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BARCELONA, formerly the capital of Catalonia, and since 1833 the capital of the province of Barcelona in eastern Spain, in 41deg 23' N. and 2deg 11' E., on the Mediterranean Sea, and at the head of railways from Madrid, Saragossa, and Perpignan in France. Pop. (1900) 533,000. Barcelona is a flourishing city and the principal seaport of Spain. It is built on the sloping edge of a small plain between the rivers Besos, on the north, and Llobregat, on the south. Immediately to the south-west the fortified hills of Montjuich rise to an altitude of 650 ft., while the view is bounded on the west by the heights which culminate in Tibidabo (1745 ft.), and on the north-east by the Montanas Matas. The greater part of the space thus enclosed is occupied by comparatively modern suburbs and gardens of almost tropical luxuriance, strongly contrasting with the huge factories and busy port of the original city in their midst.
Barcelona was formerly surrounded by a strong line of ramparts, and defended, or more correctly, overawed by a citadel on the north-east, erected in 1715 by Philip V.; but these fortifications being felt as a painful restriction on the natural development of the city, were, in spite of the opposition of the central government, finally abolished by the local authorities in 1845. The walls of the moat were utilized for the cellars of the houses which soon occupied the site of the ramparts, and the ground, which had been covered by the citadel, was laid out in gardens. A rapid extension of the city to the north-west took place, and in 1860 an elaborate plan for the laying out of new districts received the royal sanction. Barcelona thus comprises an old town, still consisting for the most part of irregular and narrow streets, and a new town built with all the symmetry and precision of a premeditated scheme. The buildings of the old town are chiefly of brick, from four to five storeys in height, with flat roofs, and other oriental peculiarities; while in the new town hewn stone is very largely employed, and the architecture is often of a modern English style. To the east, on the tongue of land that helps to form the port, lies the suburb of Barceloneta. It owes its origin to the marquis de la Mina, who, about 1754, did much for the city, and is regularly laid out, the houses being built of brick after a uniform pattern. The main street or axis of the old town is the Rambla, which has a fine promenade planted with plane-trees running down the middle, and contains the principal hotels and theatres of the city. The most important suburbs are Gracia, Las Corts de Sarria, Horta, San Andres de Palomar, San Gervasio de Cassolas, San Martin de Provensals and Sans. Exclusive of these, the city contains about 334,000 inhabitants, an increase of nearly 150,000 since 1857. Large numbers of immigrant artisans joined the population during the latter half of the 19th century, attracted by the great development of industry. Barcelona is the see of a bishop, and, like most Spanish towns, has a large number of ecclesiastical buildings, though by no means so many as it once possessed. No fewer than eighteen convents were still standing in 1873. The cathedral, erected between 1298 and 1448 on Monte Taber, an oval hill which forms the highest point of the Rambla, is one of the finest examples of Spanish Gothic; although it is not designed on a great scale and some parts have been freely modernized. It contains the early 14th-century tomb of Santa Eulalia, the patron saint of the city, besides many other monuments of artistic or historical interest. Its stained glass windows are among the finest in Spain, and it possesses archives of great value. Santa Maria del Mar, Santa Ana, Santos Justo y Pastor, San Pedro de las Puellas, and San Pablo del Campo are all churches worthy of mention.
The educational institutions of Barcelona have from an early period been numerous and important. The university (Universidad Literaria), which was originally founded in 1430 by the magistracy of the city, and received a bull of confirmation from Pope Nicholas V. in 1450, possessed at that time four faculties and thirty-one chairs all endowed by the corporation. It was suppressed in 1714, but restored in 1841, and now occupies an extensive building in the new town. There are, besides, an academy of natural sciences, a college of medicine and surgery—confirmed by a bull of Benedict XIII. in 1400—an academy of fine arts, a normal school, a theological seminary, an upper industrial school, an institution for the education of deaf-mutes, a school of navigation and many minor establishments. Gratuitous instruction of a very high order is afforded by the Board of Trade to upwards of 2000 pupils. The principal charitable foundations are the Casa de Caridad or house of charity, the hospital general, dating from 1401, and the foundling hospital. The principal civic and commercial buildings are the [v.03 p.0392] Casa Consistorial, a fine Gothic hall (1369-1378), the Lonja or exchange (1383), and the Aduana or custom-house (1792). At the seaward end of the Rambla is a large ancient structure, the Atarazanas or Arsenals, which was finished about 1243, and partly demolished in the 19th century to give a better view to the promenade. Remains of the former royal state of Barcelona are found in the Palacio Real of the kings of Aragon and the Palacio de la Reina. At the highest part of the city, in the Calle del Paradis, are some magnificent columns, and other Roman remains, which, however, are hidden by the surrounding buildings. Means of public recreation are abundantly supplied. There are many theatres, the two most important being the Teatro Principal, and the Teatro del Liceo, a very fine building, originally erected in 1845 on the site of a convent of Trinitarian monks. The number of restaurants and similar places of evening resort is very great, and there are several public courts where the Basque game of pelota can be witnessed.
The so-called port of Barcelona was at first only an open beach, on the east, slightly sheltered by the neighbouring hills, but at an early period the advantage of some artificial protection was felt. In 1438 Don Alphonso V. granted the magistracy a licence to build a mole; and in 1474 the Moll de Santa Creu was officially begun. Long after this, however, travellers speak of Barcelona as destitute of a harbour; and it is only in the 17th century that satisfactory works were undertaken. Until modern times all the included area was shut off from the open sea by a sand-bank, which rendered the entrance of large vessels impossible. An extension of the former mole, and the construction of another from the foot of Montjuich, have embraced a portion of the sea outside of the bank, and a convenient shelter is thus afforded for the heaviest battleships. From 1873 the work of extension and improvement was carried on systematically, with the addition of new quays, greater storage room, and better means for handling cargo. After thirty years of steady development, further plans were approved in 1903. At this time the port included an inner harbour, with a depth of 18 to 30 ft. at low tide, and an outer harbour with a depth of 20 to 35 ft. In the following year 8075 vessels of nearly 5,000,000 tons entered the port. Barcelona is well supplied with inland communication by rail, and the traffic of its streets is largely facilitated by tramway lines running from the port as far as Gracia and the other chief suburbs.
Barcelona has long been the industrial and commercial centre of eastern Spain—a pre-eminence which dates from the 12th and 13th centuries. It received a temporary check from the disasters of the Spanish-American War of 1898; but less than a year later it paid about L550,000 in industrial and commercial taxes, or more than 11% of the whole amount thus collected in the kingdom; and within five years it had become a port of regular call for thirty-five important shipping companies. It also contained the head offices of thirteen other lines, notably those of the Transatlantic Mail Company, which possessed a fleet of twenty-five fine steamships. Trades and industries give occupation to more than 150,000 hands of both sexes. The spinning and weaving of wool, cotton and silk are the principal industries, but the enterprising spirit of the Catalans has compelled them to try almost every industry in which native capital could attempt to compete with foreign, especially since the institution of the protectionist tariffs of 1892. The native manufacturers are quite able to compete in peninsular markets with foreign rivals. This prosperity has been in part due to the great development of means of communication around the city and in the four Catalan provinces. Comestibles, raw materials, and combustibles form the greater part of the imports, but this great manufactory also imports a considerable quantity of foreign manufactured goods. The principal exports are wines, cereals, olive-oil, cotton goods, soap, cigarette-paper, furniture and barrels, boots, shoes and leather goods, and machinery.
Barcino, the ancient name of the city, is usually connected with that of the Carthaginian Hamilcar Barca, its traditional founder in the 3rd century B.C. After the Roman conquest, it received from Augustus (27 B.C.-A.D. 14) the name of Julia Faventia (afterwards Augusta and Pia), with the status of a Roman colony; and thenceforward it rapidly grew to be the leading mart of the western Mediterranean, rivalling Tarraco (Tarragona) and Massilia (Marseilles) as early as the 2nd century A.D. As its remains testify, the Roman city occupied Monte Taber. The bishopric of Barcelona was founded in 343. In 415 and 531, the Visigoths chose Barcelona as their temporary capital; in 540 and 599 church councils were held there. Barcinona or Bardjaluna, as it was then called, was captured by the Moors in 713, and in 801 it passed, with the rest of Catalonia, under the dominion of the Franks. From 874 the counts of Barcelona ruled as independent monarchs. But the accession of larger resources due to the union between Catalonia and Aragon in 1149, brought the city to the zenith of its fame and wealth. Its merchant ships vied with those of Genoa, Venice and Ragusa, trading as far west as the North Sea and the Baltic, and as far east as Alexandria. In 1258 James I. of Aragon empowered Barcelona to issue its famous Consulado del Mar, a code of maritime law recognized as authoritative by many European states. Consuls represented Barcelona at the principal commercial centres on or near the Mediterranean; and the city was among the first communities to adopt the practice of marine insurance. But the union of Castile and Aragon in 1479 favoured other cities of Spain at the expense of Barcelona, whose commercial supremacy was transferred to the ports of western Spain by the discovery of America in 1492. The citizens attributed their misfortunes to the "Castilian" government, and a strong party among them favoured annexation by France. In 1640 Barcelona was the centre of the Catalonian rebellion against Philip IV., and threw itself under French protection. In 1652 it returned to its allegiance, but was captured by the duke of Vendome in 1697. At the peace of Ryswick, in the same year, it was restored to the Spanish monarchy. During the War of the Succession (1701-1714) Barcelona adhered to the house of Austria. The seizure of Montjuich in 1705, and the subsequent capture of the city by the earl of Peterborough, formed one of his most brilliant achievements. In 1714 it was taken after an obstinate resistance by the duke of Berwick in the interests of Philip V., and at the close of the war was reluctantly reconciled to the Bourbon dynasty. In 1809 the French invaders of Spain obtained possession of the fortress and kept the city in subjection until 1814. Since then it has shared in most of the revolutionary movements that have swept over Spain, and has frequently been distinguished by the violence of its civic commotions. For the historic antagonism between the Catalans and the other inhabitants of Spain was strengthened by the industrial development of Barcelona. Among the enterprising and shrewd Catalans, who look upon their rulers as reactionary, and reserve all their sympathies for the Provencal neighbours whom they so nearly resemble in race, language and temperament, French influence and republican ideals spread rapidly; taking the form partly of powerful labour and socialist organizations, partly of less reputable bodies, revolutionary and even anarchist. Strikes are very common, seventy-three having occurred in such a year of comparative quiet as 1903; but the causes of disturbance are almost as often political as economic, and the annals of the city include a long list of revolutionary riots and bomb outrages. A strange contrast is presented by the co-existence of these turbulent elements with the more old-fashioned Spanish society of Barcelona. Church festivals, civic and ecclesiastical processions are almost as animated and picturesque as in Seville itself; and many medieval customs continue to flourish side by side with the most modern features of industrial life, giving to Barcelona a character altogether unique among Spanish cities.
The literature relating to Barcelona is extensive. For a general description of the city, see A. A. P. Arimon, Barcelona antigua y moderna, two illustrated folio volumes (Madrid, 1850); and J. Artigas y Feiner, Guia itineraria de Barcelona (Barcelona, 1888). For the antiquities, see S. Sampere, Topografia antigua de Barcelona (1890). The economic history of the city is dealt with by A. Capmany in his Memorias historicas sobra la marina, comercio, y artes de la antigua ciudad de Barcelona (Madrid, 1779-1792); and, for its political history, the same work should be consulted, together with Historias e conquestas dels comtes de Barcelona, by T. Tomich (Barcelona, 1888), and the Coleccio de documents inedits del Arxin [v.03 p.0393] municipal de la ciutat de Barcelona (Barcelona, 1892). The spread of the revolutionary movement is traced by M. Gil Maestre, in his El Anarquismo en Espana, y el especial de Barcelona (Madrid, 1897), and in his La Criminalidad en Barcelona (Barcelona, 1886).
BARCELONA, a town and port of Venezuela, capital of the state of Bermudez, on the Neveri river, 3 m. from its mouth and 12 m. by rail from the port of Guanta, which has superseded the incommodious river port in the trade of this district. Pop. (est. 1904) 13,000. Built on the border of a low plain and having a mean annual temperature of 82deg F., the town has the reputation of being unhealthy. There are salt works and important coal deposits in its vicinity, the latter at Naricual and Capiricual, 12 m. distant by rail. Though the adjacent country is fertile, its prosperity has greatly declined, and the exports of coffee, sugar, cacao and forest products are much less important than formerly. The town dates from 1637, when it was located at the foot of the Cerro Santo and was called Nueva Barcelona; it reached a state of much prosperity and commercial importance before the end of the century. The War of Independence, however, and the chronic political disorders that followed nearly ruined its industries and trade.
BARCELONNETTE, a town in the department of Basses-Alpes, in the S.E. of France. Pop. (1906) 2075. It is built at a height of 3717 ft. on the right bank of the Ubaye river, on which it is the most important place. It is situated in a wide and very fertile valley, and is surrounded by many villas, built by natives who have made their fortune in Mexico, and are locally known as les Americains. The town itself is mainly composed of a long street (flanked by two others), which is really the road from Grenoble to Cuneo over the Col de l'Argentiere (6545 ft.). The only remarkable buildings in the town are a striking clock-tower of the 15th century (the remains of a Franciscan convent) and the Musee Chabrand, which contains a very complete collection of birds, both European and extra-European.
Refounded in 1231 by Raymond Berenger IV., count of Provence (he was of the family of the counts of Barcelona, whence the name of the town he rebuilt), Barcelonnette passed to Savoy in 1388 (formal cession in 1419), and in 1713 by the treaty of Utrecht was ceded to France in exchange for the valleys of Exilles, Fenestrelles, and Chateau Dauphin (Casteldelfino). It was the birth-place of J. A. Manuel (1775-1827), the well-known Liberal orator at the time of the Restoration of 1815, after whom the principal square of the town is named.
See F. Arnaud, Barcelonnette et ses environs (Guide du C. A. F.) (1898), and La Vallee de Barcelonnette (1900).
(W. A. B. C.)
BARCLAY, ALEXANDER (c. 1476-1552), British poet, was born about 1476. His nationality is matter of dispute, but William Bulleyn, who was a native of Ely, and probably knew him when he was in the monastery there, asserts that he was born "beyonde the cold river of Twede"; moreover, the spelling of his name and the occasional Scottish words in his vocabulary point to a northern origin. His early life was spent at Croydon, but it is not certain whether he was educated at Oxford or Cambridge. It may be presumed that he took his degree, as he uses the title of "Syr" in his translation of Sallust, and in his will he is called doctor of divinity. From the numerous incidental references in his works, and from his knowledge of European literature, it may be inferred that he spent some time abroad. Thomas Cornish, suffragan bishop in the diocese of Bath and Wells, and provost of Oriel College, Oxford, from 1493 to 1507, appointed him chaplain of the college of St Mary Ottery, Devonshire. Here he translated Sebastian Brant's Ship of Fools, and even introduced his neighbours into the satire:—
"For if one can flatter, and beare a Hauke on his fist, He shall be parson of Honington or Cist."
The death of his patron in 1513 apparently put an end to his connexion with the west, and he became a monk in the Benedictine monastery of Ely. In this retreat he probably wrote his eclogues, but in 1520 "Maistre Barkleye, the Blacke Monke and Poete" was desired to devise "histoires and convenient raisons to florisshe the buildings and banquet house withal" at the meeting between Henry VIII. and Francis I. at the Field of the Cloth of Gold. He at length became a Franciscan monk of Canterbury. It is presumed that he conformed with the change of religion, for he retained under Edward VI. the livings of Great Baddow, Essex, and of Wokey, Somerset, which he had received in 1546, and was presented in 1552 by the dean and chapter of Canterbury to the rectory of All Hallows, Lombard Street, London. He died shortly after this last preferment at Croydon, Surrey, where he was buried on the 10th of June 1552. All the evidence in Barclay's own work goes to prove that he was sincere in his reproof of contemporary follies and vice, and the gross accusations which John Bale[1] brings against his moral character may be put down to his hatred of Barclay's cloth.
The Ship of Fools was as popular in its English dress as it had been in Germany. It was the starting-point of a new satirical literature. In itself a product of the medieval conception of the fool who figured so largely in the Shrovetide and other pageants, it differs entirely from the general allegorical satires of the preceding centuries. The figures are no longer abstractions; they are concrete examples of the folly of the bibliophile who collects books but learns nothing from them, of the evil judge who takes bribes to favour the guilty, of the old fool whom time merely strengthens in his folly, of those who are eager to follow the fashions, of the priests who spend their time in church telling "gestes" of Robin Hood and so forth. The spirit of the book reflects the general transition between allegory and narrative, morality and drama. The Narrenschiff of Sebastian Brant was essentially German in conception and treatment, but his hundred and thirteen types of fools possessed, nevertheless, universal interest. It was in reality sins and vices, however, rather than follies that came under his censure, and this didactic temper was reflected in Barclay. The book appeared in 1494 with woodcuts said to have been devised and perhaps partly executed by Brant himself. In these illustrations, which gave an impulse to the production of "enblems" and were copied in the English version, there appears a humour quite absent from the text. In the Latin elegiacs of the Stultifera Navis (1497) of Jacob Locher the book was read throughout Europe. Barclay's The Shyp of Folys of the Worlde was first printed by Richard Pynson in 1509. He says he translated "oute of Laten, Frenche, and Doche," but he seems to have been most familiar with the Latin version. He used a good deal of freedom in his translation, "sometyme addynge, sometyme detractinge and takinge away suche thinges as semeth me necessary and superflue." The fools are given a local colour, and Barclay appears as the unsparing satirist of the social evils of his time. At the end of nearly every section he adds an envoi of his own to drive home the moral more surely. The poem is written in the ordinary Chaucerian stanza, and in language which is more modern than the common literary English of his day.
Certayne Ecloges of Alexander Barclay, Priest, written in his youth, were probably printed as early as 1513, although the earliest extant edition is that in John Cawood's reprint (1570) of the Ship of Fools. They form, with the exception of Henryson's Robin and Makyn, the earliest examples of the English pastoral. The first three eclogues, in the form of dialogues between Coridon and Cornix, were borrowed from the Miseriae Curialium of Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini (Pope Pius II.), and contain an eulogy of John Alcock, bishop of Ely, the founder of Jesus College, Cambridge. The fourth is based on Mantuan's eclogue, De consuetudine divitum erga poetas, with large additions. It contains the "Descrypcion of the towre of Virtue and Honour," an elegy on Sir Edward Howard, lord high admiral of England, who perished in the attack on the French fleet in the harbour of Brest in 1513. The fifth, printed by Wynkyn de Worde, also without date, is entitled the "Fyfte Eglog of Alexandre Barclay of the Cytezen and the uplondyshman" and is also based on Mantuan. Two shepherds, Amintas and Faustus, discuss the familiar theme of the respective merits of town and country life, and relate a quaint fable of the origin of the different classes of society. Barclay's pastorals contain many pictures of rustic life as he knew it. He describes for instance the Sunday games in the village, football, and the struggle for food at great feasts; [v.03 p.0394] but his eclogues were, like his Italian models, also satires on social evils. The shepherds are rustics of the Colin Clout type, and discuss the follies and corruptions around them. Barclay had, however, no sympathy with the anti-clerical diatribes of John Skelton, whom he more than once attacks. Bale mentions an Anti-Skeltonum which is lost. His other works are:—The Castell of Laboure (Wynkyn de Worde, 1506), from the French of Pierre Gringoire; the Introductory to write and to pronounce Frenche (Robert Copland, 1521); The Myrrour of Good Maners (Richard Pynson, not dated), a translation of the De quatuor virtutibus of Dominicus Mancinus; Cronycle compyled in Latyn by the renowned Sallust (Richard Pynson, no date), a translation of the Bellum Jugurthinum, The Lyfe of the glorious Martyr Saynt George (R. Pynson, c. 1530). The Lyfe of Saynte Thomas, and Haython's Cronycle, both printed by Pynson, are also attributed to Barclay, but on very doubtful grounds.
See T. H. Jamieson's edition of the Ship of Fools (Edinburgh, 1874), which contains an account of the author and a bibliography of his works; and J. W. Fairholt's edition of The Cytezen and Uplondyshman (Percy Soc. 1847), which includes large extracts from the other eclogues; also Zarncke's edition of Brant (Leipzig, 1854); and Dr Fedor Fraustadt, Ueber das Verhaeltnis von Barclays Ship of Fools zu den lateinischen, franzoesischen und deutschen Quellen (1894). A prose version of Locher's Stultifera Navis, by Henry Watson, was printed by Wynkyn de Worde in 1518.
[1] Script. Ill. Maj. Brit. (1557, Cent. ix. No. 66).
BARCLAY, JOHN (1582-1621), Scottish satirist and Latin poet, was born, on the 28th of January 1582, at Pont-a-Mousson, where his father William Barclay held the chair of civil law. His mother was a Frenchwoman of good family. His early education was obtained at the Jesuit College. While there, at the age of nineteen, he wrote a commentary on the Thebaid of Statius. In 1603 he crossed with his father to London. Barclay had persistently maintained his Scottish nationality in his French surroundings, and probably found in James's accession an opportunity which he would not let slip. He did not remain long in England, where he is supposed to have published the first part of his Satyricon, for in 1605 when a second edition of that book appeared in Paris, he was there, having already spent some time in Angers, and being now the husband of a French girl, Louise Debonaire. He returned to London with his wife in 1606, and there published his Sylvae, a collection of Latin poems. In the following year the second part of the Satyricon appeared in Paris. Barclay remained on in London till 1616. In 1609 he edited the De Potestate Papae, an anti-papal treatise by his father, who had died in the preceding year, and in 1611 he issued an Apologia or "third part" of the Satyricon, in answer to the attacks of the Jesuits and others who were probably embittered by the tone of the earlier parts of the satire. A so-called "fourth part," with the title of Icon Animorum, appeared in 1614. James I. is said to have been attracted by his scholarship, but particulars of this, or of his life in London generally, are not available. In 1616 he went to Rome, for some reason unexplained, and there resided till his death on the 15th of August 1621. He appears to have been on better terms with the Church and notably with Bellarmine; for in 1617 he issued, from a press at Cologne, a Paraenesis ad Sectarios, an attack on the position of Protestantism. The literary effort of his closing years was his best-known work the Argenis, completed about a fortnight before his death, which has been said to have been hastened by poison. The romance was printed in Paris in the same year.
Barclay's contemporary reputation as a writer was of the highest; by his strict scholarship and graceful style he has deserved the praise of modern students. The Satyricon, a severe satire on the Jesuits, is modelled on Petronius and catches his lightness of touch, though it shows little or nothing of the tone of its model, or of the unhesitating severity and coarseness of the humanistic satire of Barclay's age. The Argenis is a long romance, with a monitory purpose on the dangers of political intrigue, probably suggested to him by his experiences of the league in France, and by the catholic plot in England after James's accession. The work has been praised by all parties; and it enjoyed for more than a century after his death a remarkable popularity. Most of the innumerable editions are supplied with a key to the characters and names of the story. Thus Aneroetus is Clement VIII; Arx non eversa is the Tower of London; Hippophilus and Radirobanes are the names of the king of Spain; Hyanisbe is Queen Elizabeth; Mergania, by an easy anagram, is Germany; Usinulca, by another, is Calvin. The book is of historical importance in the development of 17th century romance, including especially Fenelon's Telemaque. Ben Jonson appears, from an entry at Stationers' Hall on the 2nd of October 1623, to have intended to make a translation. Barclay's shorter poems, in two books, were printed in the Delitiae Poetarum Scotorum (Amsterdam, 1637, i. pp. 76-136). In the dedication, to Prince Charles of England, he refers to his earlier publication, the Sylvae.
The best account of Barclay is the preface by Jules Dukas in his bibliography of the Satyricon (Paris, 1889). This supersedes the life in Bayle's Dictionary, which had been the sole authority. A "fifth part" of the Satyricon appears in most of the editions, by Alethophilus (Claude Morisot). For the Argenis, see the dissertations by Leon Boucher (Paris, 1874), and Dupond (Paris, 1875). The Icon Animorum was Englished by Thomas May in 1631 (The Mirrour of Mindes, or Barclay's Icon Animorum). Barclay's works have never been collected.
BARCLAY, JOHN (1734-1798), Scottish divine, was born in Perthshire and died at Edinburgh. He graduated at St Andrews, and after being licensed became assistant to the parish minister of Errol in Perthshire. Owing to differences with the minister, he left in 1763 and was appointed assistant to Antony Dow of Fettercairn, Kincardine. In this parish he became very popular, but his opinions failed to give satisfaction to his presbytery. In 1772 he was rejected as successor to Dow, and was even refused by the presbytery the testimonials requisite in order to obtain another living. The refusal of the presbytery was sustained by the General Assembly, and Barclay thereupon left the Scottish church and founded congregations at Sauchyburn, Edinburgh and London. His followers were sometimes called Bereans, because they regulated their conduct by a diligent study of the Scriptures (Acts xvii. 11). They hold a modified form of Calvinism.
His works, which include many hymns and paraphrases of the psalms, and a book called Without Faith, without God, were edited by J. Thomson and D. Macmillan, with a memoir (1852).
BARCLAY, ROBERT (1648-1690), one of the most eminent writers belonging to the Society of Friends, or Quakers, was born in 1648 at Gordonstown in Morayshire. His father had served under Gustavus Adolphus, and pursued a somewhat tortuous course through the troubles of the civil war. Robert was sent to finish his education in Paris, and it appears he was at one time inclined to accept the Roman Catholic faith. In 1667, however, he followed the example of his father, and joined the recently-formed Society of Friends. In 1670 he married a Quaker lady, Christian Mollison of Aberdeen. He was an ardent theological student, a man of warm feelings and considerable mental powers, and he soon came prominently forward as the leading apologist of the new doctrine, winning his spurs in a controversy with one William Mitchell. The publication of fifteen Theses Theologiae (1676) led to a public discussion in Aberdeen, each side claiming a victory. The most prominent of the Theses was that bearing on immediate revelation, in which the superiority of this inner light to reason or scripture is sharply stated. His greatest work, An Apology for the True Christian Divinity, was published in Latin at Amsterdam in 1676, and was an elaborate statement of the grounds for holding certain fundamental positions laid down in the Theses. It was translated by its author into English in 1678, and is "one of the most impressive theological writings of the century." It breathes a large tolerance and is still perhaps the most important manifesto of the Quaker Society. Barclay experienced to some extent the persecutions inflicted on the new society, and was several times thrown into prison. He travelled extensively in Europe (once with Penn and George Fox), and had several interviews with Elizabeth, princess palatine. In later years he had much influence with James II., who as duke of York had given to twelve members of the society a patent of the province of East New Jersey, Barclay being made governor (1682-88). He is said to have visited James with a view to making terms of accommodation with William of Orange, [v.03 p.0395] whose arrival was then imminent. He died on the 3rd of October 1690.
BARCLAY, WILLIAM (1546-1608) Scottish jurist, was born in Aberdeenshire in 1546. Educated at Aberdeen University, he went to France in 1573, and studied law under Cujas, at Bourges, where he took his doctor's degree. Charles III., duke of Lorraine, appointed him professor of civil law in the newly-founded university of Pont-a-Mousson, and also created him counsellor of state and master of requests. In 1603, however, he was obliged to quit France, having incurred the enmity of the Jesuits, through his opposition to their proposal to admit his son John (q.v.) a member of their society. Returning to England, he was offered considerable preferment by King James on condition of becoming a member of the Church of England. This offer he refused, and returned to France in 1604, when he was appointed professor of civil law in the university of Angers. He died at Angers in 1608. His principal works were De Regno et Regali Potestate, &c. (Paris, 1600), a strenuous defence of the rights of kings, in which he refutes the doctrines of George Buchanan, "Junius Brutus" (Hubert Languet) and Jean Boucher; and De Potestate Papae, &c. (London, 1609), in opposition to the usurpation of temporal powers by the pope, which called forth the celebrated reply of Cardinal Bellarmine; also commentaries on some of the titles of the Pandects.
BARCLAY DE TOLLY, MICHAEL ANDREAS, called by the Russians MICHAEL, PRINCE BOGDANOVICH (1761-1818), Russian field marshal, was born in Livonia in 1761. He was a descendant of a Scottish family which had settled in Russia in the 17th century. He entered the Russian army at an early age. In 1788-1789 he served against the Turks, in 1790 and 1794 against the Swedes and Poles. He became colonel in 1798 and major-general in 1799. In the war of 1806 against Napoleon, Barclay took a distinguished part in the battle of Pultusk and was wounded at Eylau, where his conduct won him promotion to the rank of lieut.-general. In 1808 he commanded against the Swedes in Finland, and in 1809 by a rapid and daring march over the frozen Gulf of Bothnia he surprised and seized Umeo. In 1810 he was made minister of war, and he retained the post until 1813. In 1812 Barclay was given command of one of the armies operating against Napoleon. There was very keen opposition to the appointment of a foreigner as commander-in-chief, and after he was defeated at Smolensk the outcry was so great that he resigned his command and took a subordinate place under the veteran Kutusov. Barclay was present at Borodino, but left the army soon afterwards. In 1813 he was re-employed in the field and took part in the campaign in Germany. After the battle of Bautzen he was reinstated as commander-in-chief of the Russian forces, and in this capacity he served at Dresden, Kulm and Leipzig. After the last battle he was made a count. He took part in the invasion of France in 1814 and at Paris received the baton of a field marshal. In 1815 he was again commander-in-chief of the Russian army which invaded France, and he was made a prince at the close of the war. He died at Insterburg in Prussia on the 14th (16th) of May 1818.
BARCOCHEBAS, BAR-COCHAB, or BAR KOKBA ("son of a star"), the name given in Christian sources to one Simeon, the leader in the Jewish revolt against Rome in the time of Hadrian (A.D. 132-135). The name does not appear in the Roman historians. In Rabbinic sources he is called Bar (Ben) Coziba, "son of deceit," which perhaps reflects the later verdict of condemnation recorded after his failure (root [Hebrew: KZB] "to be false"). Cochab is, therefore, the name either of his father or of his home. But it is recorded that the Rabbi 'Aqība (q.v.), who recognized him as Messiah, applied Num. xxiv. 17 to him, reading not Cochab ("a star"), but Cosiba ("goes forth from Jacob"); thus Bar-cochab is a Messianic title of the "man of Cozeba" (cf. Chron. iv. 22) whose original name was recalled by later Rabbis with sinister intention. At first the Romans paid little attention to the insurgents, who were able to strike coins in the name of Simeon, prince of Israel, and Eleazar the priest, and to persecute the Christians, who refused to join the revolt. But troops were collected and the various fortresses occupied by the Jews were successively reduced. The end came with the fall of Beth-thar (Bethar). Extraordinary stories were told of the prowess of Barcochebas and of the ordeals to which he subjected his soldiers in the way of training.
See Eusebius H.E. iv. 6; Dio Cassius xix. 12-14; Schuerer, Gesch. d. jued. Volkes, 3rd ed. i. 682 ff.; Derenbourg, Hist. de la Palest. 423 ff. (distinguishes Barcochebas from Simeon); Schlattler, Gesch. Israels, 2nd ed. 303 ff.; articles JEWS and PALESTINE, History; also art. s.v. "Bar Kokba" in Jewish Encyc. (S. Krauss).
BARD, a word of Celtic derivation (Gaelic baird, Cymric bardh, Irish bard) applied to the ancient Celtic poets, though the name is sometimes loosely used as synonymous with poet in general. So far as can be ascertained, the title bards, and some of the privileges peculiar to that class of poets, are to be found only among Celtic peoples. The name itself is not used by Caesar in his account of the manners and customs of Gaul and Britain, but he appears to ascribe the functions of the bards to a section of the Druids, with which class they seem to have been closely connected. Later Latin authors, such as Lucan (Phar. p. 447), Festus (De Verb. Sign. s.v.), and Ammianus Marcellinus (bk. xv.), used the term Bardi as the recognized title of the national poets or minstrels among the peoples of Gaul and Britain. In Gaul, however, the institution soon disappeared; the purely Celtic peoples were swept back by the waves of Latin and Teutonic conquest, and finally settled in Wales, Ireland, Brittany and the north of Scotland. There is clear evidence of the existence of bards in all these places, though the known relics belong almost entirely to Wales and Ireland, where the institution was more distinctively national. In Wales they formed an organized society, with hereditary rights and privileges. They were treated with the utmost respect and were exempt from taxes or military service. Their special duties were to celebrate the victories of their people and to sing hymns of praise to God. They thus gave poetic expression to the religious and national sentiments of the people, and therefore exercised a very powerful influence. The whole society of bards was regulated by laws, said to have been first distinctly formulated by Hywell Dha, and to have been afterwards revised by Gruffydd ap Conan. At stated intervals great festivals were held, at which the most famous bards from the various districts met and contended in song, the umpires being generally the princes and nobles. Even after the conquest of Wales, these congresses, or Eisteddfodau, as they were called (from the Welsh eistedd, to sit), continued to be summoned by royal commission, but from the reign of Elizabeth the custom has been allowed to fall into abeyance. They have not been since summoned by royal authority, but were revived about 1822, and are held regularly at the present time. In modern Welsh, a bard is a poet whose vocation has been recognized at an Eisteddfod. In Ireland also the bards were a distinct class with peculiar and hereditary privileges. They appear to have been divided into three great sections: the first celebrated victories and sang hymns of praise; the second chanted the laws of the nation; the third gave poetic genealogies and family histories. The Irish bards were held in high repute, and frequently were brought over to Wales to give instruction to the singers of that country.
In consequence, perhaps, of Lucan's having spoken of carmina bardi, the word bard began to be used, early in the 17th century, to designate any kind of a serious poet, whether lyric or epic, and is so employed by Shakespeare, Milton and Pope. On the other hand, in Lowland Scots it grew to be a term of contempt and reproach, as describing a class of frenzied vagabonds.
See Ed. Jones, Relics of the Welsh Bards (1784); Walker, Memoirs of the Irish Bards (1786); Owen Jones, Myvyrian Archaeology of Wales (3 vols., 1801-1807); W. F. Skene, Four Ancient Books of Wales (2 vols., 1868).
BARDAIṢĀN, an early teacher of Christianity in Mesopotamia, the writer of numerous Syriac works which have entirely perished[1] (with one possible exception, the Hymn of the Soul in the Acts of Thomas), and the founder of a school which was soon branded as heretical. According to the trustworthy Chronicle of Edessa, he was born in that city on the 11th Tammuz (July), A.D. 154. [v.03 p.0396] His parents were of rank and probably pagan; according to Barhebraeus, he was in youth a priest in a heathen temple at Mabbōg. Another probable tradition asserts that he shared the education of a royal prince who afterwards became king of Edessa—perhaps Abgar bar Manu, who reigned 202-217. He is said to have converted the prince to Christianity, and may have had an important share in christianizing the city. Epiphanius and Barhebraeus assert that he was first an orthodox Christian and afterwards an adherent of Valentinus; but Eusebius and the Armenian Moses of Chorene reverse the order, stating that in his later days he largely, but not completely, purged himself of his earlier errors. The earliest works attributed to him (by Eusebius and others) are polemical dialogues against Marcionism and other heresies; these were afterwards translated into Greek. He also wrote, probably under Caracalla, an apology for the Christian religion in a time of persecution. But his greatest title to fame was furnished by his hymns, which, according to St Ephrem, numbered 150 and were composed in imitation of the Davidic psalter. He thus became the father of Syriac hymnology, and from the favour enjoyed by his poems during the century and a half that intervened between him and St Ephrem we may conclude that he possessed original poetic genius. This would be clearly proved if (as is not unlikely) the beautiful Hymn of the Soul incorporated in the apocryphal Acts of Thomas could be regarded as proceeding from his pen; it is practically the only piece of real poetry in Syriac that has come down to us. Perhaps owing to the persecution under Caracalla mentioned above, Bardaiṣān for a time retreated into Armenia, and is said to have there preached Christianity with indifferent success, and also to have composed a history of the Armenian kings. Porphyry states that on one occasion at Edessa he interviewed an Indian deputation who had been sent to the Roman emperor, and questioned them as to the nature of Indian religion. He was undoubtedly a man of wide culture. He died (according to the patriarch Michael) in 222.
For our knowledge of Bardaiṣān's doctrine we are mainly dependent on the hostile witness of St Ephrem, and on statements by Greek writers who had no acquaintance with his works in their original form. His teaching had certain affinities with gnosticism. Thus he certainly denied the resurrection of the body; and so far as we can judge by the obscure quotations from his hymns furnished by St Ephrem he explained the origin of the world by a process of emanation from the supreme God whom he called "the Father of the living." On the other hand the dialogue known as the Book of the Laws of the Countries, which was written by a disciple and is quoted by Eusebius as a genuine exposition of the master's teaching—while it recognizes the influence of the celestial bodies over the body of man and throughout the material sphere and attributes to them a certain delegated authority[2]—upholds the freedom of the human will and can in the main be reconciled with orthodox Christian teaching. On this M. Nau has based his effort (see Une Biographie inedite de Bardesane l'astrologue, Paris, 1897; Le Livre des lois des pays, Paris, 1899) to clear Bardaiṣān of the reproach of gnosticism, maintaining that the charge of heresy arises from a misunderstanding of certain astrological speculations. It must be admitted that it is impossible to reconstruct Bardaiṣān's system from the few fragments remaining of his own work and therefore a certain verdict cannot be given. But the ancient testimony to the connexion of Bardaiṣān with Valentinianism is strong, and the dialogue probably represents a modification of Bardesanist teaching in the direction of orthodoxy. The later adherents of the school appear to have moved towards a Manichean dualism.
The subject is exhaustively discussed in Hort's article "Bardaisan" in Dict. Christ. Biog., and a full collection of the ancient testimonies will be found in Harnack's Altchristliche Litteratur, vol. i. pp. 184 ff.
(N. M.)
[1] The Book of the Laws of the Countries, referred to below, is the work of a disciple of Bardaiṣān.
[2] Even Ephrem allows that Bardaiṣān was in principle a monotheist.
BARDILI, CHRISTOPH GOTTFRIED (1761-1808), German philosopher, was born at Blaubeuren in Wuerttemberg, and died at Stuttgart. His system has had little influence in Germany; Reinhold (q.v.) alone expounded it against the attacks of Fichte and Schelling. Yet in some respects his ideas opened the way for the later speculations of Schelling and Hegel. He dissented strongly from the Kantian distinction between matter and form of thought, and urged that philosophy should consider only thought in itself, pure thought, the ground or possibility of being. The fundamental principle of thought is, according to him, the law of identity; logical thinking is real thinking. The matter upon which thought operated is in itself indefinite and is rendered definite through the action of thought. Bardili worked out his idea in a one-sided manner. He held that thought has in itself no power of development, and ultimately reduced it to arithmetical computation. He published Grundriss der ersten Logik (Stuttgart, 1800); Ueber die Gesetze der Ideenassociation (Tuebingen, 1796); Briefe ueber den Ursprung der Metaphysik (Altona, 1798); Philos. Elementarlehre (Landshut, 1802-1806); Beitraege zur Beurteilung des gegenwaertigen Zustandes der Vernunftlehre (Landshut, 1803).
See C. L. Michelet, Geschichte der letzten Systeme; J. E. Erdmann, Versuch einer Geschichte d. neu. Phil. Bd. iii. pt. i.; B's und Reinholds Briefwechsel.
BARDOUX, AGENOR (1820-1897), French statesman, was a native of Bourges. Established as an advocate at Clermont, he did not hesitate to proclaim his republican sympathies. In 1871 he was elected deputy of the National Assembly, and re-elected in 1876 and in 1877. In the chamber he was president of the group of the left centre, standing strongly for the republic but against anti-clericalism. After the coup d'etat of the 16th of May, he was one of the leaders of the "363." In the republican chamber elected after the 16th of May, he became minister of public instruction (December 1877), and proposed various republican laws, notably on compulsory primary education. He resigned in 1879. He was not re-elected in 1881, but in December 1882 was named senator for life. He wrote essays on Les Legistes et leur influence sur la societe francaise (1878); Le Comte de Montlosier et le Gallicanisme (1881); and published in 1882 his Dix Annees de vie politique.
BARDOWIEK, a village of Germany, in the Prussian province of Hanover, 3 m. N. of Lueneburg on the navigable Ilmenau. Pop. 2000. Its trade consists entirely in agricultural produce. The Gothic parish church (c. 1400) incorporates remains of a cathedral of vast dimensions.
Bardowiek was founded in the 8th century by Charlemagne, who established a bishopric in it, and until its destruction by Henry the Lion in 1189, it was the most prosperous commercial city of north Germany. Its name is derived from the Longobardi, the tribe for whom it was the home and centre, and from it the colonization of Lombardy started.
BARDSEY (i.e. "Bards' Island": cf. Anglesey, "Angles' Island"; Welsh, Ynys Enlli, "isle of the current"), an island at the northern extremity of Cardigan Bay. The "sound" between Aberdaron point and the island is some 4 m. wide. Bardsey is included in Carnarvonshire, North Wales (but traditionally in S. Wales). On the N.W. side it has high cliffs. It is about 2-1/2 m. long by 3/4 m. broad, with an area of some 370 acres, a third of which is hilly. Barley and oats are grown. On the S.E. side is a fairly deep harbour. On the N.E. are the ruins of the tower of St Mary's abbey (13th century). There is no Anglican church, the inhabitants being Dissenters. They are farmers and fishermen. The lighthouse, with fixed light, 140 ft. high and visible for 17 m., is locally celebrated. The rectory of Aberdaron (on the mainland, opposite Bardsey), Penmachno and Llangwnadl (Llangwynhoedl), in Lleyn (S. Carnarvonshire), belong to St John's College, Cambridge. St Dubricius made the sanctuary famous, and died here in 612. Here was the burial-place of all the monks whose friends could afford to go thither with their bodies. All the great abbeys of England sent their quota. Roads to Bardsey—with the monks' wells, found at intervals of 7 to 9 m.—run from north, east and south. The remnant of priests fled thither (after the great massacre of Bangor-is-coed in 613, by Ethelfride of Northumbria) by the road of the Rivals (Yn Eifl) [v.03 p.0397] hill, S. Carnarvonshire, on which Pistyll farm still gives food gratis to all pilgrims or travellers. A part of the isle is one great cemetery of about 3 to 4 acres, with rude, rough graves as close to each other as possible, with slabs upon them. Though Aberdaron rectory does not belong to the isle, the farm "Cwrt" (Court), where the abbot held his court, still goes with Bardsey, which was granted to John Wynn of Bodvel, Carnarvonshire, after the battle and partial sack of Norwich by the Puritans in the Civil War; passing through Mary Bodvel to her husband, the earl of Radnor, who sold it to Dr Wilson of York. The doctor, in turn, sold it to Sir John Wynn, of Glynllifon and Bodfean Hall, Carnarvonshire. One of the Wynns, the 3rd Baron Newborough, was, at his wish, buried here. The archaeology and history of the isle are voluminous. Lady Guest's Mabinogion translation (i. p. 115, ed. of 1838) gives an account of the (legendary) Bardsey House of Glass, into which Merlin (Myrddin) took a magic ring, originally kept at Caerleon-on-Usk.
BAREGES, a town of south-western France, in the department of Hautes-Pyrenees, in the valley of the Bastan, 25 m. S.S.W. of Bagneres-de-Bigorre by road. The town, which is situated at an altitude of 4040 ft., is hardly inhabited in the winter. It is celebrated for its warm sulphurous springs (75deg to 111deg F.), which first became generally known in 1675 when they were visited by Madame de Maintenon and the duke of Maine, son of Louis XIV. The waters, which are used for drinking and in baths, are efficacious in the treatment of wounds and ulcers and in cases of scrofula, gout, skin diseases, &c. There is a military hospital, founded in 1760. The town was formerly much exposed to avalanches and floods, which are now less frequent owing to the construction of embankments and replanting of the hillsides. It is a centre for mountain excursions. The light silk and wool fabric called barege takes its name from the place, where it was first made.
BAREILLY, or BARELI, a city and district of British India in the Bareilly or Rohilkhand division of the United Provinces. The city is situated on the Ramganga river, 812 m. N.W. from Calcutta by rail. Pop. (1901) 131,208. The principal buildings are two mosques built in the 17th century; a modern fort overlooking the cantonments; the railway station, which is an important junction on the Oudh and Rohilkhand line; the palace of the nawab of Rampur, and the government college. Bareilly is the headquarters of a brigade in the 7th division of the eastern army corps. The chief manufactures are furniture and upholstery. Bareilly college is a seat of upper class learning for the surrounding districts. It is conducted by an English staff, and its course includes the subjects for degrees in the Calcutta University.
The district of Bareilly has an area of 1580 sq. m. It is a level country, watered by many streams, the general slope being towards the south. The soil is fertile and highly cultivated, groves of noble trees abound, and the villages have a neat, prosperous look. A tract of forest jungle, called the tarai, stretches along the extreme north of the district, and teems with large game, such as tigers, bears, deer, wild pigs, &c. The river Sarda or Gogra forms the eastern boundary of the district and is the principal stream. Next in importance is the Ramganga, which receives as its tributaries most of the hill torrents of the Kumaon mountains. The Deoha is another great drainage artery and receives many minor streams. The Gomati or Gumti also passes through the district. The population in 1901 was 1,090,117. The Mahommedans are chiefly the descendants of Yusafzai Afghans, called the Rohilla Pathans, who settled in the country about the year 1720. The Rohillas were formerly the ruling race of the tract of country called Rohilkhand, and are men of a taller stature, a fairer complexion and a more arrogant air than the general inhabitants of the district. Bishop Heber described them as follows:—"The country is burdened with a crowd of lazy, profligate, self-called sawars (cavaliers), who, though many of them are not worth a rupee, conceive it derogatory to their gentility and Pathan blood to apply themselves to any honest industry, and obtain for the most part a precarious livelihood by sponging on the industrious tradesmen and farmers, on whom they levy a sort of blackmail, or as hangers-on to the wealthy and noble families yet remaining in the province. These men have no visible means of maintenance, and no visible occupation except that of lounging up and down with their swords and shields, like the ancient Highlanders, whom in many respects they much resemble." The Rohillas, after fifty years' precarious independence, were subjugated in 1774 by the confederacy of British troops with the nawab of Oudh's army, which formed so serious a charge against Warren Hastings. Their territory was in that year annexed to Oudh. In 1801 the nawab of Oudh ceded it to the Company in commutation of the subsidy money. During the Mutiny of 1857 the Rohillas took a very active part against the English, but since then they have been disarmed. Both before and after that year, however, the Bareilly Mahommedans have distinguished themselves by fanatical tumults against the Hindus. The district is irrigated from the Rohilkhand system of government canals. There are no manufactures except for domestic use and little external trade. Several lines of the Oudh and Rohilkhand railway pass through the district.
BARENTIN, a town of northern France, in the department of Seine-Inferieure, 11 m. N.N.W. of Rouen by rail. Pop. (1906) 5245. The town is situated in the valley of the Austreberthe, a small affluent of the Seine, here crossed at a height of 100 ft. by a fine railway viaduct 540 yds. long. The manufacture of cotton fabrics is the principal industry.
BARENTS, WILLEM (d. 1597), Dutch navigator, was born about the middle of the 16th century. In 1594 he left Amsterdam with two ships to search for a north-east passage to eastern Asia. He reached the west coast of Novaya Zemlya, and followed it northward, being finally forced to turn back when near its northern extremity. In the following year he commanded another expedition of seven ships, which made for the strait between the Asiatic coast and Vaygach Island, but was too late to find open water; while his third journey equally failed of its object and resulted in his death. On this occasion he had two ships, and on the outward journey sighted Bear Island and Spitsbergen, where the ships separated. Barents' vessel, after rounding the north of Novaya Zemlya, was beset by ice and he was compelled to winter in the north; and as his ship was not released early in 1597, his party left her in two open boats on the 13th of June and most of its members escaped. Barents himself, however, died on the 30th of June 1597. In 1871 the house in which he wintered was discovered, with many relics, which are preserved at the Hague, and in 1875 part of his journal was found.
See The Three Voyages of Barents, by Gerrit de Veer, translated by the Hakluyt Society (1876) from de Veer's text (Amsterdam, 1598).
BARENTS SEA, that part of the Arctic Ocean which is demarcated by the north coast of Europe, the islands of Novaya Zemlya, Franz Josef Land and Spitsbergen, and smaller intervening islands; it was named after the Dutch navigator. Omitting the great inlet of the White Sea in the south, it extends from about 67deg to 80deg N., and from 20deg to 60deg E. The southern part, off the Murman coast of the Kola peninsula, is sometimes called the Murman Sea.
BARERE DE VIEUZAC, BERTRAND (1755-1841), one of the most notorious members of the French National Convention, was born at Tarbes in Gascony on the 10th of September 1755. The name of Barere de Vieuzac, by which he continued to call himself long after the renunciation of feudal rights on the famous 4th of August, was assumed from a small fief belonging to his father, a lawyer at Vieuzac. He began to practise as an advocate at the parlement of Toulouse in 1770, and soon earned a considerable reputation as an orator; while his brilliant and flowing style as a writer of essays led to his election as a member of the Academy of Floral Games of Toulouse in 1788. At the age of thirty he married. Four years later, in 1789, he was elected deputy by the estates of Bigorre to the states-general, which met in May. He had made his first visit to Paris in the preceding year. His personal appearance, his manners, social qualities and liberal opinions, gave him a good standing among the multitude of provincial deputies then thronging into Paris. He [v.03 p.0398] attached himself at first to the constitutional party; but he was less known as a speaker in the Assembly than as a journalist. His paper, however, the Point du Jour, according to Aulard, owes its reputation not so much to its own qualities as to the fact that the painter David, in his famous picture of the "Oath in the Tennis Court," has represented Barere kneeling in the corner and writing a report of the proceedings as though for posterity. The reports of the debates of the National Assembly in the Point du Jour, though not inaccurate, are as a matter of fact very incomplete and very dry. After the flight of the king to Varennes, Barere passed over to the republican party, though he continued to keep in touch with the duke of Orleans, to whose natural daughter, Pamela, he was tutor. Barere, however, appears to have been wholly free from any guiding principle; conscience he had none, and his conduct was regulated only by the determination to be on the side of the strongest. After the close of the National Assembly he was nominated one of the judges of the newly instituted court of cassation from October 1791 to September 1792. In 1792 he was elected deputy to the National Convention for the department of the Hautes-Pyrenees. At first he voted with the Girondists, attacked Robespierre, "a pygmy who should not be set on a pedestal," and at the trial of the king voted with the Mountain for the king's death "without appeal and without delay." He closed his speech with a sentence which became memorable: "the tree of liberty could not grow were it not watered with the blood of kings." Appointed member of the Committee of Public Safety on the 7th of April 1793, he busied himself with foreign affairs; then, joining the party of Robespierre, whose resentment he had averted by timely flatteries, he played an important part in the second Committee of Public Safety—after the 17th of July 1793—and voted for the death of the Girondists. He was thoroughly unscrupulous, stopping at nothing to maintain the supremacy of the Mountain, and rendered it great service by his rapid work, by the telling phases of his oratory, and by his clear expositions of the problems of the day. On the 9th Thermidor (July 27th, 1794) Barere hesitated, then he drew up the report outlawing Robespierre. In spite of this, in Germinal of the year III. (the 21st of March to the 4th of April 1795), the Thermidorians decreed the accusation of Barere and his colleagues of the Terror, Collot d'Herbois and Billaud-Varenne, and he was sent to the Isle of Oleron. He was removed to Saintes, and thence escaped to Bordeaux, where he lived in concealment for several years. In 1795 he was elected member of the Council of Five Hundred, but was not allowed to take his seat. Later he was used as a secret agent by Napoleon I., for whom he carried on a diplomatic correspondence. On the fall of Napoleon, Barere played the part of royalist, but on the final restoration of the Bourbons in 1815 he was banished for life from France as a regicide, and then withdrew to Brussels and temporary oblivion. After the revolution of July 1830 he reappeared in France, was reduced by a series of lawsuits to extreme indigence, accepted a small pension assigned him by Louis Philippe (on whom he had heaped abuse and railing), and died, the last survivor of the Committee of Public Safety, on the 13th of January 1841. (See also FRENCH REVOLUTION.)
The Memoires de B. Barere ... publies par MM. H. Carnot ... et David (d'Angers) ... precedes d'une notice historique (Paris, 1824-1844) are false, but contain valuable information; Carnot's Notice, which is very good, was published separately in 1842. See F. A. Aulard, Les Orateurs de la Constituante (Paris, 1882); Les Orateurs de la Convention (2nd ed., Paris, 1905). Macaulay's essay on Barere, (Edinburgh Review, vol. 79) is eloquent, but incorrect.
BARETTI, GIUSEPPE MARC' ANTONIO (1719-1789), Italian critic, was born at Turin in 1719. He was intended by his father for the profession of law, but at the age of sixteen fled from Turin and went to Guastalla, where he was for some time employed in a mercantile house. His leisure hours he devoted to literature and criticism, in which he became expert. For many years he led a wandering life, supporting himself chiefly by his writings. At length he arrived in London, where he remained for a considerable time. He obtained an appointment as secretary to the Royal Academy of Painting, and became acquainted with Johnson, Garrick and others of that society. He was a frequent visitor at the Thrales'; and his name occurs repeatedly in Boswell's Life. In 1769 he was tried for murder, having had the misfortune to inflict a mortal wound with his fruit knife on a man who had assaulted him on the street. Johnson among others gave evidence in his favour at the trial, which resulted in Baretti's acquittal. He died in May 1789. His first work of any importance was the Italian Library (London, 1757), a useful catalogue of the lives and works of many Italian authors. The Lettere famigliari, giving an account of his travels through Spain, Portugal and France during the years 1761-1765, were well received, and when afterwards published in English (4 vols., 1770), were highly commended by Johnson. While in Italy on his travels Baretti set on foot a journal of literary criticism, to which he gave the title of Frusta letteraria, the literary scourge. It was published under considerable difficulties and was soon discontinued. The criticisms on contemporary writers were sometimes just, but are frequently disfigured by undue vehemence and coarseness. Among his other numerous works may be mentioned a useful Dictionary and Grammar of the Italian Language, and a dissertation on Shakespeare and Voltaire. His collected works were published at Milan in 1838.
BARFLEUR, a small seaport of north-western France, overlooking the Bay of the Seine, in the department of Manche, 22 1/2 m. N.N.E. of Valognes by rail. Pop. (1906) 1069. In the middle ages Barfleur was one of the chief ports of embarkation for England. In 1120 the "White Ship," carrying Prince William, only son of Henry I., went down outside the harbour. About 2 m. to the north is Cape Barfleur, with a lighthouse 233 ft. high.
BARFURUSH, a town of Persia, in the province of Mazandaran in 36deg 32' N., and 52deg 42' E., and on the left bank of the river Bawul [Babul], which is here crossed by a bridge of eight arches, about 15 m. distant from the southern shore of the Caspian Sea, where the small town of Meshed i Sar serves as a port. It is the commercial capital of Mazandaran, and 26 m. distant from Sari and 90 m. from Teheran. Pop. about 50,000. Built in a low and swampy country and approached by deep and almost impassable roads, Barfurush would not seem at all favourably situated for the seat of an extensive inland trade; it is, however, peopled entirely by merchants and tradesmen, and is wholly indebted for its present size and importance to its commercial prosperity. The principal articles of its trade are rice and cotton, some sugar cane (nai shakar), flax (Katūn) and hemp (Kanab) are also grown. The town is of peculiar structure and aspect, being placed in the midst of a forest of tall trees, by which the buildings are so separated from one another, and so concealed, that, except in the bazars, it has no appearance of a populous town. The streets are broad and neat, though generally unpaved, and kept in good order. No ruins are to be seen as in other Persian towns; the houses are comfortable, in good repair, roofed with tiles and enclosed by substantial walls. There are no public buildings of any importance, and the only places of interest are the bazars, which extend fully a mile in length, and consist of substantially built ranges of shops covered with roofs of wood and tiles, and well stored with commodities. There are about ten commodious caravanserais and a number of colleges (medresseh), the place being as much celebrated for learning as for commerce. On an island in a small lake east of the town is a garden, called Bagh i Shah (garden of the Shah), with ruined palaces and baths. At Meshed i Sar, the port, or roadstead of Barfurush, the steamers of the Caucasus and Mercury Company call weekly, and a brisk shipping trade is carried on between it and other Caspian ports.
Barfurush was formerly called Māmatīr. The present name is from a settlement called Barfurush-deh, which was added to the old city A.D. 1012.
(A. H.-S.)
BARGAIN[1] AND SALE, in English law, a contract whereby property, real or personal, is transferred from one person—called the bargainer—to another—called the bargainee—for a [v.03 p.0399] valuable consideration; but the term is more particularly used to describe a mode of conveyance of lands. The disabilities under which a feudal owner very frequently lay gave rise to the practice of conveying land by other methods than that of feoffment with livery of seisin, that is, a handing over of the feudal possession. That of "bargain and sale" was one. Where a man bargained and sold his land to another for pecuniary consideration, which might be merely nominal, and need not necessarily be actually paid, equity held the bargainer to be seised of the land to the use of the bargainee. The Statute of Uses (1535), by converting the bargainee's interest into a legal estate, had an effect contrary to the intention of its framers. It made bargain and sale an easy means of secret or private conveyance, a policy to which the law was opposed. To remedy this defect, a statute (called the Statute of Enrolments) was passed in the same year, which provided that every conveyance by bargain and sale of freehold lands should be enrolled in a court of record or with the custos rotulorum of the county within six months of its date. The Statute of Enrolments applied only to estates of inheritance or for life, so that a bargain and sale of an estate for years might be made without enrolment. This in turn was the foundation of another mode of conveyance, namely, lease and release, which took the place of the deed of bargain and sale, so far as regards freehold. Bargain and sale of copyhold estates, which operates at common law, is still a mode of conveyance in England in the case of a sale by executors, where a testator has directed a sale of his estate to be made, instead of devising it to trustees upon trust to sell.
See also CONVEYANCING.
[1] From O. Fr. bargaigne, a word of doubtful origin, appearing in many Romance languages, cf. Ital. bargagno; it is connected with Late Lat. barcaniare, to traffic, possibly derived from barca, a barge.
BARGE (Med. Lat. barca, possibly connected with Lat. baris, Gr. [Greek: baris], a boat used on the Nile), formerly a small sailing vessel, but now generally a flat-bottomed boat used for carrying goods on inland navigations. On canals barges are usually towed, but are sometimes fitted with some kind of engine; the men in charge of them are known as bargees. On tidal rivers barges are often provided with masts and sails ("sailing barges"), or in default of being towed, they drift with the current, guided by a long oar or oars ("dumb-barges"). Barges used for unloading, or loading, the cargo of ships in harbours are sometimes called "lighters" (from the verb "to light" = to relieve of a load). A state barge was a heavy, often highly ornamented vessel used for carrying passengers on occasions of state ceremonials. The college barges at Oxford are houseboats moored in the river for the use of members of the college rowing clubs. In New England the word barge frequently means a vehicle, usually covered, with seats down the side, used for picnic parties or the conveyance of passengers to or from piers or railway stations.
BARGEBOARD (probably from Med. Lat. bargus, or barcus, a scaffold, and not from the now obsolete synonym "vergeboard"), the boards fastened to the projecting gables of a roof to give strength to the same and to mask or hide the horizontal timbers of the roof to which they were attached. Bargeboards are sometimes moulded only or carved, but as a rule the lower edges were cusped and had tracery in the spandrels besides being otherwise elaborated. The richest example is one at Ockwells in Berkshire, England, which is moulded and carved as if it were intended for internal work.
BARGHEST, BARGUEST or BARGEST, the name given in the north of England, especially in Yorkshire, to a monstrous goblin-dog with huge teeth and claws. The spectre-hound under various names is familiar in folk-lore. The Demon of Tedworth, the Black Dog of Winchester and the Padfoot of Wakefield all shared the characteristics of the Barghest of York. In Wales its counterpart was Gwyllgi, "the Dog of Darkness," a frightful apparition of a mastiff with baleful breath and blazing red eyes. In Lancashire the spectre-hound is called Trash or Striker. In Cambridgeshire and on the Norfolk coast it is known as Shuck or Shock. In the Isle of Man it is styled Mauthe Doog. It is mentioned by Sir Walter Scott in "The Lay of the Last Minstrel"—
"For he was speechless, ghastly, wan Like him of whom the story ran Who spoke the spectre hound in Man."
A Welsh variant is the Cwn Annwn, or "dogs of hell." The barghest was essentially a nocturnal spectre, and its appearance was regarded as a portent of death. Its Welsh form is confined to the sea-coast parishes, and on the Norfolk coast the creature is supposed to be amphibious, coming out of the sea by night and travelling about the lonely lanes. The derivation of the word barghest is disputed. "Ghost" in the north of England is pronounced "guest," and the name is thought to be burh-ghest, "town-ghost." Others explain it as German Berg-geist, "mountain demon," or Bar-geist, "bear-demon," in allusion to its alleged appearance at times as a bear. The barghest has a kinsman in the Rongeur d'Os of Norman folklore. A belief in the spectre-hound still lingers in the wild parts of the north country of England, and in Nidderdale, Yorkshire, nurses frighten children with its name.
See Wirt Sikes, British Goblins (1880); Notes and Queries, first series, ii. 51; Joseph Ritson, Fairy Tales (Lond. 1831), p. 58; Lancashire Folklore (1867); Joseph Lucas, Studies in Nidderdale (Pateley Bridge, 1882).
BARHAM, RICHARD HARRIS (1788-1845), English humourist, better known by his nom de plume of THOMAS INGOLDSBY, was born at Canterbury on the 6th of December 1788. At seven years of age he lost his father, who left him a small estate, part of which was the manor of Tappington, so frequently mentioned in the Legends. At nine he was sent to St Paul's school, but his studies were interrupted by an accident which shattered his arm and partially crippled it for life. Thus deprived of the power of bodily activity, he became a great reader and diligent student. In 1807 he entered Brasenose College, Oxford, intending at first to study for the profession of the law. Circumstances, however, induced him to change his mind and to enter the church. In 1813 he was ordained and took a country curacy; he married in the following year, and in 1821 removed to London on obtaining the appointment of minor canon of St Paul's cathedral. Three years later he became one of the priests in ordinary of the King's Chapel Royal, and was appointed to a city living. In 1826 he first contributed to Blackwood's Magazine; and on the establishment of Bentley's Miscellany in 1837 he began to furnish the series of grotesque metrical tales known as The Ingoldsby Legends. These became very popular, were published in a collected form and have since passed through numerous editions. In variety and whimsicality of rhymes these verses have hardly a rival since the days of Hudibras. But beneath this obvious popular quality there lies a store of solid antiquarian learning, the fruit of patient enthusiastic research, in out-of-the-way old books, which few readers who laugh over his pages detect. His life was grave, dignified and highly honoured. His sound judgment and his kind heart made him the trusted counsellor, the valued friend and the frequent peacemaker; and he was intolerant of all that was mean and base and false. In politics he was a Tory of the old school; yet he was the lifelong friend of the liberal Sydney Smith, whom in many respects he singularly resembled. Theodore Hook was one of his most intimate friends. Barham was a contributor to the Edinburgh Review and the Literary Gazette; he wrote articles for Gorton's Biographical Dictionary; and a novel, My Cousin Nicholas (1834). He retained vigour and freshness of heart and mind to the last, and his last verses ("As I laye a-thynkynge") show no signs of decay. He died in London after a long, painful illness, on the 17th of June 1845.
A short memoir, by his son, was prefixed to a new edition of Ingoldsby in 1847, and a fuller Life and Letters, from the same hand, was published in 2 vols. in 1870.
BAR HARBOR, a well-known summer resort of Hancock county, Maine, U.S.A., an unincorporated village, in the township of Eden, on Frenchman's Bay, on the E. side of Mount Desert Island, about 45 m. S.E. of Bangor. Pop. of the township (1900) 4379; (1910) 4441; of the village (1910), about 2000, greatly increased during the summer season. Bar Harbor is served by the Maine Central railway and by steamship lines to New York, Boston, Portland and other ports. The summer climate is cool, usually too cool for sea-bathing, but there is a [v.03 p.0400] large open-air salt water swimming bath. Rugged mountains from 1000 to 1500 ft. in height, a coast with deep indentations and lined with bold cliffs, a sea dotted with rocky islets, clear lakes, sparkling rivulets, deep gorges, and wooded glens are features of the attractive scenery here and in the vicinity. Several fine hotels and a number of costly residences occupy a plateau along the shore and the hillsides farther back. The Kebo Valley Club has fine golf links here; and since 1900 an annual horse show and fair has been held at Robin Hood Park at the foot of Newport Mountain. Bar Harbor is usually a summer rendezvous of the North Atlantic Squadron of the United States Navy. The name Bar Harbor, which displaced East Eden, was suggested by the bar which appears at low water between it and Bar Island. Although the first summer hotel was built here in 1855, Bar Harbor's development as a summer resort began about 1870, after some artists had visited the place, and made it widely known through their pictures. (See MOUNT DESERT.)
BAR-HEBRAEUS or ABU'L-FARAJ, a maphriān or catholicus of the Jacobite (Monophysite) Church in the 13th century, and (in Dr. Wright's words) "one of the most learned and versatile men that Syria ever produced." Perhaps no more industrious compiler of knowledge ever lived. Simple and uncritical in his modes of thought, and apparently devoid of any striking originality, he collected in his numerous and elaborate treatises the results of such research in theology, philosophy, science and history as was in his time possible in Syria. Most of his works were written in Syriac, but some few in Arabic, which had long before his time supplanted Syriac as a living speech.
The son of a physician of Jewish descent, Bar-Hebraeus was born in 1226 at Malaṭiah on the upper Euphrates. His youth was passed in the troublous times of the Mongol advance into western Asia, and his father eventually retired to Antioch, where Bar-Hebraeus completed his education. In 1246 he was ordained at Tripolis as Jacobite bishop of Gūbās near Malaṭia, and a year later was transferred to the neighbouring diocese of Laḳabhīn, whence in 1253 he passed to be bishop of Aleppo. Deposed almost immediately by an ecclesiastical superior on account of disputes about the patriarchate, he was restored to his see in 1258, and in 1264 was promoted by the patriarch Ignatius III. to be maphriān—the next rank below that of patriarch—an office which he held till his death at Marāgha in 1286. He seems to have been a model of devotion to his ecclesiastical duties and to have won the respect of all parties in his diocese.
It is mainly as an historian that Bar-Hebraeus interests the modern student. His great historical work—the Syriac Chronicle—is made up of three parts. The first[1] is a history of secular events from the Creation to his own time, and in its later portions gives valuable information regarding the history of south-east Europe and western Asia. A compendium in Arabic of this secular history was made by Bar-Hebraeus under the title al-Mukhtaṣar fi'd-Duwal (Compendious History of the Dynasties). The second and third parts[2] of the Chronicle deal with the history of the Church, the second being mainly concerned with the patriarchate of Antioch, and the third with the eastern branch of the Syrian Church. Of special value to theologians is the Auṣar Rāzē (Storehouse of Secrets), a critical and doctrinal commentary on the text of the Scriptures. Of this many portions have been edited by various scholars, and a valuable study of the work, together with a biography and estimate of its author, has been published by J. Goettsberger (Barhebraeus und seine Scholien zur heiligen Schrift, Freiburg i. B., 1900).
A full list of Bar-Hebraeus's other works, and of editions of such of them as have been published, will be found in W. Wright's Syriac Literature, pp. 268-281. The more important of them are:—(1) Kĕthābhā dhe-Bhābhāthā (Book of the Pupils of the Eyes), a treatise on logic or dialectics; (2) Ḥēwath Hēkhmĕthā (Butter of Wisdom), an exposition of the whole philosophy of Aristotle; (3) Sullāḳā Haunānāyā (Ascent of the Mind), a treatise on astronomy and cosmography, edited and translated by F. Nau (Paris, 1899); (4) various medical works; (5) Kĕthābhā dhĕ-Ṣemḥē (Book of Ravs), a treatise on grammar; (6) ethical works; (7) poems; (8) Kĕthābhā dhĕ-Thunnāyē Mĕghaḥḥĕkhānē (Book of Entertaining Stories), edited and translated by E. A. W. Budge (London, 1897).
(N. M.)
[1] Imperfectly edited and translated by Bruns and Kirsch in 1789. There is now a better edition by Bedjan (Paris, 1890).
[2] Edited and translated by Abbeloos and Lamy (Paris and Louvain, 1872-1873).
BARI, a tribe of Nilotic negroes, living on the banks of the upper Nile some 200 m. N. of Albert Nyanza. They have as neighbours the Dinka to the north, the Madi to the south, and the Galla to the east. The men are tall and thin, the women fat and under middle height. Their colour is a deep dead brown. The men and unmarried girls go practically naked, the married women wearing a goatskin dyed red. The body is ornamented with red clay and the lower incisors are often extracted. Their sole wealth is cattle and their chief food milk and blood; meat is only eaten when a cow happens to die. They live in round grass huts with conical roofs. Twins are considered unlucky, the mother is divorced by her husband and her family must refund part of the marriage-price. The dead are buried in the hut; a square grave is dug in which the body is arranged in a sitting position with the hands tied behind the back. The most important men in the country are the rainmakers, who are reverenced even more than the chiefs, and, indeed, are famous among the surrounding tribes. The Bari warriors have been much recruited for the Egyptian army and were formerly used as slave-hunters by the Arab traders.
See Sir Samuel Baker, The Albert N'yanza (London, 1866); Friedrich Muller, Die Sprache der Bari (Vienna, 1864); G. Casati, Ten Years in Equatoria (London, 1891); W. Junker, Travels in Africa (English ed., 1890-1892); R. C. Owen, Bari Grammar (1908).
BARI (anc. Barium), a seaport and archiepiscopal see of Apulia, Italy, capital of the province of Bari, situated on a small peninsula projecting into the Adriatic, 69 m. N.W. of Brindisi by rail. Pop. (1901) 77,478. The town consists of two parts, the closely built old town on the peninsula to the N., and the new town to the S., which is laid out on a rectangular plan. The former contains the cathedral of S. Sabino, begun in 1035 but not completed till 1171: the exterior preserves in the main the fine original architecture (notably the dome and campanile), but the interior has been modernized. Not far off is the church of S. Nicola, founded in 1087 to receive the relics of this saint, which were brought from Myra in Lycia, and now lie beneath the altar in the crypt. The facade is fine, and the interior, divided into three naves by columns, with galleries over the aisles, has fortunately not been restored; the vaulting of the crypt has, however, been covered with modern stucco. The church is one of the four Palatine churches of Apulia (the others being the cathedrals of Acquaviva and Altamura, and the church of Monte S. Angelo sul Gargano). Adjacent is the small church of S. Gregorio, belonging also to the 11th century. The castle, built in 1169, and strengthened in 1233, lies on the W. side of the old town: it is now used as a prison. The old harbour lies on the E. side of the peninsula, and the new on the W. In the new town is the Ateneo, containing the provincial museum, with a large collection of vases found in the district, in which the pre-Hellenic specimens are especially important (M. Mayer in Roemische Mitteilungen, 1897, 201; 1899, 13; 1904, 188, 276). Bari is the seat of the command of the IX. army corps, and the most important commercial town in Apulia. It manufactures olive oil, soap, carbon sulphide and playing-cards, and has a large iron foundry.
Barium does not seem to have been a place of great importance in early antiquity; only bronze coins struck by it have been found. In Roman times it was the point of junction between the coast road and the Via Traiana; there was also a branch road to Tarentum from Barium. Its harbour, mentioned as early as 181 B.C., was probably the principal one of the district in ancient times, as at present, and was the centre of a fishery. But its greatest importance dates from the time when it became, in 852, a seat of the Saracen power, and in 885, the residence of the Byzantine governor. In 1071 it was captured by Robert Guiscard. In 1095 Peter the Hermit preached the first crusade there. In 1156 it was razed to the ground, and has several times suffered destruction. In the 14th century it became an [v.03 p.0401] independent duchy, and in 1558 was left by Bona Sforza to Philip II. of Spain and Naples.
(T. AS.)
BARILI, a town of the province of Cebu, island of Cebu, Philippine Islands, on the Barili river, 2 m. from its mouth and about 35 m. S.W. of Cebu, the capital. Pop. (1903) 31,617. It has a relatively cool and healthful climate. Its people are agriculturists and raise Indian corn, sibucao, hemp, cacao and coffee. The language is Cebu-Visayan.
BARING, the name of a family of English financiers and bankers. The firm of Baring Brothers was founded by FRANCIS BARING (1740-1810), whose father, John Baring, son of a Lutheran minister at Bremen, had come to England from Germany, and started a cloth manufactory at Larkbear, near Exeter. Francis Baring was born at Larkbear, and in due course was placed in a London commercial firm. In 1770, in conjunction with his brother John, Francis Baring established a banking-house in London, and before he died in 1810 had so developed the business that he was regarded as the first merchant in Europe. He was for many years a director of the East India Company, and chairman in 1792-1793, receiving a baronetcy for his services. From 1784-1806 he sat almost continuously in parliament as a Whig. He left five sons, of whom the eldest, SIR THOMAS BARING (1772-1848), was a well-known art-patron and collector. The control of the business passed to his second son, ALEXANDER (1774-1848), better known as LORD ASHBURTON, who had already been highly successful in extending the firm's operations in America, where his marriage with the daughter of William Bingham, a wealthy resident of Philadelphia and United States senator, secured him considerable influence with the American commercial community. From 1806-1835 he represented various constituencies in parliament where he strongly opposed reform. In 1834 he became president of the Board of Trade and master of the mint in Sir Robert Peel's first administration, and the following year was raised to the peerage as Baron Ashburton. His business capacity and intimate acquaintance with American customs and institutions caused his appointment in 1842 as commissioner to the United States to negotiate the settlement of the north-eastern boundary question and other matters in dispute between the two countries, and he concluded in that year at Washington the treaty, commonly known as the Ashburton treaty, by which the frontier between Maine and Canada was fixed. After his death in 1848 the affairs of the house were managed by THOMAS BARING (1799-1873), the son of Sir Thomas Baring. Thomas Baring represented Huntingdon in parliament from 1844 till his death. His elder brother, Sir FRANCIS THORNHILL BARING (1796-1866), sat for Portsmouth from 1826-1865. From 1839-1841 he was chancellor of the exchequer, and from 1849-1852 first lord of the admiralty. In 1866 he was created BARON NORTHBROOK, the barony being converted in 1876 into an earldom in favour of his eldest son Thomas George Baring (1826-1904). The latter, the 1st EARL OF NORTHBROOK, was occupied almost entirely with public affairs, and filled at different times many important official positions. He is best remembered as viceroy of India, which office he held from 1872-1876, but his last public position was first lord of the admiralty (1880-1885). With the death of Thomas Baring, Edward Charles Baring (1828-1897), son of Henry Baring, M.P., and grandson of Sir Francis Baring, became head of the firm of Baring Brothers, and in 1885 was raised to the peerage as BARON REVELSTOKE. The house of Baring then stood at the height of its prosperity. During the following years a large amount of English capital was advanced to the Argentine Republic, Barings undertaking the loans and guaranteeing the interest. Through the continued default of the Argentine government, Barings became seriously involved, their heavy obligations precipitating a general financial crisis. Towards the end of 1890 it became known that the firm was on the eve of suspending payment, with liabilities amounting to L21,000,000. The prompt action of the Bank of England, which in conjunction with the leading joint-stock banks of the United Kingdom took over these liabilities, averted further disaster, and the firm of Baring Brothers was subsequently reorganized as a limited company with a capital of L1,000,000. Besides those already referred to, various other members of the Baring family have achieved public distinction, notably Charles Baring (1807-1879), bishop of Durham, and Evelyn Baring, 1st Earl of Cromer (q.v.). |
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