upon the idioms of the immigrant races.
_History._--The great Slavonic immigration, which changed the ethnographic face of the Peninsula, began in the 3rd century A.D. and continued at intervals throughout the following four centuries. At the beginning of this movement the Byzantine empire was in actual or nominal possession of all the regions south of the Danube; the greater part of the native Thraco-Illyrian population of the interior had been romanized and spoke Latin. The Thracians, the progenitors of the Vlachs, took refuge in the mountainous districts and for some centuries disappeared from history: originally an agricultural people, they became nomad shepherds. In Albania the aboriginal Illyrian element, which preserved its ancient language, maintained itself in the mountains and eventually forced back the immigrant race. The Greeks, who occupied the maritime and southern regions, were driven to the sea-coast, the islands and the fortified towns. Slavonic place-names, still existing in every portion of the Peninsula, bear witness to the multitude of the invaders and the permanency of their settlements. In the 6th century the Slavs penetrated to the Morea, where a Slavonic dialect was spoken down to the middle of the 15th century. In the 7th the Serbo-Croats invaded the north-western regions (Croatia, Servia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Montenegro and northern Albania); they expelled or assimilated the Illyrian population, now represented in Dalmatia by the slavonized Morlachs or Mavro-Vlachs, and appropriated the old Roman colonies on the Adriatic coast. At the end of the 7th century the Bulgars, a Turanian race, crossed the Danube and subjected the Slavonic inhabitants of Moesia and Thrace, but were soon assimilated by the conquered population, which had already become partly civilized. Under their tsar Krum (802-815) the Bulgars invaded the districts of Adrianople and central Macedonia; under Simeon (893-927), who fixed his capital at Preslav, their empire extended from the Adriatic to the Black Sea. In 971 "the first Bulgarian empire" was overthrown by the emperor John Zimisces, but Bulgarian power was soon revived under the Shishman dynasty at Ochrida. In 1014 Tsar Samuel of Ochrida, who had conquered the greater part of the Peninsula, was defeated at Belasitza by the Greek emperor Basil II., and the "western Bulgarian empire" came to an end. In the 10th century the Vlachs reappear as an independent power in Southern Macedonia and the Pindus district, which were known as Great Walachia ([Greek: Megale Blachia]). The Serbs, who owing to the dissensions of their zhupans or chiefs, had hitherto failed to take a prominent part in the history of the Peninsula, attained unity under Stephen Nemanya (1169-1195), the founder of the Nemanyich dynasty. A new Bulgarian power, known as the "second" or "Bulgaro-Vlach empire," was founded at Trnovo in 1186 under the brothers Ivan and Peter Asen, who led a revolt of Vlachs and Bulgars against the Greeks. In 1204 Constantinople was captured by the Latins of the Fourth Crusade, and Baldwin of Flanders was crowned emperor; the Venetians acquired several maritime towns and islands, and Frankish feudal dynasties were established in Salonica, Athens, Achaea and elsewhere. Greek rule, however, survived in the despotate of Epirus under princes of the imperial house of the Angeli. The Latin tenure of Constantinople lasted only 57 years; the imperial city was recaptured in 1261 by Michael VIII. Palaeologus, but most of the feudal Latin states continued to exist till the Turkish conquest; the Venetians retained their possessions for several centuries later and waged continual wars with the Turks. In 1230 Theodore of Epirus, who had conquered Albania, Great Walachia and Macedonia, was overthrown at Klokotnitza by Ivan Asen II., the greatest of Bulgarian monarchs (1218-1241), who defeated Baldwin at Adrianople and extended his sway over most of the Peninsula. The Bulgarian power declined after [v.03 p.0261] his death and was extinguished at the battle of Velbuzhd (1330) by the Servians under Stephen Urosh III. A short period of Servian predominance followed under Stephen Dushan (1331-1355) whose realm included Albania, Macedonia, Epirus, Thessaly and northern Greece. The Servian incursion was followed by a great Albanian emigration to the southern regions of the Peninsula. After Dushan's death his empire disappeared, and Servia fell a prey to anarchy. For a short time the Bosnians, under their king Stephen Tvrtko (1353-1391), became the principal power in the west of the Peninsula. The disorganization and internecine feuds of the various states prepared the way for the Ottoman invasion. In 1356 the Turks seized Gallipoli; in 1361 the sultan Murad I. established his capital at Adrianople; in 1389 the fate of the Slavonic states was decided by the rout of the Servians and their allies at Kossovo. The last remnant of Bulgarian national existence disappeared with the fall of Trnovo in 1393, and Great Walachia was conquered in the same year. Under Mahommed II. (1451-1481) the Turks completed the conquest of the Peninsula. The despotate of Epirus succumbed in 1449, the duchy of Athens in 1456; in 1453 Constantinople was taken and the decrepit Byzantine empire perished; the greater part of Bosnia submitted in 1463; the heroic resistance of the Albanians under Scanderbeg collapsed with the fall of Croia (1466), and Venetian supremacy in Upper Albania ended with the capture of Scutari (1478). Only the mountain stronghold of Montenegro and the Italian city-states on the Adriatic coast escaped subjection. In the 16th century under Solyman the Magnificent (1520-1566) the Ottoman power attained its greatest height; after the unsuccessful siege of Vienna (1683) it began to decline. The period of decadence was marked in the latter half of the 18th century by the formation of practically independent pashaliks or fiefs, such as those of Scutari under Mahommed of Bushat, Iannina under Ali of Tepelen, and Viden under Pasvan-oglu. The detachment of the outlying portions of the empire followed. Owing to the uncompromising character of the Mahommedan religion and the contemptuous attitude of the dominant race, the subject nationalities underwent no process of assimilation during the four centuries of Turkish rule; they retained not only their language but their religion, manners and peculiar characteristics, and when the power of the central authority waned they still possessed the germs of a national existence. The independence of Greece was acknowledged in 1829, that of Servia (as a tributary principality) in 1830. No territorial changes within the Peninsula followed the Crimean War; but the continuance of the weakened authority of the Porte tended indirectly to the independent development of the various nationalities. The Ionian Islands were ceded by Great Britain to Greece in 1864. The great break-up came in 1878. The abortive treaty of San Stefano, concluded in that year, reduced the Turkish possessions in the Peninsula to Albania, Epirus, Thessaly and a portion of southern Thrace. A large Bulgarian principality was created extending from the Danube to the Aegean and from the Black Sea to the river Drin in Albania; it received a considerable coast-line on the Aegean and abutted on the Gulf of Salonica under the walls of that town. At the same time the frontiers of Servia and Montenegro were enlarged so as to become almost contiguous, and Montenegro received the ports of Antivari and Dulcigno on the Adriatic. From a strategical point of view the Bulgaria of the San Stefano treaty threatened Salonica, Adrianople and Constantinople itself; and the great powers, anticipating that the new state would become a Russian dependency, refused their sanction to its provisions. The treaty of Berlin followed, which limited the principality to the country between the Danube and the Balkans, created the autonomous province of Eastern Rumelia south of the Balkans, and left the remainder of the proposed Bulgarian state under Turkish rule. The Montenegrin frontier laid down at San Stefano was considerably curtailed, Dulcigno, the district north-east of the Tara, and other territories being restored to Turkey; in addition to Nish, Servia received the districts of Pirot and Vranya on the east instead of the Ibar valley on the west; the Dobrudja, somewhat enlarged, was ceded to Rumania, which surrendered southern Bessarabia to Russia. Bosnia and Herzegovina were handed over to Austrian administration; under a subsequent convention with Turkey, Austria sent troops into the sanjak of Novibazar. The complete independence of the principalities of Servia, Rumania and Montenegro was recognized. The claims of Greece, ignored at San Stefano, were admitted at Berlin; an extension of frontier, including Epirus as well as Thessaly, was finally sanctioned by the powers in 1880, but owing to the tenacious resistance of Turkey only Thessaly and the district of Arta were acquired by Greece in 1881. Rumania was proclaimed a kingdom in that year, Servia in 1882. In 1880, after a naval demonstration by the powers, Dulcigno was surrendered to Montenegro in compensation for the districts of Plava and Gusinye restored to Turkey. In 1886 the informal union of Eastern Rumelia with Bulgaria was sanctioned by Europe, the districts of Tumrush (Rhodope) and Krjali being given back to the sultan. In 1897 Crete was withdrawn from Turkish administration, and the Greco-Turkish War of that year was followed by the cession to Turkey of a few strategical points on the Thessalian frontier. In 1908 Bosnia and Herzegovina were annexed to the Dual Monarchy, and Bulgaria (including Eastern Rumelia) was proclaimed an independent kingdom.
[Sidenote: A Balkan confederation.]
The growth and development of the Balkan nations have, to a great extent, been retarded by the international jealousies arising from the Eastern Question. The possibility of the young states entering into a combination which would enable them to offer a united resistance to foreign interference while simultaneously effecting a compromise in regard to their national aims, has at various times occupied the attention of Balkan politicians. Among the earliest advocates of this idea was Ristich, the Servian statesman. During the reaction against Russia which followed the war of 1877 informal discussions were conducted with this object, and it was even suggested that a reformed or constitutional Turkey might find a place in the confederation. The movement was favourably regarded by King Charles of Rumania and Prince Alexander of Bulgaria. But the revolt of Eastern Rumelia, followed by the Servo-Bulgarian War and the coercion of Greece by the powers, embittered the rivalry of the various races, and the project was laid aside. It was revived in a somewhat modified form in 1891 by Tricoupis, who suggested an offensive alliance of the Balkan states, directed against Turkey and aiming at a partition of the Sultan's possessions in Europe. The scheme, which found favour in Servia, was frustrated by the opposition of Stamboloff, who denounced it to the Porte. In 1897 a Bulgarian proposal for joint pacific action with a view to obtaining reforms in Macedonia was rejected by Greece.
AUTHORITIES.--Special bibliographies are appended to the separate articles which deal with the various political divisions of the Peninsula. For a general description of the whole region, its inhabitants, political problems, &c., see "Odysseus," _Turkey in Europe_ (London, 1900), a work of exceptional interest and value. See also _The Balkan Question_, ed. L. Villari (London, 1905); W. Miller, _Travels and Politics in the Near East_ (London, 1898); L. Lamouche, _La Peninsule balkanique_ (Paris, 1899); H. C. Thomson, _The Outgoing Turk_ (London, 1897); T. Joanne, _Etats du Danube et des Balkans_ (Paris, 1895); R. Millet, _Souvenirs des Balkans_ (Paris, 1891); V. Cambon, _Autour des Balkans_ (Paris, 1890); P. J. Hamard, _Par dela l'Adriatique et les Balkans_ (Paris, 1890); E. de Laveleye, _La Peninsule des Balkans_ (Brussels, 1886). For geology see F. Toula, "Materialien zu einer Geologic der Balkan-halbinsel," _Jahr. k.-k. geol. Reichsanst._ (Vienna, vol. xxxiii. 1883), pp. 61-114; A. Bittnel. M. Neumayr, &c., _Denks. k. Akad. Wiss. Wien, math.-nat. Cl._, vol. xl. (1880); A. Philippson, _Der Peloponnes_ (Berlin, 1892); J. Cviji['c], "Die Tektonik der Balkanhalbinsel," _C. R. IX. Cong. geol. inter. Vienne_, pp. 347-370 (1904). For the condition of the Peninsula before the Treaty of Berlin, see E. Rueffer, _Die Balkanhalbinsel und ihre Volker_ (Bautzen, 1869); Mackenzie and Irby, _Travels in the Slavonic Provinces of Turkey_ (London, 1866); and A. Boue, _La Turquie d'Europe_ (Paris, 1840). W. Miller, _The Balkans_ (London, 1896), sketches the history of Bulgaria, Montenegro, Rumania and Servia. See also Sir E. Hertslet, _The Map of Europe by Treaty_, esp. vol. iv. (London, 1875-1891); J. D. Bourchier, "A Balkan Confederation," in the _Fortnightly Review_ (London, September 1891); the Austrian and Russian staff maps, and the ethnographical maps of Kiepert and Peucker.
(J. D. B.)
[v.03 p.0262] BALKASH, or BALKHASH (called by the Kirghiz _Ak-denghiz_ or _Ala-denghiz_ and by the Chinese _Si-hai_), a lake of Asiatic Russia, in the Kirghiz steppes, between the governments of Semipalatinsk and Semiryechensk, in 45deg to 47deg N. and 73deg 30' to 79deg E., about 600 m. to the east of Lake Aral. It is fourth in size of the lakes in Eurasia, having an area of 7115 sq. m., and lies at an altitude of 900 ft. It has the shape of a broad crescent, about 430 m. long from W.S.W. to E.N.E., having its concave side turned southwards; its width varies from 36 to 53