Part 15

BALEAR'IC ISLANDS, an archipelago of four large and eleven small islands, south-east of Spain, including Majorca, Minorca, Iviza, and Formentera. The popular derivation of the ancient name Baleares (Gr. _ballein_, to throw) has reference to the repute of the inhabitants for their skill in slinging, in which they distinguished themselves both in the army of Hannibal and under the Romans, by whom the islands were annexed in 123 B.C. After being taken by the Vandals, under Genseric, and in the eighth century by the Moors, they were taken by James I, King of Aragon, 1220-34, and constituted a kingdom, which in 1343 was united to Spain. The islands now form a Spanish province, with an area of 1935 sq. miles, and 330,167 inhabitants. See separate articles.

BALEEN'. See _Whale-bone_.

BALE-FIRE, any great fire kindled in the open air, especially the fire of a funeral pile, or a beacon-fire.

BALEN (bae'len), Hendrik van, painter, born at Antwerp 1560, died 1632. His works, chiefly classical, religious, and allegorical--some of them executed in partnership with Breughel--are to be found in most of the European galleries. He was the first master of Van Dyck and Snyders. Three of his sons also followed the art.

BALFE (balf), Michael William, composer, was born in Dublin, 15th May, 1808. In his seventh year he performed in public on the violin, and at sixteen took the part of the Wicked Huntsman in _Der Freischuetz_ at Drury Lane. In 1825 he went to Italy, wrote the music for a ballet, _La Perouse_, for the Scala at Milan, and in the following year sang at the Theatre-Italien, Paris, with moderate success. He returned to Italy, and at Palermo was given his first opera, _I Rivali_ (1829). For five years he continued singing and composing operas for the Italian stage. In 1835 he came to England, and composed a number of operas, amongst others _The Bohemian Girl_ (1843), _The Rose of Castile_ (1857), _Satanella_ (1858), and _The Talisman_ (first performed in 1874). He died 20th Oct., 1870. His operas are melodious, and many of the airs are excellent.

BALFOUR (bal-foer'), Sir Andrew, Bart., a Scottish botanist and physician, born in Fifeshire in 1630. After completing his studies at St. Andrews and London, and travelling on the Continent, he settled at Edinburgh, where he planned, with Sir Robert Sibbald, the Royal College of Physicians, and was elected its first president. He also laid the foundation of a hospital in Edinburgh, which expanded into the Royal Infirmary. He died in 1694. His familiar letters were published in 1700.

BAL'FOUR, Right Hon. Arthur James, First Earl of (created 1922), son of J. M. Balfour of Whittingehame, Haddingtonshire, and of Lady Blanche Cecil, sister of the third Marquess of Salisbury, was born 25th July, 1848, and educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge. He represented Hertford from 1874-5, East Manchester from 1885 to 1906, and has been representative for the City of London since 1906. For a time he was private secretary to his uncle, Lord Salisbury, under whom he was President of the Local Government Board, and afterwards Secretary for Scotland (1886-7), with a seat in the cabinet. He showed much firmness and ability as Chief Secretary for Ireland during Lord Salisbury's administration from 1887-91. He succeeded Rt. Hon. W. H. Smith as leader of the House of Commons and First Lord of the Treasury in 1891-2, and held the position again from 1895 till 1900, and from that year till 1902. On the retirement of Lord Salisbury in 1902 he became Prime Minister, a position which he retained till Dec., 1905. Under him as Premier was passed the new English Education Act (which owed much to his personal influence and exertions), that for London, and the new Licensing Act, and he advocated a change of our fiscal policy, at least as far as having recourse to retaliation, denying that he in any way favoured protection. He became First Lord of the Admiralty in the Coalition Government of 1915, and Foreign Secretary in 1916. He was one of the British delegates to the Peace Conference in 1919. He is given to studies bearing on philosophy and religion, and has published a _Defence of Philosophic Doubt_ (1879), _Essays and Addresses_ (1893), _The Foundations of Belief_ (1895), _Economic Notes on Insular Free-Trade_ (1903), _Criticism and Beauty_ (1909), _Theism and Humanism_ (1915), &c. He was President of the British Association in 1904, and Gifford Lecturer, Glasgow University, 1913-4. In 1919 he was elected to succeed Lord Rayleigh, O.M., as Chancellor of Cambridge University.

BALFOUR, Francis Maitland, writer on embryology, brother of the foregoing, born in 1851, early distinguished himself in his special study, and in 1874, in conjunction with Dr. M. Foster, published _The Elements of Embryology_; but the promise of his chief work, _Comparative Embryology_ (1880-1) was unfulfilled, as in 1882 he was killed by a fall on Mont Blanc.

BALFOUR, Sir James, Scottish lawyer and politician, born about 1522, took part in the conspiracy against Cardinal Beaton, and was condemned with Knox to the galleys; but after his release found it to his interest to change his opinions, and was appointed, through the favour of Queen Mary, Lord of Session and member of the Privy Council. In 1567 he was appointed Governor of Edinburgh Castle, but had no scruple in surrendering it to Murray, who made him President of the Court of Session. He was charged with a share in the murder of Darnley, and helped to bring Regent Morton to his death. He died in 1583. _The Practicks of Scots Law_, attributed to him, was long a textbook.

BALFOUR, John Hutton, a distinguished botanist, born 1808, died 1884. He graduated at Edinburgh University in arts and in medicine; from 1841 to 1845 was professor of botany in Glasgow University; and in the latter year removed to Edinburgh to occupy a similar post, resigning his chair in 1879. He wrote valuable botanical textbooks, including _Elements_, _Outlines_, _Manual_, and _Class-book_, besides various other works.

BALFROOSH', or BARFURUSH', a town, Persia, province of Mazanderan, about twelve miles from the Caspian, a great emporium of the trade between Persia and Russia. Pop. estimated at 50,000.

BA'LI, an island of the Indian Archipelago east of Java, belonging to Holland; greatest length, 85 miles, greatest breadth, 55 miles; area, about 2160 sq. miles. It consists chiefly of a series of volcanic mountains, of which the loftiest, Agoong (11,326 feet), became active in 1843 after a long period of quiescence. Principal products: rice, cocoa, coffee, indigo, cotton, &c. The people are akin to those of Java and are mostly Brahmans in religion. It is divided into eight provinces under native rajahs, and since 1882 has formed one colony with Lombok, the united pop. being 1,363,000, of whom about 900,000 belong to Bali.

BAL'IOL, or BALLIOL, John de, of Barnard Castle, Northumberland, father of King John Baliol, a great English (or Norman) baron in the reign of Henry III, to whose cause he strongly attached himself in his struggles with the barons. In 1263 he laid the foundation of Balliol College, Oxford, which was completed by his widow Devorguila or Devorgilla. She was daughter and co-heiress of Allan of Galloway, a great baron of Scotland, by Margaret, eldest daughter of David, Earl of Huntingdon, brother of William the Lion. It was on the strength of this genealogy that his son John Baliol became temporary King of Scotland. He died 1269.

BAL'IOL, or BALLIOL, John, King of Scotland, born about 1249, died 1315. On the death of Margaret, the Maid of Norway and grandchild of Alexander III, Baliol claimed the vacant throne by virtue of his descent from David, Earl of Huntingdon, brother to William the Lion, King of Scotland (see above article). Robert Bruce (grandfather of the king) opposed Baliol; but Edward I's decision was in favour of Baliol, who did homage to him for the kingdom, 20th Nov., 1292. Irritated by Edward's harsh exercise of authority, Baliol concluded a treaty with France, then at war with England; but after the defeat at Dunbar he surrendered his crown into the hands of the English monarch. He was sent with his son to the Tower, but, by the intercession of the Pope in 1297, obtained liberty to retire to his Norman estates, where he died.--His son, Edward, in 1332 landed in Fife with an armed force, and, having defeated a large army under the Regent Mar (who was killed), got himself crowned king, but was driven out in three months.

BALIS'TIDAE. See _Trigger-fishes_.

BALIZE (ba-l[=e]z'). See _Belize_.

BAL'KAN (ancient, HAEMUS), a rugged chain of mountains extending from Cape Emineh, on the Black Sea, in Eastern Roumelia, westwards to the borders of Serbia, though the name is sometimes used to include the whole mountain system from the Black Sea to the Adriatic, the region south of Austria and Russia, or south of the Danube and Save, forming the Balkan Peninsula. The range, which is over 200 miles in length, forms the water-shed between the streams flowing northward into the Danube and those flowing southward to the Aegean, the chief of the latter being the Maritza. The average height is not more than 5000 feet, but the highest point, Tchat-al-dagh, is 8340 feet. In the Russo-Turkish war of 1877-8 the Russian troops managed to cross it without great difficulty, though they had to encounter a stubborn resistance at the Shipka Pass, where a Turkish army of 32,000 men ultimately surrendered to them.

BALKAN LEAGUE, THE. After the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina by Austria, in 1908, the Balkan League of Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro, and Greece was formed, apparently at the instigation of the Powers of the Triple Entente, primarily to constitute a bulwark against Austrian aggression towards the southeast. The League, however, directed its activities against Turkey, taking advantage of Turkish embarrassments in Libya and of the success of an insurrection in Albania to attempt in 1912 the overthrow of the Turkish regime in Europe. The declaration of hostilities by the League in Oct., 1912, began the First Balkan War (q.v.). The League was maintained during the two campaigns of the war, but jealousy of Bulgarian pre-eminence led to its disruption in June, 1913, when Serbia, Montenegro, and Greece went to war with their former ally.

BALKAN STATES. See _Bulgaria_, _Greece_, _Roumania_, _Serbia_, _Turkey_, and _Yugo-Slavs_.

BALKAN WAR, THE. The First Balkan War (Oct., 1912-May, 1913) was the effort of the Balkan League (q.v.) to dismember Turkey in Europe. Each member of the League was allotted a definite strategic object, and each gained a considerable measure of success. Bulgaria defeated the Turks at Kirk Kilisseh and Lule Burgas, and drove them behind the lines of Tchataldja. The Greeks captured Salonica; the Serbians forced their way to the sea at Durazzo. The Montenegrins invested Scutari. An armistice in December was followed by indecisive negotiations, in which the Great Powers took part. Renewed hostilities in the spring of 1913 (during which the Turks lost Adrianople) came to an end with the Treaty of London in May. Before its promises could be carried out, Serbia, Greece, and Roumania joined to crush Bulgaria in the Second Balkan War, alleging that her claims to conquered territory in Macedonia were excessive. The Treaty of Bucharest (Aug., 1913) finally concluded the war. The net results were: (1) to confine Turkey to Constantinople and the vilayet of Adrianople; (2) to extend Bulgarian territory to the Aegean and to increase greatly both Serbia and Montenegro; (3) to grant Salonica to Greece; (4) to create an autonomous Albania.--BIBLIOGRAPHY: E. Ashmead-Bartlett, _With the Turks in Thrace_; _The Balkan War Drama_, by a Special Correspondent; D. J. Cassvetti, _Hellas and the Balkan Wars_; Sir J. R. L. Rankin, _The Inner History of the Balkan War_.

BALKASH', or BALKHASH (b[.a]l-_h_[.a]sh'), a salt lake in Russian Central Asia, surrounded by steppes and plains; length about 330 miles, area 8500 sq. miles, depth nowhere more than 80 feet; formerly of much greater area and gradually growing smaller; receives the Ili and other smaller streams.

BALKH (baelk or bael_h_), a city in the north of Afghanistan, in Afghan Turkestan, at one time the emporium of the trade between India, China, and Western Asia. It was long the centre of Zoroastrianism, and was also an important Buddhist centre. In 1220 it was sacked by Genghis Khan, and again by Timur in the fourteenth century. The remains of the ancient city extend for miles. The town is now merely a village, but a new town has been built an hour's journey north of the old, the residence of the Afghan governor, with a pop. of about 20,000. The district, which formed a portion of ancient Bactria, lies between the Oxus and the Hindu-Kush, with Badakshan to the east and the desert to the west. In the vicinity of the Oxus, where there are facilities for irrigation, the soil is rich and productive, and there are many populous villages.

BAL'KIS, the Arabian name of the Queen of Sheba who visited Solomon. She is the central figure of innumerable Eastern legends and tales.

BALL, GAME OF. Ball-playing was practised by the ancients, and old and young amused themselves with it. The Phaeacian damsels are represented in the _Odyssey_ as playing it to the sound of music; and Horace represents Maecenas as amusing himself thus during a journey. In the Greek gymnasia, the Roman baths, and in many Roman villas, a _sphaeristerium_ (a place appropriated for playing ball) was to be found; the games played being similar to those of the present day. In the Middle Ages the sport continued to be very popular both as an indoor and outdoor exercise, and was a favourite Court pastime until about the end of the eighteenth century. In England football and tennis are mentioned at an early date, and a favourite game prior to the English revolution was one in which a _mall_ or mallet was used, hence the name _pall-mall_ (It. _palla_, Lat. _pila_, a ball) for the game and the place where it was played. The most popular modern forms are cricket, base-ball, football, golf, lawn-tennis, fives, and polo.

BALL, John, an itinerant preacher of the fourteenth century, excommunicated about 1367 for promulgating "errors, schisms, and scandals against the Pope, archbishops, bishops, and clergy". He was one of the most active promoters of the popular insurgent spirit which found vent under Wat Tyler in 1381, and the couplet

"When Adam delved and Eve span Who was then the gentleman?"

is attributed to him. He was hanged, drawn, and quartered on 15th July, 1381.

BALL, Sir Robert Stawell, astronomer, born at Dublin 1840, educated at Chester and Trinity College, Dublin. In 1865 he was appointed Lord Rosse's astronomer at Parsonstown, and subsequently held various official posts, including those of Andrews professor of astronomy in the University of Dublin and Astronomer Royal for Ireland (1874), Lowndean professor of astronomy and geometry in the University of Cambridge and director of the observatory (1892). He became F.R.S. in 1873, and was knighted in 1886. Besides many memoirs and articles, he published _The Story of the Heavens_, _Starland_, _In Starry Realms_, _Time and Tide_, _The Story of the Sun_, _Great Astronomers_, _The Earth's Beginning_, _Popular Guide to the Heavens_ (numerous plates with accompanying text), _Natural Sources of Power_, &c. He died in 1913.

BAL'LAD, a term loosely applied to various poetic forms of the song type, but in its most definite sense a poem in which a short narrative is subjected to simple lyrical treatment. It was, as indicated by its name, which is related to the Low Latin _ballare_ and O. French _baller_, to dance, originally a song accompanied by a dance. The ballad, like the nursery tales and the _Maerchen_, is probably one of the earliest forms of rhythmic poetic expression, constituting a species of epic in miniature, out of which by fusion and remoulding larger epics were sometimes shaped. Their present form is, of course, relatively recent. As in the folk-tales, so in the ballads of different nations, the resemblances are sufficiently numerous and close to point to the conclusion that they have often had their first origin in the same primitive folk-lore or popular tales. But in any case, excepting a few modern literary ballads of a subtler kind, they have been the popular expression of the broad human emotions clustering about some strongly-outlined incidents of war, love, crime, superstition, or death. It is probable that in the Homeric poems fragments of older ballads are embedded; but the earliest ballads, properly so called, of which we have record were the _ballistea_ or dancing-songs of the Romans, of the kind sung in honour of the deeds of Aurelian in the Sarmatic war by a chorus of dancing boys. In their less specialized sense of lyric narratives, their early popularity among the Teutonic race is evidenced by the testimony of Tacitus, of the Gothic historian Jornandes, and the Lombard historian Paulus Diaconus; and many appear to have been written down by order of Charlemagne and used as a means of education. Of the ballads of this period, however, only a general conception can be formed from their traces in conglomerates like the _Niebelungenlied_; the more artificial productions of the Minnesingers and Meistersingers overlying the more popular ballad until the fifteenth century, when it sprang once more into vigorous life. A third German ballad period was initiated by Buerger, under the inspiration of the revived interest in the subject shown in Great Britain and the publication of the Percy _Reliques_; and the movement was sustained by Herder, Schiller, Goethe, Heine, Uhland, and others. The earlier German work is, however, of inferior value to that of Scandinavia, where, though comparatively few manuscripts have survived, and those not more than three or four centuries old, a more perfect oral tradition has rendered it possible to trace the original stock of the twelfth century.

Of the English and Scottish ballads anterior to the thirteenth century there are few traces beyond the indication that they were abundant, if indeed anything can be definitely asserted of them earlier than the fourteenth century. Among the oldest may be placed _The Little Gest of Robin Hood_, _Hugh of Lincoln_, _Sir Patrick Spens_, and the _Battle of Otterbourn_. In the fifteenth century specimens multiply rapidly: ballad-making became in the reign of Henry VIII a fashionable amusement, the king himself setting the example; and though in the reign of Elizabeth ballads came into literary disrepute and ballad singers were brought under the law, yet there was no apparent check upon the rate of their production. Except perhaps in the north of England and south of Scotland, there was, however, a marked and increasing tendency to vulgarization as distinct from the preservation of popular qualities. The value of the better ballads was lost sight of in the flood of dull, rhythmless, and frequently scurrilous verse. The modern revival in Britain dates from the publication of Allan Ramsay's _Evergreen_ and _Tea-table Miscellany_ (1724-7) and of the selection _Reliques_ made by Bishop Percy from his seventeenth-century MSS. (1765), a revival not more important for its historic interest than for the influence which it has exercised upon all subsequent poetry.

The threefold wave discernible in German, if not in British, ballad history, is equally to be traced in Spain, which alone among the Latinized countries of Europe has songs of equal age and merit with the British historic ballads. The principal difference between them is, that for the most part the Spanish romance is in trochaic, the British ballad in iambic metre. The ballads of the Cid date from about the end of the twelfth and beginning of the thirteenth century; and then followed an interval of more elaborate production, a revival of ballad interest in the sixteenth century, a new declension, and finally a modern and still-persisting enthusiasm.

The French poetry of this kind never reached any high degree of perfection, the romance, farce, and lyric flourishing at the expense of the ballad proper. Of Italy much the same may be said, though Sicily has supplied a great store of ballads; and nearly all the Portuguese poetry of this kind is to be traced to a Spanish origin. The Russians have lyrico-epic poems, of which some, in old Russian, are excellent, and the Serbians are still in the ballad-producing stage of civilization. Modern Greece has also its store of ballads, published in several collections. In Greece, Russia, and elsewhere the old habit of improvising song as an accompaniment to dance still exists.--BIBLIOGRAPHY: Professor Child, _English and Scottish Popular Ballads_; Professor Gummere, _The Beginnings of Poetry_; Sir W. Scott, _Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border_ (edited by T. F. Henderson); T. F. Henderson, _The Ballad in Literature_.

BALLADE (bal-[.a]d'), the earlier and modern French spelling of _ballad_, but now limited in its use to a distinct verse-form introduced into English literature of late years from the French, and chiefly used by writers of _vers-de-societe_. It consists of three stanzas of eight lines each, with an _envoy_ or closing stanza of four lines. The rhymes, which are not more than three, follow each other in the stanzas thus: a, b, a, b; b, c, b, c, and in the envoy, b, c, b, c; and the same line serves as a refrain to each of the stanzas and to the envoy. There are other varieties, but this may be regarded as the strictest, according to the precedent of Villon and Marot.

BAL'LANTYNE, James, the printer of Sir Walter Scott's works, born at Kelso 1772, died at Edinburgh 1833. Successively a solicitor and a printer in his native town, at Scott's suggestion he removed to Edinburgh, where the high perfection to which he had brought the art of printing, and his connection with Scott, secured him a large trade. The printing firm of James Ballantyne & Co. included Scott, James Ballantyne, and his brother John (who died in 1821). For many years he conducted the _Edinburgh Weekly Journal_. His firm was involved in the bankruptcy of Constable & Co., by which Scott's fortunes were wrecked, but Ballantyne was continued by the creditors' trustee in the literary management of the printing-house. He survived Scott only about four months.

BALLANTYNE, Robert Michael, writer of books for boys, born at Edinburgh 1825, died in Rome 1894, was a nephew of James Ballantyne, the printer of Sir Walter Scott's works. He was for some years in North America in the service of the Hudson's Bay Company, and his experiences there supplied him with materials for some of his earlier books, especially _Hudson's Bay, or Life in the Wilds of North America_ (1848); _The Young Fur Traders_; and _Ungava, a Tale of Eskimo Land_. For many years he continued to produce popular and instructive boys' books, dealing with scenes and subjects of the most varied kind; and he also published a volume entitled _Personal Reminiscences of Book-Making_ (1893).