Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Bréquigny, Louis Georges Oudard Feudrix de" to "Bulgaria" Volume 4, Part 3 (part 3 of 4)
BRÖNDSTED, PETER OLUF (1780-1842), Danish archaeologist and traveller, was born at Fruering in Jutland on the 17th of November 1780. After studying at the university of Copenhagen he visited Paris in 1806 with his friend Georg Koes. After remaining there two years, they went together to Italy. Both were zealously attached to the study of antiquities; and congeniality of tastes and pursuits induced them, in 1810, to join an expedition to Greece, where they excavated the temples of Zeus in Aegina and of Apollo at Bassae in Arcadia. After three years of active researches in Greece, Bröndsted returned to Copenhagen, where, as a reward for his labours, he was appointed professor of Greek in the university. He then began to arrange and prepare for publication the vast materials he had collected during his travels; but finding that Copenhagen did not afford him the desired facilities, he exchanged his professorship for the office of Danish envoy at the papal court in 1818, and took up his abode at Rome. In 1820 and 1821 he visited Sicily and the Ionian Isles to collect additional materials for his great work. In 1826 he went to London, chiefly with a view of studying the Elgin marbles and other remains of antiquity in the British Museum, and became acquainted with the principal archaeologists of England. From 1828-1832 he resided in Paris, to superintend the publication of his Travels, and then returned to Copenhagen on being appointed director of the museum of antiquities and the collection of coins and medals. In 1842 he became rector of the university; but a fall from his horse caused his death on the 26th of June. His principal work was the Travels and Archaeological Researches in Greece (in German and French, 1826-1830), of which only two volumes were published, dealing with the island of Ceos and the metopes of the Parthenon.
BRONGNIART, ADOLPHE THÉODORE (1801-1876), French botanist, son of the geologist Alexandre Brongniart, was born in Paris on the 14th of January 1801. He soon showed an inclination towards the study of natural science, devoting himself at first more particularly to geology, and later to botany, thus equipping himself for what was to be the main occupation of his life--the investigation of fossil plants. In 1826 he graduated as doctor of medicine with a dissertation on the Rhamnaceae; but the career which he adopted was botanical, not medical. In 1831 he became assistant to R.L. Desfontaines at the Musée d'Histoire Naturelle, and two years later succeeded him as professor, a position which he continued to hold until his death in Paris on the 18th of February 1876.
Brongniart was an indefatigable investigator and a prolific writer, so that he left behind him, as the fruit of his labours, a large number of books and memoirs. As early as 1822 he published a paper on the classification and distribution of fossil plants (Mém. Mus. Hist. Nat. viii.). This was followed by several papers chiefly bearing upon the relation between extinct and existing forms--a line of research which culminated in the publication of the Histoire des végétaux fossiles, which has earned for him the title of "father of palaeobotany." This great work was heralded by a small but most important "Prodrome" (contributed to the Grand Dictionnaire d'Hist. Nat., 1828, t. lvii.) which brought order into chaos by a classification in which the fossil plants were arranged, with remarkably correct insight, along with their nearest living allies, and which forms the basis of all subsequent progress in this direction. It is of especial botanical interest, because, in accordance with Robert Brown's discoveries, the Cycadeae and Coniferae were placed in the new group Phanérogames gymnospermes. In this book attention was also directed to the succession of forms in the various geological periods, with the important result (stated in modern terms) that in the Palaeozoic period the Pteridophyta are found to predominate; in the Mesozoic, the Gymnosperms; in the Cainozoic, the Angiosperms, a result subsequently more fully stated in his "Tableau des genres de végétaux fossiles" (D'Orbigny, Dict. Univ. d'Hist. Nat., 1849). But the great Histoire itself was not destined to be more than a colossal fragment; the publication of successive parts proceeded regularly from 1828 to 1837, when the first volume was completed, but after that only three parts of the second volume appeared. Brongniart, no doubt, was overwhelmed with the continually increasing magnitude of the task that he had undertaken. Apart from his more comprehensive works, his most important palaeontological contributions are perhaps his observations on the structure of Sigillaria (Arch. Mus. Hist. Nat. i., 1839) and his researches (almost the last he undertook) on fossil seeds, of which a full account was published posthumously in 1880. His activity was by no means confined to palaeobotany, but extended into all branches of botany, more particularly anatomy and phanerogamic taxonomy. Among his achievements in these directions the most notable is the memoir "Sur la génération et le développement de l'embryon des Phanérogames" (Ann. Sci. Nat. xii., 1827). This is remarkable in that it contains the [v.04 p.0637] first account of any value of the development of the pollen; as also a description of the structure of the pollen-grain, the confirmation of G. B. Amici's (1823) discovery of the pollen-tube, the confirmation of R. Brown's views as to the structure of the unimpregnated ovule (with the introduction of the term "sac embryonnaire"); and in that it shows how nearly Brongniart anticipated Amici's subsequent (1846) discovery of the entrance of the pollen-tube into the micropyle, fertilizing the female cell which then develops into the embryo. Of his anatomical works, those of the greatest value are probably the "Recherches sur la structure et les fonctions des feuilles" (Ann. Sci. Nat. xxi., 1830), and the "Nouvelles Recherches sur l'Épiderme" (Ann. Sci. Nat. i., 1834), in which, among other important observations, the discovery of the cuticle is recorded; and, further, the "Recherches sur l'organisation des tiges des Cycadées" (Ann. Sci. Nat. xvi., 1829), giving the results of the first investigation of the anatomy of those plants. His systematic work is represented by a large number of papers and monographs, many of which relate to the flora of New Caledonia; and by his Énumération des genres de plantes cultivées au Musée d'Histoire Naturelle de Paris (1843), which is an interesting landmark in the history of classification in that it forms the starting-point of the system, modified successively by A. Braun, A.W. Eichler and A. Engler, which is now adopted in Germany. In addition to his scientific and professorial labours, Brongniart held various important official posts in connexion with the department of education, and interested himself greatly in agricultural and horticultural matters. With J.V. Audouin and J.B.A. Dumas, his future brothers-in-law, he established the Annales des Sciences Naturelles in 1824; he also founded the Société Botanique de France in 1854, and was its first president.
For accounts of his life and work see Bull. de la Soc. Géol. de France, 1876, and La Nature, 1876; the Bulletin de la Soc. Bot. de France for 1876, vol. xxiii., contains a list of his works and the orations pronounced at his funeral.
(S. H. V.*)
BRONGNIART, ALEXANDRE (1770-1847), French mineralogist and geologist, son of the eminent architect who designed the Bourse and other public buildings of Paris, was born in that city on the 5th of February 1770. At an early age he studied chemistry, under Lavoisier, and after passing through the École des Mines he took honours at the École de Médecine; subsequently he joined the army of the Pyrenees as pharmacien; but having committed some slight political offence, he was thrown into prison and detained there for some time. Soon after his release he was appointed professor of natural history in the Collège des Quatre Nations. In 1800 he was made director of the Sèvres porcelain factory, a post which he retained to his death, and in which he achieved his greatest work. In his hands Sèvres became the leading porcelain factory in Europe, and the researches of an able band of assistants enabled him to lay the foundations of ceramic chemistry. In addition to his work at Sèvres, quite enough to engross the entire energy of any ordinary man, he continued his more purely scientific work. He succeeded Haüy as professor of mineralogy in the Museum of Natural History; but he did not confine himself to mineralogy, for it is to him that we owe the division of Reptiles into the four orders of Saurians, Batrachians, Chelonians and Ophidians. Fossil as well as living animals engaged his attention, and in his studies of the strata around Paris he was instrumental in establishing the Tertiary formations. In 1816 he was elected to the Academy; and in the following year he visited the Alps of Switzerland and Italy, and afterwards Sweden and Norway. The result of his observations was published from time to time in the Journal des Mines and other scientific journals. Wide as was the range of his interests his most famous work was accomplished at Sèvres, and his most enduring monument is his classic Traité des arts céramiques (1844). He died in Paris on the 7th of October 1847.
His other principal works are :--Traité élémentaire de minéralogie, avec des applications aux arts (2 vols., Paris, 1807); Histoire naturelle des crustacés fossiles (Paris, 1822); Classification et caractères minéralogiques des roches homogènes et hétérogènes (Paris, 1827); the Tableau des terrains qui composent l'écorce du globe, ou Essai sur la structure de la partie connue de la terre (Paris, 1829); and the Traité des arts céramiques (1844). Brongniart was also the coadjutor of Cuvier in the admirable Essai sur la géographie minéralogique des environs de Paris (Paris, 1811); originally published in Ann. Mus. Hist. Nat. (Paris, xi. 1808).
BRONN, HEINRICH GEORG (1800-1862), German geologist, was born on the 3rd of March 1800 at Ziegelhausen near Heidelberg. Studying at the university at Heidelberg he took his doctor's degree in the faculty of medicine in 1821, and in the following year was appointed professor of natural history. He now devoted himself to palaeontological studies, and to fieldwork in various parts of Germany, Italy and France. From its commencement in 1830 to 1862 he assisted in editing the Jahrbuch für Mineralogie, &c., continued as Neues Jahrbuch. His principal work, Lethaea Geognostica (2 vols., Stuttgart, 1834-1838; 3rd ed. with F. Römer, 3 vols., 1851-1856), has been regarded as one of the foundations of German stratigraphical geology. His Handbuch einer Geschichte der Natur, of which the first part was issued in 1841, gave a general account of the physical history of the earth, while the second part dealt with the life-history, species being regarded as direct acts of creation. The third part included his famous Index Palaeontologicus, and was issued in 3 vols., 1848-1849, with the assistance of H. von Meyer and H. R. Göppert. This record of fossils has proved of inestimable value to all palaeontologists. An important work on recent and fossil zoology, Die Klassen und Ordnungen des Thier-Reichs, was commenced by Bronn. He wrote the volumes dealing with Amorphozoa, Actinozoa, and Malacozoa, published 1859-1862; the work was continued by other naturalists. In 1861 Bronn was awarded the Wollaston medal by the Geological Society of London. He died at Heidelberg on the 5th of July 1862.
BRONSART VON SCHELLENDORF, PAUL (1832-1891), Prussian general, was born at Danzig in 1832. He entered the Prussian Guards in 1849, and was appointed to the general staff in 1861 as a captain; after three years of staff service he returned to regimental duty, but was soon reappointed to the staff, and lectured at the war academy, becoming major in 1865 and lieut.-colonel in 1869. During the war of 1870 he was chief of a section on the Great General Staff, and conducted the preliminary negotiations for the surrender of the French at Sedan. After the war Bronsart was made a colonel and chief of staff of the Guard army corps, becoming major-general in 1876 and lieut.-general (with a division command) in 1881. Two years later he became war minister, and during his tenure of the post (1883-1889) many important reforms were carried out in the Prussian army, in particular the introduction of the magazine rifle. He was appointed in 1889 to command the I. army corps at Königsberg. He died on the 23rd of June 1891 at his estate near Braunsberg. Bronsart's military writings include two works of great importance--Ein Rückblick auf die taktischen Ruckblicke (2nd ed., Berlin, 1870), a pamphlet written in reply to Captain May's Tactical Retrospect of 1866; and Der Dienst des Generalstabes (1st ed., Berlin, 1876; 3rd ed. revised by General Meckel, 1893; new ed. by the author's son, Major Bronsart von Schellendorf, Berlin, 1904), a comprehensive treatise on the duties of the general staff. The third edition of this work was soon after its publication translated into English and issued officially to the British army as The Duties of the General Staff. Major Bronsart's new edition of 1904 was reissued in English by the General Staff, under the same title, in 1905.
BRONTË, CHARLOTTE (1816-1855), EMILY (1818-1848), and ANNE (1820-1849), English novelists, were three of the six children of Patrick Brontë, a clergyman of the Church of England, who for the last forty-one years of his life was perpetual incumbent of the parish of Haworth in the West Riding of Yorkshire. Patrick Brontë was born at Emsdale, Co. Down, Ireland, on the 17th of March 1777. His parents were of the peasant class, their original name of Brunty apparently having been changed by their son on his entry at St John's College, Cambridge, in 1802. In the intervening years he had been successively a weaver and schoolmaster in his native country. From Cambridge [v.04 p.0638] he became a curate, first at Wethersfield in Essex, in 1806, then for a few months at Wellington, Salop, in 1809. At the end of 1809 he accepted a curacy at Dewsbury, Yorkshire, following up this by one at Hartshead-cum-Clifton in the same county. At Hartshead Patrick Brontë married in 1812 Maria Branwell, a Cornishwoman, and there two children were born to him, Maria (1813-1825) and Elizabeth (1814-1825). Thence Patrick Brontë removed to Thornton, some 3 m. from Bradford, and here his wife gave birth to four children, Charlotte, Patrick Branwell (1817-1848), Emily Jane, and Anne, three of whom were to attain literary distinction.
In April 1820, three months after the birth of Anne Brontë, her father accepted the living of Haworth, a village near Keighley in Yorkshire, which will always be associated with the romantic story of the Brontës. In September of the following year his wife died. Maria Brontë lives for us in her daughter's biography only as the writer of certain letters to her "dear saucy Pat," as she calls her lover, and as the author of a recently published manuscript, an essay entitled The Advantages of Poverty in Religious Concerns, full of a sententiousness much affected at the time.
Upon the death of Mrs Brontë her husband invited his sister-in-law, Elizabeth Branwell, to leave Penzance and to take up her residence with his family at Haworth. Miss Branwell accepted the trust and would seem to have watched over her nephew and five nieces with conscientious care. The two eldest of those nieces were not long in following their mother. Maria and Elizabeth, Charlotte and Emily, were all sent to the Clergy Daughters' school at Cowan Bridge in 1824, and Maria and Elizabeth returned home in the following year to die. How far the bad food and drastic discipline were responsible cannot be accurately demonstrated. Charlotte gibbeted the school long years afterwards in Jane Eyre, under the thin disguise of "Lowood," and the principal, the Rev. William Carus Wilson (1792-1859), has been universally accepted as the counterpart of Mr Naomi Brocklehurst in the same novel. But congenital disease more probably accounts for the tragedy from which happily Charlotte and Emily escaped, both returning in 1825 to a prolonged home life at Haworth. Here the four surviving children amused themselves in intervals of study under their aunt's guidance with precocious literary aspirations. The many tiny booklets upon which they laboured in the succeeding years have been happily preserved. We find stories, verses and essays, all in the minutest handwriting, none giving any indication of the genius which in the case of two of the four children was to add to the indisputably permanent in literature.
At sixteen years of age--in 1831--Charlotte Brontë became a pupil at the school of Miss Margaret Wooler (1792-1885) at Roe Head, Dewsbury. She left in the following year to assist in the education of the younger sisters, bringing with her much additional proficiency in drawing, French and composition; she took with her also the devoted friendship of two out of her ten fellow-pupils--Mary Taylor (1817-1893) and Ellen Nussey (1817-1897). With Miss Taylor and Miss Nussey she corresponded for the remainder of her life, and her letters to the latter make up no small part of what has been revealed to us of her life story. Her next three years at Haworth were varied by occasional visits to one or other of these friends. In 1835 she returned to Miss Wooler's school at Roe Head as a governess, her sister Emily accompanying her as a pupil, but remaining only three months, and Anne then taking her place. The year following the school was removed to Dewsbury. In 1838 Charlotte went back to Haworth and soon afterwards received her first offer of marriage--from a clergyman, Henry Nussey, the brother of her friend Ellen. This was followed a little later by a second offer from a curate named Bryce. She refused both and took a situation as nursery governess, first with the Sidgwicks of Stonegappe, Yorkshire, and later with the Whites at Rawdon in the same county. A few months of this, however, filled her with an ambition to try and secure greater independence as the possessor of a school of her own, and she planned to acquire more proficiency in "languages" on the continent, as a preliminary step. The aunt advanced some money, and accompanied by her sister Emily she became in February 1842 a pupil at the Pensionnat Héger, Brussels. Here both girls worked hard, and won the goodwill and indeed admiration of the principal teacher, M. Héger, whose wife was at the head of the establishment. But the two girls were hastily called back to England before the year had expired by the announcement of the critical illness of their aunt. Miss Branwell died on the 29th of October 1842. She bequeathed sufficient money to her nieces to enable them to reconsider their plan of life. Instead of a school at Bridlington which had been talked of, they could now remain with their father, utilize their aunt's room as a classroom, and take pupils. But Charlotte was not yet satisfied with what the few months on Belgian soil had done for her, and determined to accept M. Héger's offer that she should return to Brussels as a governess. Hence the year 1843 was passed by her at the Pensionnat Héger in that capacity, and in this period she undoubtedly widened her intellectual sphere by reading the many books in French literature that her friend M. Héger lent her. But life took on a very sombre shade in the lonely environment in which she found herself. She became so depressed that on one occasion she took refuge in the confessional precisely as did her heroine Lucy Snowe in Villette. In 1844 she returned to her father's house at Haworth, and the three sisters began immediately to discuss the possibilities of converting the vicarage into a school. Prospectuses were issued, but no pupils were forthcoming.
Matters were complicated by the fact that the only brother, Patrick Branwell, had about this time become a confirmed drunkard. Branwell had been the idol of his aunt and of his sisters. Educated under his father's care, he had early shown artistic leanings, and the slender resources of the family had been strained to provide him with the means of entering at the Royal Academy as a pupil. This was in 1835. Branwell, it would seem, indulged in a glorious month of extravagance in London and then returned home. His art studies were continued for a time at Leeds, but it may be assumed that no commissions came to him, and at last he became tutor to the son of a Mr Postlethwaite at Barrow-in-Furness. Ten months later he was a booking-clerk at Sowerby Bridge station on the Leeds & Manchester railway, and later at Luddenden Foot. Then he became tutor in the family of a clergyman named Robinson at Thorp Green, where his sister Anne was governess. Finally he returned to Haworth to loaf at the village inn, shock his sisters by his excesses, and to fritter his life away in painful sottishness. He died in September 1848, having achieved nothing reputable, and having disappointed all the hopes that had been centred in him. "My poor father naturally thought more of his only son than of his daughters," is one of Charlotte's dreary comments on the tragedy. In early years he had himself written both prose and verse; and a foolish story invented long afterwards attributed to him some share in his sisters' novels, particularly in Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights. But Charlotte distinctly tells us that her brother never knew that his sisters had published a line. He was too much under the effects of drink, too besotted and muddled in that last year or two of life, to have any share in their intellectual enthusiasms.
The literary life had, however, opened bravely for the three girls during those years. In 1846 a volume of verse appeared from the shop of Aylott & Jones of Paternoster Row; "Poems, by Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell," was on the title-page. These names disguised the identity of Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë. The venture cost the sisters about £50 in all, but only two copies were sold. There were nineteen poems by Charlotte, twenty-one by Emily, and the same number by Anne. A consensus of criticism has accepted the fact that Emily's verse alone revealed true poetic genius. This was unrecognized then except by her sister Charlotte. It is obvious now to all.
The failure of the poems did not deter the authors from further effort. They had each a novel to dispose of. Charlotte Brontë's was called The Master, which before it was sent off to London was retitled The Professor. Emily's story was entitled [v.04 p.0639] Wuthering Heights, and Anne's Agnes Gray. All these stories travelled from publisher to publisher. At last The Professor reached the firm of Smith, Elder & Co., of Cornhill. The "reader" for that firm, R. Smith Williams (1800-1875), was impressed, as were also his employers. Charlotte Brontë received in August 1847 a letter informing her that whatever the merits of The Professor--and it was hinted that it lacked "varied interest"--it was too short for the three-volume form then counted imperative. The author was further told that a longer novel would be gladly considered. She replied in the same month with this longer novel, and Jane Eyre appeared in October 1847, to be wildly acclaimed on every hand, although enthusiasm was to receive a counterblast when more than a year later, in December 1848, Miss Rigby, afterwards Lady Eastlake (1809-1893), reviewed it in the Quarterly.
Meanwhile the novels of Emily and Anne had been accepted by T. C. Newby. They were published together in three volumes in December 1847, two months later than Jane Eyre, although the proof sheets had been passed by the authors before their sister's novel had been sent to the publishers. The dilatoriness of Mr Newby was followed up by considerable energy when he saw the possibility of the novels by Ellis and Acton Bell sailing on the wave of Currer Bell's popularity, and he would seem very quickly to have accepted another manuscript by Anne Brontë, for The Tenant of Wildfell Hall was published by Newby in three volumes in June 1848. It was Newby's clever efforts to persuade the public that the books he published were by the author of Jane Eyre that led Charlotte and Anne to visit London this summer and interview Charlotte's publishers in Cornhill with a view to establishing their separate identity. Soon after their return home Branwell died (the 24th of September 1848), and less than three months later Emily died also at Haworth (the 19th December 1848). Then Anne became ill and on the 24th of May 1849 Charlotte accompanied her to Scarborough in the hope that the sea air would revive her. Anne died there on the 28th of May, and was buried in Scarborough churchyard. Thus in exactly eight months Charlotte Brontë lost all the three companions of her youth, and returned to sustain her father, fast becoming blind, in the now desolate home at Haworth.
In the interval between the death of Branwell and of Emily, Charlotte had been engaged upon a new novel--Shirley. Two-thirds were written, but the story was then laid aside while its author was nursing her sister Anne. She completed the book after Anne's death, and it was published in October 1849. The following winter she visited London as the guest of her publisher, Mr George Smith, and was introduced to Thackerary, to whom she had dedicated Jane Eyre. The following year she repeated the visit, sat for her portrait to George Richmond, and was considerably lionized by a host of admirers. In August 1850 she visited the English lakes as the guest of Sir James Kay-Shuttleworth, and met Mrs Gaskell, Miss Martineau, Matthew Arnold and other interesting men and women. During this period her publishers assiduously lent her books, and her criticisms of them contained in many letters to Mr George Smith and Mr Smith Williams make very interesting reading. In 1851 she received a third offer of marriage, this time from Mr James Taylor, who was in the employment of her publishers. A visit to Miss Martineau at Ambleside and also to London to the Great Exhibition made up the events of this year. On her way home she visited Manchester and spent two days with Mrs Gaskell. During the year 1852 she worked hard with a new novel, Villette, which was published in January of 1853. In September of that year she received a visit from Mrs Gaskell at Haworth; in May 1854 she returned it, remaining three days at Manchester, and planning with her hostess the details of her marriage, for at this time she had promised to unite herself with her father's curate, Arthur Bell Nicholls (1817-1906), who had long been a pertinacious suitor for her hand but had been discouraged by Mr Brontë. The marriage took place in Haworth church on the 29th of June 1854, the ceremony being performed by the Rev. Sutcliffe Sowden, Miss Wooler and Miss Nussey acting as witnesses. The wedded pair spent their honeymoon in Ireland, returning to Haworth, where they made their home with Mr Brontë, Mr Nicholls having pledged himself to continue in his position as curate to his father-in-law. After less than a year of married life, however, Charlotte Nicholls died of an illness incidental to childbirth, on the 31st of March 1855. She was buried in Haworth church by the side of her mother, Branwell and Emily. The father followed in 1861, and then her husband returned to Ireland, where he remained some years afterwards, dying in 1906.
The bare recital of the Brontë story can give no idea of its undying interest, its exceeding pathos. Their life as told by their biographer Mrs Gaskell is as interesting as any novel. Their achievement, however, will stand on its own merits. Anne Brontë's two novels, it is true, though constantly reprinted, survive principally through the exceeding vitality of the Brontë tradition. As a hymn writer she still has a place in most religious communities. Emily is great alike as a novelist and as a poet. Her "Old Stoic" and "Last Lines" are probably the finest achievement of poetry that any woman has given to English literature. Her novel Wuthering Heights stands alone as a monument of intensity owing nothing to tradition, nothing to the achievement of earlier writers. It was a thing apart, passionate, unforgettable, haunting in its grimness, its grey melancholy. Among women writers Emily Brontë has a sure and certain place for all time. As a poet or maker of verse Charlotte Brontë is undistinguished, but there are passages of pure poetry of great magnificence in her four novels, and particularly in Villette. The novels Jane Eyre and Villette will always command attention whatever the future of English fiction, by virtue of their intensity, their independence, their rough individuality.
The Life of Charlotte Brontë, by Mrs Gaskell, was first published in 1857. Owing to the many controversial questions it aroused, as to the identity of Lowood in Jane Eyre with Cowan Bridge school, as to the relations of Branwell Brontë with his employer's wife, as to the supposed peculiarities of Mr Brontë, and certain other minor points, the third edition was considerably changed. The Life has been many times reprinted, but may be read in its most satisfactory form in the Haworth edition (1902), issued by the original publishers, Smith, Elder & Co. To this edition are attached a great number of letters written by Miss Brontë to her publisher, George Smith. The first new material supplied to supplement Mrs Gaskell's Life was contained in Charlotte Brontë: a Monograph, by T. Wemyss Reid (1877). This book inspired Mr A.C. Swinburne to issue separately a forcible essay on Charlotte and Emily Brontë, under the title of A Note on Charlotte Brontë (1877). A further collection of letters written by Miss Brontë was contained in Charlotte Brontë and her Circle, by Clement Shorter (1896), and interesting details can be gathered from the Life of Charlotte Brontë, by Augustine Birrell (1887), The Brontës in Ireland, by William Wright, D.D. (1893), Charlotte Brontë and her Sisters, by Clement Shorter (1906), and the Brontë Society publications, edited by Butler Wood (1895-1907). Miss A. Mary F. Robinson (Madame Duclaux) wrote a separate biography of Emily Brontë in 1883, and an essay in her Grands Écrivains d'outre-Manche. The Brontës: Life and Letters, by Clement Shorter (1907), contains the whole of C. Brontë's letters in chronological order.
(C. K. S.)
BRONTE, a town of the province of Catania, Sicily, on the western slopes of Mt. Etna, 24 m. N.N.W. of Catania direct, and 34 m. by rail. Pop. (1901) 20,366. It was founded by the emperor Charles V. The town, with an extensive estate which originally belonged to the monastery of Maniacium (Maniace), was granted, as a dukedom, to Nelson by Ferdinand IV. of Naples in 1799.
BRONX, THE, formerly a district comprising several towns in Westchester county, New York, U.S.A., now (since 1898) the northernmost of the five boroughs of New York City (q.v.). Several settlements in the Bronx were made by the English and the Dutch between 1640 and 1650.
BRONZE, an alloy formed wholly or chiefly of copper and tin in variable proportions. The word has been etymologically connected with the same root as appears in "brown," but according to M.P.E. Berthelot (La Chimie au moyen âge) it is a place-name derived from aes Brundusianum (cf. Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxxiii. ch. ix. §45, "specula optima apud majores fuerunt Brundusiana, stanno et aere mixtis"). A Greek MS. of about the 11th century in the library of St Mark's, Venice, contains [v.04 p.0640] the form [Greek: brontêsion], and gives the composition of the alloy as 1 lb of copper with 2 oz. of tin. The product obtained by adding tin to copper is more fusible than copper and thus better suited for casting; it is also harder and less malleable. A soft bronze or gun-metal is formed with 16 parts of copper to 1 of tin, and a harder gun-metal, such as was used for bronze ordnance, when the proportion of tin is about doubled. The steel bronze of Colonel Franz Uchatius (1811-1881) consisted of copper alloyed with 8% of tin, the tenacity and hardness being increased by cold-rolling. Bronze containing about 7 parts of copper to 1 of tin is hard, brittle and sonorous, and can be tempered to take a fine edge. Bell-metal varies considerably in composition, from about 3 to 5 parts of copper to 1 of tin. In speculum metal there are 2 to 2½ parts of copper to 1 of tin. Statuary bronze may contain from 80 to 90% of copper, the residue being tin, or tin with zinc and lead in various proportions. The bronze used for the British and French copper coinage consists of 95% copper, 4% tin and 1% zinc. Many copper-tin alloys employed for machinery-bearings contain a small proportion of zinc, which gives increased hardness. "Anti-friction metals," also used in bearings, are copper-tin alloys in which the amount of copper is small and there is antimony in addition. Of this class an example is "Babbitt's metal," invented by Isaac Babbitt (1799-1862); it originally consisted of 24 parts of tin, 8 parts of antimony and 4 parts of copper, but in later compositions for the same purpose the proportion of tin is often considerably higher. Bronze is improved in quality and strength when fluxed with phosphorus. Alloys prepared in this way, and known as phosphor bronze, may contain only about 1% of phosphorus in the ingot, reduced to a mere trace after casting, but their value is nevertheless enhanced for purposes in which a hard strong metal is required, as for pump plungers, valves, the bushes of bearings, &c. Bronze again is improved by the presence of manganese in small quantity, and various grades of manganese bronze, in some of which there is little or no tin but a considerable percentage of zinc, are extensively used in mechanical engineering. Alloys of copper with aluminium, though often nearly or completely destitute of tin, are known as aluminium bronze, and are valuable for their strength and the resistance they offer to corrosion. By the addition of a small quantity of silicon the tensile strength of copper is much increased; a sample of such silicon bronze, used for telegraph wires, on analysis was found to consist of 99.94% of copper, 0.03% of tin, and traces of iron and silicon.
The bronze (Gr. [Greek: chalkos], Lat. aes) of classical antiquity consisted chiefly of copper, alloyed with one or more of the metals, zinc, tin, lead and silver, in proportions that varied as times changed, or according to the purposes for which the alloy was required. Among bronze remains the copper is found to vary from 67 to 95%. From the analysis of coins it appears that for their bronze coins the Greeks adhered to an alloy of copper and tin till 400 B.C., after which time they used also lead with increasing frequency. Silver is rare in their bronze coins. The Romans also used lead as an alloy in their bronze coins, but gradually reduced the quantity, and under Caligula, Nero, Vespasian and Domitian, coined pure copper coins; afterwards they reverted to the mixture of lead. So far the words [Greek: chalkos] and aes may be translated as bronze. Originally, no doubt, [Greek: chalkos] was the name for pure copper. It is so employed by Homer, who calls it [Greek: eruthros] (red), [Greek: aithups] (glittering), [Greek: phaennos] (shining), terms which apply only to copper. But instead of its following from this that the process of alloying copper with other metals was not practised in the time of the poet, or was unknown to him, the contrary would seem to be the case from the passage (Iliad xviii. 474) where he describes Hephaestus as throwing into his furnace copper, tin, silver and gold to make the shield of Achilles, so that it is not always possible to know whether when he uses the word [Greek: chalkos] he means copper pure or alloyed. Still more difficult is it to make this distinction when we read of the mythical Dactyls of Ida in Crete or the Telchines or Cyclopes being acquainted with the smelting of [Greek: chalkos]. It is not, however, likely that later Greek writers, who knew bronze in its true sense, and called it [Greek: chalkos], would have employed this word without qualification for objects which they had seen unless they had meant it to be taken as bronze. When Pausanias (iii. 17. 6) speaks of a statue, one of the oldest figures he had seen of this material, made of separate pieces fastened together with nails, we understand him to mean literally bronze, the more readily since there exist very early figures and utensils of bronze so made.
For the use of bronze in art, see METAL-WORK.
BRONZE AGE, the name given by archaeologists to that stage in human culture, intermediate between the Stone and Iron Ages, when weapons, utensils and implements were, as a general rule, made of bronze. The term has no absolute chronological value, but marks a period of civilization through which it is believed that most races passed at one time or another. The "finds" of stone and bronze, of bronze and iron, and even of stone and iron implements together in tumuli and sepulchral mounds, suggest that in many countries the three stages in man's progress overlapped. From the similarity of types of weapons and implements of the period found throughout Europe a relatively synchronous commencement has been inferred for the Bronze Age in Europe, fixed by most authorities at between 2000 B.C. to 1800 B.C. But it must have been earlier in some countries, and is certainly known to have been later in others; while the Mexicans and Peruvians were still in their bronze age in recent times. Not a few archaeologists have denied that there ever was a distinct Bronze Age. They have found their chief argument in the fact that weapons of these ages have been found side by side in prehistoric burial-places. But when it is admitted that the ages must have overlapped, it is fairly easy to undertand the mixed "finds." The beginning, the prevalence and duration of the Bronze Age in each country would have been ordered by the accessibility of the metals which form the alloy. Thus in some lands bronze may have continued to be a substance of extreme value until the Iron Age was reached, and in tumuli in which more than one body was interred, as was frequently the case, it would only be with the remains of the richer tenants of the tomb that the more valuable objects would be placed. There is, moreover, much reason to believe that sepulchral mounds were opened from age to age and fresh interments made, and in such a practice would be found a simple explanation of the mixing of implements. Another curious fact has been seized on by those who argue against the existence of a Bronze Age. Among all the "finds" examined in Europe there is a most remarkable absence of copper implements. The sources of tin in Europe are practically restricted to Cornwall and Saxony. How then are we to explain on the one hand the apparent stride made by primitive man when from a Stone Age civilization he passed to a comparatively advanced metallurgical skill? On the other, how account for a comparatively synchronous commencement of bronze civilization when one at least of the metals needed for the alloy would have been naturally difficult of access, if not unknown to many races? The answer is that there can be but little doubt that the knowledge of bronze came to the races of Europe from outside. Either by the Phoenicians or by the Greeks metallurgy was taught to men who no sooner recognized the nature and malleable properties of copper than they learnt that by application of heat a substance could be manufactured with tin far better suited to their purposes. Copper would thus have been but seldom used unalloyed; and the relatively synchronous appearance of bronze in Europe, and the scanty "finds" of copper implements, are explained. We may conclude then that there was a Bronze Age in most countries; that it was the direct result of increasing intercommunication of races and the spread of commerce; and that the discovery of metals was due to information brought to Stone-Age man in Europe by races which were already skilful metallurgists.
The Bronze Age in Europe is characterized by weapons, utensils and implements, distinct in design and size from those in use in the preceding or succeeding stage of man's civilization. Moreover--and this has been employed as an argument in favour of the foreign origin of the knowledge of bronze--all the [v.04 p.0641] objects in one part of Europe are identical in pattern and size with those found in another part. The implements of the Bronze Age include swords, awls, knives, gouges, hammers, daggers and arrow-heads. A remarkable confirmation of the theory that the Bronze Age culture came from the East is to be found in the patterns of the arms, which are distinctly oriental; while the handles of swords and daggers are so narrow and short as to make it unlikely that they would be made for use by the large-handed races of Europe. The Bronze Age is also characterized by the fact that cremation was the mode of disposal of the dead, whereas in the Stone Age burial was the rule. Barrows and sepulchral mounds strictly of the Bronze Age are smaller and less imposing than those of the Stone Age. Besides varied and beautiful weapons, frequently exhibiting high workmanship, amulets, coronets, diadems of solid gold, and vases of elegant form and ornamentation in gold and bronze are found in the barrows. These latter appear to have been used as tribal or family cemeteries. In Denmark as many as seventy deposits of burnt bones have been found in a single mound, indicating its use through a long succession of years. The ornamentation of the period is as a rule confined to spirals, bosses and concentric circles. What is remarkable is that the swords not only show the design of the cross in the shape of the handle, but also in tracery what is believed to be an imitation of the Svastika, that ancient Aryan symbol which was probably the first to be made with a definite intention and a consecutive meaning. The pottery is all "hand-made," and the bulk of the objects excavated are cinerary urns, usually found full of burnt bones. These vary from 12 to 18 in. in height. Their decoration is confined to a band round the upper part of the pot, or often only a projecting flange lapped round the whole rim. A few have small handles, formed of pierced knobs of clay and sometimes projecting rolls of clay, looped, as it were, all round the urn. The ornamentation consists of dots, zigzags, chevrons or crosses. The lines were frequently made by pressing a twisted thong of skin against the moist clay; the patterns in all cases being stamped into the pot before it was hardened by fire.
See ARCHAEOLOGY, &c. Also Lord Avebury, Prehistoric Times (1900); Sir J. Evans, Ancient Bronze Implements of Great Britain (1881); Chartre's Age du bronze en France.
BRONZING, a process by which a bronze-like surface is imparted to objects of metal, plaster, wood, &c. On metals a green bronze colour is sometimes produced by the action of such substances as vinegar, dilute nitric acid and sal-ammoniac. An antique appearance may be given to new bronze articles by brushing over the clean bright metal with a solution of sal-ammoniac and salt of sorrel in vinegar, and rubbing the surface dry, the operation being repeated as often as necessary. Another solution for the same purpose is made with sal-ammoniac, cream of tartar, common salt and silver nitrate. With a solution of platinic chloride almost any colour can be produced on copper, iron, brass or new bronze, according to the dilution and the number of applications. Articles of plaster and wood may be bronzed by coating them with size and then covering them with a bronze powder, such as Dutch metal, beaten into fine leaves and powdered. The bronzing of gun-barrels may be effected by the use of a strong solution of antimony trichloride.
BRONZINO, IL, the name given to ANGELO ALLORI (1502-1572), the Florentine painter. He became the favourite pupil of J. da Pontormo. He painted the portraits of some of the most famous men of his day, such as Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio. Most of his best works are in Florence, but examples are in the National Gallery, London, and elsewhere.
BRONZITE, a member of the pyroxene group of minerals, belonging with enstatite and hypersthene to the orthorhombic series of the group. Rather than a distinct species, it is really a ferriferous variety of enstatite, which owing to partial alteration has acquired a bronze-like sub-metallic lustre on the cleavage surfaces. Enstatite is magnesium metasilicate, MgSiO_3, with the magnesia partly replaced by small amounts (up to about 5%) of ferrous oxide; in the bronzite variety, (Mg,Fe)SiO_3, the ferrous oxide ranges from about 5 to 14%, and with still more iron there is a passage to hypersthene. The ferriferous varieties are liable to a particular kind of alteration, known as "schillerization," which results in the separation of the iron as very fine films of oxide and hydroxides along the cleavage cracks of the mineral. The cleavage surfaces therefore exhibit a metallic sheen or "schiller," which is even more pronounced in hypersthene than in bronzite. The colour of bronzite is green or brown; its specific gravity is about 3.2-3.3, varying with the amount of iron present. Like enstatite, bronzite is a constituent of many basic igneous rocks, such as norites, gabbros, and especially peridotites, and of the serpentines which have been derived from them. It also occurs in some crystalline schists.
Bronzite is sometimes cut and polished, usually in convex forms, for small ornamental objects, but its use for this purpose is less extensive than that of hypersthene. It often has a more or less distinct fibrous structure, and when this is pronounced the sheen has a certain resemblance to that of cat's-eye. Masses sufficiently large for cutting are found in the norite of the Kupferberg in the Fichtelgebirge, and in the serpentine of Kraubat near Leoben in Styria. In this connexion mention may be made of an altered form of enstatite or bronzite known as bastite or schiller-spar. Here, in addition to schillerization, the original enstatite has been altered by hydration and the product has approximately the composition of serpentine. In colour bastite is brown or green with the same metallic sheen as bronzite. The typical locality is Baste in the Radauthal, Harz, where patches of pale greyish-green bastite are embedded in a darker-coloured serpentine. This rock when cut and polished makes an effective decorative stone, although little used for that purpose.
(L. J. S.)
BROOCH, or BROACH (from the Fr. broche, originally an awl or bodkin; a spit is sometimes called a broach, and hence the phrase "to broach a barrel"; see BROKER), a term now used to denote a clasp or fastener for the dress, provided with a pin, having a hinge or spring at one end, and a catch or loop at the other.
Brooches of the safety-pin type (fibulae) were extensively used in antiquity, but only within definite limits of time and place. They seem to have been unknown to the Egyptians, and to the oriental nations untouched by Greek influence. In lands adjacent to Greece, they do not occur in Crete or at Hissarlik. The place of origin cannot as yet be exactly determined, but it would seem to have been in central Europe, towards the close of the Bronze Age, somewhat before 1000 B.C. The earliest form is little more than a pin, bent round for security, with the point caught against the head. One such actual pin has been found. In its next simplest form, very similar to that of the modern safety-pin (in which the coiled spring forces the point against the catch), it occurs in the lower city of Mycenae, and in late deposits of the Mycenaean Age, such as at Enkomi in Cyprus. It occurs also (though rarely) in the "terramare" deposits of the Po valley, in the Swiss lake-dwellings of the later Bronze Age, in central Italy, in Hungary and in Bosnia. (fig. 1).[1]
From the comparatively simple initial form, the fibula developed in different lines of descent, into different shapes, varying according to the structural feature which was emphasized. On account of the number of local variations, the subject is extremely complex, but the main lines of development were approximately as follows.
Towards the end of the Bronze Age the safety-pin was arched into a bow, so as to include a greater amount of stuff in its compass.
In the older Iron Age or "Hallstatt period" the bow and its accessories are thickened and modified in various directions, so as to give greater rigidity, and prominences or surfaces for decoration. The chief types have been conveniently classed by [v.04 p.0642] Montelius in four main groups, according to the characteristic forms:--
I. The wire of the catch-plate is hammered into a flat disk, on which the pin rests (fig. 2)
II. The bow is thickened towards the middle, so as to assume the "leech" shape, or it is hollowed out underneath, into the "boat" form. The catch-plate is only slightly turned up, but it becomes elongated, in order to mask the end of a long pin (fig. 3).
III. The catch-plate is flattened out as in group I., but additional convolutions are added to the bow (fig. 4).
IV. The bow is convoluted (but the convolutions are sometimes represented by knobs); the catch-plate develops as in group II. (fig. 5). For further examples of the four types, see Antiquities of Early Iron Age in British Museum, p. 32.
Among the special variations of the early form, mention should be made of the fibulae of the geometric age of Greece, with an exaggerated development of the vertical portion of the catch-plate (fig. 6).
The example shown in fig. 7 is an ornate development of type II. above.
In the later Iron Age (or early La Tène period) the prolongation of the catch-plate described in the second and fourth groups above has a terminal knob ornament, which is reflexed upwards, at first slightly (fig. 8), and then to a marked extent, turning back towards the bow.
A far-reaching change in the design was at the same time brought about by a simple improvement in principle, apparently introduced within the area of the La Tène culture. Instead of a unilateral spring--that is, of one coiled on one side only of the bow as commonly in the modern safety-pin--the brooch became bilateral. The spring was coiled on one side of the axis of the bow, and thence the wire was taken to the other side of the axis, and again coiled in a corresponding manner before starting in a straight line to form the pin. Once invented, the bilateral spring became almost universal, and its introduction serves to divide the whole mass of ancient fibulae into an older and a younger group.
With the progress of the La Tène period (300-1 B.C.) the reflection of the catch-plate terminal became yet more marked, until it became practically merged in the bow (fig. 9). Meanwhile, the bilateral spring described above was developing into two marked projections on each side of the axis. In order to give the double spring strength and protection it was given a metal core, and a containing tube. When the core had been provided the pin was no longer necessarily a continuation of the bow, and it became in fact a separate member, as in a modern brooch of a non-safety-pin type, and was no longer actuated by its own spring.
The T-shaped or "cross-bow" fibula was thus developed. During the first centuries of the Empire it attained great size and importance (figs. 10-12). The form is conveniently dated at its highest development by its occurrence on the ivory diptych of Stilicho at Monza (c. A.D. 400).
In the tombs of the Frankish and kindred Teutonic tribes between the 5th and 9th centuries the crossbar of the T becomes a yet more elaborately decorated semicircle, often surrounded by radial knobs and a chased surface. The base of the shaft is flattened out, and is no less ornate (fig. 13). At the beginning of this period the fibula of King Childeric (A.D. 481) has a singularly complicated pin-fastening.
So far we have traced the history of the safety-pin form of brooch. Concurrently with it, other forms of brooch were developed in which the safety-pin principle is either absent or effectually disguised. One such form is that of the circular medallion brooch. It is found in Etruscan deposits of a fully developed style, and is commonly represented in Greek and Roman sculptures as a stud to fasten the cloak on the shoulder. In the Roman provinces the circular brooches are very numerous, and are frequently decorated with inlaid stone, paste or enamel. Another kind of brooch, also known from early times, is in the form of an animal. In the early types the animal is a decorative appendage, but in later examples it forms the body of the brooch, to which a pin like the modern brooch-pin is attached underneath. Both of these shapes, namely the medallion and the animal form, are found in Frankish cemeteries, together with the later variations of the T-shaped brooch described above. Such brooches were made in gold, silver or bronze, adorned with precious stones, filigree work, or enamel; but whatever the richness of the material, the pin was nearly always of iron. The Scandinavian or northern group of T-shaped brooches are in their early forms indistinguishable from those of the Frankish tombs, but as time went on they became more massive, and richly decorated with intricate devices (perhaps brought in by Irish missionary influence), into which animal forms were introduced. The period covered is from the 5th to the 8th centuries.
The T-form, the medallion-form, and (occasionally) the animal forms occur in Anglo-Saxon graves in England. In Kent the medallion-form predominates. The Anglo-Saxon brooches [v.04 p.0643] were exquisite works of art, ingeniously and tastefully constructed. They are often of gold, with a central boss, exquisitely decorated, the flat part of the brooch being a mosaic of turquoises, garnets on gold foil, mother of pearl, &c. arranged in geometric patterns, and the gold work enriched with filigree or decorated with dragonesque engravings.
The Scandinavian brooches of the Viking period (A.D. 800-1050) were oval and convex, somewhat in the form of a tortoise. In their earliest form they occur in the form of a frog-like animal, itself developed from the previous Teutonic T-shaped type. With the introduction of the intricate system of ornament described above, the frog-like animal is gradually superseded by purely decorative lines. The convex bowls are then worked à jour with a perforated upper shell of chased work over an under shell of impure bronze, gilt on the convex side. These outer cases are at last decorated with open crown-like ornament and massive projecting bosses. The geographical distribution of these peculiar brooches indicates the extent of the conquests of the Northmen. They occur in northern Scotland, England, Ireland, Iceland, Normandy and Livonia.
The Celtic group is characterized by the penannular form of the ring of the brooch and the greater length of the pin. The penannular ring, inserted through a hole at the head of the long pin, could be partially turned when the pin had been thrust through the material in such a way that the brooch became in effect a buckle. These brooches are usually of bronze or silver, chased or engraved with intricate designs of interlaced or dragonesque work in the style of the illuminated Celtic manuscripts of the 7th, 8th and 9th centuries. The Hunterston brooch, which was found at Hawking Craig in Ayrshire, is a well-known example of this style. Silver brooches of immense size, some having pins 15 in. in length, and the penannular ring of the brooch terminating in large knobs resembling thistle heads, are occasionally found in Viking hoards of this period, consisting of bullion, brooches and Cufic and Anglo-Saxon coins buried on Scottish soil. In medieval times the form of the brooch was usually a simple, flat circular disk, with open centre, the pin being equal in length to the diameter of the brooch. They were often inscribed with religious and talismanic formulae. The Highland brooches were commonly of this form, but the disk was broader, and the central opening smaller in proportion to the size of the brooch. They were ornamented in the style so common on Highland powder-horns, with engraved patterns of interlacing work and foliage, arranged in geometrical spaces, and sometimes mingled with figures of animals.
(A. H. SM.)
[1] The illustrations of this article are from Dr Robert Forrer's Reallexikon, by permission of W. Spemann, Berlin and Stuttgart.
BROOKE, FRANCES (1724-1789), English novelist and dramatist, whose maiden name was Moore, was born in 1724. Of her novels, some of which enjoyed considerable popularity in their day, the most important were The History of Lady Julia Mandeville (1763), Emily Montague (1769) and The Excursion (1777). Her dramatic pieces and translations from the French are now forgotten. She died in January 1789.
BROOKE, FULKE GREVILLE, 1ST BARON (1554-1628), English poet, only son of Sir Fulke Greville, was born at Beauchamp Court, Warwickshire. He was sent in 1564, on the same day as his life-long friend, Philip Sidney, to Shrewsbury school. He matriculated at Jesus College, Cambridge, in 1568. Sir Henry Sidney, president of Wales, gave him in 1576 a post connected with the court of the Marches, but he resigned it in 1577 to go to court with Philip Sidney. Young Greville became a great favourite with Queen Elizabeth, who treated him with less than her usual caprice, but he was more than once disgraced for leaving the country against her wishes. Philip Sidney, Sir Edward Dyer and Greville were members of the "Areopagus," the literary clique which, under the leadership of Gabriel Harvey, supported the introduction of classical metres into English verse. Sidney and Greville arranged to sail with Sir Francis Drake in 1585 in his expedition against the Spanish West Indies, but Elizabeth peremptorily forbade Drake to take them with him, and also refused Greville's request to be allowed to join Leicester's army in the Netherlands. Philip Sidney, who took part in the campaign, was killed on the 17th of October 1586, and Greville shared with Dyer the legacy of his books, while in his Life of the Renowned Sir Philip Sidney he raised an enduring monument to his friend's memory. About 1591 Greville served for a short time in Normandy under Henry of Navarre. This was his last experience of war. In 1583 he became secretary to the principality of Wales, and he represented Warwickshire in parliament in 1592-1593, 1597, 1601 and 1620. In 1598 he was made treasurer of the navy, and he retained the office through the early years of the reign of James I. In 1614 he became chancellor and under-treasurer of the exchequer, and throughout the reign he was a valued supporter of the king's party, although in 1615 he advocated the summoning of a parliament. In 1618 he became commissioner of the treasury, and in 1621 he was raised to the peerage with the title of Baron Brooke, a title which had belonged to the family of his paternal grandmother, Elizabeth Willoughby. He received from James I. the grant of Warwick Castle, in the restoration of which he is said to have spent £20,000. He died on the 30th of September 1628 in consequence of a wound inflicted by a servant who was disappointed at not being named in his master's will. Brooke was buried in St Mary's church, Warwick, and on his tomb was inscribed the epitaph he had composed for himself: "Folk Grevill Servant to Queene Elizabeth Conceller to King James Frend to Sir Philip Sidney. Trophaeum Peccati."
A rhyming elegy on Brooke, published in Huth's Inedited Poetical Miscellanies, brings charges of extreme penuriousness against him, but of his generous treatment of contemporary writers there is abundant testimony. His only works published during his lifetime were four poems, one of which is the elegy on Sidney which appeared in The Phoenix Nest (1593), and the Tragedy of Mustapha. A volume of his works appeared in 1633, another of Remains in 1670, and his biography of Sidney in 1652. He wrote two tragedies on the Senecan model, Alaham and Mustapha. The scene of Alaham is laid in Ormuz. The development of the piece fully bears out the gloom of the prologue, in which the ghost of a former king of Ormuz reveals the magnitude of the curse about to descend on the doomed family. The theme of Mustapha is borrowed from Madeleine de Scudéry's Ibrahim ou l'illustre Bassa, and turns on the ambition of the sultana Rossa. The choruses of these plays are really philosophical dissertations, and the connexion with the rest of the drama is often very slight. In Mustapha, for instance, the third chorus is a dialogue between Time and Eternity, while the fifth consists of an invective against the evils of superstition, followed by a chorus of priests that does nothing to dispel [v.04 p.0644] the impression of scepticism contained in the first part. He tells us himself that the tragedies were not intended for the stage. Charles Lamb says they should rather be called political treatises. Of Brooke Lamb says, "He is nine parts Machiavel and Tacitus, for one of Sophocles and Seneca.... Whether we look into his plays or his most passionate love-poems, we shall find all frozen and made rigid with intellect." He goes on to speak of the obscurity of expression that runs through all Brooke's poetry, an obscurity which is, however, due more to the intensity and subtlety of the thought than to any lack of mere verbal lucidity.
It is by his biography of Sidney that Fulke Greville is best known. The full title expresses the scope of the work. It runs: The Life of the Renowned Sr. Philip Sidney. With the true Interest of England as it then stood in relation to all Forrain Princes: And particularly for suppressing the power of Spain Stated by Him: His principall Actions, Counsels, Designes, and Death. Together with a short account of the Maximes and Policies used by Queen Elizabeth in her Government. He includes some autobiographical matter in what amounts to a treatise on government. He had intended to write a history of England under the Tudors, but Robert Cecil refused him access to the necessary state papers.
Brooke left no sons, and his barony passed to his cousin, Robert Greville (c. 1608-1643), who thus became 2nd Lord Brooke. This nobleman was imprisoned by Charles I. at York in 1639 for refusing to take the oath to fight for the king, and soon became an active member of the parliamentary party; taking part in the Civil War he defeated the Royalists in a skirmish at Kineton in August 1642. He was soon given a command in the midland counties, and having seized Lichfield he was killed there on the 2nd of March 1643. Brooke, who is eulogized as a friend of toleration by Milton, wrote on philosophical, theological and current political topics. In 1746 his descendant, Francis Greville, the 8th baron (1710-1773), was created earl of Warwick, a title still in his family.
Dr A.B. Grosart edited the complete works of Fulke Greville for the Fuller Worthies Library in 1870, and made a small selection, published in the Elizabethan Library (1894). Besides the works above mentioned, the volumes include Poems of Monarchy, A Treatise of Religion, A Treatie of Humane Learning, An Inquisition upon Fame and Honour, A Treatie of Warres, Caelica in CX Sonnets, a collection of lyrics in various forms, a letter to an "Honourable Lady," a letter to Grevill Varney in France, and a short speech delivered on behalf of Francis Bacon, some minor poems, and an introduction including some of the author's letters. The life of Sidney was reprinted by Sir S. Egerton Brydges in 1816; and with an introduction by N. Smith in the "Tudor and Stuart Library" in 1907; Caelica was reprinted in M.F. Crow's "Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles" in 1898. See also an essay in Mrs. C.C. Stopes's Shakespeare's Warwickshire Contemporaries (1907).
BROOKE, HENRY (c. 1703-1783), Irish author, son of William Brooke, rector of Killinkere, Co. Cavan, was born at Rantavan in the same county, about 1703. His mother was a daughter of Simon Digby, bishop of Elphin. Dr Thomas Sheridan was one of his schoolmasters, and he was entered at Trinity College, Dublin, in 1720; in 1724 he was sent to London to study law. He married his cousin and ward, Catherine Meares, before she was fourteen. Returning to London he published a philosophical poem in six books entitled Universal Beauty (1735). He attached himself to the party of the prince of Wales, and took a small house at Twickenham near to Alexander Pope. In 1738 he translated the first and second books of Tasso's Gerusalemme liberata, and in the next year he produced a tragedy, Gustavas Vasa, the Deliverer of his Country. This play had been rehearsed for five weeks at Drury Lane, but at the last moment the performance was forbidden. The reason of this prohibition was a supposed portrait of Sir Robert Walpole in the part of Trollio. In any case the spirit of fervent patriotism which pervaded the play was probably disliked by the government. The piece was printed and sold largely, being afterwards put on the Irish stage under the title of The Patriot. This affair provoked a satirical pamphlet from Samuel Johnson, entitled "A Complete Vindication of the Licensers of the Stage from the malicious and scandalous Aspersions of Mr Brooke" (1739). His wife feared that his connexion with the opposition was imprudent, and induced him to return to Ireland. He interested himself in Irish history and literature, but a projected collection of Irish stories and a history of Ireland from the earliest times were abandoned in consequence of disputes about the ownership of the materials. During the Jacobite rebellion of 1745 Brooke issued his Farmer's Six Letters to the Protestants of Ireland (collected 1746) the form of which was suggested by Swift's Drapier's Letters. For this service he received from the government the post of barrack-master at Mullingar, which he held till his death. He wrote other pamphlets on the Protestant side, and was secretary to an association for promoting projects of national utility. About 1760 he entered into negotiations with leading Roman Catholics, and in 1761 he wrote a pamphlet advocating alleviation of the penal laws against them. He is said to have been the first editor of the Freeman's Journal, established at Dublin in 1763. Meanwhile he had been obliged to mortgage his property in Cavan, and had removed to Co. Kildare. Subsequently a bequest from Colonel Robert Brooke enabled him to purchase an estate near his old home, and he spent large sums in attempting to reclaim the waste-land. His best-known work is the novel entitled The Fool of Quality; or the History of Henry Earl of Moreland, the first part of which was published in 1765; and the fifth and last in 1770. The characters of this book, which relates the education of an ideal nobleman by an ideal merchant-prince, are gifted with a "passionate and tearful sensibility," and reflect the real humour and tenderness of the writer. Brooke's religious and philanthropic temper recommended the book to John Wesley, who edited (1780) an abridged edition, and to Charles Kingsley, who published it with a eulogistic notice in 1859. Brooke had a large family, but only two children survived him. His wife's death seriously affected him, and he died at Dublin in a state of mental infirmity on the 10th of October 1783.
His daughter, Charlotte Brooke, published The Poetical Works of Henry Brooke in 1792, but was able to supply very little biographical material. Other sources for Brooke's biography are C. H. Wilson, Brookiana (2 vols., 1804), and a biographical preface by E. A. Baker prefixed to a new edition (1906) of The Fool of Quality. Brooke's other works include several tragedies, only some of which were actually staged. He also wrote: Jack the Giant Queller (1748), an operatic satire, the repetition of which was forbidden on account of its political allusions; "Constantia, or the Man of Lawe's Tale" (1741), contributed to George Ogle's Canterbury Tales modernized; Juliet Grenville; or the History of the Human Heart (1773), a novel; and some fables contributed to Edward Moore's Fables for the Female Sex (1744).
BROOKE, SIR JAMES (1803-1868), English soldier, traveller and raja of Sarawak, was born at Coombe Grove near Bath, on the 29th of April 1803. His father, a member of the civil service of the East India Company, had long lived in Bengal. His mother was a woman of superior mind, and to her care he owed his careful early training. He received the ordinary school education, entered the service of the East India Company, and was sent out to India about 1825. On the outbreak of the Burmese War he was despatched with his regiment to the valley of the Brahmaputra; and, being dangerously wounded in an engagement near Rungpore, was compelled to return home (1826). After his recovery he travelled on the continent before going to India, and circumstances led him soon after to leave the service of the company. In 1830 he made a voyage to China, and during his passage among the islands of the Indian Archipelago, so rich in natural beauty, magnificence and fertility, but occupied by a population of savage tribes, continually at war with each other, and carrying on a system of piracy on a vast scale and with relentless ferocity, he conceived the great design of rescuing them from barbarism and bringing them within the pale of civilization. His purpose was confirmed by observations made during a second visit to China, and on his return to England he applied himself in earnest to making the necessary preparations. Having succeeded on the death of his father to a large property, he bought and equipped a yacht, the "Royalist," of 140 tons burden, and for three years tested its capacities and trained his crew of [v.04 p.0645] twenty men, chiefly in the Mediterranean. At length, on the 27th of October 1838, he sailed from the Thames on his great adventure. On reaching Borneo, after various delays, he found the raja Muda Hassim, uncle of the reigning sultan, engaged in war in the province of Sarawak with several of the Dyak tribes, who had revolted against the sultan. He offered his aid to the raja; and with his crew, and some Javanese who had joined them, he took part in a battle with the insurgents, and they were defeated. For his services the title of raja of Sarawak was conferred on him by Muda Hassim, the former raja being deprived in his favour. It was, however, some time before the sultan could be induced to confirm his title (September 1841). During the next five years Raja Brooke was engaged in establishing his power, in making just reforms in administration, preparing a code of laws and introducing just and humane modes of dealing with the degraded subjects of his rule. But this was not all. He looked forward to the development of commerce as the most effective means of putting an end to the worst evils that afflicted the archipelago; and in order to make this possible, the way must first be cleared by the suppression, or a considerable diminution, of the prevailing piracy, which was not only a curse to the savage tribes engaged in it, but a standing danger to European and American traders in those seas. Various expeditions were therefore organized and sent out against the marauders, Dyaks and Malays, and sometimes even Arabs. Captain (afterwards Admiral Sir Harry) Keppel, and other commanders of British ships of war, received permission to co-operate with Raja Brooke in these expeditions. The pirates were attacked in their strongholds, they fought desperately, and the slaughter was immense. Negotiations with the chiefs had been tried, and tried in vain. The capital of the sultan of Borneo was bombarded and stormed, and the sultan with his army routed. He was, however, soon after restored to his dominion. So large was the number of natives, pirates and others, slain in these expeditions, that the "head-money" awarded by the British government to those who had taken part in them amounted to no less than £20,000. In October 1847 Raja Brooke returned to England, where he was well received by the government; and the corporation of London conferred on him the freedom of the city. The island of Labuan, with its dependencies, having been acquired by purchase from the sultan of Borneo, was erected into a British colony, and Raja Brooke was appointed governor and commander-in-chief. He was also named consul-general in Borneo. These appointments had been made before his arrival in England. The university of Oxford conferred on him the honorary degree of D.C.L., and in 1848 he was created K.C.B. He soon after returned to Sarawak, and was carried thither by a British man-of-war. In the summer of 1849 he led an expedition against the Seribas and Sakuran Dyaks, who still persisted in their piratical practices and refused to submit to British authority. Their defeat and wholesale slaughter was a matter of course. At the time of this engagement Sir James Brooke was lying ill with dysentery. He visited twice the capital of the sultan of Sala, and concluded a treaty with him, which had for one of its objects the expulsion of the sea-gypsies and other tribes from his dominions. In 1851 grave charges with respect to the operations in Borneo were brought against Sir James Brooke in the House of Commons by Joseph Hume and other members, especially as to the "head-money" received. To meet these accusations, and to vindicate his proceedings, he came to England. The evidence adduced was so conflicting that the matter was at length referred to a royal commission, to sit at Singapore. As the result of its investigation the charges were declared to be "not proven." Sir James, however, was soon after deprived of the governorship of Labuan, and the head-money was abolished. In 1867 his house in Sarawak was attacked and burnt by Chinese pirates, and he had to fly from the capital, Kuching. With a small force he attacked the Chinese, recovered the town, made a great slaughter of them, and drove away the rest. In the following year he came to England, and remained there for three years. During this time he was attacked by paralysis, a public subscription was raised, and an estate in Devonshire was bought and presented to him. He made two more visits to Sarawak, and on each occasion had a rebellion to suppress. He spent his last days on his estate at Burrator in Devonshire, and died there, on the 11th of June 1868, being succeeded as raja of Sarawak by his nephew. Sir James Brooke was a man of the highest personal character, and he displayed rare courage both in his conflicts in the East and under the charges advanced against him in England.
His Private Letters (1838 to 1853) were published in 1853. Portions of his Journal were edited by Captains Munday and Keppel. (See also SARAWAK.)
BROOKE, STOPFORD AUGUSTUS (1832- ), English divine and man of letters, born at Letterkenny, Donegal, Ireland, in 1832, was educated at Trinity College, Dublin. He was ordained in the Church of England in 1857, and held various charges in London. From 1863 to 1865 he was chaplain to the empress Frederick in Berlin, and in 1872 he became chaplain in ordinary to Queen Victoria. But in 1880 he seceded from the Church, being no longer able to accept its leading dogmas, and officiated as a Unitarian minister for some years at Bedford chapel, Bloomsbury. Bedford chapel was pulled down about 1894, and from that time he had no church of his own, but his eloquence and powerful religious personality continued to make themselves felt among a wide circle. A man of independent means, he was always keenly interested in literature and art, and a fine critic of both. He published in 1865 his Life and Letters of F. W. Robertson (of Brighton), and in 1876 wrote an admirable primer of English Literature (new and revised ed., 1900), followed in 1892 by The History of Early English Literature (2 vols., 1892) down to the accession of Alfred, and English Literature from the Beginnings to the Norman Conquest (1898). His other works include various volumes of sermons; Poems (1888); Dove Cottage (1890); Theology in the English Poets--Cowper, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Burns (1874); Tennyson, his Art and Relation to Modern Life (1894); The Poetry of Robert Browning (1902); On Ten Plays of Shakespeare (1905); and The Life Superlative (1906).
BROOK FARM, the name applied to a tract of land in West Roxbury, Massachusetts, on which in 1841-1847 a communistic experiment was unsuccessfully tried. The experiment was one of the practical manifestations of the spirit of "Transcendentalism," in New England, though many of the more prominent transcendentalists took no direct part in it. The project was originated by George Ripley, who also virtually directed it throughout. In his words it was intended "to insure a more natural union between intellectual and manual labour than now exists; to combine the thinker and the worker, as far as possible, in the same individual; to guarantee the highest mental freedom by providing all with labour adapted to their tastes and talents, and securing to them the fruits of their industry; to do away with the necessity of menial services by opening the benefits of education and the profits of labour to all; and thus to prepare a society of liberal, intelligent and cultivated persons whose relations with each other would permit a more simple and wholesome life than can be led amidst the pressure of our competitive institutions." In short, its aim was to bring about the best conditions for an ideal civilization, reducing to a minimum the labour necessary for mere existence, and by this and by the simplicity of its social machinery saving the maximum of time for mental and spiritual education and development. At a time when Ralph Waldo Emerson could write to Thomas Carlyle, "We are all a little wild here with numberless projects of social reform; not a reading man but has a draft of a new community in his waistcoat pocket,"--the Brook Farm project certainly did not appear as impossible a scheme as many others that were in the air. At all events it enlisted the co-operation of men whose subsequent careers show them to have been something more than visionaries. The association bought a tract of land about 10 m. from Boston, and in the summer of 1841 began its enterprise with about twenty members. In September the "Brook Farm Institute of Agriculture and Education" was formally organized, the members [v.04 p.0646] signing the Articles of Association and forming an unincorporated joint-stock company. The farm was assiduously, if not very skilfully, cultivated, and other industries were established--most of the members paying by labour for their board--but nearly all of the income, and sometimes all of it, was derived from the school, which deservedly took high rank and attracted many pupils. Among these were included George William Curtis and his brother James Burrill Curtis, Father Isaac Thomas Hecker (1819-1888), General Francis C. Barlow (1834-1896), who as attorney-general of New York in 1871-1873 took a leading part in the prosecution of the "Tweed Ring." For three years the undertaking went on quietly and simply, subject to few outward troubles other than financial, the number of associates increasing to seventy or eighty. It was during this period that Nathaniel Hawthorne had his short experience of Brook Farm, of which so many suggestions appear in the Blithedale Romance, though his preface to later editions effectually disposed of the idea--which gave him great pain--that he had either drawn his characters from persons there, or had meant to give any actual description of the colony. Emerson refused, in a kind and characteristic letter, to join the undertaking, and though he afterwards wrote of Brook Farm with not uncharitable humour as "a perpetual picnic, a French Revolution in small, an age of reason in a patty-pan," among its founders were many of his near friends. In 1844 the growing need of a more scientific organization, and the influence which F.M.C. Fourier's doctrines, as modified by Albert Brisbane (1809-1890), had gained in the minds of Ripley and many of his associates, combined to change the whole plan of the community. It was transformed, with the strong approval of all its chief members and the consent of the rest, into a Fourierist "phalanx" in 1845. There was an accession of new members, a momentary increase of prosperity, a brilliant new undertaking in the publication of a weekly journal, the Harbinger, in which Ripley, Charles A. Dana, Francis G. Shaw and John S. Dwight were the chief writers, and to which James Russell Lowell, J.G. Whittier, George William Curtis, Parke Godwin, T.W. Higginson, Horace Greeley and many more now and then contributed. But the individuality of the old Brook Farm was gone. The association was not rescued even from financial troubles by the change. With increasing difficulty it kept on till the spring of 1846, when a fire which destroyed its nearly completed "phalanstery" brought losses which caused, or certainly gave the final ostensible reason for, its dissolution. The experiment was abandoned in the autumn of 1847. Besides Ripley and Hawthorne, the principal members of the community were Charles A. Dana, John S. Dwight, Minot Pratt (c. 1805-1878), the head farmer, who, like George Partridge Bradford (1808-1890), left in 1845, and Warren Burton (1810-1866) a preacher and, later, a writer on educational subjects. Indirectly connected with the experiment, also, as visitors for longer or shorter periods but never as regular members, were Emerson, Amos Bronson Alcott, Orestes A. Brownson, Theodore Parker and William Henry Channing, Margaret Fuller and Elizabeth Palmer Peabody. The estate itself, after passing through various hands, came in 1870 into the possession of the "Association of the Evangelical Lutheran Church for Works of Mercy," which established here an orphanage, known as the "Martin Luther Orphan Home."
The best account of Brook Farm is Lindsay Swift's Brook Farm, Its Members, Scholars and Visitors (New York, 1900). Brook Farm: Historic and Personal Memoirs (Boston, 1894), is by Dr J.T. Codman, one of the pupils in the school. See also Morris Hillquit's History of Socialism in the United States (New York, 1903).
(E. L. B.)
Pellia epiphylla (fig. 2) can be found at any season growing in large patches on the damp soil of woods, banks, &c. The broad flat thallus is green and may be a couple of inches long. It is sparingly branched, the branching being apparently dichotomous; the growing point is situated in a depression at the anterior end of each branch. The wing-like lateral portions of the thallus gradually thin out from the midrib; from the projecting lower surface of this numerous rhizoids spring. These are elongated superficial cells, and serve to fix the thallus to the soil and obtain water and salts from it. No leaf-like appendages are borne on the thallus, but short glandular hairs occur behind the apex. The plant is composed throughout of very similar living cells, the more superficial ones containing numerous chlorophyll grains, while starch is stored in the internal cells of the midrib. The cells contain a number of oil-bodies the function of which is imperfectly understood. The growth of the thallus proceeds by the regular segmentation of a single apical cell. The sexual organs are borne on the upper surface, and both antheridia and archegonia occur on the same branch (fig. 3, A). The antheridia (an) are scattered over the middle region of the thallus, and each is surrounded by a tubular upgrowth from the surface. The archegonia (ar) are developed in a group behind the apex, and the latter continues to grow for a time after their formation, so that they come to be seated in a depression of the upper surface. They are further protected by the growth of the hinder margin of the depression to form a scale-like involucre (in). Fertilization takes place about June, and the sporogonium is fully developed by the winter. The embryo developed from the fertilized ovum consists at first of a number of tiers of cells. Its terminal tier gives rise to the capsule, the first divisions in the four cells of the tier marking off the wall of the capsule from the cells destined to produce the spores. In fig. 4, C, which represents a longitudinal section of a young embryo of Pellia, these archesporial cells are shaded. The tiers below give rise to the seta and foot. The mature sporogonium (fig. 3, B) consists of the foot embedded in the tissue of the thallus, the seta, which remains short until just before the shedding of the spores, and the spherical capsule. It remains for long enclosed within the calyptra formed by the further development of the archegonial wall and surmounted by the neck of the archegonium. The calyptra is ultimately burst through, and in early spring the seta elongates rapidly, raising the dark-coloured capsule (fig. 2). In the young condition the wall of the capsule, which consists of two layers of cells, encloses a mass of similar cells developed from the archesporium. Some of these become spore-mother-cells and give rise by cell division to four spores, while others remain undivided and become the elaters. The latter are elongated spindle-shaped cells with thick brown spiral bands on the inside of their thin walls. They radiate out from a small plug of sterile cells projecting into the base of the capsule, and some are attached to this, while others lie free among the spores. The latter are large, and at first are unicellular; but in Pellia, which in this respect is exceptional, they commence their further development within the capsule, and thus consist of several cells when shed. [v.04 p.0647] The cells of the capsule wall have incomplete, brown, thickened rings on their walls, and the capsule opens by splitting into four valves, which bend away from one another, allowing the loose spores to be readily dispersed by the wind, assisted by the hygroscopic movements of the elaters. On falling upon damp soil the spores germinate, growing into a thallus, which gradually attains its full size and bears sexual organs.
While the general course of the life-history of all liverworts resembles that of Pellia, the three great groups into which they are divided differ from one another in the characters of both generations. Each group exhibits a series leading from more simple to more highly organized forms, and the differentiation has proceeded on distinct and to some extent divergent lines in the three groups. The Marchantiales are a series of thalloid forms, in which the structure of the thallus is specialized to enable them to live in more exposed situations. The lowest members of the series (Riccia) possess the simplest sporogonia known, consisting of a wall of one layer of cells enclosing the spores. In the higher forms a sterile foot and seta is present, and sterile cells or elaters occur with the spores. The lower members of the Jungermanniales are also thalloid, but the thallus never has the complicated structure characteristic of the Marchantiales, and progress is in the direction of the differentiation of the plant into stem and leaf. Indications of how this may have come about are afforded by the lower group of the Anacrogynous Jungermanniaceae, and throughout the Acrogynous Jungermanniacae the plant has well-marked stem and leaves. The sporogonium even in the simplest forms has a sterile foot, but in this series also the origin of elaters from sterile cells can be traced. The Anthocerotales are a small and very distinct group, in which the gametophyte is a thallus, while the sporogonium possesses a sterile columella and is capable of long-continued growth and spore production. The mode of development of the sporogonium presents important differences in the three series that may be briefly referred to here. In fig. 4 young sporogonia of a number of liverworts are shown in longitudinal section, and the archesporial cells from which the spores and elaters will arise are shaded. In Riccia (fig. 4, A) the whole mass of cells derived from the ovum forms a spherical capsule, the only sterile tissue being the single layer of peripheral cells forming the wall. In other Marchantiales (fig. 4, B) the lower half of the embryo separated by the first transverse wall (1, I) forms the sterile foot and seta, while in the upper half (ka) the peripheral layer forms the wall of the capsule, enclosing the archesporial cells from which spores and elaters arise. In the Jungermanniales (fig. 4, C, E, F) the embryo is formed of a number of tiers of cells, and the archesporium is defined by the first divisions parallel to the surface in the cells of one or more of the upper tiers; a number of tiers go to form the seta and foot, while the lowest segment (a) usually forms a small appendage of the latter. In the Anthocerotales (fig. 4, D) the lowest tiers form the foot, and the terminal tier the capsule. The first periclinal divisions in the cells of the terminal tier separate a central group of cells which form the sterile columella (col). The archesporium arises by the next divisions in the outer layer of cells, and thus extends over the summit of the columella. In none of the liverworts does the sporogonium develop by means of an apical cell, as is the rule in mosses.
Leaving details of form and structure to be considered under the several groups, some general features of the Hepaticae may be looked at here in relation to the conditions under which the plants live. The organization of the gametophyte stands in the closest relation to the factors of light and moisture in the environment. With hardly an exception the liverworts are dorsiventral, and usually one side is turned to the substratum and the other exposed to the light. In thalloid forms a thinner marginal expansion or a definite wing increasing the surface exposed to the light can be distinguished from a thicker midrib serving for storage and conduction. The leaves and stem of the foliose forms effect the same division of labour in another way. The relation of the plant to its water supply varies within the group. In the Marchantiales the chief supply is obtained from the soil by the rhizoids, and its loss in transpiration is regulated and controlled. In most liverworts, on the other hand, water is absorbed directly by the whole general surface, and the rhizoids are of subordinate importance. Many forms only succeed in a constantly humid atmosphere, while others sustain drying for a period, though their powers of assimilation and growth are suspended in the dry state. The cell-walls are capable of imbibing water rapidly, and their thickness stands in relation to this rather than to the prevention of loss of water from the plant. The large surface presented by the leafy forms facilitates the retention and absorption of water. The importance of prolonging the moistened condition as long as possible is further shown by special adaptations to retain water either between the appressed lobes of the leaves or in special pitcher-like sacs. In thalloid forms fimbriate or lobed margins or outgrowths from the surface lead to the same result. Sometimes adaptations to protect the plant during seasons of drought, such as the rolling up of the thallus in many xerophytic Marchantiales, can be recognized, but more often a prolonged dry season is survived in some resting state. The formation of subterranean tubers, which persist when the rest of the plant is killed by drought, is an interesting adaptation to this end, and is found in all three groups (e.g. in species of Riccia, Fossombronia and Anthoceros). No examples of total saprophytism or of parasitism are known, but two interesting cases of a symbiosis with other organisms which is probably a mutually beneficial one, though the nature of the physiological relation between the organisms is not clearly established, may be mentioned. Fungal hyphae occur in the rhizoids and in the cells of the lower region of the thallus of many liverworts, as in the endotrophic mycorhiza of higher plants. Colonies of Nostoc are constantly found in the Anthocerotaceae and in Blasia. In the latter they are protected by special concave scales, while in the Anthocerotaceae they occupy some of the mucilage slits between the cells of the lower surface of the thallus.
Other adaptations concern the protection of the sexual organs and sporogonia, and the retention of water in the neighbourhood of the archegonia to enable the spermatozoid to reach the ovum. In thalloid forms the sexual organs are often sunk in depressions, while in the foliose forms protection is afforded by the surrounding leaves. In addition special involucres around the archegonia have arisen independently in several series. The characters of the sporogonium have as their object the nutrition and effective distribution of the spores, and only exceptionally, as in the Anthocerotaceae, are concerned with independent assimilation. In most forms the capsule is raised above the general surface at the time of opening, usually by the rapid growth of the seta, but in the Marchantiaceae by the sporogonia being raised on a special archegoniophore. The elaters serve as lines of conduction of plastic material to the developing spores, and later usually assist in their dispersal. The spores, with few exceptions, are unicellular when shed, and may develop at once or after a resting period. In their germination a short filament of a few cells is usually developed, and the apical cell of the plant is established in the terminal cell. In other cases a small plate or mass of cells is formed. With one or two exceptions, however, this preliminary [v.04 p.0648] phase, which may be compared with the protonema of mosses, is of short duration.
The power of vegetative propagation is widely spread. When artificially divided small fragments of the gametophyte are found to be capable of growing into new individuals. Apart from the separation of branches by the decay of older portions, special gemmae are found in many species. In Aneura the contents of superficial cells, after becoming surrounded by a new wall and dividing, escape as bi-cellular gemmae. Usually the gemmae arise by the outgrowth of superficial cells, and become free by breaking away from their stalk. When separated they may be single cells or consist of two or numerous cells. In Blasia and Marchantia the gemmae are formed within tubular or cup-shaped receptacles, out of which they are forced by the swelling of mucilage secreted by special hairs.
Marchantiales.--The plants of this group are most abundant in warm sunny localities, and grow for the most part on soil or rocks often in exposed situations. Nine genera are represented in Britain. Targionia is found on exposed rocks, but the other forms are less strikingly xerophytic; Marchantia polymorpha and Lunularia spread largely by the gemmae formed in the special gemma-cups on the thallus, and occur commonly in greenhouses. The large thallus of Conocephalus covers stones by the waterside, while Dumortiera is a hygrophyte confined to damp and shady situations. Among the Ricciaceae, most of which grow on soil, Ricciocarpus and Riccia natans occur floating on still water. The dorsiventral thallus is constructed on the same plan throughout the group, and shows a lower region composed of cells containing little chlorophyll and an upper stratum specialized for assimilation and transpiration. The lower region usually forms a more or less clearly marked midrib, and consists of parenchymatous cells, some of which may contain oil-bodies or be differentiated as mucilage cells or sclerenchyma fibres. Behind the apex, which has a number of initial cells, a series of amphigastria or ventral scales is formed. These consist of a single layer of cells, and their terminal appendages often fold over the apex and protect it. Usually they stand in two rows, but sometimes accessory rows occur, and in Riccia only a single median row is present. The thallus bears two sorts of rhizoids, wider ones with smooth walls which grow directly down into the soil, and longer, narrower ones, with peg-like thickenings of the wall projecting into the cell-cavity. The peg-rhizoids, which are peculiar to the group, converge under shelter of the amphigastria to the midrib, beneath which they form a wick-like strand. Through this water is conducted by capillarity as well as in the cell cavities. The upper stratum of the thallus is constructed to regulate the giving off of the water thus absorbed. It consists of a series of air-chambers (fig. 6, B) formed by certain lines of the superficial cells growing up from the surface, and as the thallus increases in area continuing to divide so as to roof in the chamber. The layer forming the roof is called the "epidermis," and the small opening left leading into the chamber is bounded by a special ring of cells and forms the "stoma" or air-pore. In most species of Riccia the air-chambers are only narrow passages, but in the other Marchantiales they are more extended. In the simplest cases the sides and base of the chambers perform the work of assimilation (e.g. Corsinia). Usually the surface is extended by the development of partitions in the chambers (Reboulia), or by the growth from the floor of the chamber of short filaments of chlorophyllous cells (Targionia. Marchantia, fig. 6). The stomata may be simply surrounded by one or more series of narrower cells, or, as in the thallus of Marchantia and on the archegoniophores of other forms, may become barrel-shaped structures by the division of the ring of cells bounding the pore. In some cases the lowermost circle of cells can be approximated so as to close the pore. In Dumortiera the air-chambers are absent, their formation being only indicated at the apex.
The sexual organs are always situated on the morphologically upper surface of the thallus. In Riccia they are scattered singly and protected by the air-chamber layer. The scattered position of the antheridia is also found in some of the higher forms, but usually they are grouped on special antheridiophores which in Marchantia are stalked, disk-shaped branch-systems (fig. 5). The individual antheridia are sunk in depressions from which the spermatozoids are in some cases forcibly ejected. The archegonial groups in Corsinia are sunk in a depression of the upper surface, while in Targionia they are displaced to the lower side of the anterior end of a branch. In all the other forms they are borne on special archegoniophores which have the form of a disk-shaped head borne on a stalk. The archegoniophore may be an upgrowth from the dorsal surface of the thallus (e.g. Plagiochasma), or the apex of the branch may take part in its formation. When the disk, around which archegonia are developed at intervals, is simply raised on a stalk-like continuation of the branch, a single groove protecting a strand of peg-rhizoids is found on the ventral face of the stalk (Reboulia). In the highest forms (e.g. Marchantia) the archegoniophore corresponds to the repeatedly branched continuation of the thallus, and the archegonia arise in relation to the growing points which are displaced to the lower surface of the disk. In this case two grooves are found in the stalk. The archegonia are protected by being sunk in depressions of the disk or by a special two-lipped involucre. In Marchantia and Fimbriaria an additional investment termed in descriptive works the perianth, grows up around each fertilized archegonium (fig. 1, 3, d). The simple sporogonium found in the Ricciaceae (fig. 4, A) has been described above; as the spores develop, the wall of the spherical capsule is absorbed and the spores lie free in the calyptra, by the decay of which they are set free. In Corsinia the capsule has a well-developed foot, but the sterile cells found among the spore-mother-cells do not become elaters, but remain thin-walled and simply contribute to the nutrition of the spores. In all other forms elaters with spirally thickened walls are found. The seta is short, the capsule being usually raised upon the archegoniophore. Dehiscence takes place either by the upper portion of the capsule splitting into short teeth or falling away as a whole or in fragments as a sort of operculum. The spores on germination form a short germ-tube, in the terminal cell of which the apical cell is established, but the direction of growth of the young thallus is usually not in the same straight line as the germ-tube. The Marchantiales are divided into a number of groups which represent distinct lines of advance from forms like the Ricciaceae, but the details of their classification cannot be entered upon here. The general nature of the progression exhibited by the group as a whole will, however, be evident from the above account.
Jungermanniales.--This large series of liverworts, which presents great variety in the organization of the sexual generation, is divided into two main groups according to whether the formation of archegonia terminates the growth of the branch or does not utilize the apex. The latter condition is characteristic of the more primitive group of the Anacrogynous Jungermanniaceae, in which the branch continues its growth after the formation of archegonia so that they (and later the sporogonia) stand on the dorsal surface of the thallus or leafy plant. In the Acrogynous Jungermanniaceae the plant is throughout foliose, and the archegonia occupy the ends of the main shoot or of its branches. The antheridia are usually globular and long-stalked. The capsule opens by splitting into four halves.
Jungermanniaceae Anacrogynae.--The great range of form in the sexual plant is well illustrated by the nine genera of this group [v.04 p.0649] which occur in Britain. One thalloid form has already been described in Pellia (fig. 2). Sphaerocarpus, which occurs rarely in stubble fields, is in many respects one of the simplest of the liverworts. The small thallus bears the antheridia and archegonia, each of which is surrounded by a tubular involucre, on the upper surface of distinct individuals. The sporogonium has a small foot, but the sterile cells among the spores do not develop into elaters. The same is true of the capsule of Riella. The plants of this genus, none of the species of which are British, grow in shallow water rooted in the mud, and are unlike all other liverworts in appearance. The usually erect thallus has a broad wing-like outgrowth from the dorsal surface and two rows of rather large scales below. No provision for the opening of the capsule exists in either of these genera. In Aneura the form of the plant may be complicated by a division of labour between root-like, stem-like and assimilating branches of the thallus. The sexual organs are borne on short lateral branches, while in the related genus Metzgeria, which occurs on rocks and tree trunks, the small sexual branches spring from the lower surface of the midrib of the narrow thallus. In these two genera the elaters are attached to a sterile group of cells projecting into the upper end of the capsule, and on dehiscence remain connected with the tips of the valves. Pallavicinia and some related genera have a definite midrib and broad wings formed of one layer of cells, and are of interest owing to the presence of a special water-conducting strand in the midrib. This consists of elongated lignified cells with pitted walls. Blasia pusilla, which occurs commonly by ditches and streams, affords a transition to the foliose types. Its thallus (fig. 7) has thin marginal lobes of limited growth, which are comparable to the more definite leaves of other anacrogynous forms. The ventral surface bears flat scales in addition to the concave scales which, as mentioned above, are inhabited by Nostoc. This interesting liverwort produces two kinds of gemmae, and in the localities in which it grows is largely reproduced by their means. In Fossombronia, of which there are a number of British species, the plant consists of a flattened stem creeping on muddy soil and bearing two rows of large obliquely-placed leaves. The sexual organs are borne on the upper surface of the midrib, and the sporogonium is surrounded by a bell-shaped involucre which grows up after fertilization. Treubia, which grows on rotting wood in the mountain forests of Java, is similarly differentiated into stem and leaf, and is the largest liverwort known, reaching a length of thirty centimetres. Lastly Haplomitrium, a rare British genus, forms with the exotic Calobryum, an isolated group which is most naturally placed among the anacrogynous forms although the archegonia are in terminal groups. The erect branches bear three rows of leaves, and spring from a creeping axis from which root-like branches destitute of rhizoids extend into the substratum.
Jungermanniaceae Acrogynae.--The plant consists of leafy shoots, the origin of which can be understood in the light of the foliose forms described above. The great majority of existing liverworts belong to this group, the general plan of construction of which is throughout very similar. In Britain thirty-nine genera with numerous species are found. With few exceptions the stem grows by means of a pyramidal apical cell cutting off three rows of segments. Each segment gives rise to a leaf, but usually the leaves of the ventral row (amphigastria) are smaller and differently shaped from those of the two lateral rows; in a number of genera they are wanting altogether. Sometimes the leaves retain their transverse insertion on the stem, and the two lobes of which they consist are developed equally. More often they come to be obliquely inserted, the anterior edge of each leaf lying under or over the edge of the leaf in front. The two lobes are often unequally developed. In Scapania the upper lobe is the smaller, while in Radula, Poretta and the Lejeuneae this is the case with the lower lobe. The folding of one lobe against another assists in the retention of water. Pitcher-like structures have arisen in different ways in a number of genera, and are especially common in epiphytic forms (Frullania, Lepidolaena, Pleurozia). In some forms the leaves are finely divided, and along with the hair-like paraphyllia form a loose weft around the stem (Trichocolea). The rhizoids spring from the lower surface of the stem, and sometimes from the bases of the leaves. The branches arise below and by the side of the leaves.
The sexual organs may occur on the same or on distinct individuals. The antheridia are protected by leaves which are often modified in shape. The archegonia are borne at the apex of the main stem or of a lateral branch. A single archegonium may arise from the apical cell (Lejeunea); more commonly a number of others are formed from the surrounding segments. The leaves below the archegonial group are frequently modified in size and shape, but the chief protection is afforded by a tubular perianth, which corresponds to a coherent whorl of leaves and grows up independently of fertilization. The perianth serves also to enclose and protect the sporogonium during its development. In a number of forms belonging to different groups the end of the stem on which the sporogonium is borne grows downwards so as to form a hollow tubular sac enclosing the sporogonium; in other cases this marsupial sac is formed by the base of the sporogonium boring into the thickened end of the stem. The sac usually penetrates into the soil and bears rhizoids on its outer surface. Kantia, Calypogeia and Saccogyna are British forms, which have their sporogonia protected in this way. The sporogonium is very similar throughout the group (figs. 8, 9). At maturity the seta elongates rapidly, and the wall of the capsule splits more or less completely into four valves, allowing the elaters and spores to escape. In the Jubuloideae, which in other respects form a well-marked group, the seta is short and the elaters extend from the upper part of the capsule to the base; at dehiscence they remain fixed to the valves into which the capsule splits. The germinating spore usually forms a short filament, but in other cases a flat plate of cells growing by a two-sided apical cell is first formed (Radula, Lejeunea). In one or two tropical forms the pro-embryonic stage is prolonged, and leafy shoots only arise in connexion with the sexual organs. In Protocephalozia, which grows on bare earth in South America, this pro-embryo is filamentous, while in Lejeunea Metzgeriopsis, which grows on the leaves of living plants, it is a flat branched thallus closely applied to the substratum. Other cases of the plant being, with the exception of the sexual branches, apparently thalloid, are on the other hand to be explained as due to the reduction of the leaves and flattening of the stem of a shoot (Pteropsiella, Zoopsis).
The Acrogynous Jungermanniaceae fall into a number of natural groups, which cannot, however, be followed out here. They occur in very various situations, on the ground, on rocks and stones, on tree trunks, and, in the damp tropics, on leaves. Usually they form larger or smaller tufts of a green colour, but some forms have a reddish tint.
Anthocerotales.--This small and very natural group includes the three genera Anthoceros, Dendroceros and Notothylas, and stands in [v.04 p.0650] many respects in an isolated position among the Bryophyta. Three species of Anthoceros occur in Britain, growing on the damp soil of fields, ditches, &c. The dark green thallus has an ill-defined midrib, and is composed of parenchymatous cells. In each assimilating cell there is usually a single large chloroplast. The apical region, which has a single initial cell, is protected by mucilage secreted by the mucilage slits, which are small pit-like depressions between superficial cells of the lower surface. Mucilage is also often formed in intercellular spaces within the thallus. Colonies of Nostoc are constantly found living in some of the mucilage slits which then become enlarged. The sexual organs are scattered over the upper surface. The stalked globular antheridia are exceptional in being formed endogenously, and are situated in groups in special intercellular spaces. The superficial layer of cells bounding the cavity does not break down until the antheridia are nearly mature. Occasionally antheridia develop on the surface of shaded portions of the thallus. The necks of the archegonia hardly project above the general surface of the thallus. In structure and development they agree with other Hepaticae, though differences of detail exist. The young sporogonium is protected by a thick calyptra derived from the tissue of the thallus around the archegonium. The sporogonium consists of a large bulbous foot, the superficial cells of which grow out into processes, and a long capsule, which continues to grow for months by the activity of a zone of cells between it and the foot, and may attain the length of an inch and a half. The wall of the capsule is several layers of cells thick, and since the epidermis contains functional stomata and the underlying cells possess chlorophyll it is capable of assimilation. In the centre of the capsule is a strand of narrow elongated cells forming the columella, and between this and the wall spores mixed with elaters are formed from the dome-shaped archesporium, the origin of which has already been described (fig. 4, D). The capsule opens by splitting into two valves from the apex downwards, and the mature spores escape while others are developing in succession below. In Dendroceros, which grows as an epiphyte in the tropics, the thallus has a well-defined midrib and broad wings composed of a single layer of cells. The capsule is similar to that of Anthoceros, but has no stomata, and the elaters have spirally thickened walls. Some species of Anthoceros agree with it in these respects. Notothylas resembles Anthoceros in its thallus, but the sporogonium is much smaller. In some species, although the columella and archesporium arise in the usual way, both give rise to mingled spores and elaters, and no sterile columella is developed.
Musci (Mosses).
Though the number of species of mosses is far greater than of liverworts, the group offers much less diversity of form. The sexual generation is always a leafy plant, which is not developed directly from the spore but is borne on a well-marked and usually filamentous protonema. The general course of the life-history and the main features of form and structure will be best understood by a brief account of a particular example.
Funaria hygrometrica is a moss of very common occurrence even in towns on the soil of paths, at the foot of walls and in similar places. The small plants grow closely crowded in tufts, and consist of short leafy shoots attached to the soil by numerous fine rhizoids. The latter, in contrast to the rhizoids of liverworts, are composed of rows of elongated cells and are branched. The leaves are simple, and except for the midrib are only one layer of cells thick. The structure of the stem though simple is more complicated than in any liverwort. The superficial cells are thick-walled, and there is a central strand of narrow cells forming a water-conducting tissue. The small strand of elongated cells in the midrib of the leaf runs down into the stem, but is not usually connected with the central strand. The sexual organs are developed in groups at the apices, the antheridial group usually terminating the main axis while the archegonia are borne on a lateral branch. The brown tint of the hair-like paraphyses mixed with antheridia (fig. 15) makes the male branch conspicuous, while the archegonia have to be carefully looked for enclosed by the surrounding leaves (fig. 16, B). The sporogonium developed from the fertilized ovum grows by means of a two-sided apical cell (fig. 16 A), and is at first of uniform thickness. After a time the upper region increases in diameter and forms the capsule, while the lower portion forms the long seta and the foot which is embedded in the end of the stem. With the growth of the sporogonium the archegonial wall, which for a time kept pace with it, is broken through, the larger upper part terminated by the neck being carried up on the capsule as the calyptra, while the basal portion remains as a tubular sheath round the lower end of the seta (cf. figs. 16, C, and fig. 11, A, B). The seta widens out at the base of the capsule into a region known as the apophysis. The peripheral cells of the seta are thick-walled, and it has a central strand of elongated conducting cells. In the epidermis of the apophysis functional stomata, similar to those of the higher plants, are present and, since cells containing chlorophyll are present below the superficial layers of the apophysis and capsule, the sporogonium is capable of independent assimilation. The construction of the capsule will be best understood from the median longitudinal section (fig. 11, C). The central region extending between the apophysis and the operculum is composed of sterile tissue and forms the columella (c). Immediately around this is the layer of cells from which the spores will be developed (s), and the layers of cells on either side of this form the walls of the spore-sac, which will contain the spores. Between the wall of the capsule, which is composed of several layers of cells, and the spore-sac is a wide intercellular space (h) bridged across by trabeculae consisting of rows of chlorophyll-containing cells. At the junction of the operculum (d) with the rest of the capsule is a circle of cells forming the annulus (a), by help of which the operculum is detached at maturity as a small lid. Its removal does not, however, leave the mouth of the capsule wide open, for around the margin are two circles of pointed teeth forming the peristome. These are the thickened cell-walls of a definite layer of cells (p), and appear [v.04 p.0651] as separate teeth owing to the breaking down of the unthickened cell-walls. The numerous spores which have been developed in the spore sac can thus only escape from the pendulous capsule through narrow slits between the teeth, and these are closed in damp air. The unicellular spores when supplied with moisture germinate (fig. 12) and give rise to the sexual generation. A filamentous protonema is first developed, some of the branches of which are exposed to the light and contain abundant chlorophyll, while others penetrate the substratum as brown or colourless rhizoids. The moss-plants arise from single projecting cells, and numerous plants may spring from the protonema developed from a single spore.
The majority of the mosses belong to the same great group as Funaria, the Bryales. The other two subdivisions of the Musci are each represented by a single genus. In the Andreaeales the columella does not extend to the upper end of the capsule, and the latter opens by a number of lateral slits. The Sphagnales also have a dome-shaped spore-sac continued over the columella, and, though their capsule opens by an operculum, they differ widely from other mosses in the development of the sporogonium as well as in the characters of the sexual generation. The three groups are described separately below, but some more general features of the mosses may be considered here.
On the whole mosses grow in drier situations than the liverworts, and the arrangements they present for the conduction of water in the plant are also more complete and suggest in some cases comparisons with the higher plants. In spite of this, however, they are in great part dependent on the absorption of water through the general surface of the shoot, and the power of rapid imbibition possessed by their cell-walls, the crowded position of the small leaves on the stem, and special adaptations for the retention of water on the surface, have the same significance as in the foliose liverworts. The different appearance of exposed mosses in dry weather and after a shower illustrates this relation to the water supply. The protonema is always a well-marked stage in the life-history. Not only does a moss-plant never arise directly from the spore, but in all cases of vegetative reproduction, apart from the separation of branches by decay of older regions of the plant, a protonema is found. Usually the protonema is filamentous and ceases to be evident after the plants have developed. But in some small mosses (e.g. Ephemerum) it plays the chief part in assimilation and lives on from year to year. In Sphagnum, Andreaea and some genera of the Bryales the protonema or some of its branches have the form of flat plates or masses of cells. The formation of the moss-plant on the protonema is always from a single cell and is similar in all mosses. The first three walls in this cell intersect one another, and define the three-sided pyramidal apical cell by means of which the shoot continues to grow. In Fissidens and a few other mosses the apical cell is two-sided. The leaves formed by the successive segments gradually attain their normal size and structure. Each segment of the initial cell gives rise to a leaf and a portion of the stem; the branches arise from the lower portion of a segment and stand immediately below a leaf. The leaves may form three vertical rows, but usually their arrangement, owing to the direction of the segment walls at the apex, becomes more complicated. Their growth proceeds by means of a two-sided apical cell, and the midrib does not become more than one cell thick until later. In addition to the leaves the stem often bears hair-like structures of different kinds, some of which correspond to modified branches of protonema. The branched filamentous rhizoids which spring from the lower region of the stem also correspond to protonemal branches. The structure of both stem and leaf reaches a high grade of organization in some mosses. Not only are thick-walled sclerenchymatous cells developed to give rigidity to the periphery of the stem and the midrib of the leaf, but in many cases a special water-conducting tissue, consisting of elongated cells, the end walls of which are thin and oblique, forms a definite central strand in the stem. In the forms in which it is most highly developed (Polytrichaceae) this tissue, which is comparable with the xylem of higher plants, is surrounded by a zone of tissue physiologically comparable to phloem, and in the rhizome may be limited by an endodermis. The conducting strands in the leaves show the same tissues as in the central strand of the stem, and in the Polytrichaceae and some other mosses are in continuity with it. The independent origin of this conducting system is of great interest for comparison with the vascular system of the sporophyte of the higher plants.
The sexual organs, with the exception of the antheridia of Sphagnum, are borne at the apices of the main shoot or of branches. Their general similarity to the mature antheridia and archegonia of liverworts and the main difference in their development have been referred to. The antheridia open by means of a cap cell or groups of cells with mucilaginous contents. The details of construction of the sporogonium are referred to below. In all cases (except Archidium) a columella is present, and all the cells derived from the archesporium produce spores, no elaters being formed. In a few cases the germination of the spore commences within the capsule. The development of the sporogonium proceeds in all cases (except in Sphagnum) by means of an apical cell cutting off two rows of segments. The first periclinal division in the region forming the capsule separates an inner group of cells (the endothecium) form the peripheral layer (amphithecium). In Sphagnum, as in Anthoceros, the archesporium is derived from the amphithecium; in all other mosses it is the outermost layer of the endothecium.
Vegetative propagation is widely spread in the mosses, and, as mentioned above, a protonema is always formed in the development of the new plant. The social growth of the plants characteristic of many mosses is a result of the formation of numerous plants on the original protonema and on developments from the rhizoids. Besides this, gemmae may be formed on the protonema, on the leaves or at the apex, and some mosses have specialized shoots for their better protection or distribution. Thus in Georgia the stalked, multicellular gemmae are borne at the ends of shoots surrounded by a rosette of larger leaves, and in Aulacomnium androgynum they are raised on an elongated leafless region of the shoot. In other cases detached leaves or shoots may give rise to new plants, and when a moss is artificially divided almost any fragment may serve for reproduction.
Even in those rare cases in which the sexual generation can be developed without the intervention of spore production from the tissues of the sporogonium, a protonema is formed from cut pieces of the seta or in some cases from intact sporogonia still attached to the plant. This phenomenon of apospory was first discovered in mosses, but is now also known in a number of ferns (see PTERIDOPHYTA).
Sphagnales.--The single genus Sphagnum occupies a very distinct and isolated position among mosses. The numerous species, which are familiar as the bog-mosses, are so similar that minute structural characters have to be relied on in their identification. The plants occur in large patches of a pale green or reddish colour on moors, and, when filling up small lakes or pools, may attain a length of some feet. Their growth has played a large part in the formation of peat. The species are distributed in temperate and arctic climates, but in the tropics only occur at high levels. The protonema forms a flat, lobed, thalloid structure attached to the soil by rhizoids, and the plants arise from marginal cells. The main shoot bears numerous branches which appear to stand in whorls; some of them bend down and become applied to the surface of the main axis. The structure of the stem and leaves is peculiar. The former shows on cross-section a thin-walled central tissue surrounded by a zone of thick-walled cells. Outside this come one to five layers of large clear cells, which when mature are dead and empty; their walls are strengthened with a spiral thickening and perforated with round pores. They serve to absorb and conduct water by capillarity. The leaves have no midrib and similar empty cells occur regularly among the narrow chlorophyll-containing cells, which thus appear as a green network. The antheridia are globular and have long stalks. They stand by the side of leaves of special club-shaped branches. The archegonial groups occupy the apices of short branches (fig. 13, A.). The mature sporogonium consists of a wide foot separated by a constriction from the globular capsule (B). There is no distinct seta, but the capsule is raised on a leafless outgrowth of the end of the branch called a pseudopodium (C, qs). The capsule, the wall of which bears rudimentary stomata, has a small operculum but no peristome. There is a short, wide columella, over which the dome-shaped spore-sac extends, and no air-space is present between the spore-sac and the wall. In the embryo a number of tiers of cells are first formed. The lower tiers [v.04 p.0652] form the foot, while in the upper part the first divisions mark off the columella, around which the archesporium, derived from the amphithecium, extends. The sporogonium when nearly mature bursts the calyptra irregularly. The capsule opens explosively in dry weather, the operculum and spores being thrown to a distance. The spore on germination forms a short filament which soon broadens out into the thalloid protonema. Some twelve species of Sphagnum are found in Britain.
Andreaeales.--The species of the single genus Andreaea (fig. 14) are small, dark-coloured mosses growing for the most part in tufts on bare rocks in alpine and arctic regions. Four species occur on alpine rocks in Britain. The spore on germination gives rise to a small mass of cells from which one or more short filaments grow. The filament soon broadens into a ribbon-shaped thallus, several cells thick, which is closely applied to the rock. Erect branches may arise from the protonema, and gemmae may be developed on it. The stem of the plant, which arises in the usual way, has no conducting strand and the leaves may or may not have midribs. The leaf grows by a dome-shaped instead of by the usual two-sided initial cell. The antheridia are long-stalked. The upper portion of the archegonial wall is carried up as a calyptra on the sporogonium, which, as in Sphagnum, has no seta and is raised on a pseudopodium. The development of the sporogonium proceeds as in the Bryales, but the dome-shaped archesporium extends over the summit of the columella and an air-space is wanting. The capsule does not open by an operculum but by four or six longitudinal slits, which do not reach either the base or apex. In one exotic species the splits occur only at the upper part of the capsule, and the terminal cap breaks away. This isolated example thus appears to approach the Bryales in its mode of dehiscence.
Bryales.--In contrast to the preceding two this group includes a very large number of genera and species. Thus even in Britain between five and six hundred species belonging to more than one hundred genera are found. They occur in the most varied situations, on soil, on rocks and trees, and, in a few instances (Fontinalis), in water. Although exhibiting a wide range in size and in the structural complexity of both generations, they all conform to a general type, so that Funaria, described above, will serve as a fair example of the group. The protonema is usually filamentous, and in some of the simplest forms is long-lived, while the small plants borne on it serve mainly to protect the sexual organs and sporogonia. This is the case in Ephemerum, which grows on the damp soil of clayey fields, and the plants are even more simply constructed in Buxbaumia, which occurs on soil rich in humus and is possibly partially saprophytic. In this moss the filamentous protonema is capable of assimilation, but the leaves of the small plants are destitute of chlorophyll, so that they are dependent on the protonema. The male plant has no definite stem, and consists of a single concave leaf protecting the antheridium. The female plant is rather more highly organized, consisting of a short stem bearing a few leaves around the group of archegonia. The sporogonium is of large size and highly organized, though it presents peculiar features in the peristome. Buxbaumia has been regarded by Goebel as representing a stage which other mosses have passed, and has been described by him as the simplest type of moss. In Ephemerum also we may probably regard the relation of the small plants to the protonema as a primitive one. On the other hand, in the case of Ephemeropsis, which grows on the leaves of living plants in Java, the high organization of the sporogonium makes it probable that the persistent protonema is an adaptation to the peculiar conditions of life. A highly developed protonema provided with leaf-like assimilating organs is found in Georgia, Diphyscium and Oedipodium, all of which show peculiarities in the sporogonium as well. The cells of the protonema of Schistostega, which lives in the shade of caves, are so constructed as to concentrate the feeble available light on the chloroplasts.
We may perhaps regard the persistent protonema bearing small leafy plants as a primitive condition, and look upon those larger plants which remain unbranched and bear the sexual organs at the apex (e.g. Schistostega) as representing the next stage. From this condition different lines of specialization in the form and structure of the plant can be recognized. A large number of mosses stand at about the same grade as Funaria, in that the plants are small, sparingly branched, usually radial, and do not show a very highly differentiated internal structure. In others the form of the plant becomes more complex by copious branching and the differentiation of shoots of different orders. In these cases the shoot system is often more or less dorsiventral, and the sexual organs are borne on short lateral branches (e.g. Thuidium tamariscinum). The Polytrichaceae, on the other hand, show a specialization in structure rather than in form. The high organization of their conducting system has been referred to above, but though many species are able to exist in relatively dry situations, the plants are still dependent on the absorption of water by the general surface. The parallel lamellae of assimilating cells which grow from the upper surface of the leaf in these and some other mosses probably serve to retain water in the neighbourhood of the assimilating cells and so prolong their activity. As common adaptive features in the leaves the occurrence of papillae or outgrowths of the cell-walls to retain water, and the white hairlike leaf tips, which assist in protecting the young parts at the apex of many xerophytic mosses, may be mentioned. The leaves of Leucobryum, which occurs in pale green tufts in shaded woods, show a parallel adaptation to that found in Sphagnum. They are several cells thick, and the small assimilating cells lie between two layers of empty water-storage cells, the walls of which are perforated by pores.
With the possible exception of Archidium, the sporogonium is throughout the Bryales constructed on one plan. Archidium is a small moss occurring occasionally on the soil of wet fields. The protonema is not persistent, and the plants are well developed, resembling those of Pleuridium. The sporogonium has a small foot and practically no seta, and differs in the development and structure of its capsule from all other mosses. The spores are derived from the endothecium, but no distinction of a sterile columella and an archesporium is established in this, a variable number of its cells becoming spore-mother-cells while the rest serve to nourish the spores. The layer of cells immediately around the endothecium becomes the spore-sac, and an air-space forms between this and the wall of the capsule. The very large, thin-walled spores escape on the decay of the capsule, which ruptures the archegonial wall irregularly. On account of the absence of a columella Archidium is sometimes placed in a distinct group, but since its peculiarities have possibly arisen by reduction it seems at present best retained among the Bryales. In all other Bryales there is a definite columella extending from the base to the apex of the capsule, the archesporium is derived from the outermost layer of cells of the endothecium, and an air space is formed between the spore-sac and the wall. In the Polytrichaceae another air space separates the spore-sac from the columella. There is great variety in the length of the seta, which is sometimes practically absent. The apophysis, which may be a more or less distinct region, usually bears stomata and is the main organ of assimilation. In the Splachnaceae it is expanded for this purpose, while in Oedipodium it constitutes most of the long pale stalk which supports the capsule. A distinct operculum is usually detached by the help of the annulus, and its removal may leave the mouth of the capsule widely open. More usually there is a peristome, consisting of one or two series of teeth, which serves to narrow the opening and in various ways to ensure the gradual shedding of the spores in dry weather. In most mosses the teeth are portions of thickened cell-walls but in the Polytrichaceae they are formed of a number of sclerenchymatous cells. In Polytrichum a membranous epiphragm stretches across the wide mouth of the capsule between the tips of the short peristome teeth, and closes the opening except for the interspaces of the peristome.
In a number of forms, which were formerly grouped together, the capsule does not open to liberate the spores. These cleistocarpous forms are now recognized as related to various natural groups, in which the majority of the species possess an operculum. In such forms as Phascum the columella persists, and the only peculiarity is in the absence of arrangements for dehiscence. In Ephemerum [v.04 p.0653] (and the closely related Nanomitrium which has a small operculum) the columella becomes absorbed during the development of the spores. Stomata are present on the wall of the small capsule. Such facts as these suggest that in many cases the cleistocarpous condition is the result of reduction rather than primitive, and that possibly the same holds for Archidium.
The former subdivision of the Bryales into Musci Cleistocarpi and Musci Stegocarpi according to the absence or presence of an operculum is thus clearly artificial. The same holds even more obviously for the grouping of the stegocarpous forms into those in which the archegonial group terminates a main axis (acrocarpi) and those in which it is borne on a more or less developed lateral branch (pleurocarpi). Modern classifications of the Bryales depend mainly on the construction of the peristome.
It remains to be considered to what extent the several natural groups of plants classed together in the Bryophyta can be placed in a phylogenetic relation to one another. Practically no help is afforded by palaeobotany, and only the comparison of existing forms can be depended on. The indications of probable lines of evolution are clearest in the Hepaticae. The Marchantiales form an obviously natural evolutionary group, and the same is probably true of the Jungermanniales, although in neither case can the partial lines of progression within the main groups be said to be quite clear. Such a form as Sphaerocarpus, which has features in common with the lower Marchantiales, enables us to form an idea of the divergence of the two groups from a common ancestry. The Anthocerotales, on the other hand, stand in an isolated position, and recent researches have served to emphasize this rather than to confirm the relationship with the Jungermanniales suggested by Leitgeb. The indications of a serial progression are not so clear in the mosses, but the majority of the forms may be regarded as forming a great phylogenetic group in the evolution of which the elaboration of the moss-plant has proceeded until the protonema appears as a mere preliminary stage to the formation of the plants. Parallel with the evolution of the gametophyte in form and structure, a progression can be traced in the sporogonium, although the simplest sporogonia available for study may owe much of their simplicity to reduction. The Andreaeales may perhaps be looked on as a divergent primitive branch of the same stock. On the other hand, the Sphagnales show such considerable and important differences from the rest of the mosses, that like the Anthocerotales among the liverworts, they may be regarded as a group, the relationship of which to the main stem is at least problematical. Between the Hepaticae, Anthocerotales, Sphagnales and Musci, there are no connecting forms known, and it must be left as an open question whether the Bryophyta are a monophyletic or polyphyletic group.
The question of the relationship of the Bryophyta on the one hand to the Thallophyta and on the other to the Pteridophyta lies even more in the region of speculation, on slender grounds without much hope of decisive evidence. In a general sense we may regard the Bryophyta as derived from an algal ancestry, without being able to suggest the nature of the ancestral forms or the geological period at which they arose. Recent researches on those Algae such as Coleochaete which appeared to afford a close comparison in their alternation of generations with Riccia, have shown that the body resulting from the segmentation of the fertilized ovum is not so strictly comparable in the two cases as had been supposed. The series of increasingly complex sporogonia among Bryophytes appears to be most naturally explained on an hypothesis of progressive sterilization of sporogenous tissue, such as has been advanced by Bower. On the other hand there are not wanting indications of reduction in the Bryophyte sporogonium which make an alternative view of its origin at least possible. With regard to the relationship of the Bryophyta and Pteridophyta the article on the latter group should be consulted. It will be sufficient to say in conclusion that while the alternating generations in the two groups are strictly comparable, no evidence of actual relationship is yet forthcoming.
For further information consult: Campbell, Mosses and Ferns (London, 1906); Engler and Prantl, Die naturlichen Pflanzenfamilien, Teil i. Abt. 3 (Leipzig, 1893-1907); Goebel, Organography of Plants (Oxford, 1905). Full references to the literature of the subject will be found in these works. For the identification of the British species of liverworts and mosses the following recent works will be of use: Pearson, The Hepaticae of the British Isles (London, 1902); Dixon and Jameson, The Student's Handbook of British Mosses (London, 1896); Braithwaite, British Moss Flora (London, 1887-1905).
(W. H. L.)
BRZOZOWSKI, THADDEUS (d. 1820), nineteenth general of the Jesuits, was appointed in succession to Gabriel Gruber on the 2nd of September 1805. In 1801 Pius VII. had given the Jesuits liberty to reconstitute themselves in north Russia (see JESUITS: History), and in 1812 Brzozowski secured the recognition of the Jesuit college of Polotsk as a university, though he could not obtain permission to go to Spain to agitate for the recognition [v.04 p.0654] of the Spanish Jesuits. In 1814 Pius VII., in accordance with the bull Sollicitudo omnium ecclesiarum, gave to Brzozowski among others full authority to receive those who desired to enter the society. The Russian government, however, soon began to be alarmed at the growth of the Jesuits, and on the 20th of December 1815 published an edict expelling them from St Petersburg. Brzozowski, having vainly requested to be allowed to retire to Rome, died on the 5th of February 1820. He is interesting mainly from the fact that he was general of the Society at the time of its restoration throughout Europe.
BUBASTIS, the Graecized name of the Egyptian goddess Ubasti, meaning "she of [the city] Bast" (B;s-t), a city better known by its later name, P-ubasti, "place of Ubasti"; thus the goddess derived her name Ubasti from her city (Bast), and in turn the city derived its name P-ubasti from that of the goddess; the Greeks, confusing the name of the city with that of the goddess, called the latter Bubastis, and the former also Bubastis (later Bubastos). Bubastis, capital of the 19th nome of Lower Egypt, is now represented by a great mound of ruins called Tell Basta, near Zagazig, including the site of a large temple (described by Herodotus) strewn with blocks of granite. The monuments discovered there, although only those in hard stone have survived, are more important than at any other site in the Delta except Tanis and cover a wider range, commencing with Khufu (Cheops) and continuing to the thirtieth dynasty.
Ubasti was one of many feline goddesses, figured with the head of a lioness. In the great development of reverence for sacred animals which took place after the New Kingdom, the domestic cat was especially the animal of Bubastis, although it had also to serve for all the other feline goddesses, owing no doubt to the scarcity and intractability of its congeners. Her hieratic and most general form was still lioness-headed, but a popular form, especially in bronze, was a cat-headed women, often holding in her right hand a lion aegis, i.e. a broad semicircular pectoral surmounted by the head of a lioness, and on the left arm a basket. The cat cemetery on the west side of the town consisted of numbers of large brick chambers, crammed with burnt and decayed mummies, many of which had been enclosed in cat-shaped cases of wood and bronze. Herodotus describes the festival of Bubastis, which was attended by thousands from all parts of Egypt and was a very riotous affair; it has its modern equivalent in the Moslem festival of the sheikh Said el Badawi at Tanta. The tablet of Canopus shows that there were two festivals of Bubastis, the great and the lesser: perhaps the lesser festival was held at Memphis, where the quarter called Ankhto contained a temple to this goddess. Her name is found on monuments from the third dynasty onwards, but a great stimulus was given to her worship by the twenty-second (Bubastite) dynasty and generally by the increased importance of Lower Egypt in later times. Her character seems to have been essentially mild and playful, in contrast to Sokhmi and other feline goddesses. The Greeks equated Ubasti with their Artemis, confusing her with the leonine Tafne, sister of Shöou (Apollo). The Egyptians themselves delighted in identifying together goddesses of the most diverse forms and attributes; but Ubasti was almost indistinguishable in form from Tafne. The name of her son Iphthimis (Nfr-tm), pronounced Eftem, may mean "All-good," and, in the absence of other information about him, suggests a reason why he was identified with Prometheus.
See K. Sethe in Pauly-Wissowa's Realencyclopädie; E. Naville, Bubastis, and Festival Hall of Osorkon II.; Herodotus ii. 67, 137-156; Grenfell and Hunt, Hibeh Papyri, i.
(F. LL. G.)
BUCARAMANGA, a city of Colombia, capital of the department of Santandér, about 185 m. N.N.E. of Bogotá. Pop. (estimate, 1902) 25,000. It is situated on the Lebrija river, 3248 ft. above sea-level, in a mountainous country rich in gold, silver and iron mines, and having superior coffee-producing lands in the valleys and on the lower slopes. The city is laid out with wide, straight streets, is well built, and has many public buildings of a substantial character.
BUCCANEERS, the name given to piratical adventurers of different nationalities united in their opposition to Spain, who maintained themselves chiefly in the Caribbean Sea during the 17th century.
The island of Santo Domingo was one of several in the West Indies which had early in the 16th century been almost depopulated by the oppressive colonial policy of Spain. Along its coast there were several isolated establishments presided over by Spaniards, who were deprived of a convenient market for the produce of the soil by the monopolies imposed by the mother country. Accordingly English, Dutch and French vessels were welcomed and their cargoes readily bought. The island, thinned of its former inhabitants, had become the home of immense herds of wild cattle; and it became the habit of smugglers to provision at Santo Domingo. The natives still left were skilled in preserving flesh at their little establishments called boucans. The adventurers learned "boucanning" from the natives; and gradually Hispaniola became the scene of an extensive and illicit butcher trade. Spanish monopolies filled the seamen who sailed the Caribbean with a natural hate of everything Spanish. The pleasures of a roving life, enlivened by occasional skirmishes with forces organized and led by Spanish officials, gained upon them. Out of such conditions arose the buccaneer, alternately sailor and hunter, even occasionally a planter--roving, bold, unscrupulous, often savage, with an intense detestation of Spain. As the Spaniards would not recognize the right of other races to make settlements, or even to trade in the West Indies, the governments of France, England and Holland would do nothing to control their subjects who invaded the islands. They left them free to make settlements at their own risk. Each nation contributed a band of colonists, who selected the island of St Kitts or St Christopher, in the West Indies, where the settlers of both nations were simultaneously planted. The English and French were, however, not very friendly; and in 1629, after the retirement of several of the former to an adjoining island, the remaining colonists were surprised and partly dispersed by the arrival of a Spanish fleet of thirty-nine sail. But on the departure of the fleet the scattered bands returned, and encouragement was given to their countrymen in Santo Domingo. For buccaneering had now become a most profitable employment, operations were extended, and a storehouse secure from the attacks of the Spaniards was required. The small island of Tortuga (north-west of Hispaniola) was seized for this purpose in 1630, converted into a magazine for the goods of the rivals, and made their headquarters, Santo Domingo itself still continuing their hunting ground. A purely English settlement directed by a company in London was made at Old Providence, an island in the Caribbean Sea, now belonging to Colombia. It began a little before 1630, and was suppressed by the Spaniards in 1641.
Spain was unable to take immediate action. Eight years later, however, watching their opportunity when many buccaneers were absent in the larger island, the Spaniards attacked Tortuga, and massacred every settler they could seize. But the others returned; and the buccaneers, now in open hostility to the Spanish arms, began to receive recruits from every European trading nation, and for three-quarters of a century became the scourge of the Spanish-American trade and dominions.
France, throughout all this, had not been idle. She had named the governor of St Kitts "Governor-General for the French West India Islands," and in 1641 he took possession of Tortuga, expelled all English from the island, and attempted the same with less success in Santo Domingo. England was absorbed in the Civil War, and the buccaneers had to maintain themselves as best they could,--now mainly on the sea.
In 1654 the Spaniards regained Tortuga from the French, into whose hands it again, however, fell after six years. But this state of affairs was too insecure even for these rovers, and they would speedily have succumbed had not a refuge been found for them by the fortunate conquest of Jamaica in 1655 by the navy of the English Commonwealth. These conquests were not made without the aid of the buccaneers themselves. The taking and re-taking of Tortuga by the French was always with the assistance of the roving community; and at the conquest of Jamaica the English navy had the same influence in its favour. The [v.04 p.0655] buccaneers, in fact, constituted a mercenary navy, ready for employment against the power of Spain by any other nation, on condition of sharing the plunder; and they were noted for their daring, their cruelty and their extraordinary skill in seamanship.
Their history now divides itself into three epochs. The first of these extends from the period of their rise to the capture of Panama by Morgan in 1671, during which time they were hampered neither by government aid nor, till near its close, by government restriction. The second, from 1671 to the time of their greatest power, 1685, when the scene of their operations was no longer merely the Caribbean, but principally the whole range of the Pacific from California to Chile. The third and last period extends from that year onwards; it was a time of disunion and disintegration, when the independence and rude honour of the previous periods had degenerated into unmitigated vice and brutality.
It is chiefly during the first period that those leaders flourished whose names and doings have been associated with all that was really influential in the exploits of the buccaneers--the most prominent being Mansfield and Morgan. The floating commerce of Spain had by the middle of the 17th century become utterly insignificant. But Spanish settlements remained; and in 1654 the first great expedition on land made by the buccaneers, though attended by considerable difficulties, was completed by the capture and sack of New Segovia, on the mainland of America. The Gulf of Venezuela, with its towns of Maracaibo and Gibraltar, were attacked and plundered under the command of a Frenchman named L'Ollonois, who performed, it is said, the office of executioner upon the whole crew of a Spanish vessel manned with ninety seamen. Such successes removed the buccaneers further and further from the pale of civilized society, fed their revenge, and inspired them with an avarice almost equal to that of the original settlers from Spain. Mansfield indeed, in 1664, conceived the idea of a permanent settlement upon a small island of the Bahamas, named New Providence, and Henry Morgan, a Welshman, intrepid and unscrupulous, joined him. But the untimely death of Mansfield nipped in the bud the only rational scheme of settlement which seems at any time to have animated this wild community; and Morgan, now elected commander, swept the whole Caribbean, and from his headquarters in Jamaica led triumphant expeditions to Cuba and the mainland. He was leader of the expedition wherein Porto Bello, one of the best-fortified ports in the West Indies, was surprised and plundered.
This was too much for even the adverse European powers; and in 1670 a treaty was concluded between England and Spain, proclaiming peace and friendship among the subjects of the two sovereigns in the New World, formally renouncing hostilities of every kind. Great Britain was to hold all her possessions in the New World as her own property (a remarkable concession on the part of Spain), and consented, on behalf of her subjects, to forbear trading with any Spanish port without licence obtained.
The treaty was very ill observed in Jamaica, where the governor, Thomas Modyford (1620-1679), was in close alliance with the "privateers," which was the official title of the buccaneers. He had already granted commissions to Morgan and others for a great attack on the Isthmus of Panama, the route by which the bullion of the South American mines was carried to Porto Bello, to be shipped to Spain. The buccaneers to the number of 2000 began by seizing Chagres, and then marched to Panama in 1671. After a difficult journey on foot and in canoes, they found themselves nearing the shores of the South Sea and in view of the city. On the morning of the tenth day they commenced an engagement which ended in the rout of the defenders of the town. It was taken, and, accidentally or not, it was burnt. The sack of Panama was accompanied by great barbarities. The Spaniards had, however, removed the treasure before the city was taken. When the booty was divided, Morgan is accused of having defrauded his followers. It is certain that the share per man was small, and that many of the buccaneers died of starvation while trying to return to Jamaica. Modyford was recalled, and in 1672 Morgan was called home and imprisoned in the Tower. In 1674 he was allowed to come back to the island as lieutenant-governor with Lord Vaughan. He had become so unpopular after the expedition of 1671 that he was followed in the streets and threatened by the relations of those who had perished. During his later years he was active in suppressing the buccaneers who had now inconvenient claims on him.
From 1671 to 1685 is the time of the greatest daring, prosperity and power of the buccaneers. The expedition against Panama had not been without its influence. Notwithstanding their many successes in the Caribbean and on land, including a second plunder of Porto Bello, their thoughts ran frequently on the great expedition across the isthmus, and they pictured the South Sea as a far wider and more lucrative field for the display of their united power.
In 1680 a body of marauders over 300 strong, well armed and provisioned, landed on the shore of Darien and struck across the country; and the cruelty and mismanagement displayed in the policy of the Spaniards towards the Indians were now revenged by the assistance which the natives eagerly rendered to the adventurers. They acted as guides during a difficult journey of nine days, kept the invaders well supplied with food, provided them with canoes, and only left them after the taking of the fort of Santa Maria, when the buccaneers were fairly embarked on a broad and safe river which emptied itself into the South Sea. With John Coxon as commander they entered the Bay of Panama, where rumour had been before them, and where the Spaniards had hastily prepared a small fleet to meet them. But the valour of the buccaneers won for them another victory; within a week they took possession of four Spanish ships, and now successes flowed upon them. The Pacific, hitherto free from their intrusion, showed many sail of merchant vessels, while on land opposition south of the Bay of Panama was of little avail, since few were acquainted with the use of fire-arms. Coxon and seventy men returned as they had gone, but the others, under Sawkins, Sharp and Watling, roamed north and south on islands and mainland, and remained for long ravaging the coast of Peru. Never short of silver and gold, but often in want of the necessaries of life, they continued their practices for a little longer; then, evading the risk of recrossing the isthmus, they boldly cleared Cape Horn, and arrived in the Indies. Again, in 1683, numbers of them under John Cook departed for the South Sea by way of Cape Horn. On Cook's death his successor, Edward Davis, undoubtedly the greatest and most prudent commander who ever led the forces of the buccaneers at sea, met with a certain Captain Swan from England, and the two captains began a cruise which was disastrous to the Spanish trade in the Pacific.
In 1685 they were joined in the Bay of Panama by large numbers of buccaneers who had crossed the isthmus under Townley and others. This increased body of men required an enlarged measure of adventure, and this in a few months was supplied by the viceroy of Peru. That officer, seeing the trade of the colony cut off, supplies stopped, towns burned and raided, and property harassed by continual raids, resolved by vigorous means to put an end to it. But his aim was not easily accomplished. In this same year a Spanish fleet of fourteen sail met, but did not engage, ten buccaneer vessels which were found in the Bay of Panama.
At this period the power of the buccaneers was at its height. But the combination was too extensive for its work, and the different nationality of those who composed it was a source of growing discord. Nor was the dream of equality ever realized for any length of time. The immense spoil obtained on the capture of wealthy cities was indeed divided equally. But in the gambling and debauchery which followed, nothing was more common than that one-half of the conquerors should find themselves on the morrow in most pressing want; and while those who had retained or increased their share would willingly have gone home, the others clamoured for renewed attacks. The separation of the English and French buccaneers, who together presented a united front to the Spanish fleet in 1685, marks the beginning of the third and last epoch in their history.
The brilliant exploits begun by the sack of Leon and Realejo [v.04 p.0656] by the English under Davis have, even in their variety and daring, a sameness which deprives them of interest, and the wonderful confederacy is now seen to be falling gradually to pieces. The skill of Davis at sea was on one occasion displayed in a seven days' engagement with two large Spanish vessels, and the interest undoubtedly centres in him. Townley and Swan had, however, by this time left him, and after cruising together for some time, they, too, parted. In 1688 Davis cleared Cape Horn and arrived in the West Indies, while Swan's ship, the "Cygnet," was abandoned as unseaworthy, after sailing as far as Madagascar. Townley had hardly joined the French buccaneers remaining in the South Sea ere he died, and the Frenchmen with their companions crossed New Spain to the West Indies. And thus the Pacific, ravaged so long by this powerful and mysterious band of corsairs, was at length at peace.
The West Indies had by this time become hot enough even for the banded pirates. They hung doggedly along the coasts of Jamaica and Santo Domingo, but their day was nearly over. Only once again--at the siege of Carthagena--did they appear great; but even then the expedition was not of their making, and they were mere auxiliaries of the French regular forces. After the treachery of the French commander of this expedition a spirit of unity and despairing energy seemed reawakened in them; but this could not avert and scarcely delayed the rapidly approaching extinction of the community.
The French and English buccaneers could not but take sides in the war which had arisen between their respective countries in 1689. Thus was broken the bond of unity which had for three-quarters of a century kept the subjects of the two nations together in schemes of aggression upon a common foe. In the short peace of 1697-1700 England and France were using all their influence, both in the Old World and in the New, to ingratiate themselves into the favour of the king of Spain. With the resumption of hostilities in 1700 and the rise of Spain consequent upon the accession of the French claimant to the throne the career of the buccaneers was effectually closed.
But the fall of the buccaneers is no more accounted for fully by these circumstances than is their rise by the massacre of the islanders of Santo Domingo. There was that in the very nature of the community which, from its birth, marked it as liable to speedy decline.
The principles which bound the buccaneers together were, first the desire for adventure and gain, and, in the second place, hatred of the Spaniard. The first was hardly a sufficient bond of union, among men of different nationalities, when booty could be had nearly always by private venture under the colours of the separate European powers. Of greater validity was their second and great principle of union, namely, that they warred not with one another, nor with every one, but with a single and a common foe. For while the buccaneer forces included English, French and Dutch sailors, and were complemented occasionally by bands of native Indians, there are few instances during the time of their prosperity and growth of their falling upon one another, and treating their fellows with the savagery which they exulted in displaying against the subjects of Spain. The exigencies, moreover, of their perilous career readily wasted their suddenly acquired gains.
Settled labour, the warrant of real wealth, was unacceptable to those who lived by promoting its insecurity. Regular trade--though rendered attractive by smuggling--and pearl gathering and similar operations which were spiced with risk, were open in vain to them, and in the absence of any domestic life, a hand-to-mouth system of supply and demand rooted out gradually the prudence which accompanies any mode of settled existence. In everything the policy of the buccaneers, from the beginning to the end of their career, was one of pure destruction, and was, therefore, ultimately suicidal.
Their great importance in history lies in the fact that they opened the eyes of the world, and specially of the nations from whom these buccaneers had sprung, to the whole system of Spanish-American government and commerce--the former in its rottenness, and the latter in its possibilities in other hands. From this, then, along with other causes, dating primarily from the helplessness and presumption of Spain, there arose the West Indian possessions of Holland, England and France.
A work published at Amsterdam in 1678, entitled De Americaensche Zee Roovers, from the pen of a buccaneer named Exquemelin, was translated into several European languages, receiving additions at the hands of the different translators. The French translation by Frontignières is named Histoire des avanturiers qui se sont signalez dans les Indes; the English edition is entitled The Bucaniers of America. Other works are Raynal's History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies, book x., English translation 1782; Dampier's Voyages; Geo. W. Thornbury's Monarchs of the Main, &c. (1855); Lionel Wafer's Voyage and Description of the Isthmus of America (1699); and the Histoire de l'isle Espagnole, &c., and Histoire et description générale de la Nouvelle France of Père Charlevoix. The statements in these works are to be received with caution. A really authentic narrative, however, is Captain James Burney's History of the Buccaneers of America (London, 1816). The Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series (London, 1860 et seq.), contains much evidence for the history of the buccaneers in the West Indies.
(D. H.)
BUCCARI (Serbo-Croatian Bakar), a royal free town of Croatia-Slavonia, Hungary; situated in the county of Modru[vs]-Fiume, 7 m. S.E. of Fiume, on a small bay of the Adriatic Sea. Pop. (1900) 1870. The Hungarian state railway from Zákány and Agram terminates 2½ m. from Buccari. The harbour, though sometimes dangerous to approach, affords good anchorage to small vessels. Owing to competition from Fiume, Buccari lost the greater part of its trade during the 19th century. The staple industry is boatbuilding, and there is an active coasting trade in fish, wine, wood and coal. The tunny-fishery is of some importance. In the neighbourhood of the town is the old castle of Buccarica, and farther south the flourishing little port of Porto Ré or Kraljevica.
BUCCINA (more correctly B[=u]c[)i]na, Gr. [Greek: Bukanê], connected with bucca, cheek, and Gr. [Greek: Buzô], a brass wind instrument extensively used in the ancient Roman army. The Roman instrument consisted of a brass tube measuring some 11 to 12 ft. in length, of narrow cylindrical bore, and played by means of a cup-shaped mouthpiece. The tube is bent round upon itself from the mouthpiece to the bell in the shape of a broad C and is strengthened by means of a bar across the curve, which the performer grasps while playing, in order to steady the instrument; the bell curves over his head or shoulder as in the modern helicon. Three Roman buccinas were found among the ruins of Pompeii and are now deposited in the museum at Naples. V. C. Mahillon, of Brussels[1] has made a facsimile of one of these instruments; it is in G and has almost the same harmonic series as the French horn and the trumpet. The buccina, the cornu (see HORN), and the tuba were used as signal instruments in the Roman army and camp to sound the four night watches (hence known as buccina prima, secunda, &c.), to summon them by means of the special signal known as classicum, and to give orders.[2] Frontinus relates[3] that a Roman general, who had been surrounded by the enemy, escaped during the night by means of the stratagem of leaving behind him a buccinator (trumpeter), who sounded [v.04 p.0657] the watches throughout the night.[4] Vegetius gives brief descriptions of the three instruments, which suffice to establish their identity; the tuba, he says, is straight; the buccina is of bronze bent in the form of a circle.[5]
The buccina, in respect of its technical construction and acoustic properties, was the ancestor of both trumpet and trombone; the connexion is further established by the derivation of the words Sackbut and Posaune (the German for trombone) from buccina. The relation was fully recognized in Germany during the 15th and 16th centuries, as two translations of Vegetius, published at Ulm in 1470, and at Augsburg in 1534, clearly demonstrate: "Bucina das ist die trumet oder pusan"[6] ("the bucina is the trumpet or trombone") and ("Bucina ist die trummet die wirt ausz und eingezogen"[7] ("the bucina is the trumpet which is drawn out and in"). A French translation by Jean de Meung (Paris, 1488),[8] renders the passage (chap. iii. 5) thus: "Trompe est longue et droite; buisine est courte et reflechist en li meisme si comme partie de cercle." On Trajan's column[9] the tuba, the cornu and the buccina are distinguishable. Other illustrations of the buccina may be seen in François Mazois' Les Ruines de Pompéi (Paris, 1824-1838), pt. iv, pl. xlviii. fig. 1, and in J.N. von Wilmowsky's Eine römische Villa zu Nennig (Bonn, 1865), pl. xii. (mosaics), where the buccinator is accompanied on the hydraulus. The military buccina described is a much more advanced instrument than its prototype the buccina marina, a primitive trumpet in the shape of a conical shell, often having a spiral twist, which in poetry is often called concha. The buccina marina is frequently depicted in the hands of Tritons (Macrobius i. 8), or of sailors, as for instance on terra-cotta lamp shown by G.P. Bellori (Lucernae veterum sepulcrales iconicae, 1702, iii. 12). The highly imaginative writer of the apocryphal letter of St Jerome to Dardanus also has a word to say concerning the buccina among the Semitic races: "Bucca vocatur tuba apud Hebreos: deinde per diminutionem buccina dicitur." After the fall of the Roman empire the art of bending metal tubes was gradually lost, and although the buccina survived in Europe both in name and in principle of construction during the middle ages, it lost for ever the characteristic curve like a "C" which it possessed in common with the cornu, an instrument having a conical bore of wider calibre. Although we regard the buccina as essentially Roman, an instrument of the same type, but probably straight and of kindred name, was widely known and used in the East, in Persia, Arabia and among the Semitic races. After a lapse of years during which records are almost wanting, the buccina reappeared all over Europe as the busine, buisine, pusin, busaun, pusun, posaun, busna (Slav), &c.; whether it was a Roman survival or a re-introduction through the Moors of Spain in the West and the Byzantine empire in the East, we have no records to show. An 11th-century mural painting representing the Last Judgment in the cathedral of S. Angelo in Formis (near Capua), shows the angels blowing the last trump on busines.[10]
There are two distinct forms of the busine which may be traced during the middle ages:--(i) a long straight tube (fig. 2) consisting of 3 to 5 joints of narrow cylindrical bore, the last joint alone being conical and ending in a pommel-shaped bell, precisely as in the curved buccina (fig. 1); (2) a long straight cylindrical tube of somewhat wider bore than the busine, ending in a wide bell curving out abruptly from the cylindrical tube (fig. 3).
The history of the development of the trumpet, the sackbut and the trombone from the buccina will be found more fully treated under those headings; for the part played by the buccina in the evolution of the French horn see HORN.
(K. S.)
[1] See Catalogue descriptif (Ghent, 1880), p. 330, and illustration, vol. ii. (1896), p. 30.
[2] Livy vii. 35, xxvi. 15; Prop. v. 4, 63; Tac. Ann. xv. 30; Vegetius, De re militari, ii. 22, iii. 5; Polyb. vi. 365, xiv. 3, 7.
[3] Stratagematicon, i. 5, § 17.
[4] For another instance see Caesar, Comm. Bell. Civ. ii. 35.
[5] Vegetius, op. cit. iii. 5.
[6] Idem, ii. 7.
[7] Idem, iii. 5.
[8] A reprint edited by Ulysse Robert has been published by the Soc. des Anciens Textes Français (Paris, 1897).
[9] See Conrad Cichorius, Die Reliefs der Traiansaule, 3 vols. of text and 2 portfolios of heliogravures (Berlin, 1896, &c.), Bd. i. pl. x. buccina and tubae; pl. viii. buccina; pl. lxxvi. buccina and two cornua; pl. xx. cornu, &c.; or W. Froehner, La Colonne de Trajan (Paris, 1872), vol. i. pl. xxxii., xxxvi., li., tome ii. pl. lxvi., tome iii. pl. cxxxiv., &c.
[10] See F.X. Kraus, "Die Wandgemälde von San Angelo in Formis," in Jahrbuch der kgl. preuss. Kunstsamml. (1893), pl. i.
BUCCLEUCH, DUKES OF. The substantial origin of the ducal house of the Scotts of Buccleuch dates back to the large grants of lands in Scotland to Sir Walter Scott of Kirkurd and Buccleuch, a border chief, by James II., in consequence of the fall of the 8th earl of Douglas (1452); but the family traced their descent back to a Sir Richard le Scott (1240-1285). The estate of Buccleuch is in Selkirkshire. Sir Walter Scott of Branxholm and Buccleuch (d. 1552) distinguished himself at the battle of Pinkie (1547), and furnished material for his later namesake's famous poem, The Lay of the Last Minstrel; and his great-grandson Sir Walter (1565-1611) was created Lord Scott of Buccleuch in 1606. An earldom followed in 1619. The second earl's daughter Anne (1651-1732), who succeeded him as a countess in her own right, married in 1663 the famous duke of Monmouth (q.v.), who was then created 1st duke of Buccleuch; and her grandson Francis became 2nd duke. The latter's son Henry (1746-1812) became 3rd duke, and in 1810 succeeded also, on the death of William Douglas, 4th duke of Queensberry, to that dukedom as well as its estates and other honours, according to the entail executed by his own great-grandfather, the 2nd duke of Queensberry, in 1706; he married the duke of Montagu's daughter, and was famous for his generosity and benefactions. His son Charles William Henry (d. 1819), grandson Walter Francis Scott (1806-1884), and great-grandson William Henry Walter Montagu Douglas Scott (b. 1831), succeeded in turn as 4th, 5th and 6th dukes of Buccleuch and 6th, 7th, and 8th dukes of Queensberry. The 5th duke was lord privy seal 1842-1846, and president of the council 1846. It was he who at a cost of over £500,000 made the harbour at Granton, near Edinburgh. He was president of the Highland and Agricultural Society, the Society of Antiquaries and of the British Association. The 6th duke sat in the House of Commons as Conservative M.P. for Midlothian, 1853-1868 and 1874-1880; his wife, a daughter of the 1st duke of Abercorn, held the office of mistress of the robes.
See Sir W. Fraser, The Scotts of Buccleuch (1878).
BUCENTAUR (Ital. bucintoro), the state gallery of the doges of Venice, on which, every year on Ascension day up to 1789, they put into the Adriatic in order to perform the ceremony of "wedding the sea." The name bucintoro is derived from the Ital. buzino d' oro, "golden bark," latinized in the middle ages as bucentaurus on the analogy of a supposed Gr. [Greek: boukentauros], ox-centaur (from [Greek: bous] and [Greek: Kentauros]). This led to the explanation of the name as derived from the head of an ox having served as the galley's figurehead. This derivation is, however, fanciful; the name bucentaurus is unknown in ancient mythology, and the figurehead of the bucentaurs, of which representations have come down to us, is the lion of St Mark. [v.04 p.0658] The name bucentaur seems, indeed, to have been given to any great and sumptuous Venetian galley. Du Cange (Gloss., s.v. "Bucentaurus") quotes from the chronicle of the doge Andrea Dandolo (d. 1354): cum uno artificioso et solemni Bucentauro, super quo venit usque ad S. Clementem, quo jam pervenerat principalior et solemnior Bucentaurus cum consiliariis, &c. The last and most magnificent of the bucentaurs, built in 1729, was destroyed by the French in 1798 for the sake of its golden decorations. Remains of it are preserved at Venice in the Museo Civico Correr and in the Arsenal; in the latter there is also a fine model of it.
The "Marriage of the Adriatic," or more correctly "of the sea" (Sposalizio del Mar) was a ceremony symbolizing the maritime dominion of Venice. The ceremony, established about A.D. 1000 to commemorate the doge Orseolo II.'s conquest of Dalmatia, was originally one of supplication and placation, Ascension day being chosen as that on which the doge had set out on his expedition. The form it took was a solemn procession of boats, headed by the doge's maesta nave, afterwards the Bucentaur (from 1311) out to sea by the Lido port. A prayer was offered that "for us and all who sail thereon the sea may be calm and quiet," whereupon the doge and the others were solemnly aspersed with holy water, the rest of which was thrown into the sea while the priests chanted "Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean." To this ancient ceremony a sacramental character was given by Pope Alexander III in 1177, in return for the services rendered by Venice in the struggle against the emperor Frederick I. The pope drew a ring from his finger and, giving it to the doge, bade him cast such a one into the sea each year on Ascension day, and so wed the sea. Henceforth the ceremonial, instead of placatory and expiatory, became nuptial. Every year the doge dropped a consecrated ring into the sea, and with the words Desponsamus te, mare (We wed thee, sea) declared Venice and the sea to be indissolubly one (see H. F. Brown, Venice, London, 1893, pp. 69, 110).
BUCEPHALUS (Gr. [Greek: boukephalos]), the favourite Thracian horse of Alexander the Great, which died in 326 B.C., either of wounds received in the battle on the Hydaspes, or of old age. In commemoration Alexander built the city of Bucephala (Boukephala), the site of which is almost certainly to be identified with a mound on the bank of the river opposite the modern Jhelum.
See especially Arrian v. 20; other stories in Plutarch, Alex. 6; Curtius vi. 8. For the identification of Bucephala, Vincent A. Smith, Early Hist. of India (2nd ed., 1908), pp. 65, 66 note.
BUCER (or BUTZER), MARTIN (1491-1551), German Protestant reformer, was born in 1491 at Schlettstadt in Alsace. In 1506 he entered the Dominican order, and was sent to study at Heidelberg. There he became acquainted with the works of Erasmus and Luther, and was present at a disputation of the latter with some of the Romanist doctors. He became a convert to the reformed opinions, abandoned his order by papal dispensation in 1521, and soon afterwards married a nun. In 1522 he was pastor at Landstuhl in the palatinate, and travelled hither and thither propagating the reformed doctrine. After his excommunication in 1523 he made his headquarters at Strassburg, where he succeeded Matthew Zell. Henry VIII of England asked his advice in connexion with the divorce from Catherine of Aragon. On the question of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, Bucer's opinions were decidedly Zwinglian, but he was anxious to maintain church unity with the Lutheran party, and constantly endeavoured, especially after Zwingli's death, to formulate a statement of belief that would unite Lutheran, south German and Swiss reformers. Hence the charge of ambiguity and obscurity which has been laid against him. In 1548 he was sent for to Augsburg to sign the agreement, called the Interim, between the Catholics and Protestants. His stout opposition to this project exposed him to many difficulties, and he was glad to accept Cranmer's invitation to make his home in England. On his arrival in 1549 he was appointed regius professor of divinity at Cambridge. Edward VI. and the protector Somerset showed him much favour and he was consulted as to the revision of the Book of Common Prayer. But on the 27th of February 1551 he died, and was buried in the university church, with great state. In 1557, by Mary's commissioners, his body was dug up and burnt, and his tomb demolished; it was subsequently reconstructed by order of Elizabeth. Bucer is said to have written ninety-six treatises, among them a translation and exposition of the Psalms and a work Deregno Christi. His name is familiar in English literature from the use made of his doctrines by Milton in his divorce treatises.
A collected edition of his writings has never been published. A volume known as the Tomus Anglicanus (Basel, 1577) contains those written in England. See J.W. Baum, Capito and Butzer (Strassburg, 1860); A. Erichson, Martin Butzer (1891); and the articles in the Dict. Nat. Biog. (by A.W. Ward), and in Herzog-Hauck's Realencyklopädie (by Paul Grünberg).
BUCH, CHRISTIAN LEOPOLD VON, BARON (1774-1853), German geologist and geographer, a member of an ancient and noble Prussian family, was born at Stolpe in Pomerania on the 26th of April 1774. In 1790-1793 he studied at the mining school of Freiberg under Werner, one of his fellow-students there being Alexander von Humboldt. He afterwards completed his education at the universities of Halle and Göttingen. His Versuch einer mineralogischen Beschreibung von Landeck (Breslau, 1797) was translated into French (Paris, 1805), and into English as Attempt at a Mineralogical Description of Landeck (Edinburgh, 1810); he also published in 1802 Entwurf einer geognostischen Beschreibung von Schlesien (Geognostische Beobachtungen auf Reisen durch Deutschland und Italien, Band i.). He was at this time a zealous upholder of the Neptunian theory of his illustrious master. In 1797 he met Humboldt at Salzburg, and with him explored the geological formations of Styria, and the adjoining Alps. In the spring of the following year, von Buch extended his excursions into Italy, where his faith in the Neptunian theory was shaken. In his previous works he had advocated the aqueous origin of basaltic and other formations. In 1799 he paid his first visit to Vesuvius, and again in 1805 he returned to study the volcano, accompanied by Humboldt and Gay Lussac. They had the good fortune to witness a remarkable eruption, which supplied von Buch with data for refuting many erroneous ideas then entertained regarding volcanoes. In 1802 he had explored the extinct volcanoes of Auvergne. The aspect of the Puy de Dôme, with its cone of trachyte and its strata of basaltic lava, induced him to abandon as untenable the doctrines of Werner on the formation of these rocks. The scientific results of his investigations he embodied in his Geognostische Beobachtungen auf Reisen durch Deutschland und Italien (Berlin, 1802-1809). From the south of Europe von Buch repaired to the north, and spent two years among the Scandinavian islands, making many important observations on the geography of plants, on climatology and on geology. He showed that many of the erratic blocks on the North German plains must have come from Scandinavia. He also established the fact that the whole of Sweden is slowly but continuously rising above the level of the sea from Frederikshald to Abo. The details of these discoveries are given in his Reise durch Norwegen und Lappland (Berlin, 1810). In 1815 he visited the Canary Islands in company with Christian Smith, the Norwegian botanist. His observations here convinced him that these and other islands of the Atlantic owed their existence to volcanic action of the most intense kind, and that the groups of islands in the South Sea are the remains of a pre-existing continent. The physical description of the Canary Islands was published at Berlin in 1825, and this work alone is regarded as an enduring monument of his labours. After leaving the Canaries von Buch proceeded to the Hebrides and the coasts of Scotland and Ireland. Palaeontology also claimed his attention, and he described in 1831 and later years a number of Cephalopods, Brachiopods and Cystidea, and pointed out their stratigraphical importance. In addition to the works already mentioned von Buch published in 1832 the magnificent Geological Map of Germany (42 sheets, Berlin). His geological excursions were continued without interruption till his 78th year. Eight months before his death he visited [v.04 p.0659] the mountains of Auvergne; and on returning home he read a paper on the Jurassic formation before the Academy of Berlin. He died at Berlin on the 4th of March 1853. Von Buch had inherited from his father a fortune more than sufficient for his wants. He was never married, and was unembarrassed by family ties. His excursions were always taken on foot, with a staff in his hand, and the large pockets of his overcoat filled with papers and geological instruments. Under this guise, the passer-by would not easily have recognized the man whom Humboldt pronounced the greatest geologist of his time.
A complete edition of his works was published at Berlin (1867-1885).
BUCHAN, EARLS OF. The earldom of Mar and Buchan was one of the seven original Scottish earldoms; later, Buchan was separated from Mar, and among the early earls of Buchan were Alexander Comyn (d. 1289), John Comyn (d. c. 1313), both constables of Scotland, and Henry Beaumont (d. 1340), who had married a Comyn. John Comyn's wife, Isabel, was the countess of Buchan who crowned Robert the Bruce king at Scone in 1306, and was afterwards imprisoned at Berwick; not, however, in a cage hung on the wall of the castle. About 1382 Sir Alexander Stewart (d. c. 1404), the "wolf of Badenoch," a son of King Robert II., became earl of Buchan, and the Stewarts appear to have held the earldom for about a century and a half, although not in a direct line from Sir Alexander.[1] Among the most celebrated of the Stewart earls were the Scottish regent, Robert, duke of Albany, and his son John, who was made constable of France and was killed at the battle of Verneuil in 1424. In 1617 the earldom came to James Erskine (d. 1640), a son of John Erskine, 2nd (or 7th) earl of Mar, whose wife Mary had inherited it from her father, James Douglas (d. 1601), and from that time it has been retained by the Erskines.
Perhaps the most celebrated of the later earls of Buchan was the eccentric David Steuart Erskine, 11th earl (1742-1829), a son of Henry David, 10th earl (d. 1767), and brother of Henry Erskine (q.v.), and of Thomas, Lord Erskine (q.v.). His pertinacity was instrumental in effecting a change in the method of electing Scottish representative peers, and in 1780 he succeeded in founding the Scottish Society of Antiquaries. Among his correspondents was Horace Walpole, and he wrote an Essay on the Lives of Fletcher of Saltoun and the Poet Thomson (1792), and other writings. He died at his residence at Dryburgh in April 1829, leaving no legitimate children, and was followed as 12th earl by his nephew Henry David (1783-1857), the ancestor of the present peer. The 11th earl's natural son, Sir David Erskine (1772-1837), who inherited his father's unentailed estates, was an antiquary and a dramatist.
[1] In August 1908, during some excavations at Dunkeld, remains were found which are supposed to be those of Alexander Stewart, the "wolf of Badenoch."
BUCHAN, ELSPETH (1738-1791), founder of a Scottish religious sect known as the Buchanites, was the daughter of John Simpson, proprietor of an inn near Banff. Having quarrelled with her husband, Robert Buchan, a potter of Greenock, she settled with her children in Glasgow, where she was deeply impressed by a sermon preached by Hugh White, minister of the Relief church at Irvine. She persuaded White and others that she was a saint with a special mission, that in fact she was the woman, and White the man-child, described in Revelation xii. White was condemned by the presbytery, and the sect, which ultimately numbered forty-six adherents, was expelled by the magistrates in 1784 and settled in a farm, consisting of one room and a loft, known as New Cample in Dumfriesshire. Mrs Buchan claimed prophetic inspiration and pretended to confer the Holy Ghost upon her followers by breathing upon them; they believed that the millennium was near, and that they would not die, but be translated. It appears that they had community of wives and lived on funds provided by the richer members. Robert Burns, the poet, in a letter dated August 1784, describes the sect as idle and immoral. In 1785 White and Mrs Buchan published a Divine Dictionary, but the sect broke up on the death of its founder in spite of White's attempts to prove that she was only in a trance. Even White was eventually undeceived. Andrew Innes, the last survivor, died in 1848. See J. Train, The Buchanites from First to Last (Edinburgh, 1846).
BUCHAN, PETER (1790-1854), Scottish editor, was born at Peterhead, Aberdeenshire, in 1790. In 1816 he started in business as a printer at Peterhead, and was successful enough to be able eventually to retire and devote himself to the collection and editing of Scottish ballads. His Ancient Ballads and Songs of the North of Scotland (1828) contained a large number of hitherto unpublished ballads, and newly discovered versions of existing ones. Another collection made by him was published by the Percy Society, under the title Scottish Traditional Versions of Ancient Ballads (1845). Two unpublished volumes of Buchan's ballad collections are in the British Museum. He died on the 19th of September 1854.
BUCHANAN, CLAUDIUS (1766-1815), English divine, was born at Cambuslang, near Glasgow, and educated at the universities of Glasgow and Cambridge. He was ordained in 1795, and after holding a chaplaincy in India at Barrackpur (1797-1799) was appointed Calcutta chaplain and vice-principal of the college of Fort William. In this capacity he did much to advance Christianity and native education in India, especially by organizing systematic translations of the Scriptures. An account of his travels in the south and west of India, which added considerably to our knowledge of nature life, is given in his Christian Researches in Asia (Cambridge, 1811). After his return to England in 1808, he still took an active part in matters connected with India, and by his book entitled Colonial Ecclesiastical Establishment (London, 1813), he assisted in settling the controversy of 1813, which ended in the establishment of the Indian episcopate.
BUCHANAN, GEORGE (1506-1582), Scottish humanist, was born in February 1506. His father, a younger son of an old family, was the possessor of the farm of Moss, in the parish of Killearn, Stirlingshire, but he died at an early age, leaving his widow and children in poverty. His mother, Agnes Heriot, was of the family of the Heriots of Trabroun, Haddingtonshire, of which George Heriot, founder of Heriot's hospital, was also a member. Buchanan is said to have attended Killearn school, but not much is known of his early education. In 1520 he was sent by his uncle, James Heriot, to the university of Paris, where, as he tells us in an autobiographical sketch, he devoted himself to the writing of verses "partly by liking, partly by compulsion (that being then the one task prescribed to youth)." In 1522 his uncle died, and Buchanan being thus unable to continue longer in Paris, returned to Scotland. After recovering from a severe illness, he joined the French auxiliaries who had been brought over by John Stewart, duke of Albany, and took part in an unsuccessful inroad into England (see the account in his Hist. of Scotland). In the following year he entered the university of St Andrews, where he graduated B.A. in 1525. He had gone there chiefly for the purpose of attending the celebrated John Major's lectures on logic; and when that teacher removed to Paris, Buchanan followed him in 1526. In 1527 he graduated B.A., and in 1528 M.A. at Paris. Next year he was appointed regent, or professor, in the college of Sainte-Barbe, and taught there for upwards of three years. In 1529 he was elected Procurator of the "German Nation" in the university of Paris, and was re-elected four times in four successive months. He resigned his regentship in 1531, and in 1532 became tutor to Gilbert Kennedy, 3rd earl of Cassilis, with whom he returned to Scotland about the beginning of 1537.
At this period Buchanan was content to assume the same attitude towards the Church of Rome that Erasmus maintained. He did not repudiate its doctrines, but considered himself free to criticize its practice. Though he listened with interest to the arguments of the Reformers, he did not join their ranks before 1553. His first production in Scotland, when he was in Lord Cassilis's household in the west country, was the poem Somnium, a satirical attack upon the Franciscan friars and monastic life generally. This assault on the monks was not displeasing to James V., who engaged Buchanan as tutor to one of his natural [v.04 p.0660] sons, Lord James Stewart (not the son who was afterwards the regent Murray), and encouraged him to a still more daring effort. In these circumstances the poems Palinodia and Franciscanus & Fratres were written, and, although they remained unpublished for many years, it is not surprising that the author became an object of bitterest hatred to the order and their friends. Nor was it yet a safe matter to assail the church. In 1539 there was a bitter persecution of the Lutherans, and Buchanan among others was arrested. He managed to effect his escape and with considerable difficulty made his way to London and thence to Paris. In Paris, however, he found his enemy, Cardinal David Beaton, who was there as an ambassador, and on the invitation of André de Gouvéa, proceeded to Bordeaux. Gouvéa was then principal of the newly founded college of Guienne at Bordeaux, and by his exertions Buchanan was appointed professor of Latin. During his residence here several of his best works, the translations of Medea and Alcestis, and the two dramas, Jephthes (sive Votum) and Baptistes (sive Calumnia), were completed. Montaigne was Buchanan's pupil at Bordeaux and acted in his tragedies. In the essay Of Presumption he classes Buchanan with Aurat, Béza, de L'Hopital, Montdore and Turnebus, as one of the foremost Latin poets of his time. Here also Buchanan formed a lasting friendship with Julius Caesar Scaliger; in later life he won the admiration of Joseph Scaliger, who wrote an epigram on Buchanan which contains the couplet, famous in its day:--
"Imperii fuerat Romani Scotia limes; Romani eloquii Scotia limes erit?"
In 1542 or 1543 he returned to Paris, and in 1544 was appointed regent in the college of Cardinal le Moine. Among his colleagues were the renowned Muretus and Turnebus.
In 1547 Buchanan joined the band of French and Portuguese humanists who had been invited by André de Gouvéa to lecture in the Portuguese university of Coimbra. The French mathematician Élie Vinet, and the Portuguese historian, Jeronimo de Osorio, were among his colleagues; Gouvéa, called by Montaigne le plus grand principal de France, was rector of the university, which had reached the summit of its prosperity under the patronage of King John III. But the rectorship had been coveted by Diogo de Gouvéa, uncle of André and formerly head of Sainte-Barbe. It is probable that before André's death at the end of 1547 Diogo had urged the Inquisition to attack him and his staff; up to 1906, when the records of the trial were first published in full, Buchanan's biographers generally attributed the attack to the influence of Cardinal Beaton, the Franciscans, or the Jesuits, and the whole history of Buchanan's residence in Portugal was extremely obscure.
A commission of inquiry was appointed in October 1549 and reported in June 1550. Buchanan and two Portuguese, Diogo de Teive and Jo[=a]o da Costa (who had succeeded to the rectorship), were committed for trial. Teive and Costa were found guilty of various offences against public order, and the evidence shows that there was ample reason for a judicial inquiry. Buchanan was accused of Lutheran and Judaistic practices. He defended himself with conspicuous ability, courage and frankness, admitting that some of the charges were true. About June 1551 he was sentenced to abjure his errors, and to be imprisoned in the monastery of S[=a]o Bento in Lisbon. Here he was compelled to listen to edifying discourses from the monks, whom he found "not unkind but ignorant." In his leisure he began to translate the Psalms into Latin verse. After seven months he was released, on condition that he remained in Lisbon; and on the 28th of February 1552 this restriction was annulled. Buchanan at once sailed for England, but soon made his way to Paris, where in 1553 he was appointed regent in the college of Boncourt. He remained in that post for two years, and then accepted the office of tutor to the son of the Maréchal de Brissac. It was almost certainly during this last stay in France, where Protestantism was being repressed with great severity by Francis I., that Buchanan ranged himself on the side of the Calvinists.
In 1560 or 1561 he returned to Scotland, and in April 1562 we find him installed as tutor to the young queen Mary, who was accustomed to read Livy with him daily. Buchanan now openly joined the Protestant, or Reformed Church, and in 1566 was appointed by the earl of Murray principal of St Leonard's College, St Andrews. Two years before he had received from the queen the valuable gift of the revenues of Crossraguel Abbey. He was thus in good circumstances, and his fame was steadily increasing. So great, indeed, was his reputation for learning and administrative capacity that, though a layman, he was made moderator of the general assembly in 1567. He had sat in the assemblies from 1563.
Buchanan accompanied the regent Murray into England, and his Detectio (published in 1572) was produced to the commissioners at Westminster. In 1570, after the assassination of Murray, he was appointed one of the preceptors of the young king, and it was through his tuition that James VI. acquired his scholarship. While discharging the functions of royal tutor he also held other important offices. He was for a short time director of chancery, and then became lord privy seal, a post which entitled him to a seat in the parliament. He appears to have continued in this office for some years, at least till 1579. He died on the 28th of September 1582.
His last years had been occupied with two of his most important works. The first was the treatise De Jure Regni apud Scotos, published in 1579. In this famous work, composed in the form of a dialogue, and evidently intended to instil sound political principles into the mind of his pupil, Buchanan lays down the doctrine that the source of all political power is the people, that the king is bound by those conditions under which the supreme power was first committed to his hands, and that it is lawful to resist, even to punish, tyrants. The importance of the work is proved by the persistent efforts of the legislature to suppress it during the century following its publication. It was condemned by act of parliament in 1584, and again in 1664; and in 1683 it was burned by the university of Oxford. The second of his larger works is the history of Scotland, Rerum Scoticarum Historia, completed shortly before his death (1579), and published in 1582. It is of great value for the period personally known to the author, which occupies the greater portion of the book. The earlier part is based, to a considerable extent, on the legendary history of Boece. Buchanan's purpose was to "purge" the national history "of sum Inglis lyis and Scottis vanite" (Letter to Randolph), but he exaggerated his freedom from partisanship and unconsciously criticized his work when he said that it would "content few and displease many."
Buchanan is one of Scotland's greatest scholars. For mastery over the Latin language he has seldom been surpassed by any modern writer. His style is not rigidly modelled upon that of any classical author, but has a certain freshness and elasticity of its own. He wrote Latin as if it had been his mother tongue. But in addition to this perfect command over the language, Buchanan had a rich vein of poetical feeling, and much originality of thought. His translations of the Psalms and of the Greek plays are more than mere versions; the smaller satirical poems abound in wit and in happy phrase; his two tragedies, Baptistes and Jephthes, have enjoyed from the first an undiminished European reputation for academic excellence. In addition to the works already named, Buchanan wrote in prose Chamaeleon, a satire in the vernacular against Maitland of Lethington, first printed in 1711; a Latin translation of Linacre's Grammar (Paris, 1533); Libettus de Prosodia (Edinburgh, 1640); and Vita ab ipso scripta biennio ante mortem (1608), edited by R. Sibbald (1702). His other poems are Fratres Fraterrimi, Elegiae, Silvae, two sets of verses entitled Hendecasyllabon Liber and Iambon Liber; three books of Epigrammata; a book of miscellaneous verse; De Sphaera (in five books), suggested by the poem of Joannes de Sacrobosco, and intended as a defence of the Ptolemaic theory against the new Copernican view.
There are two editions of Buchanan's works:--(a) Georgii Buchanani Scoti, Poetarum sui seculi facile principis, Opera Omnia, in two vols. fol., edited by Ruddiman (Edinburgh, Freebairn, 1715); (b) edited by Burman, 4to, 1725. The Vernacular Writings, [v.04 p.0661] consisting of the Chamaeleon (u.s.), a tract on the Reformation of St Andrews University, Ane Admonitioun to the Trew Lordis, and two letters, were edited for the Scottish Text Society by P. Hume Brown. The principal biographies are:--David Irving, Memoirs of the Life and Writings of George Buchanan (Edinburgh,1807 and 1817); P. Hume Brown, George Buchanan, Humanist and Reformer (Edinburgh, 1890), George Buchanan and his Times (Edinburgh, 1906); Rev. D. Macmillan, George Buchanan, a Biography (Edinburgh, 1906). Buchanan's quatercentenary was celebrated at different centres in Scotland in 1906, and was the occasion of several encomia and studies. The most important of these are: George Buchanan: Glasgow Quatercentenary Studies (Glasgow, 1906), and George Buchanan, a Memoir, edited by D.A. Millar (St Andrews, 1907). A verse translation of the Baptistes, entitled Tyrannicall-Government Anatomized (1642), has been attributed to Milton; its authorship is discussed in the Glasgow Quatercentenary Studies. The records of Buchanan's trial, discovered by the Portuguese historian, G.J.C. Henriques, were published by him under the title George Buchanan in the Lisbon Inquisition. The Records of his Trial, with a Translation thereof into English, Facsimiles of some of the Papers, and an Introduction (Lisbon, 1906).
BUCHANAN, JAMES (1791-1868), fifteenth president of the United States, was born near Foltz, Franklin county, Pennsylvania, on the 23rd of April 1791. Both parents were of Scottish-Irish Presbyterian descent. He graduated at Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania, in 1809, studied law at Lancaster in 1809-1812, and was admitted to the bar in 1812. He served in the lower house of the state legislature in 1814-1816, and as a representative in Congress from 1821 to 1831. As chairman of the judiciary committee he conducted the impeachment trial (1830) of Judge James H. Peck, led an unsuccessful movement to increase the number of Supreme Court judges and to relieve them of their circuit duties, and succeeded in defeating an attempt to repeal the twenty-fifth section of the Judiciary Act of 1789, which gave the Supreme Court appellate jurisdiction by writ of error to the state courts in cases where federal laws and treaties are in question. After the dissolution of the Federalist party, of which he had been a member, he supported the Jackson-Van Buren faction, and soon came to be definitely associated with the Democrats. He represented the United States at the court of St Petersburg in 1832-1833, and there negotiated an important commercial treaty. He was a Democratic member of the United States Senate from December 1834 until March 1845, ardently supporting President Jackson, and was secretary of state in the cabinet of President Polk from 1845 to 1849--a period marked by the annexation of Texas, the Mexican War, and negotiations with Great Britain relative to the Oregon question. After four years of retirement spent in the practice of his profession, he was appointed by President Pierce minister to Great Britain in 1853.
Up to this time Buchanan's attitude on the slavery question had been that held by the conservative element among Northern Democrats. He felt that the institution was morally wrong, but held that Congress could not interfere with it in the states in which it existed, and ought not to hinder the natural tendency toward territorial expansion through a fear that the evil would spread. He voted for the bill to exclude anti-slavery literature from the mails, approved of the annexation of Texas, the war with Mexico, and the Compromise of 1850, and disapproved of the Wilmot Proviso. Fortunately for his career he was abroad during the Kansas-Nebraska debates, and hence did not share in the unpopularity which attached to Stephen A. Douglas as the author of the bill, and to President Pierce as the executive who was called upon to enforce it. At the same time, by joining with J.Y. Mason and Pierre Soule in issuing the Ostend Manifesto in 1854, he retained the good-will of the South.[1] Accordingly on his return from England in 1856 he was nominated by the Democrats as a compromise candidate for president, and was elected, receiving 174 electoral votes to 114 for John C. Frémont, Republican, and 8 for Millard Fillmore, American or "Know-Nothing."
His high moral character, the breadth of his legal knowledge, and his experience as congressman, cabinet member and diplomat, would have made Buchanan an excellent president in ordinary times; but he lacked the soundness of judgment, the self-reliance and the moral courage needed to face a crisis. At the beginning of his administration he appointed Robert J. Walker of Mississippi, territorial governor of Kansas, and Frederick P. Stanton of Tennessee, secretary, and assured them of his determination to adhere to the popular sovereignty principle. He soon began to use his influence, however, to force the admission of Kansas into the Union under the pro-slavery Lecompton Constitution, contrary to the wishes of the majority of the settlers. Stanton was removed from office for opposing the scheme, and Walker resigned in disgust. This change of policy was doubtless the result of timidity rather than of a desire to secure re-election by gaining the favour of the Southern Democracy. Under the influence of Howell Cobb of Georgia, secretary of the treasury, and Jacob Thompson of Mississippi, secretary of the interior, the president was convinced that it was the only way to avoid civil war. Federal patronage was freely used to advance the Lecompton measure and the compromise English Bill, and to prevent Douglas's election to the Senate in 1858. Some of these facts were brought out in the famous Covode Investigation conducted by a committee of the House of Representatives in 1860. The investigations, however, were very partisan in character, and there is reason to doubt the constitutional power of the House to make it, except as the basis for an impeachment trial.
The call issued by the South Carolina legislature just after the election of Lincoln for a state convention to decide upon the advisability of secession brought forward the most serious question of Buchanan's administration. The part of his annual message of the 4th of December 1860 dealing with it is based upon a report prepared by Attorney-General Jeremiah S. Black of Pennsylvania. He argued that a state had no legal right to secede, but denied that the federal government had any power forcibly to prevent it. At the same time it was the duty of the president to call out the army and navy of the United States to protect federal property or to enforce federal laws. Soon after the secession movement began the Southern members of the cabinet resigned, and the president gradually came under the influence of Black, Stanton, Dix, and other Northern leaders. He continued, however, to work for a peaceful settlement, supporting the Crittenden Compromise and the work of the Peace Congress. He disapproved of Major Anderson's removal of his troops from Fort Moultrie to Fort Sumter in December 1860; but there is probably no basis for the charge made by Southern writers that the removal itself was in violation of a pledge given by the president to preserve the status quo in Charleston harbour until the arrival of the South Carolina commissioners in Washington. Equally unfounded is the assertion first made by Thurlow Weed in the London Observer (9th of February 1862) that the president was prevented from ordering Anderson back to Fort Moultrie only by the threat of four members of the cabinet to resign.
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On the expiration of his term of office (March 4, 1861) Buchanan retired to his home at Wheatland, near Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where he died on the 1st of June 1868. His mistakes as president have been so emphasized as to obscure the fact that he was a man of unimpeachable honesty, of the highest patriotism, and of considerable ability. He never married.
See George Ticknor Curtis, The Life of James Buchanan (2 vols., New York, 1883), the standard biography; Curtis, however, was a close personal and political friend, and his work is too eulogistic. More trustworthy, but at times unduly severe, is the account given by James Ford Rhodes in the first two volumes of his History of the United States since the Compromise of 1850 (New York, new edition, 1902-1907). John Bassett Moore has edited The Works of James Buchanan, comprising his Speeches, State Papers, and Private Correspondence (Philadelphia, 1908-1910).
[1] This "manifesto," which was bitterly attacked in the North, was agreed upon (October 18, 1854) by the three ministers after several meetings at Ostend and at Aix-la-Chapelle, arranged in pursuance of instructions to them from President Pierce to "compare opinions, and to adopt measures for perfect concert of action in aid of the negotiations at Madrid" on the subject of reparations demanded from Spain by the United States for alleged injuries to American commerce with Cuba. In the manifesto the three ministers asserted that "from the peculiarity of its geographical position, and the considerations attendant upon it, Cuba is as necessary to the North American republic as any of its present members"; spoke of the danger to the United States of an insurrection in Cuba; asserted that "we should be recreant to our duty, be unworthy of our gallant forefathers, and commit base treason against our posterity, should we permit Cuba to be Africanized and become a second Santo Domingo, with all its attendant horrors to the white race, and suffer the flames to extend to our own neighboring shores, seriously to endanger or actually destroy the fair fabric of our Union"; and recommended that "the United States ought, if practicable, to purchase Cuba as soon as possible." To Spain, they argued, the sale of the island would be a great advantage. The most startling declaration of the manifesto was that if Spain should refuse to sell "after we shall have offered a price for Cuba far beyond its present value," and if Cuba, in the possession of Spain, should seriously endanger "our internal peace and the existence of our cherished Union," then "by every law, human and divine, we shall be justified in wresting it from Spain if we have the power."
BUCHANAN, ROBERT WILLIAMS (1841-1901), British poet, novelist and dramatist, son of Robert Buchanan (1813-1866), Owenite lecturer and journalist, was born at Caverswall, Staffordshire, on the 18th of August 1841. His father, a native of Ayr, after living for some years in Manchester, removed to Glasgow, where Buchanan was educated, at the high school and the university, one of his fellow-students being the poet David Gray. His essay on Gray, originally contributed to the Cornhill Magazine, tells the story of their close friendship, and of their journey to London in 1860 in search of fame. After a period of struggle and disappointment Buchanan published Undertones in 1863. This "tentative" volume was followed by Idyls and Legends of Inverburn (1865), London Poems (1866), and North Coast and other Poems (1868), wherein he displayed a faculty for poetic narrative, and a sympathetic insight into the humbler conditions of life. On the whole, Buchanan is at his best in these narrative poems, though he essayed a more ambitious flight in The Book of Orm: A Prelude to the Epic, a study in mysticism, which appeared in 1870. He was a frequent contributor to periodical literature, and obtained notoriety by an article which, under the nom de plume of Thomas Maitland, he contributed to the Contemporary Review for October 1871, entitled "The Fleshly School of Poetry." This article was expanded into a pamphlet (1872), but he subsequently withdrew from the criticisms it contained, and it is chiefly remembered by the replies it evoked from D.G. Rossetti in a letter to the Athenaeum (16th December 1871), entitled "The Stealthy School of Criticism," and from Mr Swinburne in Under the Microscope (1872). Buchanan himself afterwards regretted the violence of his attack, and the "old enemy" to whom God and the Man is dedicated was Rossetti. In 1876 appeared The Shadow of the Sword, the first and one of the best of a long series of novels. Buchanan was also the author of many successful plays, among which may be mentioned Lady Clare, produced in 1883; Sophia (1886), an adaptation of Tom Jones; A Man's Shadow (1890); and The Charlatan (1894). He also wrote, in collaboration with Harriett Jay, the melodrama Alone in London. In 1896 he became, so far as some of his work was concerned, his own publisher. In the autumn of 1900 he had a paralytic seizure, from which he never recovered. He died at Streatham on the 10th of June 1901.
Buchanan's poems were collected into three volumes in 1874, into one volume in 1884; and as Complete Poetical Works (2 vols., 1901). Among his poems should also be mentioned: "The Drama of Kings" (1871); "St Abe and his Seven Wives," a lively tale of Salt Lake City, published anonymously in 1872; and "Balder the Beautiful" (1877); "The City of Dream" (1888); "The Outcast: a Rhyme for the Time" (1891); and "The Wandering Jew" (1893). His earlier novels, The Shadow of the Sword, and God and the Man (1881), a striking tale of a family feud, are distinguished by a certain breadth and simplicity of treatment which is not so noticeable in their successors, among which may be mentioned The Martyrdom of Madeline (1882); Foxglove Manor (1885); Effie Hetherington (1896); and Father Anthony (1898). David Gray and other Essays, chiefly on Poetry (1868); Master Spirits (1873); A Poet's Sketch Book (1883), in which the interesting essay on Gray is reprinted; and A Look round Literature (1887), contain Buchanan's chief contributions to periodical literature. More valuable is The Land of Lorne (2 vols., 1871), a vivid record of yachting experiences on the west coast of Scotland.
See also Harriett Jay, Robert Buchanan; some Account of his Life (1903).
BUCHAREST (Bucuresci), also written Bucarest, Bukarest, Bukharest, Bukorest and Bukhorest, the capital of Rumania, and chief town of the department of Ilfov. Although Bucharest is the conventional English spelling, the forms Bucarest and Bukarest more nearly represent the correct pronunciation. The population in 1900 was 282,071, including 43,274 Jews, and 53,056 aliens, mostly Austro-Hungarian subjects. With its outlying parts, Bucharest covers more than 20 sq. m. It lies in a hollow, traversed from north-west to south-east by the river Dimbovitza (Dâmbovita or Dîmbovita), and is built mainly on the left bank. A range of low hills affords shelter on the west and south-west; but on every other side there are drained, though still unhealthy, marshes, stretching away to meet the central Walachian plains. From a distance, the multitude of its gardens, and the turrets and metal-plated or gilded cupolas of its many churches give Bucharest a certain picturesqueness. In a few of the older districts, too, where land is least valuable, there are antique one-storeyed houses, surrounded by poplars and acacias; while the gipsies and Rumans, wearing their brightly coloured native costumes, the Russian coachmen, or sleigh-drivers, of the banished Lipovan sect, and the pedlars, with their doleful street cries, render Bucharest unlike any western capital. Nevertheless, the city is modern. Until about 1860, indeed, the dimly lit lanes were paved with rough stone blocks, imbedded in the clay soil, which often subsided, so as to leave the surface undulating like a sea. Drains were rare, epidemics common. Owing to the frequency of earthquakes, many houses were built of wood, and in 1847 fully a quarter of the city was laid waste by fire. The plague visited Bucharest in 1718, 1738, 1793, when an earthquake destroyed a number of old buildings, and in 1813, when 70,000 of the inhabitants died in six weeks. From the accession of Prince Charles, in 1866, a gradual reform began. The river was enclosed between stone embankments; sewerage and pure water were supplied, gas and electric light installed; and horse or electric tramways laid down in the principal thoroughfares, which were paved with granite or wood. The older houses are of brick, overlaid with white or tinted plaster, and ornamented with figures or foliage in terra-cotta; but owing to the great changes of temperature in Rumania, the plaster soon cracks and peels off, giving a dilapidated appearance to many streets. The chief modern buildings, such as the Athenaeum, with its Ionic façade and Byzantine dome, are principally on the quays and boulevards, and are constructed of stone.
Bucharest is often called "The Paris of the East," partly from a supposed social resemblance, partly from the number of its boulevards and avenues. Three main thoroughfares, the Plevna, Lipscani, and Vacaresci, skirt the left bank of the river; the Elizabeth Boulevard, and the Calea Victoriei, or "Avenue of Victory," which commemorates the Rumanian success at Plevna, in 1877, radiate east and north, respectively, from the Lipscani, and meet a broad road which surrounds all sides of Bucharest, except the north-west. The Lipscani was originally the street of merchants who obtained their wares from the annual fair at Leipzig; for almost all crafts or gilds, other than the bakers and tavern-keepers, were long confined to separate quarters; and the old names have survived, as in the musicians', furriers', and money-changers' quarters. Continuous with the Calea Victoriei, on the north, is the Kisilev Park, traversed by the Chausée, a favourite drive, leading to the pretty Baneasa race-course, where spring and autumn meetings are held. The Cismegiu or Cismigiu Park, which has a circumference of about 1 m., is laid out between the Plevna road and the Calea Victoriei; and there are botanical and zoological gardens.
The Orthodox Greek churches are generally small, with very narrow windows, and are built of brick in a modified Byzantine style. They are usually surmounted by two or three towers, but the bells are hung in a kind of wooden porch, resembling a [v.04 p.0663] lych-gate, and standing about twenty paces from the church. The cathedral, or metropolitan church, where the metropolitan primate of Rumania officiates, was built between 1656 and 1665. It has the shape of a Greek cross, surrounded by a broad cloister, with four main entrances, each surmounted by a turret. The whole culminates in three brick towers. Standing on high ground, the cathedral overlooks all Bucharest, and commands a view of the Carpathians. Other interesting churches are St Spiridion the New (1768), the loftiest and most beautiful of all; the Doamna Balasa (1751), noteworthy for its rich carved work without, and frescoes within; and the ancient Biserica Bucur, said, in local traditions, to derive its name from Bucur, a shepherd whom legend makes the founder of Bucharest. The real founder and date of this church, and of many others, are unknown, thanks to the frequent obliteration of Slavonic inscriptions by the Greek clergy. The Protestants, Armenians and Lipovans worship in their own churches, and the Jews have several synagogues. Bucharest is also the seat of a Roman Catholic archbishop; but the Roman Catholics, though numbering nearly 37,000 in 1899, possess only three churches, including the cathedral of St Joseph.
Bucharest is a great educational centre. Besides the ordinary ecclesiastical seminaries, lyceums, gymnasia and elementary schools, it possesses schools of commerce, science and art institutes, and training colleges, for engineers and veterinary surgeons; while the university, founded in 1864, has faculties of theology, philosophy, literature, law, science, medicine and pharmacy. Students pay no fees except for board. The national library, containing many precious Oriental documents, and the meeting-hall of the Rumanian senate, are both included in the university buildings, which, with the Athenaeum (used for literary conferences and for music), and the central girls' school, are regarded as the best example of modern Rumanian architecture. Other libraries are those of the Nifon seminary, of the Charles University Foundation (Fundatiunea universitara Carol), which endows research, and rewards literary or scientific merit; the central library, and the library of the Academy, which also contains a museum of natural history and antiquities. Among philanthropic institutions may be mentioned the Coltei, Brancovan, Maternitate, Philantropia and Pantelimon hospitals; the Marcutza lunatic asylum; and the Princess Elena refuge (Asilul Elena Doamna), founded by Princess Elena Couza in 1862, to provide for 230 orphan girls. The summer home of these girls is a convent in the Transylvanian Alps. Hotels and restaurants are numerous. There are two theatres, the National and the Lyric, which is mainly patronized by foreign players; but minor places of amusement abound; as also do clubs--political, social and sporting. Socially, indeed, the progress of Bucharest is remarkable, its political, literary and scientific circles being on a level with those of most European capitals.
Bucharest is the winter residence of the royal family, the meeting-place of parliament, and the seat of an appeal court (Curtea de Apel), of the supreme court (Curtea de Casatie), of the ministries, the national bank, the bank of Rumania, many lesser credit establishments, and a chamber of commerce. The railway lines which meet on the western limit of the city give access to all parts, and the telephone system, besides being internally complete, communicates with Braila, Galatz, Jassy and Sinaia. Bucharest has a very large transit trade in petroleum, timber and agricultural produce; above all, in wheat and maize. Its industries include petroleum-refining, extraction of vegetable oils, cabinet-making, brandy-distilling, tanning, and the manufacture of machinery, wire, nails, metal-ware, cement, soap, candles, paste, starch, paper, cardboard, pearl buttons, textiles, leather goods, ropes, glucose, army supplies, preserved meat and vegetables, and confectionery. An important fair is held for seven days in each year. The mercantile community is largely composed of Austrians, Frenchmen, Germans, Greeks and Swiss, who form exclusive colonies. Bucharest is the headquarters of the II. army corps, and a fortress of the first rank. The fortifications were constructed in 1885-1896 on a project drafted by the Belgian engineer, General Brialmont, in 1883. The mean distance of the forts from the city is 4 m., and the perimeter of the defences (which are technically of special importance as embodying the system of Brialmont) is about 48 m., this perimeter being defended by 36 armoured forts and batteries. There are barracks for over 30,000 cavalry and infantry, an arsenal, a military hospital and three military academies.
The legend of Bucur is plainly unhistorical, and the meaning of Bucharest has been much disputed. One account derives it from an Albanian word Bukur, meaning joy, in memory of a victory won by Prince Mircea of Walachia (c. 1383-1419) over the Turks. For this reason Bucharest is often called "The City of Joy". Like most ancient cities of Rumania, its foundation has also been ascribed to the first Walachian prince, the half-mythical Radu Negru (c. 1290-1314). More modern historians declare that it was originally a fortress, erected on the site of the Daco-Roman Thyanus, to command the approaches to Tîrgovishtea, formerly the capital of Walachia. It soon became the summer residence of the court. In 1595 it was burned by the Turks; but, after its restoration, continued to grow in size and prosperity, until, in 1698, Prince Constantine Brancovan chose it for his capital. During the 18th century the possession of Bucharest was frequently disputed by the Turks, Austrians and Russians. In 1812 it gave its name to the treaty by which Bessarabia and a third of Moldavia were ceded to Russia. In the war of 1828 it was occupied by the Russians, who made it over to the prince of Walachia in the following year. A rebellion against Prince Bibescu in 1848 brought both Turkish and Russian interference, and the city was again held by Russian troops in 1853-1854. On their departure an Austrian garrison took possession and remained till March 1857. In 1858 the international congress for the organization of the Danubian principalities was held in the city; and when, in 1861, the union of Walachia and Moldavia was proclaimed, Bucharest became the Rumanian capital. Prince Cuza, the first ruler of the united provinces, was driven from his throne by an insurrection in Bucharest in 1866. For the subsequent history of the city see RUMANIA: History.
BÜCHELER, FRANZ (1837-1908), German classical scholar, was born in Rheinberg on the 3rd of June 1837, and educated at Bonn. He held professorships successively at Freiburg (1858), Greifswald (1866), and Bonn (1870), and in 1878 became joint-editor of the Rheinisches Museum für Philologie. Both as a teacher and as a commentator he was extremely successful. Among his editions are: Frontini de aquis urbis Romae (Leipzig, 1858); Pervigilium Veneris (Leipzig, 1859); Petronii satirarum reliquiae (Berlin, 1862; 3rd ed., 1882); Hymnus Cereris Homericus (Leipzig, 1869); Q. Ciceronis reliquiae (1869); Herondae mimiambi (Bonn, 1892). He wrote also Grundriss der lateinischen Deklination (1866); Das Recht von Gortyn (Frankfort, 1885, with Zitelmann); and supervised the third edition (1893) of O. Jahn's Persii, Juvenalis, Sulpiciae saturae.
BUCHER, LOTHAR (1817-1892), German publicist, was born on the 25th of October 1817 at Neu Stettin, in Pomerania, his father being master at a gymnasium. After studying at the university of Berlin he adopted the legal profession. Elected a member of the National Assembly in Berlin in 1848, he was an active leader of the extreme democratic party. With others of his colleagues he was in 1850 brought to trial for having taken part in organizing a movement for refusal to pay taxes; he was condemned to fifteen months' imprisonment in a fortress, but left the country before the sentence was executed. For ten years he lived in exile, chiefly in London; he acted as special correspondent of the National Zeitung, and gained a great knowledge of English life; and he published a work, Der Parliamentarismus wie er ist, a criticism of parliamentary government, which shows a marked change in his political opinions. In 1860 he returned to Germany, and became intimate with Lassalle, who made him his literary executor. In 1864 he was offered by Bismarck, and accepted, a high position in the Prussian foreign office. The reasons that led him to a step which involved so complete a break with his earlier friends and associations are not clearly known. From this time till his death he acted as Bismarck's secretary, and was the man who probably enjoyed the greatest [v.04 p.0664] amount of his confidence. It was he who drew up the text of the constitution of the North German Confederation; in 1870 he was sent on a very confidential mission to Spain in connexion with the Hohenzollern candidature for the Spanish crown; he assisted Bismarck at the final negotiations for the treaty of Frankfort, and was one of the secretaries to the congress of Berlin; he also assisted Bismarck in the composition of his memoirs. Bucher, who was a man of great ability, had considerable influence, which was especially directed against the economic doctrines of the Liberals; in 1881 he published a pamphlet criticizing the influence and principles of the Cobden Club. He identified himself completely with Bismarck's later commercial and colonial policy, and probably had much to do with introducing it, and he did much to encourage anti-British feeling in Germany. He died at Glion, in Switzerland, on the 12th of October 1892.
See Heinrich v. Poschinger, Ein 48er: Lothar Buchers Leben und Werke (3 vols., Berlin, 1890); Busch, Bismarck: Some Secret Pages of his History (London, 1898).
(J. W. HE.)
BUCHEZ, PHILIPPE JOSEPH BENJAMIN (1796-1865), French author and politician, was born on the 31st of March 1796 at Matagne-la-Petite, now in Belgium, then in the French department of the Ardennes. He finished his general education in Paris, and afterwards applied himself to the study of natural science and medicine. In 1821 he co-operated with Saint-Amand Bazard and others in founding a secret association, modelled on that of the Italian Carbonari, with the object of organizing a general armed rising against the government. The organization spread rapidly and widely, and displayed itself in repeated attempts at revolution. In one of these attempts, the affair at Belfort, Buchez was gravely compromised, although the jury which tried him did not find the evidence sufficient to warrant his condemnation. In 1825 he graduated in medicine, and soon after he published with Ulisse Trélat a Précis élémentaire d'hygiène. About the same time he became a member of the Saint-Simonian Society, presided over by Bazard, Barthélemy Prosper Enfantin, and Olinde Rodrigues, and contributed to its organ, the Producteur. He left it in consequence of aversion to the strange religious ideas developed by its "Supreme Father," Enfantin, and began to elaborate what he regarded as a Christian socialism. For the exposition and advocacy of his principles he founded a periodical called L'Européen. In 1833 he published an Introduction à la science de l'histoire, which was received with considerable favour (2nd ed., improved and enlarged, 2 vols., 1842). Notwithstanding its prolixity, this is an interesting work. The part which treats of the aim, foundation and methods of the science of history is valuable; but what is most distinctive in Buchez's theory--the division of historical development into four great epochs originated by four universal revelations, of each epoch into three periods corresponding to desire, reasoning and performance, and of each of these periods into a theoretical and practical age--is merely ingenious (see Flint's Philosophy of History in Europe, i. 242-252). Buchez next edited, along with M. Roux-Lavergne (1802-1874), the Histoire parlementaire de la Révolution française (1833-1838; 40 vols.). This vast and conscientious publication is a valuable store of material for the early periods of the first French Revolution. There is a review of it by Carlyle (Miscellanies), the first two parts of whose own history of the French Revolution are mainly drawn from it. The editors worked under the inspiration of a strong admiration of the principles of Robespierre and the Jacobins, and in the belief that the French Revolution was an attempt to realize Christianity. In the Essai d'un traité complet de philosophie au point de vue du Catholicisme et du progrès (1839-1840) Buchez endeavoured to co-ordinate in a single system the political, moral, religious and natural phenomena of existence. Denying the possibility of innate ideas, he asserted that morality comes by revelation, and is therefore not only certain, but the only real certainty.
It was partly owing to the reputation which he had acquired by these publications, but still more owing to his connexion with the National newspaper, and with the secret societies hostile to the government of Louis Philippe, that he was raised, by the Revolution of 1848, to the presidency of the Constituent Assembly. He speedily showed that he was not possessed of the qualities needed in a situation so difficult and in days so tempestuous. He retained the position only for a very short time. After the dissolution of the assembly he was not re-elected. Thrown back into private life, he resumed his studies, and added several works to those which have been already mentioned. A Traité de politique (published 1866), which may be considered as the completion of his Traité de philosophie, was the most important of the productions of the last period of his life. His brochures are very numerous and on a great variety of subjects, medical, historical, political, philosophical, &c. He died on the 12th of August 1865. He found a disciple of considerable ability in M.A. Ott, who advocated and applied his principles in various writings.
See also A. Ott, "P.B.J. Buchez," in Journal des économistes for 1865.
BUCHHOLZ, a town of Germany, in the kingdom of Saxony, 1700 ft. above the sea, on the Sehma, 18 m. S. by E. of Chemnitz by rail. Pop. (1905) 9307. It has a Gothic Evangelical church and monuments of Frederick the Wise of Saxony, and Bismarck. There is a school for instruction in lace-making, an industry dating from 1589, which still forms the chief employment of the inhabitants.
BÜCHNER, FRIEDRICH KARL CHRISTIAN LUDWIG (1824-1899), German philosopher and physician, was born at Darmstadt. He studied at Giessen, Strassburg, Würzburg and Vienna. In 1852 he became lecturer in medicine at the university of Tübingen, where he published his great work Kraft und Stoff (1855). In this work, the product, according to Lange, of a fanatical enthusiasm for humanity, he sought to demonstrate the indestructibility of matter and force, and the finality of physical force. The extreme materialism of this work excited so much opposition that he was compelled to give up his post at Tübingen. He retired to Darmstadt, where he practised as a physician and contributed regularly to pathological and physiological magazines. He continued his philosophical work in defence of materialism, and published Natur und Geist (1857), Aus Natur und Wissenschaft (vol. i., 1862; vol. ii., 1884), Fremdes und Eigenes aus dem geistigen Leben der Gegenwart (1890), Darwinismus und Socialismus (1894), Im Dienste der Wahrheit (1899). He died at Darmstadt on the 1st of May 1899. In estimating Büchner's philosophy it must be remembered that he was primarily a physiologist, not a metaphysician. Matter and force (or energy) are infinite; the conservation of force follows from the imperishability of matter, the ultimate basis of all science. Büchner is not always clear in his theory of the relation between matter and force. At one time he refuses to explain it, but generally he assumes that all natural and spiritual forces are indwelling in matter. "Just as a steam-engine," he says in Kraft und Stoff (7th ed., p. 130), "produces motion, so the intricate organic complex of force-bearing substance in an animal organism produces a total sum of certain effects, which, when bound together in a unity, are called by us mind, soul, thought." Here he postulates force and mind as emanating from original matter--a materialistic monism. But in other parts of his works he suggests that mind and matter are two different aspects of that which is the basis of all things--a monism which is not necessarily materialistic, and which, in the absence of further explanation, constitutes a confession of failure. Büchner was much less concerned to establish a scientific metaphysic than to protest against the romantic idealism of his predecessors and the theological interpretations of the universe. Nature according to him is purely physical; it has no purpose, no will, no laws imposed by extraneous authority, no supernatural ethical sanction.
See Frauenstädt, Der Materialismus (Leipzig, 1856); Janet, The Materialism of the Present Day: A Criticism of Dr Büchner's System, trans. Masson (London, 1867).
BUCHON, JEAN ALEXANDRE (1791-1849), French scholar, was born on the 21st of May 1791 at Menetou-Salon (Cher), and died on the 29th of August 1849. An ardent Liberal, he took an active part in party struggles under the Restoration, while [v.04 p.0665] throwing himself with equal vigour into the great work of historical regeneration which was going on at that period. During 1822 and the succeeding years he travelled about Europe on the search for materials for his Collection des chroniques nationales françaises écrites en langue vulgaire du XIII^e au XVI^e siècle (47 vols., 1824-1829). After the revolution of 1830 he founded the Panthéon litteraire, in which he published a Choix d'ouvrages mystiques (1843), a Choix de monuments primitifs de l'église chrétienne (1837), a Choix des historiens grecs (1837), a collection of Chroniques étrangères relatives aux expéditions françaises pendant le XIII^e siècle (1840), and, most important of all, a Choix de chroniques et mémoires sur l'histoire de France (1836-1841). His travels in southern Italy and in the East had put him upon the track of the medieval French settlements in those regions, and to this subject he devoted several important works: Recherches et matériaux pour servir a une histoire de la domination française dans les provinces démembrées de l'empire grec (1840); Nouvelles recherches historiques sur la principauté française de Morée et ses hautes baronnies (2 vols., 1843-1844); Histoire des conquêtes et de l'établissement des Français dans les états de l'ancienne Grèce sous es Villehardouin (1846, unfinished). None of the numerous publications which we owe to Buchon can be described as thoroughly scholarly; but they have been of great service to history, and those concerning the East have in especial the value of original research.
BUCHU, or BUKA LEAVES, the produce of several shrubby plants belonging to the genus Barosma (nat. order Rutaceae), natives of the Cape of Good Hope. The principal species, B. crenulata, has leaves of a smooth leathery texture, oblong-ovate in shape, from an inch to an inch and a half in length, with serrulate or crenulate margins, on which as well as on the under side are conspicuous oil-glands. The other species which yield buchu are B. serratifolia, having linear-lanceolate sharply serrulate leaves, and B. betulina, the leaves of which are cuneate-obovate, with denticulate margins. They are all, as found in commerce, of a pale yellow-green colour; they emit a peculiar aromatic odour, and have a slightly astringent bitter taste. Buchu leaves contain a volatile oil, which is of a dark yellow colour, and deposits a form of camphor on exposure to air, a liquid hydro-carbon being the solvent of the camphor within the oil-glands. There is also present a minute quantity of a bitter principle. The leaves of a closely allied plant, Empleurum serratulum, are employed as a substitute or adulterant for buchu. As these possess no glands they are a worthless substitute. The British Pharmacopoeia contains an infusion and tincture of buchu. The former may be given in doses of an ounce and the latter in doses of a drachm. The drug has the properties common to all substances that contain a volatile oil. The infusion contains very little of the oil and is of very slight value. Until the advent of the modern synthetic products buchu was valued in diseases of the urinary tract, but its use is now practically obsolete.
BUCK, CARL DARLING (1866- ), American philologist, was born on the 2nd of October 1866, at Bucksport, Maine. He graduated at Yale in 1886, was a graduate student there for three years, and studied at the American School of Classical Studies in Athens (1887-1889) and in Leipzig (1889-1892). In 1892 he became professor of Sanskrit and Indo-European comparative philology in the University of Chicago; but it is in the narrower field of the Italic dialects that his important work lies, including Der Vocalismus der oskischen Sprache (1892), The Oscan-Umbrian Verb-System (1895), and Grammar of Oscan and Umbrian (1904), as well as an excellent précis of the Italic languages in Johnson's Universal Cyclopaedia. He collaborated with W.G. Hale (q.v.) in the preparation of A Latin Grammar (1903). Of his contributions to reviews on phonological topics, perhaps the most important is his discussion of "Brugmann's Law."
BUCK, DUDLEY (1839-1909), American musical composer, was born in Hartford, Connecticut, on the 10th of March 1839, the son of a merchant who gave him every opportunity for cultivating his musical talents; and for four years (1858-1862) he studied at Leipzig, Dresden and Paris. On returning to America he held the position of organist at Hartford, Chicago (1869), and Boston (1871). In 1875 he went to New York to assist Theodore Thomas as conductor of the orchestral concerts, and from 1877 to 1903 was organist at Holy Trinity church. Meanwhile he had become well known as a composer of church music, a number of cantatas (Columbus, 1876; Golden Legend, 1880; Light of Asia, 1885, &c), a grand opera, Serapis, a comic opera, Deseret (1880), a symphonic overture, Marmion, a symphony in E flat, and other orchestral and vocal works. He died on the 6th of October 1909.
BUCK, (1) (From the O. Eng. buc, a he-goat, and bucca, a male deer), the male of several animals, of goats, hares and rabbits, and particularly of the fallow-deer. During the 18th century the word was used of a spirited, reckless young man of fashion, and later, with particular reference to extravagance in dress, of a dandy. (2) (From a root common to Teutonic and Romance languages, cf. the Ger. Bauch, Fr. buée, and Ital. bucata), the bleaching of clothes in lye, also the lye itself, and the clothes to be bleached, so a "buck-basket" means a basket of clothes ready for the wash. (3) Either from an obsolete word meaning "body," or from the sense of bouncing or jumping, derived from (1), a word now only found in compound words, as "buck-board," a light four-wheeled vehicle, the primitive form of which has one or more seats on a springy board, joining the front and rear axles and serving both as springs and body; a "buck-wagon" (Dutch, bok-wagen) is a South African cart with a frame projecting over the wheels, used for the transport of heavy loads. (4) (Either from "buck" a he-goat, or from a common Teutonic root, to bend, as seen in the Ger. bücken, and Eng. "bow"), a verb meaning "to leap"; seen especially in the compound "buck-jumper," a horse which leaps clear off the ground, with feet tucked together and arched back, descending with fore-feet rigid and head down and drawn inwards.
BUCK-BEAN, or BOG-BEAN (Menyanthes trifoliata, a member of the Gentian family), a bog-plant with a creeping stem, alternately arranged large leaves each with three leaflets, and spikes of white or pink flowers. The stout stem is bitter and has tonic and febrifuge properties. The plant is widely distributed through the north temperate zone.
BÜCKEBURG, a town of Germany, capital of the principality of Schaumburg-Lippe, pleasantly situated at the foot of the Harrelberg on the river Aue, 6 m. from Minden, on the main railway from Cologne to Berlin. Pop. 6000. It has a palace standing in extensive grounds, a gymnasium, a normal seminary, a library, a synagogue, and three churches, one of which has the appropriate inscription, Religionis non structurae exemplum. The first houses of Bückeburg began to gather round the castle about 1365; and it was not till the 17th century that the town was surrounded with walls, which have given place to a ring of pretty promenades. The poet J.G. von Herder was court preacher here from 1771 to 1776.
BUCKERIDGE, JOHN (c. 1562-1631), English divine, was a son of William Buckeridge, and was educated at the Merchant Taylors school and at St John's College, Oxford. He became a fellow of his college, and acted as tutor to William Laud, whose opinions were perhaps shaped by him. Leaving Oxford, Buckeridge held several livings, and was highly esteemed by King James I., whose chaplain he became. In 1605 he was elected president of St John's College, a position which he vacated on being made bishop of Rochester in 1611. He was transferred to the bishopric of Ely in 1628, and died on the 23rd of May 1631. The bishop won some fame as a theologian and a controversialist. Among his intimate friends was Bishop Lancelot Andrewes, whose "Ninety-one Sermons" were published by Laud and Buckeridge in 1629.
BUCKETSHOP, a slang financial term for the office or business of an inferior class of stockbroker, who is not a member of an official exchange and conducts speculative operations for his clients, who deposit a margin or cover. The operations consist, as a rule, of a simple bet or wager between the broker and client, no pretence of an actual purchase or sale being attempted. The term is sometimes, though loosely and wrongfully, applied to [v.04 p.0666] all stockbrokers who are not members of the recognized local exchange. The origin of the word is American. According to the New English Dictionary it is supposed to have arisen in Chicago. The Board of Trade there forbade dealings in "options" in grain of less than 5000 bushels. An "Open Board of Trade" or unauthorized exchange was opened, for the purpose of small gamblers, in a neighbouring street below the rooms of the Board of Trade. The lift used by members of the Board of Trade would be sent down to bring up from the open Board what was known as a "bucketful" of the smaller speculators, when business was slack.
BUCKHOLDT [properly BEUKELSZ, or BOCKELSZOON], JOHANN (c. 1508-1535), Dutch Anabaptist fanatic, better known as JOHN OF LEIDEN, from his place of birth, was the illegitimate son of Bockel, burgomaster of Soevenhagen, who afterwards married his mother. He was born about 1508, apprenticed to a tailor, became infected with the opinions of Thomas Münzer, travelled in pursuit of his trade (being four years in London), married a widow, became bankrupt, and in September 1533 joined the Anabaptist movement under Johann Matthysz (Matthyszoon), baker of Haarlem. He had little education, but some literary faculty, and had written plays. On the 13th of January 1534 he appeared in Münster as an apostle of Matthysz. Good-looking and fluent, he fascinated women, and won the confidence of Bernard Knipperdollinck, a revolutionary cloth merchant, who gave him his daughter in marriage. The Münster Anabaptists took up arms on the 9th of February 1534 (see ANABAPTISTS). On the death of Matthysz (1534), Buckholdt succeeded him as prophet, added his widow to the number of his wives, and organized a new constitution for Münster, with twelve elders (suggested by the tribes of Israel) and other officers of a theocracy, but soon superseded these, making himself king of the new Zion. His arbitrary rule was marked by pomp and severity. Münster was retaken (June 25, 1535) by its prince-bishop, Franz von Waldeck. Buckholdt, after many indignities, was cruelly executed on the 22nd of January 1536; his body, and those of his companions, were hung in cages to the tower of the Lamberti church. His portrait is in Grouwelen der Hooftketteren (Leiden, 1607; an English edition is appended to Alexander Ross's Pansebeia, 2nd ed., 1655); a better example of the same is given by Arend.
See Arend, Algemeene Geschiedenis des Vaderlands (1846), ii., iii., 629; Van der Aa, Biographisch Woordenboek der Nederlanden (1853); E. Belfort Bax, Rise and Fail of the Anabaptists (1903).
(A. GO.*)
BUCKIE, a fishing town and police burgh of Banffshire, Scotland, on the Moray Firth, at the mouth of Buckie burn, about 17 m. W. of Banff, with a station on the Great North of Scotland railway. Pop. (1891) 5849; (1901) 6549. Its public buildings include a hall and literary institute with library and recreation rooms. It attracts one of the largest Scottish fleets in the herring season, and is also the chief seat of line fishing in Scotland. The harbour, with an outer and an inner basin, covers an area of 9 acres and has half a mile of quayage. Besides the fisheries, there are engineering works, distilleries, and works for the making of ropes, sails and oil. The burn, which divides the town into Nether Buckie and Eastern Buckie, rises near the Hill of Clashmadin, about 5 m. to the south-west. Portgordon, 1½ m. west of Buckie, is a thriving fishing village, and Rathven, some 2 m. east, lies in a fertile district, where there are several interesting Danish cairns and other relics of the remote past.
BUCKINGHAM, EARLS, MARQUESSES AND DUKES OF. The origin of the earldom of Buckingham (to be distinguished from that of Buckinghamshire, q.v.) is obscure. According to Mr J.H. Round (in G.E.C.'s Peerage, s.v.) there is some charter evidence for its existence under William Rufus; but the main evidence for reckoning Walter Giffard, lord of Longueville in Normandy, who held forty-eight lordships in the county, as the first earl, is that of Odericus Vitalis, who twice describes Walter as "Comes Bucchingehamensis," once in 1097, and again at his death in 1102. After the death of Walter Giffard, 2nd earl in 1164, the title was assumed by Richard de Clare, earl of Pembroke ("Strongbow"), in right of his wife, Rohais, sister of Walter Giffard I.; and it died with him in 1176. In 1377 Thomas of "Woodstock" (duke of Gloucester) was created earl of Buckingham at the coronation of Richard II. (15th of July), and the title of Gloucester having after his death been given to Thomas le Despenser, his son Humphrey bore that of earl of Buckingham only. On Humphrey's death, his sister Anne became countess of Buckingham in her own right. She married Edmund Stafford, earl of Stafford, and on her death (1438) the title of Buckingham passed to her son Humphrey Stafford, earl of Stafford, who in 1444 was created duke of Buckingham. This title remained in the Stafford family until the attainder and execution of Edward, 3rd duke, in 1521 (see BUCKINGHAM, HENRY STAFFORD, 2nd duke of).
In 1617 King James I. created George Villiers earl, in 1618 marquess, and in 1623 duke of Buckingham (see BUCKINGHAM, GEORGE VILLIERS, 1st duke of). The marquessate and dukedom became extinct with the death of the 2nd (Villiers) duke (q.v.) in 1687; but the earldom was claimed, under the special remainder in the patent of 1617, by a collateral line of doubtful legitimacy claiming descent from John Villiers, 1st Viscount Purbeck. The title was not actually borne after the death of John Villiers, styling himself earl of Buckingham, in 1723. The claim was extinguished by the death of George Villiers, a clergyman, in 1774.
In 1703 John Sheffield, marquess of Normanby, was created "duke of the county of Buckingham and of Normanby" (see below). He was succeeded by his son Edmund who died in October 1735 when the titles became extinct.
The title of marquess and duke of Buckingham in the Grenville family (to the holders of which the remainder of this article applies) was derived, not from the county, but from the town of Buckingham. It originated in 1784, when the 2nd Earl Temple was created marquess of Buckingham "in the county of Buckingham," this title being elevated into the dukedom of Buckingham and Chandos for his son in 1822.
GEORGE NUGENT TEMPLE GRENVILLE, 1st marquess of Buckingham (1753-1813), was the second son of George Grenville, and was born on the 17th of June 1753. Educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford, he was appointed a teller of the exchequer in 1764, and ten years later was returned to parliament as one of the members for Buckinghamshire. In the House of Commons he was a sharp critic of the American policy of Lord North. In September 1779 he succeeded his uncle as 2nd Earl Temple; in 1782 was appointed lord-lieutenant of Buckinghamshire; and in July of the same year became a member of the privy council and lord-lieutenant of Ireland in the ministry of the earl of Shelburne. On his advice the Renunciation Act of 1783 was passed, which supplemented the legislative independence granted to Ireland in 1782. By royal warrant he created the order of St Patrick in February 1783, with himself as the first grand master. Temple left Ireland in 1783, and again turned his attention to English politics. He enjoyed the confidence of George III., and having opposed Fox's East India Bill, he was authorized by the king to say that "whoever voted for the India Bill was not only not his friend, but would be considered by him as an enemy," a message which ensured the defeat of the bill. He was appointed a secretary of state when the younger Pitt formed his ministry in December 1783, but resigned two days later. In December 1784 he was created marquess of Buckingham "in the county of Buckingham." In November 1787 he was appointed lord-lieutenant of Ireland under Pitt, but his second tenure of this office was hardly as successful as the first. He was denounced by Grattan for extravagance; was censured by the Irish Houses of parliament for refusing to transmit to England in address calling upon the prince of Wales to assume the regency; and he could only maintain his position by resorting to bribery on a large scale. Having become very unpopular he resigned his office in September 1789, and subsequently took very little part in politics, although he spoke in favour of the union with Ireland. He died at his residence, Stowe House, [v.04 p.0667] Buckingham, on the 11th of February 1813, and was buried at Wotton. In 1775 he had married Mary Elizabeth (d. 1812), daughter of Robert, Earl Nugent.
His elder son, RICHARD GRENVILLE, 1st duke of Buckingham and Chandos (1776-1839), was one of the members of parliament for Buckinghamshire from 1797 to 1813, and, as Earl Temple, took an active part in politics. In February 1813 he succeeded his father as marquess of Buckingham; and having married the only child of the 3rd duke of Chandos, he was created duke of Buckingham and Chandos in 1822. He died in 1839. Owing to financial embarrassments, the duke lived out of England for some time, and in 1862 an account of his travels was published, as The Private Diary of Richard, Duke of Buckingham and Chandos.
He was succeeded by his only child, RICHARD GRENVILLE, 2nd duke of Buckingham and Chandos (1797-1861). Educated at Eton and Oriel College, Oxford, he was known as Earl Temple and subsequently as marquess of Chandos. He was member of parliament for Buckinghamshire from 1818 to 1839, and was responsible for the "Chandos clause" in the Reform Bill of 1832. He was lord privy seal from September 1841 to January 1842, and partly owing to his opposition to the repeal of the corn laws was known as the "Farmers' Friend." He found the estates heavily encumbered when he succeeded to the dukedom in 1839, and his own generous and luxurious tastes brought matters to a climax. In 1847 his residences were seized by his creditors, and the duke left England. His personal property and many of his landed estates were sold, and returning to England he devoted himself to literature. He died in London, on the 29th of July 1861. His wife, whom he married in 1819, was Mary (d. 1862), daughter of John, 1st marquess of Breadalbane, and she obtained a divorce from him in 1850. Buckingham's chief publications are, Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George III. (London, 1853-1855); Memoirs of the Court of England, 1811-1820 (London, 1856); Memoirs of the Court of George IV. (London, 1859); and Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of William IV. and Victoria (London, 1861).
RICHARD GRENVILLE, 3rd duke of Buckingham and Chandos (1823-1889), the only son of the 2nd duke, was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford, and, as marquess of Chandos, represented the borough of Buckingham in parliament from 1846 to 1857. He was chairman of the London & North-Western railway from 1853 to 1861. After succeeding to the dukedom he became lord president of the council, and subsequently secretary for the colonies in the Conservative government of 1866-1868. From 1875 to 1880 he was governor of Madras, and in 1886 was chosen chairman of committees in the House of Lords. He was twice married and left three daughters. As he left no son the dukedom became extinct on his death; but the Scottish barony of Kinloss (to which he established his title in 1868) passed to his eldest daughter, Mary, the wife of Captain L. F. H. C. Morgan; the earldom of Temple to his nephew, William Stephen Gore-Langton; and the viscounty of Cobham to his kinsman, Charles George, 5th Baron Lyttelton. His widow married the 1st Earl Egerton of Tatton in 1894.
BUCKINGHAM, GEORGE VILLIERS, 1ST DUKE OF[1] (1592-1628), English statesman, born in August 1592,[2] was a younger son of Sir George Villiers of Brooksby. His mother, Mary, daughter of Anthony Beaumont of Glenfield, Leicestershire, who was left a widow early, educated him for a courtier's life, sending him to France with Sir John Eliot; and the lad, being "by nature contemplative," took kindly to the training. He could dance well, fence well, and talk a little French, when in August 1614 he was brought before the king's notice, in the hope that he would take a fancy to him.
The moment was favourable. Since Salisbury's death James had taken the business of government upon himself. But he wanted some one who would chat with him, and amuse him, and would also fill the office of private secretary, and save him from the trouble of saying no to importunate suitors. It would be an additional satisfaction if he could train the youth whom he might select in those arts of statesmanship of which he believed himself to be a perfect master. His first choice had not proved a happy one. Robert Carr, who had lately become earl of Somerset, had had his head turned by his elevation. He had grown peevish toward his master, and had placed himself at the head of the party which was working for a close alliance with Spain.
The appearance of Villiers, beaming with animal spirits and good humour, was therefore welcomed by all who had an interest in opposing the designs of Spain, and he was appointed cupbearer the same year. For some little time still Somerset's pre-eminence was maintained. But on the 23rd of April 1615, Villiers, in spite of Somerset, was promoted to be gentleman of the bedchamber, and was knighted on the 24th; the charge of murdering Overbury, brought against Somerset in September, completed his downfall, and Villiers at once stepped into the place which he had vacated. On the 3rd of January 1616 he became master of the horse, on the 24th of April he received the order of the Garter, and on the 27th of August 1616 was created Viscount Villiers and Baron Waddon, receiving a grant of land valued at £80,000, while on the 5th of January 1617 he was made earl, and on the 1st of January 1618 marquess of Buckingham. With the exception of the earl of Pembroke he was the richest nobleman in England.
Those who expected him to give his support to the anti-Spanish party were at first doomed to disappointment. As yet he was no politician, and he contented himself with carrying out his master's orders, whatever they were. In his personal relations he was kindly and jovial towards all who did not thwart his wishes. But James had taught him to consider that the patronage of England was in his hands, and he took good care that no man should receive promotion of any kind who did not in one way or another pay court to him. As far as can be ascertained, he cared less for money than for the gratification of his vanity. But he had not merely himself to consider. His numerous kinsfolk were to be enriched by marriage, if in no other way, and Bacon, the great philosopher and statesman, was all but thrust from office because he had opposed a marriage suggested for one of Buckingham's brothers, while Cranfield, the first financier of the day, was kept from the treasury till he would forsake the woman whom he loved, to marry a penniless cousin of the favourite. On the 19th of January 1619 James made him lord high admiral of England, hoping that the ardent, energetic youth would impart something of his own fire to those who were entrusted with the oversight of that fleet which had been almost ruined by the peculation and carelessness of the officials. Something of this, no doubt, was realized under Buckingham's eye. But he himself never pretended to the virtues of an administrator, and he was too ready to fill up appointments with men who flattered him, and too reluctant to dismiss them, if they served their country ill, to effect any permanent change for the better.
It was about this time that he first took an independent part in politics. All England was talking of the revolution in Bohemia in the year before, and men's sympathy with the continental Protestants was increased when it was known that James's son-in-law had accepted the crown of Bohemia, and that in the summer of 1620 a Spanish force was preparing to invade the Palatinate. Buckingham at first had thrown himself into the popular movement. Before the summer of 1620 was at end, incensed by injuries inflicted on English sailors by the Dutch in the East Indies, he had swung round, and was in close agreement with Gondomar, the Spanish ambassador. He had now married Lady Katherine Manners, the daughter of the earl of Rutland, who was at heart a Roman Catholic, though she outwardly conformed to the English Church, and this alliance may have had something to do with the change.
Buckingham's mistakes were owing mainly to his levity. If he passed briskly from one camp to the other, an impartial [v.04 p.0668] observer might usually detect some personal motive at the bottom. But it is hardly probable that he was himself conscious of anything of the sort. When he was in reality acting under the influence of vanity or passion it was easy for him to persuade himself that he was doing his duty to his country.
The parliament which met in 1621, angry at discovering that no help was to be sent to the Palatinate, broke out into a loud outcry against the system of monopolies, from which Buckingham's brothers and dependants had drawn a profit, which was believed to be greater than it really was. At first he pleaded for a dissolution. But he was persuaded by Bishop Williams that it would be a wiser course to put himself at the head of the movement, and at a conference of the Commons with the Lords acknowledged that his two brothers had been implicated, but declared that his father had begotten a third who would aid in punishing them. In the impeachment of Bacon which soon followed, Buckingham, who owed much to his wise counsels, gave him that assistance which was possible without imperilling his own position and influence. He at first demanded the immediate dissolution of parliament, but afterwards, when the cry rose louder against the chancellor, joined in the attack, making however some attempt to mitigate the severity of the charges against him during the hearing of his case before the House of Lords. Notwithstanding, he took advantage of Bacon's need of assistance to wring from him the possession of York House.
In the winter of 1621, and the succeeding year, Buckingham was entirely in Gondomar's hands; and it was only with some difficulty that in May 1622 Laud argued him out of a resolution to declare himself a Roman Catholic. In December 1621 he actively supported the dissolution of parliament, and there can be little doubt that when the Spanish ambassador left England the following May, he had come to an understanding with Buckingham that the prince of Wales should visit Madrid the next year, on which occasion the Spanish court hoped to effect his conversion to the Roman Catholic Church before giving him the hand of the infanta Maria. They set out on their adventurous expedition on the 17th of February 1623, arriving at Madrid, after passing through Paris on the 7th of March. Each party had been the dupe of the other. Charles and Buckingham were sanguine in hoping for the restitution of the Palatinate to James's son-in-law, as a marriage gift to Charles; while the Spaniards counted on the conversion of Charles to Roman Catholicism and other extreme concessions (see CHARLES I.). The political differences were soon accentuated by personal disputes between Buckingham and Olivares and the grandees, and when the two young men sailed together from Santander in September, it was with the final resolution to break entirely with Spain.
James had gratified his favourite in his absence by raising him to a dukedom. But the splendour which now gathered round Buckingham was owing to another source than James's favour. He had put himself at the head of the popular movement against Spain, and when James, acknowledging sorely against his will that the Palatinate could only be recovered by force, summoned the parliament which met in February 1624, Buckingham, with the help of the heir apparent, took up an independent political position. James was half driven, half persuaded to declare all negotiations with Spain at an end. For the moment Buckingham was the most popular man in England.
It was easier to overthrow one policy than to construct another. The Commons would have been content with sending some assistance to the Dutch, and with entering upon a privateering war with Spain. James, whose object was to regain the Palatinate, believed this could only be accomplished by a continental alliance, in which France took part. As soon as parliament was prorogued, negotiations were opened for a marriage between Charles and the sister of Louis XIII., Henrietta Maria. But a difficulty arose. James and Charles had engaged to the Commons that there should be no concessions to the English Roman Catholics, and Louis would not hear of the marriage unless very large concessions were made. Buckingham, impatient to begin the war as soon as possible, persuaded Charles, and the two together persuaded James to throw over the promises to the Commons, and to accept the French terms. It was no longer possible to summon parliament to vote supplies for the war till the marriage had been completed, when remonstrances to its conditions would be useless.
Buckingham, for Buckingham was now virtually the ruler of England, had thus to commence war without money. He prepared to throw 12,000 Englishmen, under a German adventurer, Count Mansfeld, through France into the Palatinate. The French insisted that he should maroh through Holland. It mattered little which way he took. Without provisions, and without money to buy them, the wretched troops sickened and died in the winter frosts. Buckingham's first military enterprise ended in disastrous failure.
Buckingham had many other schemes in his teeming brain. He had offered to send aid to Christian IV., king of Denmark, who was proposing to make war in Germany, and had also a plan for sending an English fleet to attack Genoa, the ally of Spain, and a plan for sending an English fleet to attack Spain itself.
Before these schemes could be carried into operation James died on the 27th of March 1625. The new king and Buckingham were at one in their aims and objects. Both were anxious to distinguish themselves by the chastisement of Spain, and the recovery of the Palatinate. Both were young and inexperienced. But Charles, obstinate when his mind was made up, was sluggish in action and without fertility in ideas, and he had long submitted his mind to the versatile and brilliant favourite, who was never at a loss what to do next, and who unrolled before his eyes visions of endless possibilities in the future. Buckingham was sent over to Paris to urge upon the French court the importance of converting its alliance into active co-operation.
There was a difficulty in the way. The Huguenots of La Rochelle were in rebellion, and James had promised the aid of English ships to suppress that rebellion. Buckingham, who seems at first to have consented to the scheme, was anxious to mediate peace between the king of France and his subjects, and to save Charles from compromising himself with his parliament by the appearance of English ships in an attack upon Protestants. When he returned his main demands were refused, but hopes were given him that peace would be made with the Huguenots. On his way through France he had the insolence to make love to the queen of France.
Soon after his return parliament was opened. It would have been hard for Charles to pass through the session with credit. Under Buckingham's guidance he had entered into engagements involving an enormous expenditure, and these engagements involved a war on the continent, which had never been popular in the House of Commons. The Commons, too, suspected the marriage treaty contained engagements of which they disapproved. They asked for the full execution of the laws against the Roman Catholics, and voted but little money in return. Before they reassembled at Oxford on the 1st of August, the English ships had found their way into the hands of the French, to be used against La Rochelle. The Commons met in an ill-humour. They had no confidence in Buckingham, and they asked that persons whom they could trust should be admitted to the king's council before they would vote a penny. Charles stood by his minister, and on the 12th of August he dissolved his first parliament.
Buckingham and his master set themselves to work to conquer public opinion. On the one hand, they threw over their engagements to France on behalf of the English Roman Catholics. On the other hand they sent out a large fleet to attack Cadiz, and to seize the Spanish treasure-ships. Buckingham went to the Hague to raise an immediate supply by pawning the crown jewels, to place England at the head of a great Protestant alliance, and to enter into fresh obligations to furnish money to the king of Denmark. It all ended in failure. The fleet returned from Cadiz, having effected nothing. The crown jewels produced but a small sum, and the money for the king of Denmark could only be raised by an appeal to parliament. In the meanwhile the king of France was deeply offended by the treatment of [v.04 p.0669] the Roman Catholics, and by the seizure of French vessels on the ground that they were engaged in carrying goods for Spain.
When Charles's second parliament met on the 6th of February 1626, it was not long before, under Eliot's guidance, it asked for Buckingham's punishment. He was impeached before the House of Lords on a long string of charges. Many of these charges were exaggerated, and some were untrue. His real crime was his complete failure as the leader of the administration. But as long as Charles refused to listen to the complaints of his minister's incompetency, the only way in which the Commons could reach him was by bringing criminal charges against him. Charles dissolved his second parliament as he had dissolved his first. Subsequently the Star Chamber declared the duke innocent of the charges, and on the 1st of June Buckingham was elected chancellor of Cambridge University.
To find money was the great difficulty. Recourse was had to a forced loan, and men were thrown into prison for refusing to pay it. Disasters had occurred to Charles's allies in Germany. The fleet sent out under Lord Willoughby (earl of Lindsey) against the Spaniards returned home shattered by a storm, and a French war was impending in addition to the Spanish one. The French were roused to reprisals by Charles's persistence in seizing French vessels. Unwilling to leave La Rochelle open to the entrance of an English fleet, Richelieu laid siege to that stronghold of the French Huguenots. On the 27th of June 1627 Buckingham sailed from Portsmouth at the head of a numerous fleet, and a considerable land force, to relieve the besieged city.
His first enterprise was the siege of the fort of St Martin's, on the Isle of Ré. The ground was hard, and the siege operations were converted into a blockade. On the 27th of September the defenders of the fort announced their readiness to surrender the next morning. In the night a fresh gale brought over a flotilla of French provision boats, which dashed through the English blockading squadron. The fort was provisioned for two months more. Buckingham resolved to struggle on, and sent for reinforcements from England. Charles would gladly have answered to his call. But England had long since ceased to care for the war. There was no money in the exchequer, no enthusiasm in the nation to supply the want. Before the reinforcements could arrive the French had thrown a superior force upon the island, and Buckingham was driven to retreat on the 29th of October with heavy loss, only 2989 troops out of nearly 7000 returning to England.
His spirits were as buoyant as ever. Ill luck, or the misconduct of others, was the cause of his failure. He had new plans for carrying on the war. But the parliament which met on the 17th of March 1628 was resolved to exact from the king an obligation to refrain from encroaching for the future on the liberties of his subjects.
In the parliamentary battle, which ended in the concession of the Petition of Right, Buckingham took an active share as a member of the House of Lords. He resisted as long as it was possible to resist the demand of the Commons, that the king should abandon his claim to imprison without showing cause. When the first unsatisfactory answer to the petition was made by the king on the 2nd of June, the Commons suspected, probably with truth, that it had been dictated by Buckingham. They prepared a remonstrance on the state of the nation, and Coke at last named the duke as the cause of all the misfortunes that had occurred. "The duke of Bucks is the cause of all our miseries ... that man is the grievance of grievances." Though on the 7th of June the king granted a satisfactory answer to the petition, the Commons proceeded with their remonstrance, and on the 11th demanded that he might no longer continue in office.
Once more Charles refused to surrender Buckingham, and a few days later he prorogued parliament in anger. The popular feeling was greatly excited. Lampoons circulated freely from hand to hand, and Dr Lambe, a quack doctor, who dabbled in astrology, and was believed to exercise influence over Buckingham, was murdered in the streets of London. Rude doggerel lines announced that the duke should share the doctor's fate.
With the clouds gathering round him, Buckingham went down to Portsmouth to take the command of one final expedition for the relief of La Rochelle. For the first time even he was beginning to acknowledge that he had undertaken a task beyond his powers. There was a force of inertia in the officials which resisted his efforts to spur them on to an enterprise which they believed to be doomed to failure. He entered gladly into a scheme of pacification proposed by the Venetian ambassador. But before he could know whether there was to be peace or war, the knife of an assassin put an end to his career. John Felton, who had served at Ré, had been disappointed of promotion, and had not been paid that which was due to him for his services, read the declaration of the Commons that Buckingham was a public enemy, and eagerly caught at the excuse for revenging his private wrongs under cover of those of his country. Waiting, on the morning of the 23rd of August, beside the door of the room in which Buckingham was breakfasting, he stabbed him to the heart as he came out.
Buckingham married Lady Katherine Manners, daughter of Francis, 6th earl of Rutland, by whom he left three sons and one daughter, of whom George, the second son (1628-1687), succeeded to the dukedom.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--Article in the Dict. of Nat. Biography, by S.R. Gardiner; Life of Buckingham, by Sir Henry Wotton (1642), reprinted in Harleian Miscellany, viii. 613; A Parallel between Robert Earl of Essex and George late Duke of Buckingham, by the same writer (1641), in the Thomason Tracts, 164 (20); Characters of the same by Edward, Earl of Clarendon (1706); Life of George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, &c. (London, 1740); Historical and Biographical Memoirs of George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham (London, 1819); Letters of the Duke and Duchess of Buckingham (Edinburgh, 1834); Historia Vitae ... Ricardi II., &c., by Thos. Hearne (1729); Documents illustrating the Impeachment of Buckingham, published by the Camden Society and edited by S.R. Gardiner (1889); Epistolae Hoelianae (James Howell), 187, 189, 203; Poems and Songs relating to George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, ed. by R. W. Fairholt for the Percy Society (1850); Rous's Diary (Camden Soc., 1856), p. 27; Gent. Mag. (1845), ii. 137-144 (portrait of Buckingham dead); Cal. of State Papers, and MSS. in the British Museum (various collections). Hist. MSS. Comm. Series. See also P. Gibbs, The Romance of George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham (1908).
(S. R. G.; P. C. Y.)
[1] i.e. in the Villiers line; see above.
[2] The Life, by Sir Henry Wotton, gives August 28th as the date of his birth, but, when relating his death on August 23rd, adds, "thus died the great peer in the 36th year of his age compleat and three days over." August 28th was therefore probably a misprint for August 20th.
BUCKINGHAM, GEORGE VILLIERS, 2ND DUKE OF[1] (1628-1687), English statesman, son of the 1st duke, was born on the 30th of January 1628. He was brought up, together with his younger brother Francis, by King Charles I. with his own children, and was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he obtained the degree of M.A. in 1642. He fought for the king in the Civil War, and took part in the attack on Lichfield Close in April 1643. Subsequently, under the care of the earl of Northumberland, the two brothers travelled abroad and lived at Florence and Rome. When the Second Civil War broke out they joined the earl of Holland in Surrey, in July 1648. Lord Francis was killed near Kingston, and Buckingham and Holland were surprised at St Neots on the 10th, the duke succeeding in escaping to Holland. In consequence of his participation in the rebellion, his lands, which had been restored to him in 1647 on account of his youth, were now again confiscated, a considerable portion passing into the possession of Fairfax; and he refused to compound. Charles II. conferred on him the Garter on the 19th of September 1649, and admitted him to the privy council on the 6th of April 1650. In opposition to Hyde he supported the alliance with the Scottish presbyterians, accompanied Charles to Scotland in June, and allied himself with Argyll, dissuading Charles from joining the royalist plot of October 1650, and being suspected of betraying the plan to the convenanting leaders. In May he had been appointed general of the eastern association in England, and was commissioned to raise forces abroad; and in the following year he was chosen to lead the projected movement in Lancashire and to command the Scottish royalists. He was present with Charles at the battle of Worcester on the 3rd of September 1651, and escaped safely [v.04 p.0670] alone to Rotterdam in October. His subsequent negotiations with Cromwell's government, and his readiness to sacrifice the interests of the church, separated him from the rest of Charles's advisers and diminished his influence; while his estrangement from the royal family was completed by his audacious courtship of the king's sister, the widowed princess of Orange, and by a money dispute with Charles. In 1657 he returned to England, and on the 15th of September married Mary, daughter of Lord Fairfax, who had fallen in love with him although the banns of her intended marriage with the earl of Chesterfield had been twice called in church. Buckingham was soon suspected of organizing a presbyterian plot against the government, and in spite of Fairfax's interest with Cromwell an order was issued for his arrest on the 9th of October. He was confined at York House about April 1658, and having broken bounds was rearrested on the 18th of August and imprisoned in the Tower, where he remained till the 23rd of February 1659, being then liberated on his promise not to abet the enemies of the government, and on Fairfax's security of £20,000. He joined the latter in his march against Lambert in January 1660, and afterwards claimed to have gained Fairfax to the cause of the Restoration.
On the king's return Buckingham, who met him at his landing at Dover, was at first received coldly; but he was soon again in favour, was appointed a gentleman of the bedchamber, carried the orb at the coronation on the 23rd of April 1661, and was made lord-lieutenant of the West Riding of Yorkshire on the 21st of September. The same year he accompanied the princess Henrietta to Paris on her marriage with the duke of Orleans, but made love to her himself with such imprudence that he was recalled. On the 28th of April 1662 he was admitted to the privy council. His confiscated estates amounting to £26,000 a year were restored to him, and he was reputed the king's richest subject. He took part in the suppression of the projected insurrection in Yorkshire in 1663, went to sea in the first Dutch war in 1665, and was employed in taking measures to resist the Dutch or French invasion in June 1666.
He was, however, debarred from high office by Clarendon's influence. Accordingly Buckingham's intrigues were now directed to effect the chancellor's ruin. He organized parties in both houses of parliament in support of the bill of 1666 prohibiting the import of Irish cattle, partly to oppose Clarendon and partly to thwart the duke of Ormonde. Having asserted during the debates that "whoever was against the bill had either an Irish interest or an Irish understanding," he was challenged by Lord Ossory. Buckingham avoided the encounter, and Ossory was sent to the Tower. A short time afterwards, during a conference between the two houses on the 19th of December, he came to blows with the marquess of Dorchester, pulling off the latter's periwig, while Dorchester at the close of the scuffle "had much of the duke's hair in his hand."[2] According to Clarendon no misdemeanour so flagrant had ever before offended the dignity of the House of Lords. The offending peers were both sent to the Tower, but were released after apologizing; and Buckingham vented his spite by raising a claim to the title of Lord Roos held by Dorchester's son-in-law. His opposition to the government had forfeited the king's favour, and he was now accused of treasonable intrigues, and of having cast the king's horoscope. His arrest was ordered on the 25th of February 1667, and he was dismissed from all his offices. He avoided capture till the 27th of June, when he gave himself up and was imprisoned in the Tower. He was released, however, by July 17th, was restored to favour and to his appointments on the 15 of September, and took an active part in the prosecution of Clarendon. On the latter's fall he became the chief minister, though holding no high office except that of master of the horse, bought from the duke of Albermarle in 1668. In 1671 he was elected chancellor of Cambridge, and in 1672 high steward of Oxford university. He favoured religious toleration, and earned the praise of Richard Baxter; he supported a scheme of comprehension in 1668, and advised the declaration of indulgence in 1672. He upheld the original jurisdiction of the Lords in Skinner's case. With these exceptions Buckingham's tenure of office was chiefly marked by scandals and intrigues. His illicit connexion with the countess of Shrewsbury led to a duel with her husband at Barn Elms on the 16th of January 1668, in which Shrewsbury was fatally wounded. The tale that the countess, disguised as a page, witnessed the encounter, appears to have no foundation; but Buckingham, by installing the "widow of his own creation" in his own and his wife's house, outraged even the lax opinion of that day. He was thought to have originated the project of obtaining the divorce of the childless queen. He intrigued against James, against Sir William Coventry--one of the ablest statesmen of the time, whose fall he procured by provoking him to send him a challenge--and against the great duke of Ormonde, who was dismissed in 1669. He was even suspected of having instigated Thomas Blood's attempt to kidnap and murder Ormonde, and was charged with the crime in the king's presence by Ormonde's son, Lord Ossory, who threatened to shoot him dead in the event of his father's meeting with a violent end. Arlington, next to Buckingham himself the most powerful member of the cabal and a favourite of the king, was a rival less easy to overcome; and he derived considerable influence from the control of foreign affairs entrusted to him. Buckingham had from the first been an adherent of the French alliance, while Arlington concluded through Sir William Temple in 1668 the Triple Alliance. But on the complete volte-face and surrender made by Charles to France in 1670, Arlington as a Roman Catholic was entrusted with the first treaty of Dover of the 20th of May--which besides providing for the united attack on Holland, included Charles's undertaking to proclaim himself a Romanist and to reintroduce the Roman Catholic faith into England,--While Buckingham was sent to France to carry on the sham negotiations which led to the public treaties of the 31st of December 1670 and the 2nd of February 1672. He was much pleased with his reception by Louis XIV., declared that he had "more honours done him than ever were given to any subject," and was presented with a pension of 10,000 livres a year for Lady Shrewsbury. In June 1672 he accompanied Arlington to the Hague to impose terms on the prince of Orange, and with Arlington arranged the new treaty with Louis. After all this activity he suffered a keen disappointment in being passed over for the command of the English forces in favour of Schomberg. He now knew of the secret treaty of Dover, and towards the end of 1673 his jealousy of Arlington became open hostility. He threatened to impeach him, and endeavoured with the help of Louis to stir up a faction against him in parliament. This, however, was unsuccessful, and in January 1674 an attack was made upon Buckingham himself simultaneously in both houses. In the Lords the trustees of the young earl of Shrewsbury complained that Buckingham continued publicly his intimacy with the countess, and that a son of theirs had been buried in Westminster Abbey with the title of earl of Coventry; and Buckingham, after presenting an apology, was required, as was the countess, to give security for £10,000 not to cohabit together again. In the Commons he was attacked as the promoter of the French alliance, of "popery" and arbitrary government. He defended himself chiefly by endeavouring to throw the blame upon Arlington; but an address was voted petitioning the king to remove him from his councils, presence and from employment for ever. Charles, who had only been waiting for a favourable opportunity, and who was enraged at Buckingham's disclosures, consented with alacrity. Buckingham retired into private life, reformed his ways, attended church with his wife, began to pay his debts, became a "patriot," and was claimed by the country or opposition party as one of their leaders. In the spring of 1675 he was conspicuous for his opposition to the Test oath and for his abuse of the bishops, and on the 16th of November he introduced a bill for the relief of the nonconformists. On the 15th of February 1677 he was one of the four lords who endeavoured to embarrass the government by raising the question whether the parliament, not having assembled according to the act of Edward III. once in the year, had not been dissolved by [v.04 p.0671] the recent prorogation. The motion was rejected and the four lords were ordered to apologize. On their refusing, they were sent to the Tower, Buckingham in particular exasperating the House by ridiculing its censure. He was released in July, and immediately entered into intrigues with Barillon, the French ambassador, with the object of hindering the grant of supplies to the king; and in 1678 he visited Paris to get the assistance of Louis XIV. for the cause of the opposition. He took an active part in the prosecution of those implicated in the supposed Popish Plot, and accused the lord chief justice (Sir William Scroggs) in his own court while on circuit of favouring the Roman Catholics. In consequence of his conduct a writ was issued for his apprehension, but it was never served. He promoted the return of Whig candidates to parliament, constituted himself the champion of the dissenters, and was admitted a freeman of the city of London. He, however, separated himself from the Whigs on the exclusion question, probably on account of his dislike of Monmouth and Shaftesbury, was absent from the great debate in the Lords on the 15th of November 1680, and was restored to the king's favour in 1684.
He took no part in public life after James's accession, but returned to his manor of Helmsley in Yorkshire, the cause of his withdrawal being probably exhausted health and exhausted finances. In 1685 he published a pamphlet, entitled A short Discourse on the Reasonableness of Man's having a Religion (reprinted in Somers Tracts (1813, ix. 13), in which after discussing the main subject he returned to his favourite topic, religious toleration. The tract provoked some rejoinders and was defended, amongst others, by William Penn, and by the author himself in The Duke of Buckingham's Letter to the unknown author of a short answer to the Duke of Buckingham's Paper (1685). In hopes of converting him to Roman Catholicism James sent him a priest, but Buckingham turned his arguments into ridicule. He died on the 16th of April 1687, from a chill caught while hunting, in the house of a tenant at Kirkby Moorside in Yorkshire, expressing great repentance and feeling himself "despised by my country and I fear forsaken by my God."[3] The miserable picture of his end drawn by Pope, however, is greatly exaggerated. He was buried on the 7th of June 1687 in Henry VII.'s chapel in Westminster Abbey, in greater state, it was said, than the late king, and with greater splendour. With his death the family founded by the extraordinary rise to power and influence of the first duke ended. As he left no legitimate children the title became extinct, and his great estate had been completely dissipated; of the enormous mansion constructed by him at Cliveden in Buckinghamshire not a stone remains.
The ostentatious licence and the unscrupulous conduct of the Alcibiades of the 17th century have been deservedly censured. But even his critics agree that he was good-humoured, good-natured, generous, an unsurpassed mimic and the leader of fashion; and with his good looks, in spite of his moral faults and even crimes, he was irresistible to his contemporaries. Many examples of his amusing wit have survived. His portrait has been drawn by Burnet, Count Hamilton in the Mémoires de Grammont, Dryden, Pope in the Epistle to Lord Bathurst, and Sir Walter Scott in Peveril of the Peak. He is described by Reresby as "the first gentleman of person and wit I think I ever saw," and Burnet bears the same testimony. Dean Lockier, after alluding to his unrivalled skill in riding, dancing and fencing, adds, "When he came into the presence-chamber it was impossible for you not to follow him with your eye as he went along, he moved so gracefully." Racing and hunting were his favourite sports, and his name long survived in the hunting songs of Yorkshire. He was the patron of Cowley, Sprat, Matthew Clifford and Wycherley. He dabbled in chemistry, and for some years, according to Burnet, "he thought he was very near the finding of the philosopher's stone." He set up glass works at Lambeth the productions of which were praised by Evelyn; and he spent much money, according to his biographer Brian Fairfax, in building insanae substructions. Dryden described him under the character of Zimri in the celebrated lines in Absalom and Achitophel (to which Buckingham replied in Poetical Reflections on a late Poem ... by a Person of Honour, 1682):--
"A man so various, that he seemed to be Not one, but all mankind's epitome; Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong, Was everything by starts and nothing long; But in the course of one revolving moon, Was chymist, fiddler, statesman and buffoon.... Beggar'd by fools, whom still he found too late, He had his jest, but they had his estate."
Buckingham, however, cannot with any truth be called the "epitome of mankind." On the contrary, the distinguishing features of his life are its incompleteness, aimlessness, imperfection, insignificance, neglect of talents and waste of opportunities. "He saw and approved the best," says Brian Fairfax, "but did too often deteriora sequi." He is more severely but more justly judged by himself. In gay moments indeed he had written--
"Methinks, I see the wanton houres flee, And as they passe, turne back and laugh at me,"[4]--
but his last recorded words on the approach of death, "O! what a prodigal have I been of that most valuable of all possessions--Time!" express with exact truth the fundamental flaw of his character and career, of which he had at last become conscious.
Buckingham wrote occasional verses and satires showing undoubted but undeveloped poetical gifts, a collection of which, containing however many pieces not from his pen, was first published by Tom Brown in 1704; while a few extracts from a commonplace book of Buckingham of some interest are given in an article in the Quarterly Review of January 1898. He was the author of The Rehearsal, an amusing and clever satire on the heroic drama and especially on Dryden (first performed on the 7th of December 1671, at the Theatre Royal, and first published in 1672), a deservedly popular play which was imitated by Fielding in Tom Thumb the Great, and by Sheridan in the Critic. Buckingham also published two adapted plays, The Chances, altered from Fletcher's play of the same name (1682) and The Restoration or Right will take place, from Beaumont and Fletcher's Philaster (publ. 1714); and also The Battle of Sedgmoor and The Militant Couple (publ. 1704). The latest edition of his works is that by T. Evans (2 vols. 8vo, 1775). Another work is named by Wood A Demonstration of the Deity, of which there is now no trace.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--The life of Buckingham has been well and accurately traced and the chief authorities collected in the article in the Dict, of Nat. Biography (1899) by C.H. Firth, and in George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham, by Lady Burghclere (1903). Other biographies are in Wood's Athenae Oxon (Bliss), iv. 207; in Biographia Britannica; by Brian Fairfax, printed in H. Walpole's Catalogue of Pictures of George Duke of Buckingham (1758); in Arber's edition of the Rehearsal (1868); and by the author of Hudibras in The Genuine Remains of Mr Samuel Butler, by R. Thyer (1759), ii. 72. The following may also be mentioned:--Quarterly Review, Jan. 1898 (commonplace book); A Conference on the Doctrine of Transubstantiation between ... the Duke of Buckingham and Father FitzGerald (1714); A Narrative of the Cause and Manner of the Imprisonment of the Lords (1677); The Declaration of the ... Duke of Buckingham and the Earls of Holland and Peterborough ... associated for the King (1648); S.R. Gardiner's Hist. of the Commonwealth (1894-1901); Hist. of Eng. Poetry, by W.J. Courthope (1903), iii. 460; Horace Walpole's Royal and Noble Authors, iii. 304; Miscellania Aulica, by T. Brown (1702); and the Fairfax Correspondence (1848-1849). For the correspondence see Charles II. and Scotland in 1650 (Scottish History Soc., vol. xvii., 1894); Calendars of St. Pap. Dom.; Hist. MSS. Comm. Series, MSS. of Duke of Buccleuch at Montagu House, of Mrs Frankland-Russell-Astley, of Marq. of Ormonde, and Various Collections; and English Hist. Rev. (April 1905), xx. 373.
(P. C. Y.)
[1] i.e. in the Villiers line; see above.
[2] Clarendon, Life and Continuation, 979.
[3] Quarterly Review, January 1898, p. 110.
[4] From his Common place Book (Quarterly Rev. vol. 187, p. 87).
BUCKINGHAM, HENRY STAFFORD, 2ND DUKE OF[1] (1454-1483), was the son of Humphrey Stafford, killed at the first battle of St Albans in 1455, and grandson of Humphrey the 1st duke (cr. 1444), killed at Northampton in 1460, both fighting for Lancaster. The 1st duke, who bore the title of earl of Buckingham in right of his mother, was the son of Edmund, 5th earl of Stafford, and of Anne, daughter of Thomas, duke [v.04 p.0672] of Gloucester, youngest son of Edward III.; Henry's mother was Margaret, daughter of Edmund Beaufort, 2nd duke of Somerset, grandson of John of Gaunt. Thus he came on both sides of the blood royal, and this, coupled with the vastness of his inheritance, made the young duke's future of importance to Edward IV. He was recognized as duke in 1465, and next year was married to Catherine Woodville, the queen's sister. On reaching manhood he was made a knight of the Garter in 1474, and in 1478 was high steward at the trial of George, duke of Clarence. He had not otherwise filled any position of importance, but his fidelity might seem to have been secured by his marriage. However, after Edward's death, Buckingham was one of the first persons worked upon by Richard, duke of Gloucester. It was through his help that Richard obtained possession of the young king, and he was at once rewarded with the offices of justiciar and chamberlain of North and South Wales, and constable of all the royal castles in the principality and Welsh Marches. In the proceedings which led to the deposition of Edward V. he took a prominent part, and on the 24th of June 1483 he urged the citizens at the Guildhall to take Richard as king, in a speech of much eloquence, "for he was neither unlearned and of nature marvellously well spoken." (More). At Richard's coronation he served as chamberlain, and immediately afterwards was made constable of England and confirmed in his powers in Wales. Richard might well have believed that the duke's support was secured. But early in August Buckingham withdrew from the court to Brecon. He may have thought that he deserved an even greater reward, or possibly had dreams of establishing his own claims to the crown. At all events, at Brecon he fell somewhat easily under the influence of his prisoner, John Morton (q.v.), who induced him to give his support to his cousin Henry Tudor, earl of Richmond. A widespread plot was soon formed, but Richard had early warning, and on the 15th of October, issued a proclamation against Buckingham. Buckingham, as arranged, prepared to enter England with a large force of Welshmen. His advance was stopped by an extraordinary flood on the Severn, his army melted away without striking a blow, and he himself took refuge with a follower, Ralph Bannister, at Lacon Hall, near Wem. The man betrayed him for a large reward, and on the 1st of November, Buckingham was brought to the king at Salisbury. Richard refused to see him, and after a summary trial had him executed next day (2nd of November 1483), though it was a Sunday.
Buckingham's eldest son, Edward (1478-1521), eventually succeeded him as 3rd duke, the attainder being removed in 1485; the second son, Henry, was afterwards earl of Wiltshire. The 3rd duke played an important part as lord high constable at the opening of the reign of Henry VIII., and is introduced into Shakespeare's play of that king, but he fell through his opposition to Wolsey, and in 1521 was condemned for treason and executed (17th of May); the title was then forfeited with his attainder, his only son Henry (1501-1563), who in his father's lifetime was styled earl of Stafford, being, however, given back his estates in 1522, and in 1547 restored in blood by parliament with the title of Baron Stafford, which became extinct in this line with Roger, 5th Baron in 1640. In that year the barony of Stafford was granted to William Howard (1614-1680), who after two months was created Viscount Stafford; he was beheaded in 1680, and his son was created earl of Stafford in 1688, a title which became extinct in 1762; but in 1825 the descent to the barony of 1640 was established, to the satisfaction of the House of Lords, in the person of Sir G.W. Jerningham, in whose family it then continued.
The chief original authorities for the life of the 2nd duke of Buckingham are the Continuation of the Croyland Chronicle; Sir Thomas More's Richard III.; and Fabyan's Chronicle. Amongst modern authorities consult J. Gairdner's Richard III.; and Sir. J. Ramsay's Lancaster and York.
(C. L. K.)
[1] i.e. in the Stafford line; see above.
BUCKINGHAM, JAMES SILK (1786-1855), English author and traveller, was born near Falmouth on the 25th of August 1786, the son of a farmer. His youth was spent at sea. After years of wandering he established in 1818 the Calcutta Journal. This venture at first proved highly successful, but in 1823 the paper's outspoken criticisms of the East India Company led to the expulsion of Buckingham from India and to the suppression of the paper by John Adam, the acting governor-general. His case was brought before parliament, and a pension of £200 a year was subsequently awarded him by the East India Company as compensation. Buckingham continued his journalistic ventures on his return to England, and started the Oriental Herald (1824) and the Athenaeum (1828) which was not a success in his hands. In parliament, where he sat as member for Sheffield from 1832-1837, he was a strong advocate of social reform. He was a most voluminous writer. He had travelled much in Europe, America and the East, and wrote a great number of useful books of travel. In 1851 the value of these and of his other literary work was recognized by the grant of a civil list pension of £200 a year. At the time of his death in London, on the 30th of June 1855, Buckingham was at work on his autobiography, two volumes of the intended four being completed and published (1855).
His youngest son, Leicester Silk Buckingham (1825-1867), achieved no little popularity as a playwright, several of his free adaptations of French comedies being produced in London between 1860 and 1867.
BUCKINGHAM, a market town and municipal borough and the county town of Buckinghamshire, England, in the Buckingham parliamentary division, 61 m. N.W. of London by a branch of the London & North-Western railway. Pop. (1901) 3152. It lies in an open valley on the upper part of the river Ouse, which encircles the main portion of the town on three sides. The church of St Peter and St Paul, which was extensively restored by Sir Gilbert Scott, a native of this neighbourhood, is of the 18th century, and stands on the site of the old castle; the town hall dates from the close of the previous century; and the grammar school was founded by Edward VI., in part occupying buildings of earlier date, which retain Perpendicular and Decorated windows, and a Norman door. A chantry, founded in 1268 by Matthew Stratton, archdeacon of Buckingham, previously occupied the site; the Norman work may be a remnant of the chapel of a gild of the Holy Trinity. The manor house is of the early part of the 17th century, and other old houses remain. The adjacent mansion of Stowe, approached from the town by a magnificent avenue of elms, and surrounded by gardens very beautifully laid out, was the seat of the dukes of Buckingham until the extinction of the title in 1889. Buckingham is served by a branch of the Grand Junction Canal, and has agricultural trade, manufactures of condensed milk and artificial manure, maltings and flour-mills; while an old industry survives to a modified extent in the manufacture of pillow-lace. The borough is under a mayor, 4 aldermen and 12 councillors. Area, 5006 acres.
Buckingham (Bochingeham, Bukyngham) was an important stronghold in pre-Conquest times, and in 918 Edward the Elder encamped there with his army for four weeks, and threw up two forts on either side of the water. At the time of the Domesday survey there were twenty-six burgesses in Buckingham, which, together with the hamlet of Bourton, was assessed at one hide. Although it appears as a borough thus early, the town received no charter until 1554, when Queen Mary created it a free borough corporate with a bailiff, twelve principal burgesses and a steward, and defined the boundaries as extending in width from Dudley bridge to Thornborowe bridge and in length from Chackmore bridge to Padbury Mill bridge. A charter from Charles II. in 1684 was very shortly abandoned in favour of the original grant, which held force until the Municipal Corporations Act of 1835. In 1529 and from 1545 onwards Buckingham returned two members to parliament, until deprived by the Representation of the People Act of 1867 of one member, and by the Redistribution of Seats Act of 1885 of the other. Early mentions occur of markets and fairs, and from 1522, when Henry VIII. granted to Sir Henry Marney the borough of Buckingham with a Saturday market and two annual fairs, grants of fairs by various sovereigns were numerous. Buckingham was formerly an important agricultural centre, and Edward III. fixed here one of the staples for wool, but after the removal of these to Calais the trade suffered such decay that in an act of 32 Henry VIII. Buckingham is mentioned among thirty-six impoverished towns.
BUCKINGHAM AND NORMANBY, JOHN SHEFFIELD, 1ST DUKE OF (1648-1721), English statesman and poet, was born on [v.04 p.0673] the 7th of April 1648. He was the son of Edmund, 2nd earl of Mulgrave, and succeeded to that title on his father's death in 1658. At the age of eighteen he joined the fleet, to serve in the first Dutch war; on the renewal of hostilities in 1672 he was present at the battle of Southwold Bay, and in the next year received the command of a ship. He was also made a colonel of infantry, and served for some time under Turenne. In 1680 he was put in charge of an expedition sent to relieve the town of Tangier. It was said that he was provided with a rotten ship in the hope that he would not return, but the reason of this abortive plot, if plot there was, is not exactly ascertained. At court he took the side of the duke of York, and helped to bring about Monmouth's disgrace. In 1682 he was dismissed from the court, apparently for putting himself forward as a suitor for the princess Anne, but on the accession of King James he received a seat in the privy council, and was made lord chamberlain. He supported James in his most unpopular measures, and stayed with him in London during the time of his flight. He also protected the Spanish ambassador from the dangerous anger of the mob. He acquiesced, however, in the Revolution, and in 1694 was made marquess of Normanby. In 1696 he refused in company with other Tory peers to sign an agreement to support William as their "rightful and lawful king" against Jacobite attempts, and was consequently dismissed from the privy council. On the accession of Anne, with whom he was a personal favourite, he became lord privy seal and lord-lieutenant of the North Riding of Yorkshire, and in 1703 duke of Buckingham and Normanby. During the predominance of the Whigs between 1705 and 1710, Buckingham was deprived of his office as lord privy seal, but in 1710 he was made lord steward, and in 1711 lord president of the council. After the death of Anne he held no state appointment. He died on the 24th of February 1721 at his house in St James's Park, which stood on the site of the present Buckingham Palace. Buckingham was succeeded by his son, Edmund (1716-1735) on whose death the titles became extinct.
Buckingham, who is better known by his inherited titles as Lord Mulgrave, was the author of "An Account of the Revolution" and some other essays, and of numerous poems, among them the Essay on Poetry and the Essay on Satire. It is probable that the Essay on Satire, which attacked many notable persons, "sauntering Charles" amongst others, was circulated in MS. It was often attributed at the time to Dryden, who accordingly suffered a thrashing at the hands of Rochester's bravoes for the reflections it contained upon the earl. Mulgrave was a patron of Dryden, who may possibly have revised it, but was certainly not responsible, although it is commonly printed with his works. Mulgrave adapted Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, breaking it up into two plays, Julius Caesar and Marcus Brutus. He introduced choruses between the acts, two of these being written by Pope, and an incongruous love scene between Brutus and Portia. He was a constant friend and patron of Pope, who expressed a flattering opinion of his Essay on Poetry. This, although smoothly enough written, deals chiefly with commonplaces.
In 1721 Edmund Curll published a pirated edition of his works, and was brought before the bar of the House of Lords for breach of privilege accordingly. An authorized edition under the superintendence of Pope appeared in 1723, but the authorities cut out the "Account of the Revolution" and "The Feast of the Gods" on account of their alleged Jacobite tendencies. These were printed at the Hague in 1727. Pope disingenuously repudiated any knowledge of the contents. Other editions reappeared in 1723, 1726, 1729, 1740 and 1753. His Poems were included in Johnson's and other editions of the British poets.
BUCKINGHAMSHIRE, EARLS OF. The first earl of Buckinghamshire (to be distinguished from the earls of Buckingham, q.v.) was John Hobart (c. 1694-1756), a descendant of Sir Henry Hobart (d. 1625), attorney-general and chief justice of the common pleas under James I., who was made a baronet in 1611, and who was the great-grandson of Sir James Hobart (d. 1507), attorney-general to Henry VII. The Hobarts had been settled in Norfolk and Suffolk for many years, when in 1728 John Hobart, who was a son of Sir Henry Hobart, the 4th baronet (d. 1698), was created Baron Hobart of Blickling. In 1740 Hobart became lord-lieutenant of Norfolk and in 1746 earl of Buckinghamshire, his sister, Henrietta Howard, countess of Suffolk, being the mistress of George II. He died on the 22nd of September 1756, and was succeeded as 2nd earl[1] by his eldest son John (1723-1793), who was member of parliament for Norwich and comptroller of the royal household before his accession to the title. From 1762 to 1766 he was ambassador to Russia, and from 1776 to 1780 lord-lieutenant of Ireland, but he was hardly equal to the exceptional difficulties with which he had to deal in the latter position. He died without sons at Blickling Hall, Norfolk, on the 3rd of August 1793, when his half-brother George (c. 1730-1804), became 3rd earl. Blickling Hall and his Norfolk estates, however, passed to his daughter, Henrietta (1762-1805), the wife of William Kerr, afterwards 6th marquess of Lothian.
Robert Hobart, 4th earl of Buckinghamshire (1760-1816), the eldest son of the 3rd earl, was born on the 6th of May 1760. He was a soldier, and then a member of both the English and the Irish Houses of Commons; from 1789 to 1793 he was chief secretary to the lord-lieutenant of Ireland, exerting his influence in this country to prevent any concessions to the Roman Catholics. In 1793, being known by the courtesy title of Lord Hobart, he was sent to Madras as governor, but in 1798, after serious differences between himself and the governor-general of India, Sir John Shore, afterwards Lord Teignmouth, he was recalled. Returning to British politics, Hobart was called up to the House of Lords in 1798 (succeeding to the earldom of Buckinghamshire in 1804); he favoured the union between England and Ireland; from March 1801 to May 1804 he was secretary for war and the colonies (his family name being taken for Hobart Town in Tasmania), and in 1805 he became chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster under Pitt. For a short time he was joint postmaster-general, and from 1812 until his death on the 4th of February 1816 he was president of the Board of Control, a post for which his Indian experience had fitted him.
The 4th earl left no sons, and his titles passed to his nephew, George Robert Hobart (1789-1849), a son of George Vere Hobart (1761-1802), lieutenant-governor of Grenada. In 1824 the 5th earl inherited the Buckinghamshire estates of the Hampden family and took the name of Hampden, his ancestor, Sir John Hobart, 3rd baronet, having married Mary Hampden about 1655. On his death in February 1849 his brother, Augustus Edward Hobart (1793-1884), who took the name of Hobart-Hampden in 1878, became 6th earl. His two sons, Vere Henry, Lord Hobart (1818-1875), governor of Madras from 1872, and Frederick John Hobart (1821-1875), predeceased him, and when the 6th earl died he was succeeded by his grandson, Sidney Carr Hobart-Hampden (b. 1860), who became 7th earl of Buckinghamshire, and who added to his name that of Mercer-Henderson. Another of the 6th earl's sons was Augustus Charles Hobart-Hampden, generally known as Hobart Pasha (q.v.).
See Lord Hobart's Essays and Miscellaneous Writings, edited with biography by Lady Hobart (1885).
[1] Until 1784, when George Grenville, Earl Temple, was created marquess of Buckingham, the 2nd earl of Buckinghamshire always signed himself "Buckingham"; his contemporaries knew him by this name, and hence a certain amount of confusion has arisen.
BUCKINGHAMSHIRE (abbreviated Bucks) a south midland county of England, bounded N. by Northamptonshire, E. by Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire and Middlesex, S. for a short distance by Surrey, and by Berkshire, and W. by Oxfordshire. Its area is 743.2 sq. m. The county is divided between the basins of the rivers Ouse and Thames. The first in its uppermost course forms part of the north-western boundary, passes the towns of Buckingham, Stony Stratford, Wolverton, Newport Pagnell and Olney, and before quitting the county forms a short stretch of the north-eastern boundary. The principal tributary it receives within the county is the Ouzel. The Thames forms the entire southern boundary; and of its tributaries Buckinghamshire includes the upper part of the Thames. To the north-west of Buckingham, and both east and west of the Ouzel, the land rises in gentle undulations to a height of nearly 500 ft., and north of the Thames valley a few nearly isolated hills stand boldly, such as Brill Hill and Muswell Hill, each over 600 ft., but the hilliest [v.04 p.0674] part of the county is the south, which is occupied by part of the Chiltern system, the general direction of which is from south-west to north-east. The crest-line of these hills crosses the county at its narrowest point, along a line, above the towns of Prince's Risborough and Wendover, not exceeding 11 m. in length. This line divides the county into two parts of quite different physical character; for to the south almost the whole land is hilly (the longer slope of the Chiltern system lying in this direction), well wooded, and pleasantly diversified with narrow vales. The chief of these are watered by the Wye, Misbourne and Chess streams. The beech tree is predominant in the woods, in so much that William Camden, writing c. 1585, supposed the county to take name from this feature (A.S. boc, beech). In the south a remnant of ancient forest is preserved as public ground under the name of Burnham Beeches. The Chilterns reach a height of nearly 900 ft. within the county.
Geology.--The northern half of the county is occupied by Jurassic strata, in the southern half Cretaceous rocks predominate except in the south-eastern corner, where they are covered by Tertiary beds. Thus the oldest rocks are in the north, succeeded continuously by younger strata to the south; the general dip of all the rocks is south-easterly. A few patches of Upper Lias Clay appear near the northern boundary near Grafton Regis and Castle Thorpe, and again in the valley of the Ouse near Stoke Goldington and Weston Underwood. The Oolitic series is represented by the Great Oolite, with limestones in the upper part, much quarried for building stones at Westbury, Thornborough, Brock, Whittlewood Forest, &c.; the lower portions are more argillaceous. The Forest Marble is seen about Thornton as a thin bed of clay with an oyster-bearing limestone at the base. Next above is the Cornbrash, a series of rubbly and occasionally hard limestones and thin clays. The outcrop runs by Tingwick, Buckingham, Berehampton and Newport Pagnell, it is quarried at Wolverton and elsewhere for road metal. Inliers of these rocks occur at Marsh Gibbon and Stan Hill. The Oxford Clay and Kimmeridge Clay, with the Gault, lie in the vale of Aylesbury. The clay is covered by numerous outliers of Portland, Purbeck and Lower Greensand beds. The Portland beds are sandy below, calcareous above; the outcrop follows the normal direction in the county, from south-west to north-east, from Thame through Aylesbury; they are quarried at several places for building stone and fossils are abundant. The Hartwell Clay is in the Lower Portland. Freshwater Purbeck beds lie below the Portland and Lower Greensand beds; they cap the ridge between Oving and Whitchurch. Glass-making sands have been worked from the Lower Greensand at Hartwell, and phosphatic nodules from the same beds at Brickhill as well as from the Gault at Towersey. A broad band of Gault, a bluish clay, extends from Towersey across the county in a north-easterly direction. Resting upon the Gault is the Upper Greensand; at the junction of the two formations numerous springs arise, a circumstance which has no doubt determined the site of several villages. The Chalk rises abruptly from the low lying argillaceous plain to form the Chiltern Hills. The form of the whole of the hilly district round Chesham, High Wycombe and the Chalfonts is determined by the Chalk. Reading beds, mottled clays and sands, repose upon the Chalk at Woburn, Barnham, Fulmer and Denham, and these are in turn covered by the London Clay, which is exposed on the slopes about Stoke Common and Iver. Between the Tertiary-capped Chalk plateau and the Thames, a gentler slope, covered with alluvial gravel and brick earth, reaches down to the river. Thick deposits of plateau gravel cover most of the high ground in the southern corner of the county, while much of the northern part is obscured by glacial clays and gravels.
Industries.--The agricultural capacities of the soil vary greatly in different localities. On the lower lands, especially in the Vale of Aylesbury, about the headwaters of the Thame, it is extremely fertile; while on the hills it is usually poor and thin. The proportion of cultivated land is high, being about 83% of the whole. Of this a large and growing portion is in permanent pasture; cattle and sheep being reared in great numbers for the London markets, to which also are sent quantities of ducks, for which the district round Aylesbury is famous. Wheat and oats are the principal grain crops, though both decrease in importance. Turnips and swedes for the cattle are the chief green crops; and dairy-farming is largely practised. There is no general manufacturing industry, but a considerable amount of lace-making and straw-plaiting is carried on locally; and at High Wycombe and in its neighbourhood there is a thriving trade in various articles of turnery, such as chairs and bowls, from beech and other hard woods. The introduction of lace-making in this and neighbouring counties is attributed to Flemish, and later to French immigrants, but also to Catharine of Aragon during her residence (c. 1532) at Ampthill. Down to the later part of the 19th century a general holiday celebrated by lace-makers on the 25th of November was known as "Cattarn's Day."
Communications.--The main line of the London & North-Western railway crosses the north-east part of the county. Bletchley is an important junction on this system, branches diverging east to Fenny Stratford, Bedford and Cambridge, and west to Oxford and Banbury, Buckingham being served by the western branch. There is also a branch from Cheddington to Aylesbury. The Metropolitan-Great Central joint line serves Amersham, Chesham (by a branch), and Aylesbury, joining the North-Western Oxford branch at Verney Junction; this line is used by the Great Central railway, the main line of which continues north-westward from Quainton Road. A light railway connects this station with the large village of Brill to the south-west. The Great Central and the Great Western companies jointly own a line passing through Beaconsfield, High Wycombe, and Prince's Risborough, which is connected northward with the Great Central system. Before the opening of this line in 1906 the Great Western branch from Maidenhead to Oxford was the only line serving High Wycombe and Prince's Risborough, from which there are branches to Watlington and Aylesbury. The main line of this company crosses the extreme south of the county by Slough and Taplow. The Grand Junction Canal, reaching the valley of the Ouse by way of the Ouzel valley from the south, has branches to Aylesbury and to Buckingham. Except the Thames none of the rivers in the county is continuously navigable.
Bletchley is an important junction on this system, branches diverging east to Fenny Stratford, Bedford and Cambridge, and west to Oxford and Banbury, Buckingham being served by the western branch. There is also a branch from Cheddington to Aylesbury. The Metropolitan-Great Central joint line serves Amersham, Chesham (by a branch), and Aylesbury, joining the North-Western Oxford branch at Verney Junction; this line is used by the Great Central railway, the main line of which continues north-westward from Quainton Road. A light railway connects this station with the large village of Brill to the south-west. The Great Central and the Great Western companies jointly own a line passing through Beaconsfield, High Wycombe. and Prince's Risborough, which is connected northward with the Great Central system. Before the opening of this line in 1906 the Great Western branch from Maidenhead to Oxford was the only line serving High Wycombe and Prince's Risborough, from which there are branches to Watlington and Aylesbury. The main line of this company crosses the extreme south of the county by Slough and Taplow. The Grand Junction Canal, reaching the valley of the Ouse by way of the Ouzel valley from the south, has branches to Aylesbury and to Buckingham. Except the Thames none of the rivers in the county is continuously navigable.
Population and Administration.--The area of the ancient county is 475,682 acres, with a population in 1891 of 185,284, and in 1901 of 195,764. The area of the administrative county is 479,358 acres. The county contains eight hundreds, of which three, namely Stoke, Burnham and Desborough, form the "Chiltern Hundreds" (q.v.). The hundred of Aylesbury retains its ancient designation of the "three hundreds of Aylesbury." The municipal boroughs are Buckingham, the county town (pop. 3152), and Wycombe, officially Chepping Wycombe, also Chipping or High Wycombe (15,542). The other urban districts are Aylesbury (9243), Beaconsfield (1570), Chesham (7245), Eton (3301), Fenny Stratford (4799), Linslade, on the Ouzel opposite to Leighton Buzzard in Bedfordshire (2157), Marlow (4526), Newport Pagnell (4028), Slough (11,453). Among the lesser market towns may be mentioned Amersham (2674), Ivinghoe (808), Olney (2684), Prince's Risborough (2189), Stony Stratford (2353), Wendover (2009) and Winslow (1703). At Wolverton (5323) are the carriage works of the London & North-Western railway. Several of the villages on and near the banks of the Thames have become centres of residence, such as Taplow, Cookham and Bourne End, Burnham and Wooburn. Buckinghamshire is in the midland circuit, and assizes are held at Aylesbury. It has one court of quarter sessions, and is divided into thirteen petty sessional divisions. The boroughs of Buckingham and Wycombe have separate commissions of the peace. The administrative county contains 230 civil parishes. Buckinghamshire is almost entirely within the diocese of Oxford, and 215 ecclesiastical parishes are situated wholly or in part within it. There are three parliamentary divisions, Northern or Buckingham, Mid or Aylesbury, and Southern or Wycombe, each returning one member; and the county contains a small part of the parliamentary borough of Windsor (chiefly in Berkshire). The most notable institution within the county is Eton College, the famous public school founded by Henry VI.
History.--The district which was to become Buckinghamshire was reached by the West Saxons in 571, as by a series of victories they pushed their way north along the Thames valley. With the grouping of the settlements into kingdoms and the consolidation of Mercia under Offa, Buckinghamshire was included in Mercia until, with the submission of that kingdom to the Northmen, it became part of the Danelaw. In the 10th century Buckinghamshire suffered frequently from the ravages of the Danes, and numerous barrows and earthworks mark the scenes [v.04 p.0675] of struggles against the invaders. These relics are especially abundant in the vale of Aylesbury, probably at this time one of the richest and best protected of the Saxon settlements. The Chiltern district, on the other hand, is said to have been an impassable forest infested by hordes of robbers and wild beasts. In the reign of Edward the Confessor, Leofstan, 12th abbot of St Albans, cut down large tracts of wood in this district and granted the manor of Hamstead (Herts) to a valiant knight and two fellow-soldiers on condition that they should check the depredations of the robbers. The same reason led at an early period to the appointment of a steward of the Chiltern Hundreds, and this office being continued long after the necessity for it had ceased to exist, gradually became the sinecure it is to-day. The district was not finally disforested until the reign of James I.
At the time of the Norman invasion Buckinghamshire was probably included in the earldom of Leofwine, son of Godwin, and the support which it lent him at the battle of Hastings was punished by sweeping confiscations after the Conquest. The proximity of Buckinghamshire to London caused it to be involved in most of the great national events of the ensuing centuries. During the war between King John and his barons William Mauduit held Hanslape Castle against the king, until in 1216 it was captured and demolished by Falkes de Bréauté. The county was visited severely by the Black Death, and Winslow was one of many districts which were almost entirely depopulated. In the civil war Buckinghamshire was one of the first counties to join in an association for mutual defence on the side of the parliament, which had important garrisons at Aylesbury, Brill and elsewhere. Newport Pagnell was for a short time garrisoned by the royalist troops, and in 1644 the king fixed his headquarters at Buckingham.
The shire of Buckingham originated with the division of Mercia in the reign of Edward the Elder, and was probably formed by the aggregation of pre-existing hundreds round the county town, a fact which explains the curious irregularities of the boundary line. The eighteen hundreds of the Domesday survey have now been reduced to eight, of which the three Chiltern hundreds, Desborough, Burnham and Stoke, are unaltered in extent as well as in name. The remainder have been formed each by the union of three of the ancient hundreds, and Aylesbury is still designated "the three hundreds of Aylesbury." All, except Newport and Buckingham, retain the names of Domesday hundreds, and the shire has altered little on its outer lines since the survey. Until the time of Queen Elizabeth Buckinghamshire and Bedfordshire had a common sheriff. The shire court of the former county was held at Aylesbury.
The ecclesiastical history of Buckinghamshire is not easy to trace, as there is no local chronicler, but the earliest churches were probably subject to the West Saxon see of Dorchester, and when after the Conquest the bishop's stool was transferred to Lincoln no change of jurisdiction ensued. After the dissolution of the monasteries it was proposed to form a new diocese to include Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire, but the project was abandoned, and both remained in the Lincoln diocese until 1837, when the latter was transferred to Oxford. The arch-deaconry was probably founded towards the close of the 11th century by Bishop Rémy, and the subdivision into rural deaneries followed shortly after. A dean of Thornborough is mentioned in the 12th century, and in the taxation of Nicholas IV. eight deaneries are given, comprising 186 parishes. In 1855 the deaneries were reconstructed and made eighteen in number.
On the redistribution of estates after the Conquest only two Englishmen continued to retain estates of any importance, and the chief landowners at this date were Walter Giffard, first earl of Buckingham, and Odo, bishop of Bayeux. Few of the great Buckinghamshire estates, however, remained with the same proprietors for any length of time. Many became annexed by religious establishments, while others reverted to the crown and were disposed of by various grants. The family of Hampden alone claim to have held the estate from which the name is derived in an unbroken line from Saxon times.
Buckinghamshire has always ranked as an agricultural rather than a manufacturing county, and has long been famed for its corn and cattle. Fuller mentions the vale of Aylesbury as producing the biggest bodied sheep in England, and "Buckinghamshire bread and beef" is an old proverb. Lace-making, first introduced into this county by the Fleming refugees from the Alva persecution, became a very profitable industry. The monopolies of James I. considerably injured this trade, and in 1623 a petition was addressed to the high sheriff of Buckinghamshire representing the distress of the people owing to the decay of bone lace-making. Newport Pagnell and Olney were especially famous for their lace, and the parish of Hanslape is said to have made an annual profit of £8000 to £9000 from lace manufacture. The straw-plait industry was introduced in the reign of George I., and formerly gave employment to a large number of the population.
The county was first represented in parliament by two members in 1290. The representation increased as the towns acquired representative rights, until in 1603 the county with its boroughs made a total return of fourteen members. By the Reform Act of 1832 this was reduced to eleven, and by the Redistribution of Seats Act of 1885 the boroughs were deprived of representation and the county returned three members for three divisions.
Antiquities.--Buckinghamshire contains no ecclesiastical buildings of the first rank. Monastic remains are scanty, but two former abbeys may be noted. At Medmenham, on the Thames above Marlow, there are fragments, incorporated into a residence, of a Cistercian abbey founded in 1201; which became notorious in the middle of the 18th century as the meeting-place of a convivial club called the "Franciscans" after its founder, Sir Francis Dashwood, afterwards Lord le Despencer (1708-1781), and also known as the "Hell-Fire Club," of which John Wilkes, Bubb Dodington and other political notorieties were members. The motto of the club, fay ce que voudras (do what you will), inscribed on a doorway at the abbey, was borrowed from Rabelais' description of the abbey of Thelema in Gargantua. The remains of the Augustinian Notley Abbey (1162), incorporated with a farm-house, deserve mention rather for their picturesque situation by the river Thame than for their architectural value. Turning to churches, there is workmanship considered to be of pre-Norman date in Wing church, in the neighbourhood of Leighton Buzzard, including a polygonal apse and crypt. Stewkley church, in the same locality, shows the finest Norman work in the county; the building is almost wholly of the later part of this period, and the ornamentation is very rich. The Early English work of Chetwode and Haddenham churches, both in the west of the county, is noteworthy; especially in the first, which, as it stands, is the eastern part of a priory church of Augustinians (1244). Good specimens of the Decorated style are not wanting, though none is of special note; but the county contains three fine examples of Perpendicular architecture in Eton College chapel and the churches of Maids Moreton to the north, and Hillesden to the south, of Buckingham. Ancient domestic architecture is chiefly confined to a few country houses, of which Chequers Court, dating from the close of the 16th century, is of interest not only from the architectural standpoint but from its beautiful situation high among the Chiltern Hills between Prince's Risborough and Wendover, and from a remarkable collection of relics of Oliver Cromwell, preserved here as a consequence of the marriage, in 1664, of John Russell, a grandson of the Protector, into the family to which the house then belonged. The manor-house of Hampden, among the hills east of Prince's Risborough, was for many generations the abode of the family of that name, and is still in the possession of descendants of John Hampden, who fell at the battle of Chalgrove in 1643, and is buried in Hampden church. Fine county seats are numerous--there may be mentioned Stowe (Buckingham), formerly the seat of the dukes of Buckingham; Cliveden and Hedsor, two among the many beautifully situated mansions by the bank of the Thames; and Claydon House in the west of the county. Among the Chiltern Hills, also, there are several [v.04 p.0676] splendid domains. Associations with eminent men have given a high fame to several towns or villages of Buckinghamshire. Such are the connexion of Beaconsfield with Edmund Waller and Edmund Burke, that of Hughenden near Wycombe with Benjamin Disraeli, Lord Beaconsfield, whose father's residence was at Bradenham; of Olney and Stoke Pogis with the poets Cowper and Gray respectively. At Chalfont St Giles a cottage still stands in which Milton completed Paradise Lost and began Paradise Regained. In earlier life he had lived and worked at Horton, near the Thames below Windsor.
AUTHORITIES.--The original standard history is the laborious work of G. Lipscomb, History and Antiquities of the County of Buckingham (London, 1831-1847). Other works are: Browne Willis, History and Antiquities of the Town, Hundred, and Deanery of Buckingham (London, 1755); D. and S. Lysons, Magna Britannia, vol. i.; R. Gibbs, Buckingham (Aylesbury, 1878-1882); Worthies of Buckingham (Aylesbury, 1886); and Buckingham Miscellany (Aylesbury, 1891); G.S. Roscoe, Buckingham Sketches (London, 1891); P.H. Ditchfield, Memorials of Old Buckinghamshire (London, 1901); Victoria County History, "Buckinghamshire."
BUCKLAND, FRANCIS TREVELYAN (1826-1880), English zoologist, son of Dean William Buckland the geologist, was born at Oxford on the 17th of December 1826. He was educated at Winchester and Christ Church, taking his degree in 1848, and then adopted the medical profession, studying at St George's hospital, London, where he became house-surgeon in 1852. The pursuit of anatomy led him to a good deal of out-of-the-way research in zoology, and in 1856 he became a regular writer on natural history for the newly established Field, particularly on the subject of fish. In 1866 he started Land and Water on similar lines. In 1867 he was appointed government inspector of fisheries, and in the course of his work travelled constantly about the country, being largely responsible for the increased attention paid to the scientific side of pisciculture. Among his publications, besides articles and official reports, were Fish Hatching (1863), Curiosities of Natural History (4 vols., 1857-1872), Logbook of a Fisherman (1875), Natural History of British Fishes (1881). He died on the 19th of December 1880.
See Life by G.C. Bompas (1885).
BUCKLAND, WILLIAM (1784-1856), English divine and geologist, eldest son of the Rev. Charles Buckland, rector of Templeton and Trusham, in Devon, was born at Axminster on the 12th of March 1784. He was educated at the grammar school of Tiverton, and at Winchester, and in 1801 was elected a scholar of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, becoming B.A. in 1804. In 1809 he was elected a fellow of his college, and was admitted into holy orders. From early boyhood he had exhibited a strong taste for natural science, which was subsequently stimulated by the lectures of Dr John Kidd on mineralogy and chemistry; and his attention was especially drawn to the then infant science of geology. He also attended the lectures of Sir Christopher Pegge (1765-1822) on anatomy. He now devoted himself systematically to an examination of the geological structure of Great Britain, making excursions, and investigating the order of superposition of the strata and the characters of the organic remains which they contained. In 1813, on the resignation of Dr Kidd, he was appointed reader in mineralogy in Oxford; and the interest excited by his lectures was so great that in 1819 a readership in geology was founded and especially endowed by the treasury, Dr Buckland being the first holder of the new appointment. In 1818 Dr Buckland was elected a fellow of the Royal Society, and in 1824 and again in 1840 he was chosen president of the Geological Society of London. In 1825 he was presented by his college to the living of Stoke Charity, near Whitchurch, Hants, and in the same year he was appointed by Lord Liverpool to a canonry of the cathedral of Christ Church, Oxford, when the degree of D.D. was conferred upon him. In 1825, also, he married Mary, the eldest daughter of Mr Benjamin Morland of Sheepstead House, near Abingdon, Berks, by whose abilities and excellent judgment he was materially assisted in his literary labours. In 1832 he presided over the second meeting of the British Association, which was then held at Oxford. In 1845 he was appointed by Sir Robert Peel to the vacant deanery of Westminster, and was soon after inducted to the living of Islip, near Oxford, a preferment attached to the deanery. In 1847 he was appointed a trustee in the British Museum; and in 1848 he was awarded the Wollaston medal by the Geological Society of London. In 1849 his health began to give way under the increasing pressure of his multifarious duties; and the later years of his life were overshadowed by a serious illness, which compelled him to live in retirement. He died on the 24th of August 1856, and was buried in a spot which he had himself chosen, in Islip churchyard.
Buckland was a man many-sided in his abilities, and of a singularly wide range of attainments. Apart from his published works and memoirs in connexion with the special department of geology, and in addition to the work entailed upon him by the positions which he at different times held in the Church of England, he entered with great enthusiasm into many practical questions connected with agricultural and sanitary science, and various social and even medical problems. As a teacher he possessed powers of the highest order; and the university of Oxford is enriched by the large and valuable private collections, illustrative of geology and mineralogy, which he amassed in the course of his active life. It is, however, upon his published scientific works that Dr Buckland's great reputation is mainly based. His first great work was the well-known Reliquiae Diluvianae, or Observations on the Organic Remains contained in caves, fissures, and diluvial gravel attesting the Action of a Universal Deluge, published in 1823 (2nd ed. 1824), in which he supplemented his former observations on the remains of extinct animals discovered in the cavern of Kirkdale in Yorkshire, and expounded his views as to the bearing of these and similar cases on the Biblical account of the Deluge. Thirteen years after the publication of the Reliquiae, Dr Buckland w as called upon, in accordance with the will of the earl of Bridgewater, to write one of the series of works known as the Bridgewater Treatises. The design of these treatises was to exhibit the "power, wisdom, and goodness of God, as manifested in the Creation," and none of them was of greater value, as evinced by its vitality, than that on "Geology and Mineralogy." Originally published in 1836, it has gone through three editions, and though not a "manual" of geological science, it still possesses high value as a storehouse of geological and palaeontological facts bearing upon the particular argument which it was designed to illustrate. The third edition, issued in 1858, was edited by his son Francis T. Buckland, and is accompanied by a memoir of the author and a list of his publications.
Of Dr Buckland's numerous original contributions to the sciences of Geology and Palaeontology, the following may be mentioned:--(1) "On the Structure of the Alps and adjoining parts of the Continent, and their relation to the Secondary and Transition Rocks of England" (Annals of Phil., 1821); (2) "Account of an Assemblage of Fossil Teeth and Bones of Elephant, Rhinoceros, Hippopotamus, &c., discovered in a cave at Kirkdale in Yorkshire in the year 1821" (Phil. Trans.); (3) "On the Quartz Rock of the Lickey Hill in Worcestershire" (Trans. Geol. Soc.); (4) "On the Megalosaurus or Great Fossil Lizard of Stonesfield" (Ibid.); (5) "On the Cycadeoideae, a Family of Plants found in the Oolite Quarries of the Isle of Portland" (Ibid.); (6) "On the Discovery of a New Species of Pterodactyle in the Lias of Lyme Regis" (Ibid.); (7) "On the Discovery of Coprolites or Fossil Faeces in the Lias of Lyme Regis, and in other Formations" (Ibid.); (8) "On the Evidences of Glaciers in Scotland and the North of England" (Proc. Geol. Soc. Lond.); (9) "On the South-Western Coal District of England" (joint paper with the Rev. W.D. Conybeare, Trans. Geol. Soc. Lond.); (10) "On the Geology of the neighbourhood of Weymouth, and the adjacent parts of the Coast of Dorset" (joint paper with Sir H. De la Beche, Trans. Geol. Soc. Lond.).
With regard to the Glacial theory propounded by Agassiz, no one welcomed it with greater ardour than Buckland, and he zealously sought to trace out evidences of former glaciation in Britain. A record of the interesting discussion which took place at the Geological Society's meeting in London in November 1840, [v.04 p.0677] after the reading of a paper by Buckland, was printed in the Midland Naturalist, October 1883.
BUCKLE, HENRY THOMAS (1821-1862), English historian, author of the History of Civilization, the son of Thomas Henry Buckle, a wealthy London merchant, was born at Lee, in Kent, on the 24th of November 1821. Owing to his delicate health he was only a very short time at school, and never at college, but the love of reading having been early awakened in him, he was allowed ample means of gratifying it. He gained his first distinctions not in literature but in chess, being reputed, before he was twenty, one of the first players in the world. After his father's death in January 1840 he spent some time with his mother on the continent (1840-1844). He had by that time formed the resolution to direct all his reading and to devote all his energies to the preparation of some great historical work, and during the next seventeen years he bestowed ten hours each day in working out his purpose. At first he contemplated a history of the middle ages, but by 1851 he had decided in favour of a history of civilization. The six years which followed were occupied in writing and rewriting, altering and revising the first volume, which appeared in June 1857. It at once made its author a literary and even social celebrity,--the lion of a London season. On the 1st of March 1858 he delivered at the Royal Institution a public lecture (the only one he ever gave) on the Influence of Women on the Progress of Knowledge, which was published in Fraser's Magazine for April 1858, and reprinted in the first volume of the Miscellaneous and Posthumous Works. On the 1st of April 1859 a crushing and desolating affliction fell upon him in the death of his mother. It was under the immediate impression of his loss that he concluded a review he was writing of J.S. Mill's Essay on Liberty with an argument for immortality, based on the yearning of the affections to regain communion with the beloved dead,--on the impossibility of standing up and living, if we believed the separation were final. The argument is a strange one to have been used by a man who had maintained so strongly that "we have the testimony of all history to prove the extreme fallibility of consciousness." The review appeared in Fraser's Magazine, May 1859, and is to be found also in the Miscellaneous and Posthumous Works (1872). The second volume of his history was published in May 1861. Soon after he left England for the East, in order to recruit his spirits and restore his health. From the end of October 1861 to the beginning of March 1862 was spent by him in Egypt, from which he went over the desert of Sinai and of Edom to Syria, reaching Jerusalem on the 19th of April 1862. After staying there eleven days, he set out for Europe by Beyrout, but at Nazareth he was attacked by fever; and he died at Damascus on the 29th of May 1862.
Buckle's fame, which must rest wholly on his History of Civilization in England, is no longer what it was in the decade following his death. His History is a gigantic unfinished introduction, of which the plan was, first to state the general principles of the author's method and the general laws which govern the course of human progress; and secondly, to exemplify these principles and laws through the histories of certain nations characterized by prominent and peculiar features,--Spain and Scotland, the United States and Germany. Its chief ideas are--(1) That, owing partly to the want of ability in historians, and partly to the complexity of social phenomena, extremely little had as yet been done towards discovering the principles which govern the character and destiny of nations, or, in other words, towards establishing a science of history; (2) That, while the theological dogma of predestination is a barren hypothesis beyond the province of knowledge, and the metaphysical dogma of free will rests on an erroneous belief in the infallibility of consciousness, it is proved by science, and especially by statistics, that human actions are governed by laws as fixed and regular as those which rule in the physical world; (3) That climate, soil, food, and the aspects of nature are the primary causes of intellectual progress,--the first three indirectly, through determining the accumulation and distribution of wealth, and the last by directly influencing the accumulation and distribution of thought, the imagination being stimulated and the understanding subdued when the phenomena of the external world are sublime and terrible, the understanding being emboldened and the imagination curbed when they are small and feeble; (4) That the great division between European and non-European civilization turns on the fact that in Europe man is stronger than nature, and that elsewhere nature is stronger than man, the consequence of which is that in Europe alone has man subdued nature to his service; (5) That the advance of European civilization is characterized by a continually diminishing influence of physical laws, and a continually increasing influence of mental laws; (6) That the mental laws which regulate the progress of society cannot be discovered by the metaphysical method, that is, by the introspective study of the individual mind, but only by such a comprehensive survey of facts as will enable us to eliminate disturbances, that is, by the method of averages; (7) That human progress has been due, not to moral agencies, which are stationary, and which balance one another in such a manner that their influence is unfelt over any long period, but to intellectual activity, which has been constantly varying and advancing:--"The actions of individuals are greatly affected by their moral feelings and passions; but these being antagonistic to the passions and feelings of other individuals, are balanced by them, so that their effect is, in the great average of human affairs, nowhere to be seen, and the total actions of mankind, considered as a whole, are left to be regulated by the total knowledge of which mankind is possessed"; (8) That individual efforts are insignificant in the great mass of human affairs, and that great men, although they exist, and must "at present" be looked upon as disturbing forces, are merely the creatures of the age to which they belong; (9) That religion, literature and government are, at the best, the products and not the causes of civilization; (10) That the progress of civilization varies directly as "scepticism," the disposition to doubt and to investigate, and inversely as "credulity" or "the protective spirit," a disposition to maintain, without examination, established beliefs and practices.
Unfortunately Buckle either could not define, or cared not to define, the general conceptions with which he worked, such as those denoted by the terms "civilization," "history," "science," "law," "scepticism," and "protective spirit"; the consequence is that his arguments are often fallacies. Moreover, the looseness of his statements and the rashness of his inferences regarding statistical averages make him, as a great authority has remarked, the enfant terrible of moral statisticians. He brought a vast amount of information from the most varied and distant sources to confirm his opinions, and the abundance of his materials never perplexed or burdened him in his argumentation, but examples of well-conducted historical argument are rare in his pages. He sometimes altered and contorted the facts; he very often unduly simplified his problems; he was very apt when he had proved a favourite opinion true to infer it to be the whole truth. On the other hand, many of his ideas have passed into the common literary stock, and have been more precisely elaborated by later writers on sociology and history; and though his own work is now somewhat neglected, its influence was immensely valuable in provoking further research and speculation.
See his Life by A.W. Huth (1880).
BUCKNER, SIMON BOLIVAR (1823- ), American soldier and political leader, was born in Hart county, Kentucky, on the 1st of April 1823. He graduated at West Point in 1844, and was assistant professor of geography, history and ethics there in 1845-1846. He fought in several battles of the Mexican War, received the brevet of first lieutenant for gallantry at Churubusco, where he was wounded, and later, after the storming of Chapultepec, received the brevet of captain. In 1848-1850 he was assistant instructor of infantry tactics at West Point. During the succeeding five years he was in the recruiting service, on frontier duty, and finally in the subsistence department. He resigned from the army in March 1855. During the futile attempt of Governor Beriah Magoffin to maintain Kentucky in a position of neutrality, he was commander of the state [v.04 p.0678] guard; but in September 1861, after the entry of Union forces into the state, he openly espoused the Confederate cause and was commissioned brigadier-general, later becoming lieutenant-general. He was third in command of Fort Donelson at the time of General Grant's attack (February 1862), and it fell to him, after the escape of Generals Floyd and Pillow, to surrender the post with its large garrison and valuable supplies. General Buckner was exchanged in August of the same year, and subsequently served under General Bragg in the invasion of Kentucky and the campaign of Chickamauga. He was governor of Kentucky in 1887-1891, was a member of the Kentucky constitutional convention of 1890, and in 1896 was the candidate of the National or "Gold" Democrats for vice-president of the United States.
BUCKRAM (a word common, in various early forms, to many European languages, as in the Fr. bouqueran or Ital. bucherame, the derivation of which is unknown), in early usage the name of a fine linen or cotton cloth, but now only of a coarse fabric of linen or cotton stiffened with glue or other substances, used for linings of clothes and in bookbinding. Falstaff's "men in buckram" (Shakespeare, Henry IV., pt. i. II. 4) has become a proverbial phrase for any imaginary persons.
BUCKSTONE, JOHN BALDWIN (1802-1879), English actor and dramatic writer, was born at Hoxton on the 14th of September 1802. He was articled to a solicitor, but soon exchanged the law for the stage. After some years as a provincial actor he made his first London appearance, on the 30th of January 1823, at the Surrey theatre, as Ramsay in the Fortunes of Nigel. His success led to his engagement in 1827 at the Adelphi, where he remained as leading low comedian until 1833. At the Haymarket, which he joined for summer seasons in 1833, and of which he was lessee from 1853 to 1878, he appeared as Bobby Trot in his own Luke the Labourer; and here were produced a number of his plays and farces, Ellen Wareham, Uncle Tom and others. After his return from a visit to the United States in 1840 he played at several London theatres, among them the Lyceum, where he was Box at the first representation of Box and Cox. As manager of the Haymarket he surrounded himself with an admirable company, including Sothern and the Kendals. He produced the plays of Gilbert, Planché, Tom Taylor and Robertson, as well as his own, and in most of these he acted. He died on the 31st of October 1879. He was the author of 150 plays, some of which have been very popular. His daughter, Lucy Isabella Buckstone (1858-1893), was an actress, who made her first London appearance at the Haymarket theatre as Ada Ingot in David Garrick in 1875.
BUCKTHORN, known botanically as Rhamnus cathartica (natural order Rhamnaceae), a much-branched shrub reaching 10 ft. in height, with a blackish bark, spinous branchlets, and ovate, sharply-serrated leaves, 1 to 2 in. long, arranged several together at the ends of the shoots. The small green flowers are regular and have the parts in fours; male and female flowers are borne on different plants. The fruit is succulent, black and globose, and contains four stones. The plant is a native of England, occurring in woods and thickets chiefly on the chalk; it is rare in Ireland and not wild in Scotland. It is native in Europe, north Africa and north Asia, and naturalized in some parts of eastern North America. The fruit has strong purgative properties, and the bark yields a yellow dye.
An allied species, Rhamnus Frangula, is also common in England, and is known as berry-bearing or black alder. It is distinguished from buckthorn by the absence of spiny branchlets, its non-serrated leaves, and bisexual flowers with parts in fives. The fruits are purgative and yield a green dye when unripe. The soft porous wood, called black dogwood, is used for gunpowder. Dyes are obtained from fruits and bark of other species of Rhamnus, such as R. infectoria, R. tinctoria and R. davurica--the two latter yielding the China green of commerce. Several varieties of R. Alaternus, a Mediterranean species, are grown in shrubberies.
Sea-buckthorn is Hippophae rhamnoides, a willow-like shrub, 1 to 8 ft. in height, with narrow leaves silvery on the underside, and globose orange-yellow fruits one-third of an inch in diameter. It occurs on sandy seashores from York to Kent and Sussex, but is not common.
American buckthorns are: Rhamnus purshiana or Cascara sagrada, of the Pacific coast, producing cascara bark, and R. Caroliniana, the alder-buckthorn. Bumelia lycioides (or lanuginosa) is popularly called "southern buckthorn."
BUCKWHEAT, the fruit (so-called seeds) of Fagopyrum esculentum (natural order Polygonaceae), a herbaceous plant, native of central Asia, but cultivated in Europe and North America; also extensively cultivated in the Himalaya, as well as an allied species F. tataricum. The fruit has a dark brown tough rind enclosing the kernel or seed, and is three-sided in form, with sharp angles, similar in shape to beech-mast, whence the name from the Ger. Buchweizen, beechwheat. Buckwheat is grown in Great Britain only to supply food for pheasants and to feed poultry, which devour the seeds with avidity. In the northern countries of Europe, however, the seeds are employed as human food, chiefly in the form of cakes, which when baked thin have an agreeable taste, with a darkish somewhat violet colour. The meal of buckwheat is also baked into crumpets, as a favourite dainty among Dutch children, and in the Russian army buckwheat groats are served out as part of the soldiers' rations, which they cook with butter, tallow or hemp-seed oil. Buckwheat is also used as food in the United States, where "buckwheat cakes" are a national dish; and by the Hindus it is eaten on "bart" or fast days, being one of the phalahas, or lawful foods for such occasions. When it is used as food for cattle the hard sharp angular rind must first be removed. As compared with the principal cereal grains, buckwheat is poor in nitrogenous substances and fat; but the rapidity and ease with which it can be grown render it a fit crop for very poor, badly tilled land. An immense quantity of buckwheat honey is collected in Russia, bees showing a marked preference for the flowers of the plant. The plant is also used as a green fodder.
In the United States buckwheat is sown at the end of June or beginning of July, the amount of seed varying from 3 to 5 pecks to the acre. The crop matures rapidly and continues blooming till frosts set in, so that at harvest, which is usually set to occur just before this period, the grain is in various stages of ripeness. It is cut by hand or with the self-delivery reaper, and allowed to lie in the swath for a few days and then set up in shocks. The stalks are not tied into bundles as in the case of other grain crops, the tops of the shocks being bound round and held together by twisting stems round them. The threshing is done on the field in most cases.
BUCOLICS (from the Gr. [Greek: boukolikos], "pertaining to a herdsman"), a term occasionally used for rural or pastoral poetry. The expression has been traced back in English to the beginning of the 14th century, being used to describe the "Eclogues" of Virgil. The most celebrated collection of bucolics in antiquity is that of Theocritus, of which about thirty, in the Doric dialect, and mainly written in hexameter verse, have been preserved. This was the name, as is believed, originally given by Virgil to his pastoral poems, with the direct object of challenging comparison with the writings of Theocritus. In modern times the term "bucolics" has not often been specifically given by the poets to their pastorals; the main exception being that of Ronsard, who collected his eclogues under the title of "Les Bucoliques." In general practice the word is almost a synonym for pastoral poetry, but has come to bear a slightly more agricultural than shepherd signification, so that the "Georgics" of Virgil has grown to seem almost more "bucolic" than his "Eclogues." (See also PASTORAL.)
(E. G.)
BUCYRUS, a city and the county-seat of Crawford county, Ohio, U.S.A., on the Sandusky river, 62 m. N. of Columbus. Pop. (1890) 5974; (1900) 6560 (756 foreign-born); (1910) 8122. It is served by the Pennsylvania, the Toledo, Walhonding Valley & Ohio (Pennsylvania system), and the Ohio Central railways, and by interurban electric lines. The Ohio Central, of which Bucyrus is a division terminal, has shops here. The city lies at an elevation of about 1000 ft. above sea-level, and is surrounded [v.04 p.0679] by a country well adapted to agriculture and stock-raising. Among its manufactures are machinery, structural steel, ventilating and heating apparatus, furniture, interior woodwork, ploughs, wagons, carriages, copper products and clay-working machines. Bucyrus was first settled in 1817; it was laid out as a town in 1822, was incorporated as a village in 1830, and became a city in 1885. The county-seat was permanently established here in 1830.
BUDAPEST, the capital and largest town of the kingdom of Hungary, and the second town of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, 163 m. S.E. of Vienna by rail. Budapest is situated on both banks of the Danube, and is formed of the former towns of Buda (Ger. Ofen) together with O-Buda (Ger. Alt-Ofen) on the right bank, and of Pest together with Köbánya (Ger. Steinbruch) on the left bank, which were all incorporated into one municipality in 1872. It lies at a point where the Danube has definitely taken its southward course, and just where the outlying spurs of the outer ramifications of the Alps, namely, the Bakony Mountains, meet the Carpathians. Budapest is situated nearly in the centre of Hungary, and dominates by its strategical position the approach from the west to the great Hungarian plain. The imposing size of the Danube, 300 to 650 yds. broad, and the sharp contrast of the two banks, place Budapest among the most finely situated of the larger towns of Europe. On the one side is a flat sandy plain, in which lies Pest, modern of aspect regularly laid out, and presenting a long frontage of handsome buildings to the river. On the other the ancient town of Buda straggles capriciously over a series of small and steep hills, commanded by the fortress and the Blocksberg (770 ft. high, 390 ft. above the Danube), and backed beyond by spurs of mountains, which rise in the form of terraces one above the other. The hills are generally devoid of forests, while those near the towns were formerly covered with vineyards, which produced a good red wine. The vineyards have been almost completely destroyed by the phylloxera.
Budapest covers an area of 78 sq. m., and is divided into ten municipal districts, namely Vár (Festung), Viziváros (Wasserstadt), Ó-Buda (Alt-Ofen), all on the right bank, belonging to Buda, and Belváros (Inner City), Lipótváros (Leopoldstadt), Terézváros (Theresienstadt), Erzsébetváros (Elisabethstadt), Józsefváros (Josephstadt), Ferenczváros (Franzstadt), and Köbánya (Steinbruch), all on the left bank, belonging to Pest. Buda, with its royal palace, the various ministries, and other government offices, is the official centre, while Pest is the commercial and industrial part, as well as the centre of the nationalistic and intellectual life of the town. The two banks of the Danube are united by six bridges, including two fine suspension bridges; the first of them, generally known as the Ketten-Brücke, constructed by the brothers Tiernay and Adam Clark in 1842-1849, is one of the largest in Europe. It is 410 yds. long, 39 ft. broad, 36 ft. high above the mean level of the water, and its chains rest on two pillars 160 ft. high; its ends are ornamented with four colossal stone lions. At one end is a tunnel, 383 yds. long, constructed by Adam Clark in 1854, which pierces the castle hill and connects the quarter known as the Christinenstadt with the Danube. The other suspension bridge is the Schwurplatz bridge, completed in 1903, 56 ft. broad, with a span of 317 yds. The other bridges are the Margaret bridge, with a junction bridge towards the Margaret island, the Franz Joseph bridge, and two railway bridges.
Perhaps the most attractive part of Budapest is the line of broad quays on the left bank of the Danube, which extend for a distance of 2½ m. from the Margaret bridge to the custom-house, and are lined with imposing buildings. The most important of these is the Franz Joseph Quai, 1 m. long, which contains the most fashionable cafés and hotels, and is the favourite promenade. The inner town is surrounded by the Innere Ring-Strasse, a circle of wide boulevards on the site of the old wall. Wide tree-shaded streets, like the Király Utcza, the Kerrepesi Ut, and the Üllöi Ut, also form the lines of demarcation between the different districts. The inner ring is connected by the Váczi Körut (Waitzner-Ring) with the Grosse Ring-Strasse, a succession of boulevards, describing a semicircle beginning at the Margaret bridge and ending at the Boráros Platz, near the custom-house quay, through about the middle of the town. One of the most beautiful streets in the town is the Andrássy Ut, 1½ m. long, connecting Váczi Körut with Városliget (Stadtwäldchen), the favourite public park of Budapest. It is a busy thoroughfare, lined in its first half with magnificent new buildings, and in its second half, where it attains a width of 150 ft., with handsome villas standing in their own gardens, which give the impression rather of a fashionable summer resort than the centre of a great city. Budapest possesses numerous squares, generally ornamented with monuments of prominent Hungarians, usually the work of Hungarian artists.
Buildings.--Though of ancient origin, neither Buda nor Pest has much to show in the way of venerable buildings. The oldest church is the Matthias church in Buda, begun by King Bela IV. in the 13th century, completed in the 15th century, and restored in 1890-1896. It was used as a mosque during the Turkish occupation, and here took place the coronation of Franz Joseph as king of Hungary in 1867. The garrison church, a Gothic building of the 13th century, and the Reformed church, finished in 1898, are the other ecclesiastical buildings in Buda worth mentioning. The oldest church in Pest is the parish church situated in the Eskü-Ter (Schwur-Platz) in the inner town; it was built in 1500, in the Gothic style, and restored in 1890. The most magnificent church in Pest is the Leopoldstadt Basilica, a Romanesque building with a dome 315 ft. in height, begun in 1851; next comes the Franzstadt church, also a Romanesque building, erected in 1874. Besides several modern churches, Budapest possesses a beautiful synagogue, in the Moorish style, erected in 1861, and another, in the Moorish-Byzantine style, built in 1872, while in 1901 the construction of a much larger synagogue was begun. In Buda, near the Kaiserbad, and not far from the Margaret bridge, is a small octagonal Turkish mosque, with a dome 25 ft. high, beneath which is the grave of a Turkish monk. By a special article in the treaty of Karlowitz of 1699 the emperor of Austria undertook to preserve this monument.
Among the secular buildings the first place is taken by the royal palace in Buda, which, together with the old fortress, crowns the summit of a hill, and forms the nucleus of the town. The palace erected by Maria Theresa in 1748-1771 was partly burned in 1849, but has been restored and largely extended since 1894. In the court chapel are preserved the regalia of Hungary, namely, the crown of St Stephen, the sceptre, orb, sword and the coronation robes. It is surrounded by a magnificent garden, which descends in steep terraces to the Danube, and which offers a splendid view of the town lying on the opposite bank. New and palatial buildings of the various ministries, several high and middle schools, a few big hospitals, and the residences of several Hungarian magnates, are among the principal edifices in this part of the town.
The long range of substantial buildings fronting the left bank of the Danube includes the Houses of Parliament (see ARCHITECTURE, Plate IX. fig. 115), a huge limestone edifice in the late Gothic style, covering an area of 3¾ acres, erected in 1883-1902; the Academy, in Renaissance style, erected in 1862-1864, containing a lofty reception room, a library, a historic picture gallery, and a botanic collection; the Redoute buildings, a large structure in a mixed Romanesque and Moorish style, erected for balls and other social purposes; the extensive custom-house at the lower end of the quays, and several fine hotels and insurance offices. In the beautiful Andrássy Ut are the opera-house (1875-1884), in the Italian Renaissance style; the academy of music; the old and new exhibition building; the national drawing school; and the museum of fine arts (1900-1905), in which was installed in 1905 the national gallery, formed by Prince Esterházy, bought by the government in 1865 for £130,000, and formerly housed in the academy, and the collection of modern pictures from the national museum. At the end of the street is one of the numerous monuments erected in various parts of the country to commemorate the thousandth anniversary of the foundation of the kingdom of Hungary. Other buildings remarkable for their [v.04 p.0680] size and interest are: the national museum (1836-1844); the town-hall (1869-1875), in the early Renaissance style; the university, with a baroque façade (rebuilt 1900), and the university library (opened in 1875), a handsome Renaissance building; the palace of justice (1896), a magnificent edifice situated not far from the Houses of Parliament. In its neighbourhood also are the palatial buildings of the ministries of justice and of agriculture. There are also the exchange (1905); the Austro-Hungarian bank (1904); the central post and telegraph office; the art-industrial museum (1893-1897), in oriental style, with some characteristically Hungarian ornamentations; several handsome theatres; large barracks; technical and secondary schools; two great railway termini and a central market (1897) to be mentioned. To the south-east of the town lies the vast slaughter-house (1870-1872), which, with the adjacent cattle-market, covers nearly 30 acres of ground. The building activity of Budapest since 1867 has been extraordinary, and the town has undergone a thorough transformation. The removal of slums and the regulation of the older parts of the town, in connexion with the construction of the two new bridges across the Danube and of the railway termini, went hand-in-hand with the extension of the town, new quarters springing up on both banks of the Danube. This process is still going on, and Budapest has become one of the handsomest capitals of Europe.
Education.--Budapest is the intellectual capital of Hungary. At the head of its educational institutions stands the university, which was attended in 1900 by 4983 students--only about 2000 in 1880--and has a staff of nearly 200 professors and lecturers. It has been completely transformed into a national Hungarian seat of learning since 1867, and great efforts have been made to keep at home the Hungarian students, who before then frequented other universities and specially that of Vienna. It is well provided with scientific laboratories, botanic garden, and various collections, and possesses a library with nearly a quarter of a million volumes. The university of Budapest, the only one in Hungary proper, was established at Tyrnau in 1635, removed to Buda in 1777, and transferred to Pest in 1783. Next to it comes the polytechnic, attended by 1816 students in 1900, which is also thoroughly equipped for a scientific training. Other high schools are a veterinary academy, a Roman Catholic seminary, a Protestant theological college, a rabbinical institute, a commercial academy, to which has been added in 1899 an academy for the study of oriental languages, and military academies for the training of Hungarian officers. Budapest possesses an adequate number of elementary and secondary schools, as well as a great number of special and technical schools. At the head of the scientific societies stands the academy of sciences, founded in 1825, for the encouragement of the study of the Hungarian language and the various sciences except theology. Next to it comes the national museum, founded in 1807 through the donations of Count Stephan Széchényi, which contains extensive collections of antiquities, natural history and ethnology, and a rich library which, in its manuscript department of over 20,000 MSS., contains the oldest specimens of the Hungarian language. Another society which has done great service for the cultivation of the Hungarian language is the Kisfaludy society, founded in 1836. It began by distributing prizes for the best literary productions of the year, then it started the collection and publication of the Hungarian folklore, and lastly undertook the translation into the Hungarian language of the masterpieces of foreign literatures. The influence exercised by this society is very great, and it has attracted within its circle the best writers of Hungary. Another society similar in aim with this one is the Petöfi society, founded in 1875. Amongst the numerous scientific associations are the central statistical department, and the Budapest communal bureau of statistics, which under the directorship of Dr Joseph de Körösy has gained a European reputation.
The artistic life in Budapest is fostered by the academy of music, which once had Franz Liszt as its director, a conservatoire of music, a dramatic school, and a school for painting and for drawing, all maintained by the government. Budapest possesses, besides an opera house, eight theatres, of which two are subsidized by the government and one by the municipality. The performances are almost exclusively in Hungarian, the exceptions being the occasional appearance of French, Italian and other foreign artists. Performances in German are under a popular taboo, and they are never given in a theatre at Budapest.
Trade.---In commerce and industry Budapest is by far the most important town in Hungary, and in the former, if not also in the latter, it is second to Vienna alone in the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. The principal industries are steam flour-milling, distilling, and the manufacture of machinery, railway plant, carriages, cutlery, gold and silver wares, chemicals, bricks, jute, and the usual articles produced in large towns for home consumption. The trade of Budapest is mainly in corn, flour, cattle, horses, pigs, wines, spirits, wool, wood, hides, and in the articles manufactured in the town. The efforts of the Hungarian government to establish a great home industry, and the measures taken to that effect, have benefited Budapest to a greater degree than any other Hungarian town, and the progress made is remarkable. The increase in the number of joint-stock companies, and the capital thus invested in industrial undertakings, furnish a valuable indication. In 1873 there were 28 such companies with a total capital of £2,224,900; in 1890, 75 with a capital of £9,352,000; and in 1899 no fewer than 242 with a total capital of £31,378,655. Budapest owes its great commercial importance to its situation on the Danube, on which the greater part of its trade is carried. The introduction of steamboats on the Danube in 1830 was one of the earliest material causes of the progress of Budapest, and gave a great stimulus to its corn trade. This still continues to operate, having been promoted by the flour-milling industry, which was revolutionized by certain local inventions. Budapest is actually one of the greatest milling centres in the world, possessing a number of magnificent establishments, fitted with machinery invented and manufactured in the city. Budapest is, besides, connected with all the principal places in Austria and Hungary by a well-developed net of railways, which all radiate from here.
Population.--Few European towns grew so rapidly as Budapest generally, and Pest particularly, during the 19th century, and probably none has witnessed such a thorough transformation since 1867. In 1799 the joint population of Buda and Pest was 54,179, of which 24,306 belonged to Buda, and 29,870 belonged to Pest, being the first time that the population of Pest exceeded that of Buda. By 1840, however, Buda had added but 14,000 to its population while that of Pest had more than doubled; and of the joint population of 270,685 in 1869, fully 200,000 fell to the share of Pest. In 1880 the civil population of Budapest was 360,551, an increase since 1869 of 32%; and in 1890 it was 491,938, and increase of 36.57% in the decade. In the matter of the increase of its population alone, Budapest has only been slightly surpassed by one European town, namely, Berlin. Both capitals multiplied their population by nine in the first nine decades of the century. According to an interesting and instructive comparison of the growth of twenty-eight European cities made by Dr Joseph de Körösy, Berlin in 1890 showed an increase, as compared with the beginning of the century, of 818% and Budapest of 809%. Within the same period the increase of Paris was 343%, and of London 340%. In 1900 the civil population of Budapest was 716,476 inhabitants, showing an increase of 44.82% in the decade. To this must be added a garrison of 15,846 men, making a total population 732,322. Of the total population, civil and military, 578,458 were Magyars, 104,520 were Germans, 25,168 were Slovaks, and the remainder was composed of Croatians, Servians, Rumanians, Russians, Greeks, Armenians, Gypsies, &c. According to religion, there were 445,023 Roman Catholics, 5806 Greek Catholics, 4422 Greek Orthodox; 67,319 were Protestants of the Helvetic, and 38,811 were Protestants of the Augsburg Confessions; 168,985 were Jews, and the remainder belonged to various other creeds. A striking feature in the progress of Budapest is the decline in the death-rate, which sank from 43.4 per thousand in 1874 to 20.6 per thousand in 1900. In addition to the increased influx of [v.04 p.0681] persons in the prime of life, this is due largely to the improved water-supply and better sanitary conditions generally, including increased hospital accommodation.
Social Position.--Budapest is the seat of the government of Hungary, of the parliament, and of all the highest official authorities--civil, military, judicial and financial. It is the meeting-place, alternately with Vienna, of the Austro-Hungarian delegations, and it was elected to an equality with Vienna as a royal residence in 1892. It is the see of a Roman Catholic archbishop. The town is administered by an elected municipal council, which consists of 400 members. As Paris is sometimes said to be France, so may Budapest with almost greater truth be said to be Hungary. Its composite population is a faithful reflection of the heterogeneous elements in the dominions of the Habsburgs, while the trade and industry of Hungary are centralized at Budapest in a way that can scarcely be affirmed of any other European capital. In virtue of its cultural institutions, it is also the intellectual and artistic centre of Hungary. The movement in favour of Magyarizing all institutions has found its strongest development in Budapest, where the German names have all been removed from the buildings and streets. The wonderful progress of Budapest is undoubtedly due to the revival of the Hungarian national spirit in the first half of the 19th century, and to the energetic and systematic efforts of the government and people of Hungary since the restoration of the constitution. So far as Hungary was concerned, Budapest in 1867 at once became the favoured rival of Vienna, with the important additional advantage that it had no such competitors within its own sphere as Vienna had in the Austrian provincial capitals. The political, intellectual, and social life of Hungary was centred in Budapest, and had largely been so since 1848, when it became the seat of the legislature, as it was that of the Austrian central administration which followed the revolution. The ideal of a prosperous, brilliant and attractive Magyar capital, which would keep the nobles and the intellectual flower of the country at home, uniting them in the service of the Fatherland, had received a powerful impetus from Count Stephan Széchényi, the great Hungarian reformer of the pre-Revolutionary period. His work, continued by patriotic and able successors, was now taken up as the common task of the government and the nation. Thus the promotion of the interests of the capital and the centralization of the public and commercial life of the country have formed an integral part of the policy of the state since the restoration of the constitution. Budapest has profited largely by the encouragement of agriculture, trade and industry, by the nationalization of the railways, by the development of inland navigation, and also by the neglect of similar measures in favour of Vienna.
From that time to the present day the record of the Hungarian capital has been one of uninterrupted advance, not merely in externals, such as the removal of slums, the reconstruction of the town, the development of communications, industry and trade, and the erection of important public buildings, but also in the mental, moral and physical elevation of the inhabitants; besides another important gain from the point of view of the Hungarian statesman, namely, the progressive increase and improvement of status of the Magyar element of the population. When it is remembered that the ideal of both the authorities and the people is the ultimate monopoly of the home market by Hungarian industry and trade, and the strengthening of the Magyar influence by centralization, it is easy to understand the progress of Budapest.
Politically, this ambitious and progressive capital is the creation of the Magyar upper classes. Commercially and industrially, it may be said to be the work of the Jews. The sound judgment of the former led them to welcome and appreciate the co-operation of the latter. Indeed, a readiness to assimilate foreign elements is characteristic of Magyar patriotism, which has, particularly within the last generation, made numerous converts among the other nationalities of Hungary, and--for national purposes--may be considered to have quite absorbed the Hungarian Jews. It has thus come to pass that there is no anti-Semitism in Budapest, although the Hebrew element is proportionately much larger (21% as compared with 9%) than it is in Vienna, the Mecca of the Jew-baiter.
Budapest has long been celebrated for its mineral springs and baths, some of them having been already used during the Roman period. They rise at the foot of the Blocksberg, and are powerful chalybeate and sulphureous hot springs, with a temperature of 80°-150° Fahr. The principal baths are the Bruckbad and the Kaiserbad, both dating from the Turkish period; the St Lucasbad; and the Raitzenbad, rebuilt in 1860, one of the most magnificent establishments of its kind, which was connected through a gallery with the royal palace in the time of Matthias Corvin. There is an artesian well of sulphureous water with a temperature of 153° Fahr. in the Stadtwäldchen; and another, yielding sulphureous water with a temperature of 110° Fahr., which is used for both drinking and bathing, in the Margaret island. The mineral springs, which yield bitter alkaline waters, are situated in the plain south of the Blocksberg, and are over 40 in number. The principal are the Hunyadi-János spring, of which about 1,000,000 bottles are exported annually, the Arpad spring, and the Apenta spring.
The largest and most popular of the parks in Budapest is the Városliget, on the north-east side of the town. It has an area of 286 acres, and contains the zoological garden. On an island in its large pond are situated the agricultural (1902-1904) and the ethnographical museums. It was in this park that the millennium exhibition of 1896 took place. A still more delightful resort is the Margaret island, a long narrow island in the Danube, the property of the archduke Joseph, which has been laid out in the style of an English park, with fine trees, velvety turf and a group of villas and bath-houses. The name of the island is derived from St Margaret, the daughter of King Bela IV. (13th century), who built here a convent, the ruins of which are still in existence. To the west of Buda extends the hill (1463 ft.) of Sváb-Hegy (Schwabenberg), with extensive view and numerous villas; it is ascended by a rack-and-pinion railway. A favourite spot is the Zugliget (Auwinkel), a wooded dale on the northern slope of the hill. To the north of Ó-Buda, about 4 m. from the Margaret island, on the right bank of the Danube, are the remains of the Roman colony of Aquincum. They include the foundations of an amphitheatre, of a temple, of an aqueduct, of baths and of a castrum. The objects found here are preserved in a small museum. To the north of Pest lies the historic Rákos field, where the Hungarian diets were held in the open air from the 10th to the 14th century; and 23 m. to the north lies the royal castle of Gödöllö, with its beautiful park.
History.--The history of Budapest consists of the separate history of the two sister towns, Buda and Pest. The Romans founded, in the 2nd century A.D., on the right bank of the Danube, on the site of the actual Ó-Buda, a colony, on the place of a former Celtic settlement. This colony was named Aquincum, a transformation from the former Celtic name of Ak-ink, meaning "rich waters." The Roman occupation lasted till A.D. 376, and then the place was invaded by Huns, Ostrogoths, and later by Avars and Slavs. When the Magyars came into the country, at the end of the 10th century, they preserved the names of Buda and Pest, which they found for these two places. The origin of Pest proper is obscure, but the name, apparently derived from the old Slavonic pestj, a stove (like Ofen, the German name of Buda), seems to point to an early Slavonic settlement. The Romans never gained a foothold on this side of the river.
When it first appears in history Pest was essentially a German settlement, and a chronicler of the 13th century describes it as "Villa Teutonica ditissima." Christianity was introduced early in the 11th century. In 1241 Pest was destroyed by the Tatars, after whose departure in 1244 it was created a royal free city by Bela IV., and repeopled with colonists of various nationalities. The succeeding period seems to have been one of considerable prosperity, though Pest was completely eclipsed by the sister town of Buda with its fortress and palace. This fortress and palace were built by King Bela IV. in 1247, and were the nucleus round which the town of Buda was built, which soon gained [v.04 p.0682] great importance, and became in 1361 the capital of Hungary. In 1526 Pest was taken and pillaged by the Turks, and from 1541 to 1686 Buda was the seat of a Turkish pasha. Pest in the meantime entirely lost its importance, and on the departure of the Turks was left little more than a heap of ruins. Its favourable situation and the renewal of former privileges helped it to revive, and in 1723 it became the seat of the highest Hungarian officials. Maria Theresa and Joseph II. did much to increase its importance, but the rapid growth which enabled it completely to outstrip Buda belongs entirely to the 19th century. A signal proof of its vitality was given in 1838 by the speed and ease with which it recovered from a disastrous inundation that destroyed 3000 houses. In 1848 Pest became the seat of the revolutionary diet, but in the following year the insurgents had to retire before the Austrians under Windischgrätz. A little later the Austrians had to retire in their turn, leaving a garrison in the fortress of Buda, and, while the Hungarians endeavoured to capture this position, General Hentzi retaliated by bombarding Pest, doing great damage to the town. In 1872 both towns were united into one municipality. In 1896 took place here the millennium exhibition, in celebration of the thousandth anniversary of the foundation of the kingdom of Hungary.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--The official publications of the Budapest Communal Bureau of Statistics have acquired a European repute for their completeness, and their fearless exposure of shortcomings has been an element in the progress of the town. Reference should also be made to separate works of the director of that institution, Dr Joseph de Körösy, known in England for his discovery of the law of marital fertility, published by the Royal Society, and by his labours in the development of comparative international statistics. His Statistique Internationale des grandes villes and Bulletin annuel des finances des grandes villes give valuable comparative data. See also Die Österreichisch-Ungarische Monarchie in Wort und Bild (Wien, 1886-1902, 24 vols.); volume xii., published in 1893, is devoted to Budapest.
(O. BR.)
BUDAUN, a town and district of British India, in the Rohilkhand division of the United Provinces. The town is near the left bank of the river Sot. Pop. (1901) 39,031. There are ruins of an immense fort and a very handsome mosque of imposing size, crowned with a dome, and built in 1223 in great part from the materials of an ancient Hindu temple. The American Methodist mission maintains several girls' schools, and there is a high school for boys. According to tradition Budaun was founded about A.D. 905, and an inscription, probably of the 12th century, gives a list of twelve Rathor kings reigning at Budaun (called Vodamayuta). The first authentic historical event connected with it, however, is its capture by Kutb-ud-din in 1196, after which it became a very important post on the northern frontier of the Delhi empire. In the 13th century two of its governors, Shams-ud-din Altamsh, the builder of the great mosque referred to above, and his son Rukn-ud-din Firoz, attained the imperial throne. In 1571 the town was burnt, and about a hundred years later, under Shah Jahan, the seat of the governorship was transferred to Bareilly; after which the importance of Budaun declined. It ultimately came into the power of the Rohillas, and in 1838 was made the headquarters of a British district. In 1857 the people of Budaun sided with the mutineers, and a native government was set up, which lasted until General Penny's victory at Kakrala (April 1858) led to the restoration of British authority.
The DISTRICT OF BUDAUN has an area of 1987 sq. m. Pop. (1901) 1,025,753. The country is low, level, and is generally fertile, and watered by the Ganges, the Ramganga, the Sot or Yarwafadar, and the Mahawa. Budaun district was ceded to the British government in 1801 by the nawab of Oudh. There are several indigo factories. The district is crossed by two lines of the Oudh & Rohilkhand railway, and by a narrow-gauge line from Bareilly. The chief centre of trade is Bilsi.
BUDDEUS, JOHANN FRANZ (1667-1729), German Lutheran divine, was born at Anklam, a town of Pomerania, where his father was pastor. He studied with great distinction at Greifswald and at Wittenberg, and having made a special study of languages, theology and history, was appointed professor of Greek and Latin at Coburg in 1692, professor of moral philosophy in the university of Halle in 1693, and in 1705 professor of theology at Jena. Here he was held in high esteem, and in 1715 became Primarius of his faculty and member of the Consistory. His principal works are: Leipzig, allgemeines historisches Lexikon (Leipzig, 1709 ff.); Historia, Ecclesiastica Veteris Testamenti (4 vols., Halle, 1709); Elementa Philosophiae Practicae, Instrumentalis, et Theoreticae (3 vols., 1697); Selecta Juris Naturae et Gentium (Halle, 1704); Miscellanea Sacra (3 vols., Jena, 1727); and Isagoge Historico-Theologica ad Theologiam Universam, singulasque ejus partes (2 vols., 1727).
BUDDHA. According to the Buddhist theory (see BUDDHISM), a "Buddha" appears from time to time in the world and preaches the true doctrine. After a certain lapse of time this teaching is corrupted and lost, and is not restored till a new Buddha appears. In Europe, Buddha is used to designate the last historical Buddha, whose family name was Gotama, and who was the son of Suddh[=o]dana, one of the chiefs of the tribe of the S[=a]kiyas, one of the republican clans then still existent in India.
We are accustomed to find the legendary and the miraculous gathering, like a halo, around the early history of religious leaders, until the sober truth runs the risk of being altogether neglected for the glittering and edifying falsehood. The Buddha has not escaped the fate which has befallen the founders of other religions; and as late as the year 1854 Professor Wilson of Oxford read a paper before the Royal Asiatic Society of London in which he maintained that the supposed life of Buddha was a myth, and "Buddha himself merely an imaginary being." No one, however, would now support this view; and it is admitted that, under the mass of miraculous tales which have been handed down regarding him, there is a basis of truth already sufficiently clear to render possible an intelligent history.
The circumstances under which the future Buddha was born were somewhat as follows.[1] In the 6th century B.C. the [=A]ryan tribes had long been settled far down the valley of the Ganges. The old child-like joy in life so manifest in the Vedas had died away; the worship of nature had developed or degenerated into the worship of new and less pure divinities; and the Vedic songs themselves, whose freedom was little compatible with the spirit of the age, had faded into an obscurity which did not lessen their value to the priests. The country was politically split up into little principalities, most of them governed by some petty despot, whose interests were not often the same as those of the community. There were still, however, about a dozen free republics, most of them with aristocratic government, and it was in these that reforming movements met with most approval and support. A convenient belief in the doctrine of the transmigration of souls satisfied the unfortunate that their woes were the natural result of their own deeds in a former birth, and, though unavoidable now, might be escaped in a future state of existence by present good conduct. While hoping for a better fate in their next birth, the poor turned for succour and advice in this to the aid of astrology, witchcraft and animism--a belief in which seems to underlie all [v.04 p.0683] religions, and still survives even in England.[2] The inspiriting wars against the enemies of the [=A]ryan people, the infidel deniers of the [=A]ryan gods, had given place to a succession of internecine feuds between the chiefs of neighbouring clans. In literature an age of poets had long since made way for an age of commentators and grammarians, who thought that the old poems must have been the work of gods. But the darkest period was succeeded by the dawn of a reformation; travelling logicians were willing to maintain these against all the world; whilst here and there ascetics strove to raise themselves above the gods, and hermits earnestly sought for some satisfactory solution of the mysteries of life. These were the teachers whom the people chiefly delighted to honour. Though the ranks of the priesthood were for ever firmly closed against intruders, a man of lay birth, a Kshatriya or Vaisya, whose mind revolted against the orthodox creed, and whose heart was stirred by mingled zeal and ambition, might find through these irregular orders an entrance to the career of a religious teacher and reformer.
The S[=a]kiya clan was then seated in a tract of country probably two or three thousand square miles in extent, the chief town of which was Kapilavastu, situate about 27° 37' N. by 83° 11' E., some days' journey north of Benares. Their territory stretched up into the lower slopes of the mountains, and was mostly in what is now Nepal, but it included territory now on the British side of the frontier. It is in this part of the S[=a]kiya country that the interesting discovery was made of the monument they erected to their famous clansman. From their well-watered rice-fields, the main source of their wealth, they could see the giant Him[=a]layas looming up against the clear blue of the Indian sky. Their supplies of water were drawn from the river Rohini, the modern Koh[=a]na; and though the use of the river was in times of drought the cause of disputes between the S[=a]kiyas and the neighbouring Koliyans, the two clans were then at peace; and two daughters of a chieftain of Koli, which was only 11 m. east of Kapilavastu, were the principal wives of Suddh[=o]dana. Both were childless, and great was the rejoicing when, in about the forty-fifth year of her age, the elder sister, Mah[=a] M[=a]y[=a], promised her husband a son. In due time she started with the intention of being confined at her parents' home, but the party halting on the way under the shade of some lofty satin-trees, in a pleasant garden called Lumbini on the river-side, her son, the future Buddha, was there unexpectedly born. The exact site of this garden has been recently rediscovered, marked by an inscribed pillar put up by Asoka (see J.R.A.S., 1898).
He was in after years more generally known by his family name of Gotama, but his individual name was Siddhattha. When he was nineteen years old he was married to his cousin Yasodhar[=a], daughter of a Koliyan chief, and gave himself up to a life of luxury. This is the solitary record of his youth; we hear nothing more till, in his twenty-ninth year, it is related that, driving to his pleasure-grounds one day, he was struck by the sight of a man utterly broken down by age, on another occasion by the sight of a man suffering from a loathsome disease, and some months after by the horrible sight of a decomposing corpse. Each time his charioteer, whose name was Channa, told him that such was the fate of all living beings. Soon after he saw an ascetic walking in a calm and dignified manner, and asking who that was, was told by his charioteer the character and aims of the Wanderers, the travelling teachers, who played so great a part in the intellectual life of the time. The different accounts of these visions vary so much as to cast great doubts on their accuracy; and the oldest one of all (Anguttara, i. 145) speaks of ideas only, not of actual visions. It is, however, clear from what follows, that about this time the mind of the young Räjput must, from some cause or other, have been deeply stirred. Many an earnest heart full of disappointment or enthusiasm has gone through a similar struggle, has learnt to look upon all earthly gains and hopes as worse than vanity, has envied the calm life of the cloister, troubled by none of these things, and has longed for an opportunity of entire self-surrender to abstinence and meditation.
Subjectively, though not objectively, these visions may be supposed to have appeared to Gotama. After seeing the last of them, he is said, in the later accounts, to have spent the afternoon in his pleasure-grounds by the river-side; and having bathed, to have entered his chariot in order to return home. Just then a messenger arrived with the news that his wife Yasodhara had given birth to a son, his only child. "This," said Gotama quietly, "is a new and strong tie I shall have to break." But the people of Kapilavastu were greatly delighted at the birth of the young heir, the raja's only grandson. Gotama's return became an ovation; musicians preceded and followed his chariot, while shouts of joy and triumph fell on his ear. Among these sounds one especially attracted his attention. It was the voice of a young girl, his cousin, who sang a stanza, saying, "Happy the father, happy the mother, happy the wife of such a son and husband." In the word "happy" lay a double meaning; it meant also freed from the chains of rebirth, delivered, saved. Grateful to one who, at such a time, reminded him of his highest hopes, Gotama, to whom such things had no longer any value, took off his collar of pearls and sent it to her. She imagined that this was the beginning of a courtship, and began to build daydreams about becoming his principal wife, but he took no further notice of her and passed on. That evening the dancing-girls came to go through the Natch dances, then as now so common on festive occasions in many parts of India; but he paid them no attention, and gradually fell into an uneasy slumber. At midnight he awoke; the dancing-girls were lying in the ante-room; an overpowering loathing filled his soul. He arose instantly with a mind fully made up--"roused into activity," says the Sinhalese chronicle, "like a man who is told that his house is on fire." He called out to know who was on guard, and finding it was his charioteer Channa, he told him to saddle his horse. While Channa was gone Siddhattha gently opened the door of the room where Yasodhara was sleeping, surrounded by flowers, with one hand on the head of their child. He had hoped to take the babe in his arms for the last time before he went, but now he stood for a few moments irresolute on the threshold looking at them. At last the fear of awakening Yasodhara prevailed; he tore himself away, promising himself to return to them as soon as his mind had become clear, as soon as he had become a Buddha,--i.e. Enlightened,--and then he could return to them not only as husband and father, but as teacher and saviour. It is said to have been broad moonlight on the full moon of the month of July, when the young chief, with Channa as his sole companion, leaving his father's home, his wealth and social position, his wife and child behind him, went out into the wilderness to become a penniless and despised student, and a homeless wanderer. This is the circumstance which has given its name to a Sanskrit work, the Mahabhinishkramana Sutra, or Sutra of the Great Renunciation.
Next is related an event in which we may again see a subjective experience given under the form of an objective reality. Mara, the great tempter, appears in the sky, and urges Gotama to stop, promising him, in seven days, a universal kingdom over the four great continents if he will but give up his enterprise.[3] When his words fail to have any effect, the tempter consoles himself by the confident hope that he will still overcome his enemy, saying, "Sooner or later some lustful or malicious or angry thought must arise in his mind; in that moment I shall be his master"; and from that hour, adds the legend, "as a shadow always follows the body, so he too from that day always followed the Blessed One, striving to throw every obstacle in his way towards the Buddhahood." Gotama rides a long distance that night, only stopping at the banks of the Anoma beyond the Koliyan territory. There, on the sandy bank of the river, at a spot where later piety erected a dagaba (a solid dome-shaped relic shrine), he cuts off with his sword his long flowing locks, and, taking off his ornaments, sends them and the horse back in charge of the unwilling Channa to Kapilavastu. The next seven days were spent alone in a grove of mango trees [v.04 p.0684] near by, whence the recluse walks on to Rajagriha, the capital of Magadha, and residence of Bimbisara, one of the then most powerful rulers in the valley of the Ganges. He was favourably received by the raja; but though asked to do so, he would not as yet assume the responsibilities of a teacher. He attached himself first to a brahmin sophist named Alara, and afterwards to another named Udraka, from whom he learnt all that Indian philosophy had then to teach. Still unsatisfied, he next retired to the jungle of Uruvela, on the most northerly spur of the Vindhya range of mountains, and there for six years, attended by five faithful disciples, he gave himself up to the severest penance and self-torture, till his fame as an ascetic spread in all the country round about "like the sound," says the Burmese chronicle, "of a great bell hung in the canopy of the skies."[4] At last one day, when he was walking in a much enfeebled state, he felt on a sudden an extreme weakness, like that caused by dire starvation, and unable to stand any longer he fell to the ground. Some thought he was dead, but he recovered, and from that time took regular food and gave up his severe penance, so much so that his five disciples soon ceased to respect him, and leaving him went to Benares.
There now ensued a second struggle in Gotama's mind, described with all the wealth of poetry and imagination of which the Indian mind is master. The crisis culminated on a day, each event of which is surrounded in the Buddhist accounts with the wildest legends, on which the very thoughts passing through the mind of Buddha appear in gorgeous descriptions as angels of darkness or of light. To us, now taught by the experiences of centuries how weak such exaggerations are compared with the effect of a plain unvarnished tale, these legends may appear childish or absurd, but they have a depth of meaning to those who strive to read between the lines of such rude and inarticulate attempts to describe the indescribable. That which (the previous and subsequent career of the teacher being borne in mind) seems to be possible and even probable, appears to be somewhat as follows.
Disenchanted and dissatisfied, Gotama had given up all that most men value, to seek peace in secluded study and self-denial. Failing to attain his object by learning the wisdom of others, and living the simple life of a student, he had devoted himself to that intense meditation and penance which all philosophers then said would raise men above the gods. Still unsatisfied, longing always for a certainty that seemed ever just beyond his grasp, he had added vigil to vigil, and penance to penance, until at last, when to the wondering view of others he had become more than a saint, his bodily strength and his indomitable resolution and faith had together suddenly and completely broken down. Then, when the sympathy of others would have been most welcome, he found his friends falling away from him, and his disciples leaving him for other teachers. Soon after, if not on the very day when his followers had left him, he wandered out towards the banks of the Neranjara, receiving his morning meal from the hands of Sujata, the daughter of a neighbouring villager, and set himself down to eat it under the shade of a large tree (a Ficus religiosa), to be known from that time as the sacred Bo tree or tree of wisdom. There he remained through the long hours of that day debating with himself what next to do. All his old temptations came back upon him with renewed force. For years he had looked at all earthly good through the medium of a philosophy which taught him that it, without exception, contained within itself the seeds of bitterness, and was altogether worthless and impermanent; but now to his wavering faith the sweet delights of home and love, the charms of wealth and power, began to show themselves in a different light, and glow again with attractive colours. He doubted, and agonized in his doubt; but as the sun set, the religious side of his nature had won the victory, and seems to have come out even purified from the struggle. He had attained to Nirvana, had become clear in his mind, a Buddha, an Enlightened One. From that night he not only did not claim any merit on account of his self-mortification, but took every opportunity of declaring that from such penances no advantage at all would be derived. All that night he is said to have remained in deep meditation under the Bo tree; and the orthodox Buddhists believe that for seven times seven nights and days he continued fasting near the spot, when the archangel Brahm[=a] came and ministered to him. As for himself, his heart was now fixed,--his mind was made up,--but he realized more than he had ever done before the power of temptation, and the difficulty, the almost impossibility, of understanding and holding to the truth. For others subject to the same temptations, but without that earnestness and insight which he felt himself to possess, faith might be quite impossible, and it would only be waste of time and trouble to try to show to them "the only path of peace." To one in his position this thought would be so very natural, that we need not hesitate to accept the fact of its occurrence as related in the oldest records. It is quite consistent with his whole career that it was love and pity for others--otherwise, as it seemed to him, helplessly doomed and lost---which at last overcame every other consideration, and made Gotama resolve to announce his doctrine to the world.
The teacher, now 35 years of age, intended to proclaim his new gospel first to his old teachers [=A]l[=a]ra and Udraka, but finding that they were dead, he determined to address himself to his former five disciples, and accordingly went to the Deer-forest near Benares where they were then living. An old g[=a]thh[=a], or hymn (translated in Vinaya Texts, i. 90) tells us how the Buddha, rapt with the idea of his great mission, meets an acquaintance, one Upaka, a wandering sophist, on the way. The latter, struck with his expression, asks him whose religion it is that makes him so glad, and yet so calm. The reply is striking. "I am now on my way," says the Buddha, "to the city of Benares, to beat the drum of the Ambrosia (to set up the light of the doctrine of Nirvana) in the darkness of the world!" and he proclaims himself the Buddha who alone knows, and knows no teacher. Upaka says: "You profess yourself, then, friend, to be an Arahat and a conqueror?" The Buddha says: "Those indeed are conquerors who, as I have now, have conquered the intoxications (the mental intoxication arising from ignorance, sensuality or craving after future life). Evil dispositions have ceased in me; therefore is it that I am conqueror!" His acquaintance rejoins: "In that case, venerable Gotama, your way lies yonder!" and he himself, shaking his head, turns in the opposite direction.
Nothing daunted, the new prophet walked on to Benares, and in the cool of the evening went on to the Deer-forest where the five ascetics were living. Seeing him coming, they resolved not to recognize as a superior one who had broken his vows; to address him by his name, and not as "master" or "teacher"; only, he being a Kshatriya, to offer him a seat. He understands their change of manner, calmly tells them not to mock him by calling him "the venerable Gotama"; that he has found the ambrosia of truth and can lead them to it. They object, naturally enough, from the ascetic point of view, that he had failed before while he was keeping his body under, and how can his mind have won the victory now, when he serves and yields to his body. Buddha replies by explaining to them the principles of his new gospel, in the form of noble truths, and the Noble Eightfold Path (see BUDDHISM).
It is nearly certain that Buddha had a commanding presence, and one of those deep, rich, thrilling voices which so many of the successful leaders of men have possessed. We know his deep earnestness, and his thorough conviction of the truth of his new gospel. When we further remember the relation which the five students mentioned above had long borne to him, and that they had passed through a similar culture, it is not difficult to understand that his persuasions were successful, and that his old disciples were the first to acknowledge him in his new character. The later books say that they were all converted at once; but, according to the most ancient P[=a]li record--though their old love and reverence had been so rekindled when the Buddha came near that their cold resolutions quite broke down, and they vied with each other in such acts of personal attention as an [v.04 p.0685] Indian disciple loves to pay to his teacher,--yet it was only after the Buddha had for five days talked to them, sometimes separately, sometimes together, that they accepted in its entirety his plan of salvation.[5]
The Buddha then remained at the Deer-forest near Benares until the number of his personal followers was about threescore, and that of the outside believers somewhat greater. The principal among the former was a rich young man named Yasa, who had first come to him at night out of fear of his relations, and afterwards shaved his head, put on the yellow robe, and succeeded in bringing many of his former friends and companions to the teacher, his mother and his wife being the first female disciples, and his father the first lay devotee. It should be noticed in passing that the idea of a priesthood with mystical powers is altogether repugnant to Buddhism; every one's salvation is entirely dependent on the modification or growth of his own inner nature, resulting from his own exertions. The life of a recluse is held to be the most conducive to that state of sweet serenity at which the most ardent disciples aim; but that of a layman, of a believing householder, is held in high honour; and a believer who does not as yet feel himself able or willing to cast off the ties of home or of business, may yet "enter the paths," and by a life of rectitude and kindness ensure for himself a rebirth under more favourable conditions for his growth in holiness.
After the rainy season Gotama called together those of his disciples who had devoted themselves to the higher life, and said to them: "I am free from the five hindrances which, like an immense net, hold men and angels in their power; you too (owing to my teaching) are set free. Go ye now, brethren, and wander for the gain and welfare of the many, out of compassion for the world, to the benefit of gods and men. Preach the doctrine, beauteous in inception, beauteous in continuation, beauteous in its end. Proclaim the pure and perfect life. Let no two go together. I also go, brethren, to the General's village in the wilds of Uruvel[=a]."[6] Throughout his career, Gotama yearly adopted the same plan, collecting his disciples round him in the rainy season, and after it was over travelling about as an itinerant preacher; but in subsequent years he was always accompanied by some of his most attached disciples.
In the solitudes of Uruvel[=a] there were at this time three brothers, fire-worshippers and hermit philosophers, who had gathered round them a number of scholars, and enjoyed a considerable reputation as teachers. Gotama settled among them, and after a time they became believers in his system,--the elder brother, Kassapa, taking henceforth a principal place among his followers. His first set sermon to his new disciples is called by Bishop Bigandet the Sermon on the Mount. Its subject was a jungle-fire which broke out on the opposite hillside. He warned his hearers against the fires of concupiscence, anger, ignorance, birth, death, decay and anxiety; and taking each of the senses in order he compared all human sensations to a burning flame which seems to be something it is not, which produces pleasure and pain, but passes rapidly away, and ends only in destruction.[7]
Accompanied by his new disciples, the Buddha walked on to R[=a]jagaha, the capital of King Bimbis[=a]ra, who, not unmindful of their former interview, came out to welcome him. Seeing Kassapa, who as the chronicle puts it, was as well known to them as the banner of the city, the people at first doubted who was the teacher and who the disciple, but Kassapa put an end to their hesitation by stating that he had now given up his belief in the efficacy of sacrifices either great or small; that Nirv[=a]na was a state of rest to be attained only by a change of heart; and that he had become a disciple of the Buddha. Gotama then spoke to the king on the miseries of the world which arise from passion, and on the possibility of release by following the way of salvation. The r[=a]ja invited him and his disciples to eat their simple mid-day meal at his house on the following morning; and then presented the Buddha with a garden called Veluvana or Bamboo-grove, afterwards celebrated as the place where the Buddha spent many rainy seasons, and preached many of his most complete discourses. There he taught for some time, attracting large numbers of hearers, among whom two, S[=a]riputta and Moggall[=a]na, who afterwards became conspicuous leaders in the new crusade, then joined the Sangha or Society, as the Buddha's order of mendicants was called.
Meanwhile the prophet's father, Suddh[=o]dana, who had anxiously watched his son's career, heard that he had given up his asceticism, and had appeared as a Wanderer, an itinerant preacher and teacher. He sent therefore to him, urging him to come home, that he might see him once more before he died. The Buddha accordingly started for Kapilavastu, and stopped according to his custom in a grove outside the town. His father and uncles and others came to see him there, but the latter were angry, and would pay him no reverence. It was the custom to invite such teachers and their disciples for the next day's meal, but they all left without doing so. The next day, therefore, Gotama set out at the usual hour, carrying his bowl to beg for a meal. As he entered the city, he hesitated whether he should not go straight to his father's house, but determined to adhere to his custom. It soon reached his father's ears that his son was walking through the streets begging. Startled at such news he rose up, seizing the end of his outer robe, and hastened to the place where Gotama was, exclaiming, "Illustrious Buddha, why do you expose us all to such shame? Is it necessary to go from door to door begging your food? Do you imagine that I am not able to supply the wants of so many mendicants?" "My noble father," was the reply, "this is the custom of all our race." "How so?" said his father. "Are you not descended from an illustrious line? no single person of our race has ever acted so indecorously." "My noble father," said Gotama, "you and your family may claim the privileges of Kshatriya descent; my descent is from the prophets (Buddhas) of old, and they have always acted so; the customs of the law (Dharma) are good both for this world and the world that is to come. But, my father, when a man has found a treasure, it is his duty to offer the most precious of the jewels to his father first. Do not delay, let me share with you the treasure I have found." Suddh[=o]dana, abashed, took his son's bowl and led him to his house.
Eighteen months had now elapsed since the turning-point of Gotama's career--his great struggle under the Bo tree. Thus far all the accounts follow chronological order. From this time they simply narrate disconnected stories about the Buddha, or the persons with whom he was brought into contact,--the same story being usually found in more than one account, but not often in the same order. It is not as yet possible, except very partially, to arrange chronologically the snatches of biography to be gleaned from these stories. They are mostly told to show the occasion on which some memorable act of the Buddha took place, or some memorable saying was uttered, and are as exact as to place as they are indistinct as to time. It would be impossible within the limits of this article to give any large number of them, but space may be found for one or two.
A merchant from S[=u]naparanta having joined the Society was desirous of preaching to his relations, and is said to have asked Gotama's permission to do so. "The people of S[=u]naparanta," said the teacher, "are exceedingly violent. If they revile you what will you do?" "I will make no reply," said the mendicant. "And if they strike you?" "I will not strike in return," was the reply. "And if they try to kill you?" "Death is no evil in itself; many even desire it, to escape from the vanities of life, but I shall take no steps either to hasten or to delay the time of my departure." These answers were held satisfactory, and the monk started on his mission.
At another time a rich farmer held a harvest home, and the Buddha, wishing to preach to him, is said to have taken his alms-bowl and stood by the side of the field and begged. The farmer, a wealthy br[=a]hmin, said to him, "Why do you come and beg? [v.04 p.0686] I plough and sow and earn my food; you should do the same." "I too, O brahmin," said the beggar, "plough and sow; and having ploughed and sown I eat." "You profess only to be a farmer; no one sees your ploughing, what do you mean?" said the brahmin. "For my cultivation," said the beggar, "faith is the seed, self-combat is the fertilizing rain, the weeds I destroy are the cleaving to existence, wisdom is my plough, and its guiding-shaft is modesty; perseverance draws my plough, and I guide it with the rein of my mind; the field I work is in the law, and the harvest that I reap is the never-dying nectar of Nirv[=a]na, Those who reap this harvest destroy all the weeds of sorrow."
On another occasion he is said to have brought back to her right mind a young mother whom sorrow had for a time deprived of reason. Her name was Kis[=a]gotam[=i]. She had been married early, as is the custom in the East, and had a child when she was still a girl. When the beautiful boy could run alone he died. The young girl in her love for it carried the dead child clasped to her bosom, and went from house to house of her pitying friends asking them to give her medicine for it. But a Buddhist convert thinking "she does not understand," said to her, "My good girl, I myself have no such medicine as you ask for, but I think I know of one who has." "Oh, tell me who that is?" said Kis[=a]gotam[=i]. "The Buddha can give you medicine; go to him," was the answer. She went to Gotama; and doing homage to him said, "Lord and master, do you know any medicine that will be good for my child?" "Yes, I know of some," said the teacher. Now it was the custom for patients or their friends to provide the herbs which the doctors required; so she asked what herbs he would want. "I want some mustard-seed," he said; and when the poor girl eagerly promised to bring some of so common a drug, he added, "you must get it from some house where no son, or husband, or parent or slave has died." "Very good," she said; and went to ask for it, still carrying her dead child with her. The people said, "Here is mustard-seed, take it"; but when she asked, "In my friend's house has any son died, or a husband, or a parent or slave?" They answered, "Lady! what is this that you say? the living are few, but the dead are many." Then she went to other houses, but one said "I have lost a son," another "We have lost our parents," another "I have lost my slave." At last, not being able to find a single house where no one had died, her mind began to clear, and summoning up resolution she left the dead body of her child in a forest, and returning to the Buddha paid him homage. He said to her, "Have you the mustard-seed?" "My lord," she replied, "I have not; the people tell me that the living are few, but the dead are many." Then he talked to her on that essential part of his system, the impermanency of all things, till her doubts were cleared away, she accepted her lot, became a disciple, and entered the "first path."
For forty-five years after entering on his mission Gotama itinerated in the valley of the Ganges, not going farther than about 250 m. from Benares, and always spending the rainy months at one spot--usually at one of the viharas,[8] or homes, which had been given to the society. In the twentieth year his cousin [=A]nanda became a mendicant, and from that time seems to have attended on the Buddha, being constantly near him, and delighting to render him all the personal service which love and reverence could suggest. Another cousin, Devadatta, the son of the r[=a]ja of Koli, also joined the society, but became envious of the teacher, and stirred up Ajatasattu (who, having killed his father Bimbisara, had become king of Rajagaha) to persecute Gotama. The account of the manner in which the Buddha is said to have overcome the wicked devices of this apostate cousin and his parricide protector is quite legendary; but the general fact of Ajatasattu's opposition to the new sect and of his subsequent conversion may be accepted.
The confused and legendary notices of the journeyings of Gotama are succeeded by tolerably clear accounts of the last few days of his life.[9] On a journey towards Kusin[=a]r[=a], a town about 120 m. north-north-east of Benares, and about 80 m. due east of Kapilavastu, the teacher, being then eighty years of age, had rested for a short time in a grove at P[=a]w[=a], presented to the society by a goldsmith of that place named Chunda. Chunda prepared for the mendicants a mid-day meal, and after the meal the Buddha started for Kusin[=a]r[=a]. He had not gone far when he was obliged to rest, and soon afterwards he said, "[=A]nanda, I am thirsty," and they gave him water to drink. Half-way between the two towns flows the river Kukusht[=a]. There Gotama rested again, and bathed for the last time. Feeling that he was dying, and careful lest Chunda should be reproached by himself or others, he said to [=A]nanda, "After I am gone tell Chunda that he will receive in a future birth very great reward; for, having eaten of the food he gave me, I am about to die; and if he should still doubt, say that it was from my own mouth that you heard this. There are two gifts which will be blest above all others, namely, Suj[=a]t[=a]'s gift before I attained wisdom under the Bo tree, and this gift of Chunda's before I pass away." After halting again and again the party at length reached the river Hiranyavati, close by Kusin[=a]r[=a], and there for the last time the teacher rested. Lying down under some Sal trees, with his face towards the south, he talked long and earnestly with [=A]nanda about his burial, and about certain rules which were to be observed by the society after his death. Towards the end of this conversation, when it was evening, [=A]nanda broke down and went aside to weep, but the Buddha missed him, and sending for him comforted him with the promise of Nirv[=a]na, and repeated what he had so often said before about the impermanence of all things,--"O [=A]nanda! do not weep; do not let yourself be troubled. You known what I have said; sooner or later we must part from all we hold most dear. This body of ours contains within itself the power which renews its strength for a time, but also the causes which lead to its destruction. Is there anything put together which shall not dissolve? But you, too, shall be free from this delusion, this world of sense, this law of change. Beloved," added he, speaking to the rest of the disciples, "[=A]nanda for long years has served me with devoted affection." And he spoke to them at some length on the kindness of [=A]nanda.
About midnight Subhadra, a brahmin philosopher of Kusin[=a]r[=a], came to ask some questions of the Buddha, but [=A]nanda, fearing that this might lead to a longer discussion than the sick teacher could bear, would not admit him. Gotama heard the sound of their talk, and asking what it was, told them to let Subhadra come. The latter began by asking whether the six great teachers knew all laws, or whether there were some that they did not know, or knew only partially. "This is not the time," was the answer, "for such discussions. To true wisdom there is only one way, the path that is laid down in my system. Many have already followed it, and conquering the lust and pride and anger of their own hearts, have become free from ignorance and doubt and wrong belief, have entered the calm state of universal kindliness, and have reached Nirv[=a]na even in this life. O Subhadra! I do not speak to you of things I have not experienced. Since I was twenty-nine years old till now I have striven after pure and perfect wisdom, and following the good path, have found Nirv[=a]na." A rule had been made that no follower of a rival system should be admitted to the society without four months' probation. So deeply did the words or the impressive manner of the dying teacher work upon Subhadra that he asked to be admitted at once, and Gotama granted his request. Then turning to his disciples he said, "When I have passed away and am no longer with you, do not think that the Buddha has left you, and is not still in your midst. You have my words, my explanations of the deep things of truth, the laws I have laid down for the society; let them be your guide; the Buddha has not left you." Soon afterwards he again spoke to them, urging them to reverence one another, and rebuked one of the disciples who spoke [v.04 p.0687] indiscriminately all that occurred to him. Towards the morning he asked whether any one had any doubt about the Buddha, the law or the society; if so, he would clear them up. No one answered, and [=A]nanda expressed his surprise that amongst so many none should doubt, and all be firmly attached to the law. But the Buddha laid stress on the final perseverance of the saints, saying that even the least among the disciples who had entered the first path only, still had his heart fixed on the way to perfection, and constantly strove after the three higher paths. "No doubt," he said, "can be found in the mind of a true disciple." After another pause he said: "Behold now, brethren, this is my exhortation to you. Decay is inherent in all component things. Work out, therefore, your emancipation with diligence!" These were the last words the Buddha spoke; shortly afterwards he became unconscious, and in that state passed away.
AUTHORITIES ON THE LIFE OF THE BUDDHA.--Canonical P[=a]li (reached their present shape before the 4th century B.C.); episodes only, three of them long: (1) Birth; text in Majjhima Nik[=a]ya, ed. Trenckner and Chalmers (London, P[=a]li Text Society, 1888-1899), vol. iii. pp. 118-124; also in Anguttara Nik[=a]ya, ed. Morris and Hardy (P[=a]li Text Society, 1888-1900), vol. ii. pp. 130-132. (2) Adoration of the babe; old ballad; text in Sutta Nip[=a]ta, ed. Fausböll (P[=a]li Text Society, 1884), pp. 128-131; translation by the same in Sacred Books of the East (Oxford, 1881), vol. x. pp. 124-131. (3) Youth at home; text in Anguttara Nik[=a]ya, i. 145. (4) The going forth; old ballad; text in Sutta Nipata, pp. 70-74 (London, 1896), pp. 99-101; prose account in D[=i]gha Nik[=a]ya, ed. Rhys Davids and Carpenter (P[=a]li Text Society, 1890-1893), vol. i. p. 115, translated by Rhys Davids in Dialogues of the Buddha (Oxford, 1899), pp. 147-149. (5) First long episode; the going forth, years of study and penance, attainment of Nirv[=a]na and Buddhahood, and conversion of first five converts; text in Majjhima, all together at ii. 93; parts repeated at i. 163-175, 240-249; ii. 212; Vinaya, ed. Oldenberg (London, 1879-1883), vol. i. pp. 1-13. (6) Second long episode; from the conversation of the five down to the end of the first year of the teaching; text in Vinaya, i. 13-44, translated by Oldenberg in Vinaya Texts, i. 73-151. (7) Visit to Kapilavastu; text in Vinaya, i. 82; translation by Oldenberg in Vinaya Texts (Oxford, 1881-1885), vol. i. pp. 207-210. (8) Third long episode; the last days; text in D[=i]gha Nik[=a]ya (the Mah[=a]parinibb[=a]na Suttanta), vol. ii. pp. 72-168, translated by Rhys Davids in Buddhist Suttas (Oxford, 1881), pp. 1-136. Buddhist Sanskrit Texts: (i) Mah[=a]vastu (probably 2nd century B.C.); edited by Senart (3 vols., Paris, 1882-1897), summary in French prefixed to each volume; down to the end of first year of the teaching. (2) Lalita Vistara (probably 1st century B.C.); edited by Mitra (Calcutta, 1877); translated into French by Foucaux (Paris, 1884); down to the first sermon. (3) Buddha Carita, by A['s]vaghosha, probably 2nd century A.D. edited by Cowell (Oxford, 1892); translated by Cowell (Oxford, 1894, S.B.E. vol. xlix.); an elegant poem; stops just before the attainment of Buddhahood. (These three works reproduce and amplify the above episodes Nos. 1-6; they retain here and there a very old tradition as to arrangement of clauses or turns of expression.) Later P[=a]li: The commentary on the J[=a]taka, written probably in the 5th century A.D., gives a consecutive narrative, from the birth to the end of the second year of the teaching, based on the canonical texts, but much altered and amplified; edited by Fausböll in J[=a]taka, vol. i. (London, 1877), pp. 1-94; translated by Rhys Davids in Buddhist Birth Stories (London, 1880), pp. 1-133. Modern Works: (i) Tibetan; Life of the Buddha; episodes collected and translated by W. Woodville Rockhill (London, 1884), from Tibetan texts of the 9th and 10th centuries A.D. (2) Sinhalese; episodes collected and translated by Spence Hardy from Sinhalese texts of the 12th and later centuries, in Manual of Buddhism (London, 1897, 2nd edition), pp. 138-359. (3) Burmese: The Life or Legend of Gaudama (3rd edition, London, 1880), by the Right Rev. P. Bigandet, translated from a Burmese work of A.D. 1773. (The Burmese is, in its turn, a translation from a P[=a]li work of unknown date; it gives the whole life, and is the only consecutive biography we have.) (4) Kambojian: Pathama Sambodhian; translated into French by A. Leclère in Livres sacrés du Cambodge (Paris, 1906).
(T. W. R. D.)
[1] Note on the Date of the Buddha.--The now generally accepted date of the Buddha is arrived at by adding together two numbers, one being the date of the accession of Asoka to the throne, the second being the length of the interval between that date and that of the death of the Buddha. The first figure, that of the date of Asoka, is arrived at by the mention in one of his edicts of certain Greek kings, as then living. The dates of these last are approximately known; and arguing from these dates the date of Asoka's accession has been fixed by various scholars (at dates varying only by a difference of five years more or less) at about 270 B.C. The second figure, the total interval between Asoka's accession and the Buddha's death, is given in the Ceylon Chronicles as 218 years. Adding these two together, the date of the Buddha's death would be 488 B.C., and, as he was eighty years old at the time of his death, the date of his birth would be 568 B.C. The dates for his death and birth accepted in Burma, Siam and Ceylon are about half a century earlier, namely, 543 and 623 B.C., the difference being in the date of Asoka's accession. It will be seen that the dates as adopted in Europe are approximate only, and liable to correction if better data are obtainable. The details of this chronological question are discussed at length in Professor Rhys Davids' Ancient Coins and Measures of Ceylon (London, 1877), where the previous discussions are referred to.
[2] See report of Rex. v. Neuhaus, Clerkenwell Sessions, September 15, 1906.
[3] The various legends of Mara are the subject of an exhaustive critical analysis in Windsisch's Mara and Buddha (Leipzig, 1895).
[4] Bigandet, p. 49; and compare Jataka, p. 67, line 27.
[5] Vinaya Texts, i. 97-99; cf. Jataka, vol. i. p. 82, lines 11-19.
[6] Samyutta, i. 105.
[7] Cf. Big. p. 99, with Hardy, M.B. p. 191. The Pali name is aditta-pariyaya: the sermon on the lessons to be drawn from burning. The text is Vinaya, i. 34 = Samyutta, iv. 19. A literal translation will be found in Vinaya Texts, i. 134, 135.
[8] These were at first simple huts, built for the mendicants in some grove of palm-trees as a retreat during the rainy season; but they gradually increased in splendour and magnificence till the decay of Buddhism set in. See the authorities quoted in Buddhist India, pp. 141, 142.
[9] The text of the account of this last journey is the Mah[=a]parinibb[=a]na Suttanta, vol. ii. of the D[=i]gha (ed. Rhys Davids and Carpenter) The translation is in Rhys Davids' Buddhist Suttas.
BUDDHAGHOSA, a celebrated Buddhist writer. He was a Brahmin by birth and was born near the great Bodhi tree at Budh Gay[=a]; in north India about A.D. 390, his father's name being Kes[=i]. His teacher, Revata, induced him to go to Ceylon, where the commentaries on the scriptures had been preserved in the Sinhalese language, with the object of translating them into P[=a]li. He went accordingly to Anuradhapura, studied there under Sanghap[=a]la, and asked leave of the fraternity there to translate the commentaries. With their consent he then did so, having first shown his ability by writing the work Visuddhi Magga (the Path of Purity, a kind of summary of Buddhist doctrine). When he had completed his many years' labours he returned to the neighbourhood of the Bodhi tree in north India. Before he came to Ceylon he had already written a book entitled N[=a]nodaya (the Rise of Knowledge), and had commenced a commentary on the principal psychological manual contained in the Pitakas. This latter work he afterwards rewrote in Ceylon, as the present text (now published by the P[=a]li Text Society) shows. One volume of the Sumangala Vil[=a]sin[=i] (a portion of the commentaries mentioned above) has been edited, and extracts from his comment on the Buddhist canon law. This last work has been discovered in a nearly contemporaneous Chinese translation (an edition in P[=a]li is based on a comparison with that translation). The works here mentioned form, however, only a small portion of what Buddhaghosa wrote. His industry must have been prodigious. He is known to have written books that would fill about 20 octavo volumes of about 400 pages each; and there are other writings ascribed to him which may or may not be really his work. It is too early therefore to attempt a criticism of it. But it is already clear that, when made acceptable, it will be of the greatest value for the history of Indian literature and of Indian ideas. So much is uncertain at present in that history for want of definite dates that the voluminous writings of an author whose date is approximately certain will afford a standard by which the age of other writings can be tested. And as the original commentaries in Sinhalese are now lost his works are the only evidence we have of the traditions then handed down in the Buddhist community. The main source of our information about Buddhaghosa is the Mah[=a]vamsa, written in Anur[=a]dhapura about fifty years after he was working there. But there are numerous references to him in P[=a]li books on P[=a]li literature; and a Burmese author of unknown date, but possibly of the 15th century, has compiled a biography of him, the Buddhaghos' Uppatti, of little value and no critical judgment.
See Mah[=a]vamsa, ch. xxxvii. (ed. Turnour, Colombo, 1837); "Gandhavaramsa," p. 59, in Journal of the P[=a]li Text Society (1886); Buddhghosuppatti (text and translation, ed. by E. Gray, London, 1893); Sumangala Vil[=a]sin[=i], edited by T. W. Rhys Davids and J. E. Carpenter, vol. i. (London, P[=a]li Text Society, 1886). (T. W. R. D.)
BUDDHISM, the religion held by the followers of the Buddha (q.v.), and covering a large area in India and east and central Asia.
Essential Doctrines.--We are fortunate in having preserved for us the official report of the Buddha's discourse, in which he expounded what he considered the main features of his system to the five men he first tried to win over to his new-found faith. There is no reason to doubt its substantial accuracy, not as to words, but as to purport. In any case it is what the compilers of the oldest extant documents believed their teacher to have regarded as the most important points in his teaching. Such a summary must be better than any that could now be made. It is incorporated into two divisions of their sacred books, first among the suttas containing the doctrine, and again in the rules of the society or order he founded (Samyutta, v. 421 = Vinaya, i. 10). The gist of it, omitting a few repetitions, is as follows:--
"There are two aims which he who has given up the world ought not to follow after--devotion, on the one hand, to those things whose attractions depend upon the passions, a low and pagan ideal, fit only for the worldly-minded, ignoble, unprofitable, and the practice on the other hand of asceticism, which is painful, ignoble, unprofitable. There is a Middle Path discovered by the Tath[=a]gata[1]--a path which opens the eyes, and bestows understanding, which leads to peace, to insight, to the higher wisdom, to Nirv[=a]na. Verily! it is this Noble Eightfold Path; that is to say, Right Views, Right Aspirations, Right Speech, Right Conduct, Right Mode of Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, and Right Rapture.
"Now this is the Noble Truth as to suffering. Birth is attended with pain, decay is painful, disease is painful, death is painful. Union with the unpleasant is painful, painful is separation from the pleasant; and any craving unsatisfied, that too is painful. In brief, the five aggregates of clinging (that is, the conditions of individuality) are painful.
"Now this is the Noble Truth as to the origin of suffering. Verily! it is the craving thirst that causes the renewal of becomings, that is accompanied by sensual delights, and seeks satisfaction now here, now there--that is to say, the craving for the gratification of the senses, or the craving for a future life, or the craving for prosperity.
[v.04 p.0688] "Now this is the Noble Truth as to the passing away of pain. Verily! it is the passing away so that no passion remains, the giving up, the getting rid of, the being emancipated from, the harbouring no longer of this craving thirst.
"Now this is the Noble Truth as to the way that leads to the passing away of pain. Verily! it is this Noble Eightfold Path, that is to say, Right Views, Right Aspirations, Right speech, conduct and mode of livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness and Right Rapture."
A few words follow as to the threefold way in which the speaker claimed to have grasped each of these Four Truths. That is all. There is not a word about God or the soul, not a word about the Buddha or Buddhism. It seems simple, almost jejune; so thin and weak that one wonders how it can have formed the foundation for a system so mighty in its historical results. But the simple words are pregnant with meaning. Their implications were clear enough to the hearers to whom they were addressed. They were not intended, however, to answer the questionings of a 20th-century European questioner, and are liable now to be misunderstood. Fortunately each word, each clause, each idea in the discourse is repeated, commented on, enlarged upon, almost ad nauseam, in the suttas, and a short comment in the light of those explanations may bring out the meaning that was meant.[2]
The passing away of pain or suffering is said to depend on an emancipation. And the Buddha is elsewhere (Vinaya ii. 239) made to declare: "Just as the great ocean has one taste only, the taste of salt, just so have this doctrine and discipline but one flavour only, the flavour of emancipation"; and again, "When a brother has, by himself, known and realized, and continues to abide, here in this visible world, in that emancipation of mind, in that emancipation of heart, which is Arahatship; that is a condition higher still and sweeter still, for the sake of which the brethren lead the religious life under me."[3] The emancipation is found in a habit of mind, in the being free from a specified sort of craving that is said to be the origin of certain specified sorts of pain. In some European books this is completely spoiled by being represented as the doctrine that existence is misery, and that desire is to be suppressed. Nothing of the kind is said in the text. The description of suffering or pain is, in fact, a string of truisms, quite plain and indisputable until the last clause. That clause declares that the Up[=a]d[=a]na Skandhas, the five groups of the constituent parts of every individual, involve pain. Put into modern language this is that the conditions necessary to make an individual are also the conditions that necessarily give rise to sorrow. No sooner has an individual become separate, become an individual, than disease and decay begin to act upon it. Individuality involves limitation, limitation in its turn involves ignorance, and ignorance is the source of sorrow. Union with the unpleasant, separation from the pleasant, unsatisfied craving, are each a result of individuality. This is a deeper generalization than that which says, "A man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward." But it is put forward as a mere statement of fact. And the previous history of religious belief in India would tend to show that emphasis was laid on the fact, less as an explanation of the origin of evil, than as a protest against a then current pessimistic idea that salvation could not be reached on earth, and must therefore be sought for in a rebirth in heaven, in the Brahmaloka. For if the fact--the fact that the conditions of individuality are the conditions, also, of pain--were admitted, then the individual there would still not have escaped from sorrow. If the five ascetics to whom the words were addressed once admitted this implication, logic would drive them also to admit all that followed.
The threefold division of craving at the end of the second truth might be rendered "the lust of the flesh, the lust of life and the love of this present world." The two last are said elsewhere to be directed against two sets of thinkers called the Eternalists and the Annihilationists, who held respectively the everlasting-life-heresy and the let-us-eat-and-drink-for-tomorrow-we-die-heresy.[4] This may be so, but in any case the division of craving would have appealed to the five hearers as correct.
The word translated "noble" in Noble Path, Noble Truth, is ariya, which also means Aryan.[5] The negative, un-Aryan, is used of each of the two low aims. It is possible that this rendering should have been introduced into the translation; but the ethical meaning, though still associated with the tribal meaning, had probably already become predominant in the language of the time.
The details of the Path include several terms whose meaning and implication are by no means apparent at first sight. Right Views, for instance, means mainly right views as to the Four Truths and the Three Signs. Of the latter, one is identical, or nearly so, with the First Truth. The others are Impermanence and Non-soul (the absence of a soul)--both declared to be "signs" of every individual, whether god, animal or man. Of these two again the Impermanence has become an Indian rather than a Buddhist idea, and we are to a certain extent familiar with it also in the West. There is no Being, there is only a Becoming. The state of every individual is unstable, temporary, sure to pass away. Even in the lowest class of things, we find, in each individual, form and material qualities. In the higher classes there is a continually rising series of mental qualities also. It is the union of these that makes the individual. Every person, or thing, or god, is therefore a putting together, a compound; and in each individual, without any exception, the relation of its component parts is ever changing, is never the same for two consecutive moments. It follows that no sooner has separateness, individuality, begun, than dissolution, disintegration, also begins. There can be no individuality without a putting together: there can be no putting together without a becoming: there can be no becoming without a becoming different: and there can be no becoming different without a dissolution, a passing away, which sooner or later will inevitably be complete.
Heracleitus, who was a generation or two later than the Buddha, had very similar ideas;[6] and similar ideas are found in post-Buddhistic Indian works.[7] But in neither case are they worked out in the same uncompromising way. Both in Europe, and in all Indian thought except the Buddhist, souls, and the gods who are made in imitation of souls, are considered as exceptions. To these spirits is attributed a Being without Becoming, an individuality without change, a beginning without an end. To hold any such view would, according to the doctrine of the Noble (or Aryan) Path, be erroneous, and the error would block the way against the very entrance on the Path.
So important is this position in Buddhism that it is put in the forefront of Buddhist expositions of Buddhism. The Buddha himself is stated in the books to have devoted to it the very first discourse he addressed to the first converts.[8] The first in the collection of the Dialogues of Gotama discusses, and completely, categorically, and systematically rejects, all the current theories about "souls." Later books follow these precedents. Thus the Kath[=a] Vatthu, the latest book included in the canon, discusses points of disagreement that had arisen in the community. It places this question of "soul" at the head of all the points it deals with, and devotes to it an amount of space quite overshadowing all the rest.[9] So also in the earliest Buddhist book later than the canon--the very interesting and suggestive series of conversations between the Greek king Menander and the Buddhist teacher N[=a]gasena. It is precisely this question of the "soul" that the unknown author takes up first, describing how N[=a]gasena convinces the king that there is no such thing as the [v.04 p.0689] "soul" in the ordinary sense, and he returns to the subject again and again.[10]
After Right Views come Right Aspirations. It is evil desires, low ideals, useless cravings, idle excitements, that are to be suppressed by the cultivation of the opposite--of right desires, lofty aspirations. In one of the Dialogues[11] instances are given--the desire for emancipation from sensuality, aspirations towards the attainment of love to others, the wish not to injure any living thing, the desire for the eradication of wrong and for the promotion of right dispositions in one's own heart, and so on. This portion of the Path is indeed quite simple, and would require no commentary were it not for the still constantly repeated blunder that Buddhism teaches the suppression of all desire.
Of the remaining stages of the Path it is only necessary to mention two. The one is Right Effort. A constant intellectual alertness is required. This is not only insisted upon elsewhere in countless passages, but of the three cardinal sins in Buddhism (r[=a]ga, dosa, moha) the last and worst is stupidity or dullness, the others being sensuality and ill-will. Right Effort is closely connected with the seventh stage, Right Mindfulness. Two of the dialogues are devoted to this subject, and it is constantly referred to elsewhere.[12] The disciple, whatsoever he does--whether going forth or coming back, standing or walking, speaking or silent, eating or drinking--is to keep clearly in mind all that it means, the temporary character of the act, its ethical significance, and above all that behind the act there is no actor (goer, seer, eater, speaker) that is an eternally persistent unity. It is the Buddhist analogue to the Christian precept: "Whether therefore ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God."
Under the head of Right Conduct the two most important points are Love and Joy. Love is in P[=a]li Mett[=a], and the Metta Sutta[13] says (no doubt with reference to the Right Mindfulness just described): "As a mother, even at the risk of her own life, protects her son, her only son, so let him cultivate love without measure towards all beings. Let him cultivate towards the whole world--above, below, around--a heart of love unstinted, unmixed with the sense of differing or opposing interests. Let a man maintain this mindfulness all the while he is awake, whether he be standing, walking, sitting or lying down. This state of heart is the best in the world."
Often elsewhere four such states are described, the Brahma Vih[=a]ras or Sublime Conditions. They are Love, Sorrow at the sorrows of others, Joy in the joys of others, and Equanimity as regards one's own joys and sorrows.[14] Each of these feelings was to be deliberately practised, beginning with a single object, and gradually increasing till the whole world was suffused with the feeling. "Our mind shall not waver. No evil speech will we utter. Tender and compassionate will we abide, loving in heart, void of malice within. And we will be ever suffusing such a one with the rays of our loving thought. And with that feeling as a basis we will ever be suffusing the whole wide world with thought of love far-reaching, grown great, beyond measure, void of anger or ill-will."[15]
The relative importance of love, as compared with other habits, is thus described. "All the means that can be used as bases for doing right are not worth the sixteenth part of the emancipation of the heart through love. That takes all those up into itself, outshining them in radiance and glory. Just as whatsoever stars there be, their radiance avails not the sixteenth part of the radiance of the moon. That takes all those up into itself, outshining them in radiance and glory--just as in the last month of the rains, at harvest time, the sun, mounting up on high into the clear and cloudless sky, overwhelms all darkness in the realms of space, and shines forth in radiance and glory--just as in the night, when the dawn is breaking, the morning star shines out in radiance and glory--just so all the means that can be used as helps towards doing right avail not the sixteenth part of the emancipation of the heart through love."[16]
The above is the positive side; the qualities (dhamm[=a]) that have to be acquired. The negative side, the qualities that have to be suppressed by the cultivation of the opposite virtues, are the Ten Bonds (Samyojanas), the Four Intoxications ([=A]sav[=a]) and the Five Hindrances (N[=i]varanas).
The Ten Bonds are: (1) Delusion about the soul; (2) Doubt; (3) Dependence on good works; (4) Sensuality; (5) Hatred, ill-feeling; (6) Love of life on earth; (7) Desire for life in heaven; (8) Pride; (9) Self-righteousness; (10) Ignorance. The Four Intoxications are the mental intoxication arising respectively from (1) Bodily passions, (2) Becoming, (3) Delusion, (4) Ignorance. The Five Hindrances are (1) Hankering after worldly advantages, (2) The corruption arising out of the wish to injure, (3) Torpor of mind, (4) Fretfulness and worry, (5) Wavering of mind.[17] "When these five hindrances have been cut away from within him, he looks upon himself as freed from debt, rid of disease, out of jail, a free man and secure. And gladness springs up within him on his realizing that, and joy arises to him thus gladdened, and so rejoicing all his frame becomes at ease, and being thus at ease he is filled with a sense of peace, and in that peace his heart is stayed."[18]
To have realized the Truths, and traversed the Path; to have broken the Bonds, put an end to the Intoxications, and got rid of the Hindrances, is to have attained the ideal, the Fruit, as it is called, of Arahatship. One might fill columns with the praises, many of them among the most beautiful passages in P[=a]li poetry and prose, lavished on this condition of mind, the state of the man made perfect according to the Buddhist faith. Many are the pet names, the poetic epithets bestowed upon it--the harbour of refuge, the cool cave, the island amidst the floods, the place of bliss, emancipation, liberation, safety, the supreme, the transcendent, the uncreated, the tranquil, the home of peace, the calm, the end of suffering, the medicine for all evil, the unshaken, the ambrosia, the immaterial, the imperishable, the abiding, the farther shore, the unending, the bliss of effort, the supreme joy, the ineffable, the detachment, the holy city, and many others. Perhaps the most frequent in the Buddhist text is Arahatship, "the state of him who is worthy"; and the one exclusively used in Europe is Nirv[=a]na, the "dying out"; that is, the dying out in the heart of the fell fire of the three cardinal sins--sensuality, ill-will and stupidity.[19]
The choice of this term by European writers, a choice made long before any of the Buddhist canonical texts had been published or translated, has had a most unfortunate result. Those writers did not share, could not be expected to share, the exuberant optimism of the early Buddhists. Themselves giving up this world as hopeless, and looking for salvation in the next, they naturally thought the Buddhists must do the same, and in the absence of any authentic scriptures, to correct the mistake, they interpreted Nirv[=a]na, in terms of their own belief, as a state to be reached after death. As such they supposed the "dying out" must mean the dying out of a "soul"; and endless were the discussions as to whether this meant eternal trance, or absolute annihilation, of the "soul." It is now thirty years since the right interpretation, founded on the canonical texts, has been given, but outside the ranks of P[=a]li scholars the old blunder is still often repeated. It should be added that the belief in salvation in this world, in this life, has appealed so strongly to Indian sympathies that from the time of the rise of Buddhism down to the present day it has been adopted as a part of general Indian belief, and J[=i]vanmukti, salvation during this life, has become a commonplace in the religious language of India.
Adopted Doctrines.--The above are the essential doctrines of [v.04 p.0690] the original Buddhism. They are at the same time its distinctive doctrines; that is to say, the doctrines that distinguish it from all previous teaching in India. But the Buddha, while rejecting the sacrifices and the ritualistic magic of the brahmin schools, the animistic superstitions of the people, the asceticism and soul-theory of the Jains, and the pantheistic speculations of the poets of the pre-Buddhistic Upanishads, still retained the belief in transmigration. This belief--the transmigration of the soul, after the death of the body, into other bodies, either of men, beasts or gods--is part of the animistic creed so widely found throughout the world that it was probably universal. In India it had already, before the rise of Buddhism, been raised into an ethical conception by the associated doctrine of Karma, according to which a man's social position in life and his physical advantages, or the reverse, were the result of his actions in a previous birth. The doctrine thus afforded an explanation, quite complete to those who believed it, of the apparent anomalies and wrongs in the distribution here of happiness or woe. A man, for instance, is blind. This is owing to his lust of the eye in a previous birth. But he has also unusual powers of hearing. This is because he loved, in a previous birth, to listen to the preaching of the law. The explanation could always be exact, for it was scarcely more than a repetition of the point to be explained. It fits the facts because it is derived from them. And it cannot be disproved, for it lies in a sphere beyond the reach of human inquiry.
It was because it thus provided a moral cause that it was retained in Buddhism. But as the Buddha did not acknowledge a soul, the link of connexion between one life and the next had to be found somewhere else. The Buddha found it (as Plato also found it)[20] in the influence exercised upon one life by a desire felt in the previous life. When two thinkers of such eminence (probably the two greatest ethical thinkers of antiquity) have arrived independently at this strange conclusion, have agreed in ascribing to cravings, felt in this life, so great, and to us so inconceivable, a power over the future life, we may well hesitate before we condemn the idea as intrinsically absurd, and we may take note of the important fact that, given similar conditions, similar stages in the development of religious belief, men's thoughts, even in spite of the most unquestioned individual originality, tend though they may never produce exactly the same results, to work in similar ways.
In India, before Buddhism, conflicting and contradictory views prevailed as to the precise mode of action of Karma; and we find this confusion reflected in Buddhist theory. The prevailing views are tacked on, as it were, to the essential doctrines of Buddhism, without being thoroughly assimilated to them, or logically incorporated with them. Thus in the story of the good layman Citta, it is an aspiration expressed on the deathbed;[21] in the dialogue on the subject, it is a thought dwelt on during life,[22] in the numerous stories in the Peta and Vim[=a]na Vatthus it is usually some isolated act, in the discussions in the Dhamma Sangani it is some mental disposition, which is the Karma (doing or action) in the one life determining the position of the individual in the next. These are really conflicting propositions. They are only alike in the fact that in each case a moral cause is given for the position in which the individual finds himself now; and the moral cause is his own act.
In the popular belief, followed also in the brahmin theology, the bridge between the two lives was a minute and subtle entity called the soul, which left the one body at death, through a hole at the top of the head, and entered into the new body. The new body happened to be there, ready, with no soul in it. The soul did not make the body. In the Buddhist adaptation of this theory no soul, no consciousness, no memory, goes over from one body to the other. It is the grasping, the craving, still existing at the death of the one body that causes the new set of Skandhas, that is, the new body with its mental tendencies and capacities, to arise. How this takes place is nowhere explained.
The Indian theory of Karma has been worked out with many points of great beauty and ethical value. And the Buddhist adaptation of it, avoiding some of the difficulties common to it and to the allied European theories of fate and predestination, tries to explain the weight of the universe in its action on the individual, the heavy hand of the immeasurable past we cannot escape, the close connexion between all forms of life, and the mysteries of inherited character. Incidentally it held out the hope, to those who believed in it, of a mode of escape from the miseries of transmigration. For as the Arahat had conquered the cravings that were supposed to produce the new body, his actions were no longer Karma, but only Kiriy[=a], that led to no rebirth.[23]
Another point of Buddhist teaching adopted from previous belief was the practice of ecstatic meditation. In the very earliest times of the most remote animism we find the belief that a person, rapt from all sense of the outside world, possessed by a spirit, acquired from that state a degree of sanctity, was supposed to have a degree of insight, denied to ordinary mortals. In India from the soma frenzy in the Vedas, through the mystic reveries of the Upanishads, and the hypnotic trances of the ancient Yoga, allied beliefs and practices had never lost their importance and their charm. It is clear from the Dialogues, and other of the most ancient Buddhist records,[24] that the belief was in full force when Buddhism arose, and that the practice was followed by the Buddha's teachers. It was quite impossible for him to ignore the question; and the practice was admitted as a part of the training of the Buddhist Bhikshu. But it was not the highest or the most important part, and might be omitted altogether. The states of Rapture are called Conditions of Bliss, and they are regarded as useful for the help they give towards the removal of the mental obstacles to the attainment of Arahatship.[25] Of the thirty-seven constituent parts of Arahatship they enter into one group of four. To seek for Arahatship in the practice of the ecstasy alone is considered a deadly heresy.[26] So these practices are both pleasant in themselves, and useful as one of the means to the end proposed. But they are not the end, and the end can be reached without them. The most ancient form these exercises took is recorded in the often recurring paragraphs translated in Rhys Davids' Dialogues of the Buddha (i. 84-92). More modern, and much more elaborate, forms are given in the Yog[=a]vacaras Manual of Indian Mysticism as practised by Buddhists, edited by Rhys Davids from a unique MS. for the P[=a]li Text Society in 1896. In the Introduction to this last work the various phases of the question are discussed at length.
Buddhist Texts. The Canonical Books.--It is necessary to remember that the Buddha, like other Indian teachers of his period, taught by conversation only. A highly-educated man (according to the education current at the time), speaking constantly to men of similar education, he followed the literary habit of his day by embodying his doctrines in set phrases (s[=u]tras), on which he enlarged, on different occasions, in different ways. Writing was then widely known. But the lack of suitable writing materials made any lengthy books impossible. Such s[=u]tras were therefore the recognized form of preserving and communicating opinion. They were catchwords, as it were, memoria technica, which could easily be remembered, and would recall the fuller expositions that had been based upon them. Shortly after the Buddha's time the Brahmins had their s[=u]tras in Sanskrit, already a dead language. He purposely put his into the ordinary conversational idiom of the day, that is to say, into P[=a]li. When the Buddha died these sayings were collected together by his disciples into what they call the Four Nik[=a]yas, or "collections." These cannot have reached their final form till about fifty or sixty years afterwards. Other sayings and verses, most of them ascribed, not to the Buddha, but to the disciples themselves, were put into a supplementary Nik[=a]ya. We know [v.04 p.0691] of slight additions made to this Nik[=a]ya as late as the time of Asoka, 3rd century B.C. And the developed doctrine, found in certain portions of it, shows that these are later than the four old Nik[=a]yas. For a generation or two the books so put together were handed down by memory, though probably written memoranda were also used. And they were doubtless accompanied from the first, as they were being taught, by a running commentary. About one hundred years after the Buddha's death there was a schism in the community. Each of the two schools kept an arrangement of the canon--still in P[=a]li, or some allied dialect. Sanskrit was not used for any Buddhist works till long afterwards, and never used at all, so far as is known, for the canonical books. Each of these two schools broke up in the following centuries, into others. Several of them had their different arrangements of the canonical books, differing also in minor details. These books remained the only authorities for about five centuries, but they all, except only our extant P[=a]li Nik[=a]yas, have been lost in India. These then are our authorities for the earliest period of Buddhism. Now what are these books?
We talk necessarily of P[=a]li books. They are not books in the modern sense. They are memorial sentences or verses intended to be learnt by heart. And the whole style and method of arrangement is entirely subordinated to this primary necessity. Each s[=u]tra (P[=a]li, sutta) is very short; usually occupying only a page, or perhaps two, and containing a single proposition. When several of these, almost always those that contain propositions of a similar kind, are collected together in the framework of one dialogue, it is called a sullanta. The usual length of such a suttanta is about a dozen pages; only a few of them are longer, and a collection of such suttantas might be called a book. But it is as yet neither narrative nor essay. It is at most a string of passages, drawn up in similar form to assist the memory, and intended, not to be read, but to be learnt by heart. The first of the four Nik[=a]yas is a collection of the longest of these suttantas, and it is called accordingly the D[=i]gha Nik[=a]ya, that is "the Collection of Long Ones" (sci. Suttantas). The next is the Majjhima Nik[=a]ya, the "Collection of the suttantas of Medium Length"--medium, that is, as being shorter than the suttantas in the D[=i]gha, and longer than the ordinary suttas preserved in the two following collections. Between them these first two collections contain 186 dialogues, in which the Buddha, or in a few cases one of his leading disciples, is represented as engaged in conversation on some one of the religious, or philosophic, or ethical points in that system which we now call Buddhism. In depth of philosophic insight, in the method of Socratic questioning often adopted, in the earnest and elevated tone of the whole, in the evidence they afford of the most cultured thought of the day, these dialogues constantly remind the reader of the dialogues of Plato. But not in style. They have indeed a style of their own; always dignified, and occasionally rising into eloquence. But for the reasons already given, it is entirely different from the style of Western writings which are always intended to be read. Historical scholars will, however, revere this collection of dialogues as one of the most priceless of the treasures of antiquity still preserved to us. It is to it, above all, that we shall always have to go for our knowledge of the most ancient Buddhism. Of the 186, 175 had by 1907 been edited for the P[=a]li Text Society, and the remainder were either in the press or in preparation.
A disadvantage of the arrangement in dialogues, more especially as they follow one another according to length and not according to subject, is that it is not easy to find the statement of doctrine on any particular point which is interesting one at the moment. It is very likely just this consideration which led to the compilation of the two following Nik[=a]yas. In the first of these, called the Anguttara Nik[=a]ya, all those points of Buddhist doctrine capable of expression in classes are set out in order. This practically includes most of the psychology and ethics of Buddhism. For it is a distinguishing mark of the dialogues themselves that the results arrived at are arranged in carefully systematized groups. We are familiar enough in the West with similar classifications, summed up in such expressions as the Seven Deadly Sins, the Ten Commandments, the Thirty-nine Articles, the Four Cardinal Virtues, the Seven Sacraments and a host of others. These numbered lists (it is true) are going out of fashion. The aid which they afford to memory is no longer required in an age in which books of reference abound. It was precisely as a help to memory that they were found so useful in the early Buddhist times, when the books were all learnt by heart, and had never as yet been written. And in the Anguttara we find set out in order first of all the units, then all the pairs, then all the trios, and so on. It is the longest book in the Buddhist Bible, and fills 1840 pages 8vo. The whole of the P[=a]li text has been published by the P[=a]li Text Society, but only portions have been translated into English. The next, and last, of these four collections contains again the whole, or nearly the whole, of the Buddhist doctrine; but arranged this time in order of subjects. It consists of 55 Samyuttas or groups. In each of these the suttas on the same subject, or in one or two cases the suttas addressed to the same sort of people, are grouped together. The whole of it has been published in five volumes by the P[=a]li Text Society. Only a few fragments have been translated.
Many hundreds of the short suttas and verses in these two collections are found, word for word, in the dialogues. And there are numerous instances of the introductory story stating how, and when, and to whom the sutta was enunciated--a sort of narrative framework in which the sutta is set--recurring also. This is very suggestive as to the way in which the earliest Buddhist records were gradually built up. The suttas came first embodying, in set phrases, the doctrine that had to be handed down. Those episodes, found in two or three different places, and always embodying several suttas, came next. Then several of these were woven together to form a suttanta. And finally the suttantas were grouped together into the two Nik[=a]yas, and the suttas and episodes separately into the two others. Parallel with this evolution, so to say, of the suttas, the short statements of doctrine, in prose, ran the treatment of the verses. There was a great love of poetry in the communities in which Buddhism arose. Verses were helpful to the memory. And they were adopted not only for this reason. The adherents of the new view of life found pleasure in putting into appropriate verse the feelings of enthusiasm and of ecstasy which the reforming doctrines inspired. When particularly happy in literary finish, or peculiarly rich in religious feeling, such verses were not lost. These were handed on, from mouth to mouth, in the small companies of the brethren or sisters. The oldest verses are all lyrics, expressions either of emotion, or of some deep saying, some pregnant thought. Very few of them have been preserved alone. And even then they are so difficult to understand, so much like puzzles, that they were probably accompanied from the first by a sort of comment in prose, stating when, and why, and by whom they were supposed to have been uttered. As a general rule such a framework in prose is actually preserved in the old Buddhist literature. It is only in the very latest books included in the canon that the narrative part is also regularly in verse, so that a whole work consists of a collection of ballads. The last step, that of combining such ballads into one long epic poem, was not taken till after the canon was closed. The whole process, from the simple anecdote in mixed prose and verse, the so-called [=a]khy[=a]na, to the complete epic, comes out with striking clearness in the history of the Buddhist canon. It is typical, one may notice in passing, of the evolution of the epic elsewhere; in Iceland, for instance, in Persia and in Greece. And we may safely draw the conclusion that if the great Indian epics, the Mah[=a]-bh[=a]rata and the R[=a]m[=a]yana, had been in existence when the formation of the Buddhist canon began, the course of its development would have been very different from what it was.
As will easily be understood, the same reasons which led to literary activity of this kind, in the earliest period, continued to hold good afterwards. A number of such efforts, after the Nik[=a]yas had been closed, were included in a supplementary Nik[=a]ya called the Khuddaka Nik[=a]ya. It will throw very useful light upon the intellectual level in the Buddhist community just [v.04 p.0692] after the earliest period, and upon literary life in the valley of the Ganges in the 4th or 5th century B.C., if we briefly explain what the tractates in this collection contain. The first, the Khuddaka P[=a]tha, is a little tract of only a few pages. After a profession of faith in the Buddha, the doctrine and the order, there follows a paragraph setting out the thirty-four constituents of the human body--bones, blood, nerves and so on--strangely incongruous with what follows. For that is simply a few of the most beautiful poems to be found in the Buddhist scriptures. There is no apparent reason, except their exquisite versification, why these particular pieces should have been here brought together. It is most probable that this tiny volume was simply a sort of first lesson book for young neophytes when they joined the order. In any case that is one of the uses to which it is put at present. The text book is the Dhammapada. Here are brought together from ten to twenty stanzas on each of twenty-six selected points of Buddhist self-training or ethics. There are altogether 423 verses, gathered from various older sources, and strung together without any other internal connexion than that they relate more or less to the same subject. And the collector has not thought it necessary to choose stanzas written in the same metre, or in the same number of lines. We know that the early Christians were accustomed to sing hymns, both in their homes and on the occasions of their meeting together. These hymns are now irretrievably lost. Had some one made a collection of about twenty isolated stanzas, chosen from these hymns, on each of about twenty subjects--such as Faith, Hope, Love, the Converted Man, Times of Trouble, Quiet Days, the Saviour, the Tree of Life, the Sweet Name, the Dove, the King, the Land of Peace, the Joy Unspeakable--we should have a Christian Dhammapada, and very precious such a collection would be. The Buddhist Dhammapada has been edited by Professor Fausböll (2nd ed., 1900), and has been frequently translated. Where the verses deal with those ideas that are common to Christians and Buddhists, the versions are easily intelligible, and some of the stanzas appeal very strongly to the Western sense of religious beauty. Where the stanzas are full of the technical terms of the Buddhist system of self-culture and self-control, it is often impossible, without expansions that spoil the poetry, or learned notes that distract the attention, to convey the full sense of the original. In all these distinctively Buddhist verses the existing translations (of which Professor Max Müller's is the best known, and Dr Karl Neumann's the best) are inadequate and sometimes quite erroneous. The connexion in which they were spoken is often apparent in the more ancient books from which these verses have been taken, and has been preserved in the commentary on the work itself.
In the next little work the framework, the whole paraphernalia of the ancient akhy[=a]na, is included in the work itself, which is called Ud[=a]na, or "ecstatic utterances." The Buddha is represented, on various occasions during his long career, to have been so much moved by some event, or speech, or action, that he gave vent, as it were, to his pent-up feelings in a short, ecstatic utterance, couched, for the most part, in one or two lines of poetry. These outbursts, very terse and enigmatic, are charged with religious emotion, and turn often on some subtle point of Arahatship, that is, of the Buddhist ideal of life. The original text has been published by the P[=a]li Text Society. The little book, a garland of fifty of these gems, has been translated by General Strong. The next work is called the Iti Vuttaka. This contains 120 short passages, each of them leading up to a terse deep saying of the Buddha's, and introduced, in each case, with the words Iti vuttam Bhagaval[=a]--"thus was it spoken by the Exalted One." These anecdotes may or may not be historically accurate. It is quite possible that the memory of the early disciples, highly trained as it was, enabled them to preserve a substantially true record of some of these speeches, and of the circumstances in which they were uttered. Some or all of them may also have been invented. In either case they are excellent evidence of the sort of questions on which discussions among the earliest Buddhists must have turned. These ecstatic utterances and deep sayings are attributed to the Buddha himself, and accompanied by the prose framework. There has also been preserved a collection of stanzas ascribed to his leading followers. Of these 107 are brethren, and 73 sisters, in the order. The prose framework is in this case preserved only in the commentary, which also gives biographies of the authors. This work is called the Thera-ther[=i]-g[=a]th[=a].
Another interesting collection is the J[=a]taka book, a set of verses supposed to have been uttered by the Buddha in some of his previous births. These are really 550 of the folk-tales current in India when the canon was being formed, the only thing Buddhist about them being that the Buddha, in a previous birth, is identified in each case with the hero in the little story. Here again the prose is preserved only in the commentary. And it is a most fortunate chance that this--the oldest, the most complete, and the most authentic collection of folklore extant--has thus been preserved intact to the present day. Many of these stories and fables have wandered to Europe, and are found in medieval homilies, poems and story-books. A full account of this curious migration will be found in the introduction to the present writer's Buddhist Birth Stories. A translation of the whole book is now published, under the editorship of Professor Cowell, at the Cambridge University Press. The last of these poetical works which it is necessary to mention is the Sutta Nip[=a]ta, containing fifty-five poems, all except the last merely short lyrics, many of great beauty. A very ancient commentary on the bulk of these poems has been included in the canon as a separate work. The poems themselves have been translated by Professor Fausböll in the Sacred Books of the East. The above works are our authority for the philosophy and ethics of the earliest Buddhists. We have also a complete statement of the rules of the order in the Vinaya, edited, in five volumes, by Professor Oldenberg. Three volumes of translations of these rules, by him and by the present writer, have also appeared in the Sacred Books of the East.
There have also been added to the canonical books seven works on Abhidhamma, a more elaborate and more classified exposition of the Dhamma or doctrine as set out in the Nik[=a]yas. All these works are later. Only one of them has been translated, the so-called Dhamma Sangani. The introduction to this translation, published under the title of Buddhist Psychology, contains the fullest account that has yet appeared of the psychological conceptions on which Buddhist ethics are throughout based. The translator, Mrs Caroline Rhys Davids, estimates the date of this ancient manual for Buddhist students as the 4th century B.C.
Later Works.--So far the canon, almost all of which is now accessible to readers of P[=a]li. But a good deal of work is still required before the harvest of historical data contained in these texts shall have been made acceptable to students of philosophy and sociology. These works of the oldest period, the two centuries and a half, between the Buddha's time and that of Asoka, were followed by a voluminous literature in the following Periods--from Asoka to Kanishka, and from Kanishka to Buddhaghosa,--each of about three centuries. Many of these works are extant in MS.; but only five or six of the more important Have so far been published. Of these the most interesting is the Milinda, one of the earliest historical novels preserved to us. It is mainly religious and philosophical and purports to give the discussion, extending over several days, in which a Buddhist elder named N[=a]gasena succeeds in converting Milinda, that is Menander, the famous Greek king of Bactria, to Buddhism. The P[=a]li text has been edited and the work translated into English. More important historically, though greatly inferior in style and ability, is the Mah[=a]vastu or Sublime Story, in Sanskrit. The story is the one of chief importance to the Buddhists--the story, namely, of how the Buddha won, under the Bo Tree, the victory over ignorance, and attained to the Sambodhi, "the higher Wisdom," of Nirv[=a]na. The story begins with his previous births, in which also he was accumulating the Buddha qualities. And as the Mah[=a]vastu was a standard work of a particular sect, or rather school, called the Mah[=a]-sanghikas, it has thus preserved for us the theory of the Buddha as held outside the followers of the cannon, by those whose views developed, in after centuries, into the Mah[=a]y[=a]na or modern form of Buddhism in India. But this book, like all the ancient books, was composed, not in the north, in Nepal, but in the valley of the Ganges, and it is partly [v.04 p.0693] in prose, partly in verse. Two other works, the Lalita Vistara and the Buddha Carita, give us--but this, of course, is later--Sanskrit poems, epics, on the same subject. Of these, the former may be as old as the Christian era; the latter belongs to the 2nd century after Christ. Both of them have been edited and translated. The older one contains still a good deal of prose, the gist of it being often repeated in the verses. The later one is entirely in verse, and shows off the author's mastery of the artificial rules of prosody and poetics, according to which a poem, a mah[=a]-k[=a]vya, ought, according to the later writers on the Ars poetica, to be composed.
These three works deal only quite briefly and incidentally with any point of Buddhism outside of the Buddha legend. Of greater importance for the history of Buddhism are two later works, the Netti Pakarana and the Saddharma Pundar[=i]ka. The former, in P[=a]li, discusses a number of questions then of importance in the Buddhist community; and it relies throughout, as does the Milinda, on the canonical works, which it quotes largely. The latter, in Sanskrit, is the earliest exposition we have of the later Mah[=a]y[=a]na doctrine. Both these books may be dated in the 2nd or 3rd century of our era. The latter has been translated into English. We have now also the text of the Prajn[=a] P[=a]ramit[=a], a later treatise on the Mah[=a]y[=a]na system, which in time entirely replaced in India the original doctrines. To about the same age belongs also the Divy[=a]vad[=a]na, a collection of legends about the leading disciples of the Buddha, and important members of the order, through the subsequent three centuries. These legends are, however, of different dates, and in spite of the comparatively late period at which it was put into its present form, it contains some very ancient fragments.
The whole of the above works were composed in the north of India; that is to say, either north or a few miles south of the Ganges. The record is at present full of gaps. But we can even now obtain a full and accurate idea of the earliest Buddhism, and are able to trace the main lines of its development through the first eight or nine centuries of its career. The P[=a]li Text Society is still publishing two volumes a year; and the Russian Academy has inaugurated a series to contain the most important of the Sanskrit works still buried in MS. We have also now accessible in P[=a]li fourteen volumes of the commentaries of the great 5th-century scholars in south India and Ceylon, most of them the works either of Buddhaghosa of Budh Gaya, or of Dhammap[=a]la of K[=a]ncipura (the ancient name of Conjeeveram). These are full of important historical data on the social, as well as the religious, life of India during the periods of which they treat.
Modern Research.--The striking archaeological discoveries of recent years have both confirmed and added to our knowledge of the earliest period. Pre-eminent among these is the discovery, by Mr William Peppé, on the Birdpur estate, adjoining the boundary between English and Nepalese territory, of the st[=u]pa, or cairn, erected by the S[=a]kiya clan over their share of the ashes from the cremation pyre of the Buddha. About 12 m. to the north-east of this spot has been found an inscribed pillar, put up by Asoka as a record of his visit to the Lumbini Garden, as the place where the future Buddha had been born. Although more than two centuries later than the event to which it refers, this inscription is good evidence of the site of the garden. There had been no interruption of the tradition; and it is probable that the place was then still occupied by the descendants of the possessors in the Buddha's time. North-west of this another Asoka pillar has been discovered, recording his visit to the cairn erected by the Sakyas over the remains of Kon[=a]gamana, one of the previous Puddhas or teachers, whose follower Gotama the Buddha had claimed to be. These discoveries definitely determine the district occupied by the S[=a]kiya republic in the 6th and 7th centuries B.C. The boundaries, of course, are not known; but the clan must have spread 30 m. or more along the lower slopes of the Himalayas and 30 m. or more southwards over the plains. It has been abandoned jungle since the 3rd century A.D., or perhaps earlier, so that the ruined sites, numerous through the whole district, have remained undisturbed, and further discoveries may be confidently expected.
The principal points on which this large number of older and better authorities has modified our knowledge are as follows:--
1. We have learnt that the division of Buddhism, originating with Burnouf, into northern and southern, is misleading. He found that the Buddhism in his P[=a]li MSS., which came from Ceylon, differed from that in his Sanskrit MSS., which came from Nepal. Now that the works he used have been made accessible in printed editions, we find that, wherever the existing MSS. came from, the original works themselves were all composed in the same stretch of country, that is, in the valley of the Ganges. The difference of the opinions expressed in the MSS. is due, not to the place where they are now found, but to the difference of time at which they were originally composed. Not one of the books mentioned above is either northern or southern. They all claim, and rightly claim, to belong, so far as their place of origin is concerned, to the Majjhima Desa, the middle country. It is undesirable to base the main division of our subject on an adventitious circumstance, and especially so when the nomenclature thus introduced (it is not found in the books themselves) cuts right across the true line of division. The use of the terms northern and southern as applied, not to the existing MSS., but to the original books, or to the Buddhism they teach, not only does not help us, it is the source of serious misunderstanding. It inevitably leads careless writers to take for granted that we have, historically, two Buddhisms--one manufactured in Ceylon, the other in Nepal. Now this is admittedly wrong. What we have to consider is Buddhism varying through slight degrees, as the centuries pass by, in almost every book. We may call it one, or we may call it many. What is quite certain is that it is not two. And the most useful distinction to emphasize is, not the ambiguous and misleading geographical one--derived from the places where the modern copies of the MSS. are found; nor even, though that would be better, the linguistic one--but the chronological one. The use, therefore, of the inaccurate and misleading terms northern and southern ought no longer to be followed in scholarly works on Buddhism.
2. Our ideas as to the social conditions that prevailed, during the Buddha's lifetime, in the eastern valley of the Ganges have been modified. The people were divided into clans, many of them governed as republics, more or less aristocratic. In a few cases several of such republics had formed confederations, and in four cases such confederations had already become hereditary monarchies. The right historical analogy is not the state of Germany in the middle ages, but the state of Greece in the time of Socrates. The S[=a]kiyas were still a republic. They had republics for their neighbours on the east and south, but on the western boundary was the kingdom of Kosala, the modern Oudh, which they acknowledged as a suzerain power. The Buddha's father was not a king. There were r[=a]jas in the clan, but the word meant at most something like consul or archon. All the four real kings were called Mah[=a]-r[=a]ja. And Suddhodana, the teacher's father, was not even r[=a]ja. One of his cousins, named Bhaddiya, is styled a r[=a]ja; but Suddhodana is spoken of, like other citizens, as Suddhodana the S[=a]kiyan. As the ancient books are very particular on this question of titles, this is decisive.
3. There was no caste--no caste, that is, in the modern sense of the term. We have long known that the connubium was the cause of a long and determined struggle between the patricians and the plebeians in Rome. Evidence has been yearly accumulating on the existence of restrictions as to intermarriage, and as to the right of eating together (commensality) among other Aryan tribes, Greeks, Germans, Russians and so on. Even without the fact of the existence now of such restrictions among the modern successors of the ancient Aryans in India, it would have been probable that they also were addicted to similar customs. It is certain that the notion of such usages was familiar enough to some at least of the tribes that preceded the Aryans in India. Rules of endogamy and exogamy; privileges, restricted to certain classes, of eating together, are not only Indian or Aryan, but world-wide phenomena. Both the spirit, and to a large degree the actual details, of modern Indian caste-usages are identical [v.04 p.0694] with these ancient, and no doubt universal, customs. It is in them that we have the key to the origin of caste.
At any moment in the history of a nation such customs seem, to a superficial observer, to be fixed and immutable. As a matter of fact they are never quite the same in successive centuries, or even generations. The numerous and complicated details which we sum up under the convenient, but often misleading, single name of caste, are solely dependent for their sanction on public opinion. That opinion seems stable. But it is always tending to vary as to the degree of importance attached to some particular one of the details, as to the size and complexity of the particular groups in which each detail ought to be observed.
Owing to the fact that the particular group that in India worked its way to the top, based its claims on religious grounds, not on political power, nor on wealth, the system has, no doubt, lasted longer in India than in Europe. But public opinion still insists, in considerable circles even in Europe, on restrictions of a more or less defined kind, both as to marriage and as to eating together. And in India the problem still remains to trace, in the literature, the gradual growth of the system--the gradual formation of new sections among the people, the gradual extension of the institution to the families of people engaged in certain trades, belonging to the same group, or sect, or tribe, tracing their ancestry, whether rightly or wrongly, to the same source. All these factors, and others besides, are real factors. But they are phases of the extension and growth, not explanations of the origin of the system.
There is no evidence to show that at the time of the rise of Buddhism there was any substantial difference, as regards the barriers in question, between the peoples dwelling in the valley of the Ganges and their contemporaries, Greek or Roman, dwelling on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. The point of greatest weight in the establishment of the subsequent development, the supremacy in India of the priests, was still being hotly debated. All the new evidence tends to show that the struggle was being decided rather against than for the Brahmins. What we find in the Buddha's time is caste in the making. The great mass of the people were distinguished quite roughly into four classes, social strata, of which the boundary lines were vague and uncertain. At one end of the scale were certain outlying tribes and certain hereditary crafts of a dirty or despised kind. At the other end the nobles claimed the superiority. But Brahmins by birth (not necessarily sacrificial priests, for they followed all sorts of occupations) were trying to oust the nobles from the highest grade. They only succeeded, long afterwards, when the power of Buddhism had declined.
4. It had been supposed on the authority of late priestly texts, where boasts of persecution are put forth, that the cause of the decline of Buddhism in India had been Brahmin persecution. The now accessible older authorities, with one doubtful exception,[27] make no mention of persecution. On the other hand, the comparison we are now able to make between the canonical books of the older Buddhism and the later texts of the following centuries, shows a continual decline from the old standpoint, a continual approximation of the Buddhist views to those of the other philosophies and religions of India. We can see now that the very event which seemed, in the eyes of the world, to be the most striking proof of the success of the new movement, the conversion and strenuous support, in the 3rd century B.C., of Asoka, the most powerful ruler India had had, only hastened the decline. The adhesion of large numbers of nominal converts, more especially from the newly incorporated and less advanced provinces, produced weakness rather than strength in the movement for reform. The day of compromise had come. Every relaxation of the old thoroughgoing position was welcomed and supported by converts only half converted. And so the margin of difference between the Buddhists and their opponents gradually faded almost entirely away. The soul theory, step by step, gained again the upper hand. The popular gods and the popular superstitions are once more favoured by Buddhists themselves. The philosophical basis of the old ethics is overshadowed by new speculations. And even the old ideal of life, the salvation of the Arahat to be won in this world and in this world only, by self-culture and self-mastery, is forgotten, or mentioned only to be condemned. The end was inevitable. The need of a separate organization became less and less apparent. The whole pantheon of the Vedic gods, with the ceremonies and the sacrifices associated with them, passed indeed away. But the ancient Buddhism, the party of reform, was overwhelmed also in its fall; and modern Hinduism arose on the ruins of both.
AUTHORITIES.--The attention of the few scholars at work on the subject being directed to the necessary first step of publishing the ancient authorities, the work of exploring them, of analysing and classifying the data they contain, has as yet been very imperfectly done. The annexed list contains only the most important works.
TEXTS.--P[=a]li Text Society, 57 vols.; J[=a]taka, 7 vols., ed. Fausböll, 1877-1897; Vinaya, 5 vols., ed. Oldenberg, 1879-1883; Dhammapada, ed. Fausböll, 2nd ed., 1900; Divy[=a]vad[=a]na, ed. Cowell and Neil, 1882; Mah[=a]vastu, ed. Senart, 3 vols., 1882-1897; Buddha Carita, ed. Cowell, 1892; Milinda-pañho, ed. Trenckner, 1880.
TRANSLATIONS.--Vinaya Texts, by Rhys Davids and Oldenberg, 3 vols., 1881-1885; Dhammapada, by Max Müller, and Sutta Nipata, by Fausböll, 1881; Questions of King Milinda, by Rhys Davids, 2 vols., 1890-1894; Buddhist Suttas, by Rhys Davids, 1881; Saddharma Pundar[=i]ka, by Kern, 1884; Buddhist Mah[=a]y[=a]na Texts, by Cowell and Max Müller, 1894--all the above in the "Sacred Books of the East"; J[=a]taka, vol. i., by Rhys Davids, under the title Buddhist Birth Stories, 1880; vols. i.-vi., by Chalmers, Neil, Francis, and Rouse, 1895-1897; Buddhism in Translations, by Warren, 1896; Buddhistische Anthologie, by Neumann, 1892. Lieder der Mönche und Nonnen, 1899, by the same; Dialogues of the Buddha, by Rhys Davids, 1899; Die Reden Gotamo Buddhas, by Neumann, 3 vols., 1899-1903; Buddhist Psychology, by Mrs Rhys Davids, 1900.
MANUALS, MONOGRAPHS, &C.--Buddhism, by Rhys Davids, 12mo, 20th thousand, 1903; Buddha, sein Leben, seine Lehre und seine Gemeinde, by Oldenberg, 5th edition, 1906; Der Buddhismus und seine Geschichte in Indien, by Kern, 1882; Der Buddhismus, by Edmund Hardy, 1890; American Lectures, Buddhism, by Rhys Davids, 1896; Inscriptions de Piyadasi, by Senart, 2 vols., 1881-1886; Mara und Buddha, by Windisch, 1895; Buddhist India, by Rhys Davids, 1903.
(T. W. R. D.)
[1] That is by the Arahat, the title the Buddha always uses of himself. He does not call himself the Buddha, and his followers never address him as such.
[2] One very ancient commentary on the Path has been preserved in three places in the canon: D[=i]gha, ii. 305-307 and 311-313, Majjhima, iii. 251, and Samyutta, v. 8.
[3] Mah[=a]li Suttanta; translated in Rhys Davids' Dialogues of the Buddha, vol. i. p. 201 (cf. p. 204).
[4] See Iti-vuttaka, p. 44; Samyutta, iii. 57.
[5] See D[=i]gha, ii. 28; J[=a]t. v. 48, ii. 80.
[6] Burnett, Early Greek Philosophy, p. 149.
[7] Katha Up. 2, 10; Bhag. G[=i]t[=a], 2, 14; 9, 33.
[8] The Anatta-lakkhana Sutta (Vinaya, i. 13 = Samyutta, iii. 66 and iv. 34), translated in Vinaya Texts, i. 100-102.
[9] See article on "Buddhist Schools of Thought," by Rhys Davids, in the J.R.A.S. for 1892.
[10] Questions of King Milinda, translated by Rhys Davids (Oxford, 1890-1894), vol. i. pp. 40, 41, 85-87; vol. ii. pp. 21-25, 86-89.
[11] Majjhima, iii. 251, cf. Samyutta, v. 8.
[12] D[=i]gha, ii. 290-315. Majjhima, i. 55 et seq. Cf. Rhys Davids' Dialogues of the Buddha, i. 81.
[13] No. 8 in the Sutta Nipata (p. 26 of Fausböll's edition). It is translated by Fausböll in vol. x. of the S.B.E., and by Rhys Davids, Buddhism, p. 109.
[14] D[=i]gha, ii. 186-187.
[15] Majjhima, i. 129.
[16] Iti-vuttaka, pp. 19-21.
[17] On the details of these see D[=i]gha, i. 71-73, translated by Rhys Davids in Dialogues of the Buddha, i. 82-84.
[18] D[=i]gha, i. 74.
[19] Samyutta, iv. 251, 261.
[20] Phaedo, 69 et seq. The idea is there also put forward in connexion with a belief in transmigration.
[21] Samyutta, iv. 302.
[22] Majjhima, iii. 99 et seq.
[23] The history of the Indian doctrine of Karma has yet to be written. On the Buddhist side see Rhys Davids' Hibbert Lectures, pp. 73-120, and Dahlke, Aufsatze zum Verstandnis des Buddhismus (Berlin, 1903), i. 92-106, and ii. l-11.
[24] For instance, Majjhima, i. 163-166
[25] Anguttara, iii. 119.
[26] D[=i]gha, i. 38.
[27] See Journal of the P[=a]li Text Society, 1896, pp. 87-92.
BUDÉ [BUDAEUS], GUILLAUME (1467-1540), French scholar, was born at Paris. He went to the university of Orleans to study law, but for several years, being possessed of ample means, he led an idle and dissipated life. When about twenty-four years of age he was seized with a sudden passion for study, and made rapid progress, particularly in the Latin and Greek languages. The work which gained him greatest reputation was his De Asse et Partibus (1514), a treatise on ancient coins and measures. He was held in high esteem by Francis I., who was persuaded by him, and by Jean du Bellay, bishop of Narbonne, to found the Collegium Trilingue, afterwards the Collège de France, and the library at Fontainebleau, which was removed to Paris and was the origin of the Bibliothèque Nationale. He also induced Francis to refrain from prohibiting printing in France, which had been advised by the Sorbonne in 1533. He was sent by Louis XII. to Rome as ambassador to Leo X., and in 1522 was appointed maître des requêtes and was several times prévôt des marchands. He died in Paris on the 23rd of August 1540.
Budé was also the author of Annotationes in XXIV. libros Pandectarum (1508), which, by the application of philology and history, had a great influence on the study of Roman law, and of Commentarii linguae Graecae (1529), an extensive collection of lexicographical notes, which contributed greatly to the study of Greek literature in France. Budé corresponded with the most learned men of his time, amongst them Erasmus, who called him the marvel of France, and Thomas More. He wrote with equal facility in Greek and Latin, although his Latin is inferior to his Greek, being somewhat harsh and full of Greek constructions. His request that he should be buried at night, and his widow's open profession of Protestantism at Geneva (where she retired after his death), caused him to be suspected of leanings towards Calvinism. At the time of the massacre of St Bartholomew, the members of his family were obliged to flee from France. Some took refuge in Switzerland, where they worthily upheld the traditions of their house, while others settled in Pomerania under the name Budde or Buddeus.
[v.04 p.0695] See Le Roy, Vita G. Budaei (1540); Rebitté, G. Budé, restaurateur des études grecques en France (1846); E. de Budé, Vie de G. Budé (1884), who refutes the idea of his ancestor's Protestant views; D'Hozier, La Maison de Budé; L. Delaruelle, Études sur l'humanisme français (1907).
BUDE, a small seaport and watering-place in the Launceston parliamentary division of Cornwall, England, on the north coast at the mouth of the river Bude. With the market town of Stratton, 1½ m. inland to the east, it forms the urban district of Stratton and Bude, with a population (1901) of 2308. Bude is served by a branch of the London & South-Western railway. Its only notable building is the Early English parish church of St Michael and All Angels. The climate is healthy and the coast scenery in the neighbourhood fine, especially towards the south. There the gigantic cliffs, with their banded strata, have been broken into fantastic forms by the waves. Many ships have been wrecked on the jagged reefs which fringe their base. The figure-head of one of these, the "Bencellon," lost in 1862, is preserved in the churchyard. The harbour, sheltered by a breakwater, will admit vessels of 300 tons at high water; and the river has been dammed to form a basin for the canal which runs to Launceston. Some fishing is carried on: but the staple trade is the export of sand, which, being highly charged with carbonate of lime, is much used for manure. There are golf links near the town. The currents in the bay make bathing dangerous.
BUDGELL, EUSTACE (1686-1737), English man of letters, the son of Dr Gilbert Budgell, was born on the 19th of August 1686 at St Thomas, near Exeter. He matriculated in 1705 at Trinity College, Oxford, and afterwards joined the Inner Temple, London; but instead of studying law he devoted his whole attention to literature. Addison, who was first cousin to his mother, befriended him, and, on being appointed secretary to Lord Wharton, lord-lieutenant of Ireland in 1710, took Budgell with him as one of the clerks of his office. Budgell took part with Steele and Addison in writing the Tatler. He was also a contributor to the Spectator and the Guardian,--his papers being marked with an X in the former, and with an asterisk in the latter. He was subsequently made under-secretary to Addison, chief secretary to the lords justices of Ireland, and deputy-clerk of the council, and became a member of the Irish parliament. In 1717, when Addison became principal secretary of state in England, he procured for Budgell the place of accountant and comptroller-general of the revenue in Ireland. But the next year, the duke of Bolton being appointed lord-lieutenant, Budgell wrote a lampoon against E. Webster, his secretary. This led to his being removed from his post of accountant-general, upon which he returned to England, and, contrary to the advice of Addison, published his case in a pamphlet. In the year 1720 he lost £20,000 by the South Sea scheme, and afterwards spent £5000 more in unsuccessful attempts to get into parliament. He began to write pamphlets against the ministry, and published many papers in the Craftsman. In 1733 he started a weekly periodical called the Bee, which he continued for more than a hundred numbers. By the will of Matthew Tindal, the deist, who died in 1733, a legacy of 2000 guineas was left to Budgell; but the bequest (which had, it was alleged, been inserted in the will by Budgell himself) was successfully disputed by Tindal's nephew and nearest heir, Nicholas Tindal, who translated and wrote a Continuation of the History of England of Paul de Rapin-Thoyras. Hence Pope's lines--
"Let Budgell charge low Grub Street on his quill, And write whate'er he pleased--except his will."[1]
Budgell is said to have sold the second volume of Tindal's Christianity as Old as the Creation to Bishop Gibson, by whom it was destroyed. The scandal caused by these transactions ruined him. On the 4th of May 1737, after filling his pockets with stones, he took a boat at Somerset-stairs, and while the boat was passing under the bridge threw himself into the river. On his desk was found a slip of paper with the words--"What Cato did, and Addison approved, cannot be wrong." Besides the works mentioned above, he wrote a translation (1714) of the Characters of Theophrastus. He never married, but left a natural daughter, Anne Eustace, who became an actress at Drury Lane.
See Cibber's Lives of the Poets, vol. v.
[1] Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot, lines 378-379.
BUDGET (originally from a Gallic word meaning sack, latinized as bulga, leather wallet or bag, thence in O. Fr. bougette, from which the Eng. form is derived), the name applied to an account of the ways and means by which the income and expenditure for a definite period are to be balanced, generally by a finance minister for his state, or by analogy for smaller bodies.[1] The term first came into use in England about 1760. In the United Kingdom the chancellor of the exchequer, usually in April, lays before the House of Commons a statement of the actual results of revenue and expenditure in the past finance year (now ending March 31), showing how far his estimates have been realized, and what surplus or deficit there has been in the income as compared with the expenditure. This is accompanied by another statement in which the chancellor gives an estimate of what the produce of the revenue may be in the year just entered upon, supposing the taxes and duties to remain as they were in the past year, and also an estimate of what the expenditure will be in the current year. If the estimated revenue, after allowing for normal increase of the principal sources of income, be less than the estimated expenditure, this is deemed a case for the imposition of some new, or the increase of some existing, tax or taxes. On the other hand, if the estimated revenue shows a large surplus over the estimated expenditure, there is room for remitting or reducing some tax or taxes, and the extent of this relief is generally limited to the amount of surplus realized in the previous year. The chancellor of the exchequer has to take parliament into confidence on his estimates, both as regards revenue and expenditure; and these estimates are prepared by the various departments of the administration. They are divided into two parts, the consolidated fund services and the supply services, the first comprising the civil list, debt charge, pensions and courts of justice, while the "supply" includes the remaining expenditure of the country, as the army, the navy, the civil service and revenue departments, the post-office and telegraph services. The consolidated fund services are an annual charge, fixed by statute, and alterable only by statute, but the supply services may be gone through in detail, item by item, by the House of Commons, which forms itself into a committee of supply for the purpose. These items can be criticized, and reduced (but not increased) by amendments proposed by private members. The committee of ways and means (also a committee of the whole House) votes the supplies when granted and originates all taxes. The resolutions of these committees are reported to the House, and when the taxation and expenditure obtain the assent of parliament, the results as thus adjusted become the final budget estimate for the year, and are passed as the Finance Act. This system of annual review and adjustment of the public finances obtains not only in the British colonies, but in British India. The Indian budget, giving the results of income and expenditure in the year ending 31st of December, and the prospective estimates, is laid before the imperial parliament in the course of the ensuing session.
The budget, though modified by different forms, has also long been practised in France, the United States, and other constitutional countries, and has in some cases been adopted by autocratic Powers. Russia began the publication of annual budgets in 1866; Egypt has followed the example; so also has Turkey, by an imperial decree of 1875. All countries agree in taking a yearly period, but the actual date of commencement varies considerably. The German and Danish financial year, like that of the United Kingdom, begins on the 1st of April; in France, Belgium and Austria, it begins on the 1st of January; in Italy, Spain, the United States and Canada, on the 1st of July. [v.04 p.0696] Previously to 1832, however, the English financial year ran from the 1st of January to the 31st of December.
It may be mentioned that Disraeli introduced a budget (on which he was defeated) in the autumn of 1852; and in 1860, owing to the ratification of the commercial treaty with France, the budget was introduced on the 10th of February. In 1859, through a change of administration, the budget was not introduced until the 18th of July, while in 1880 there were two budgets, one introduced in March under Disraeli's administration, and the other in June, under Gladstone's administration.
National budgets are to be discriminated (1) as budgets passing under parliamentary scrutiny and debate from year to year, and (2) budgets emitted on executive authority. In most constitutional countries the procedure is somewhat of a mean between the extremes of the United Kingdom and the United States. In the United Kingdom the budget is placed by the executive before the whole House, without any previous examination except by the cabinet, and it is scrutinized by the House sitting as a committee; in the majority of countries, however, the budget undergoes a preliminary examination by a specially selected committee, which has the power to make drastic changes in the proposals of the executive. In the United States, on the other hand, the budget practically emanates from Congress, for there is no connexion between the executive and the legislative departments. The estimates prepared by the various executive departments are submitted to the House of Representatives by the secretary of the treasury. With these estimates two separate committees deal. The committee on ways and means deals with taxation, and the committee on appropriations with expenditure. The latter committee is divided into various sub-committees, each of which brings in an appropriation bill for the department or subject with which it is charged.
There are also, in all the greater countries, local and municipal taxations and expenditures of only less account than the national. In federal governments such as the United States, the German empire, or the Argentine republic, the budgets of the several states of the federation have to be consulted, as well as the federal budgets, for a knowledge of the finances.
AUTHORITIES.--Stourm, Le Budget, son histoire et son mécanisme (1889), which gives a comparative study of the budgets of different countries, is the best book upon the subject. See also Siedler, Budget und Budgetrecht(1885); Sendel, Über Budgetrecht(1890); Besson, Le Contrôle des budgets en France et à l'étranger (1899); Bastable, Public Finance (3rd ed., 1903); Eugene E. Agger, The Budget in American Commonwealths (New York, 1907).
[1] It was a name applied also to a leather-covered case or small coffer. Cotgrave translates bougette "a little coffer or trunk ... covered with leather." It became a common word for a despatch box in which official papers were kept. The chancellor of the exchequer thus was said to "open his budget" when he made his annual statement.
BUDINI, an ancient nation in the N.E. of the Scythia (q.v.) of Herodotus (iv, 21, 108, 109), probably on the middle course of the Volga about Samara. They are described as light-eyed and red-haired, and lived by hunting in their thick forests. They were probably Finns of the branch now represented by the Votiaks and Permiaks, forced northwards by later immigrants. In their country was a wooden city inhabited by a distinct race, the Geloni, who seem to have spoken an Indo-European tongue. Later writers add nothing to our knowledge, and are chiefly interested in the tarandus, an animal which dwelt in the woods of the Budini and seems to have been the reindeer (Aristotle ap. Aelian, Hist. Anim. xv. 33).
(E. H. M.)
BUDWEIS (Czech Bud[ve]jovice), a town of Bohemia, Austria, 80 m. S.S.W. of Prague by rail. Pop. (1900) 39,630. It is situated at the junction of the Maltsch with the Moldau, which here becomes navigable, and possesses a beautiful square, lined with fine arcaded buildings, the principal one being the town-hall, built in 1730 in Renaissance style. Other interesting buildings are the cathedral with its detached tower, dating from 1500, and the Marien-Kirche with fine cloisters. Budweis has a large, varied and growing industry, which comprises the manufacture of chemicals, matches, paper, machinery, bricks and tiles, corn and saw mills, boat-building, bell-founding and black-lead pencils. It is the principal commercial centre of South Bohemia, being an important railway junction, as well as a river port, and carries on a large trade in corn, timber, lignite, salt, industrial products and beer, the latter mostly exported to America. It is the see of a bishop since 1783, and is the centre of a German enclave in Czech Bohemia. But the Czech element is steadily increasing, and the population of the town was in 1908 60% Czech. The railway from Budweis to Linz, laid in 1827 for horse-cars, was the first line constructed in Austria. A little to the north, in the Moldau valley, stands the beautiful castle of Frauenberg, belonging to Prince Schwarzenberg. It stands on the site formerly occupied by a 13th-century castle, and was built in the middle of the 19th century, after the model of Windsor Castle.
The old town of Budweis was founded in the 13th century by Budivoj Vitkovec, father of Závi[vs] of Falkenstein. In 1265 Ottokar II. founded the new town, which was soon afterwards created a royal city. Charles IV. and his son Wenceslaus granted the town many privileges. Although mainly Catholic, Budweis declared for King George Pod[ve]brad, and in 1468 was taken by the crusaders under Zdenko of Stenberg. From this time the town remained faithful to the royal cause, and in 1547 was granted by the emperor Ferdinand the privilege of ranking at the diet next to Prague and Pilsen. After the outbreak of the Thirty Years' War Budweis was confirmed in all its privileges.
BUELL, DON CARLOS (1818-1898), American soldier, was born near Marietta, Ohio, on the 23rd of March 1818. He graduated at West Point in 1841, and as a company officer of infantry took part in the Seminole War of 1841-42 and the Mexican War, during which he was present at almost all the battles fought by Generals Taylor and Scott, winning the brevet of captain at Monterey, and that of major at Contreras-Churubusco, where he was wounded. From 1848 to 1861 he performed various staff duties, chiefly as assistant-adjutant-general. On the outbreak of the Civil War he was appointed lieutenant-colonel on the 11th of May 1861, brigadier-general of volunteers a few days later, and major-general of volunteers in March 1862. He aided efficiently in organizing the Army of the Potomac, and, at the instance of General McClellan, was sent, in November 1861, to Kentucky to succeed General William T. Sherman in command. Here he employed himself in the organization and training of the Army of the Ohio (subsequently of the Cumberland), which to the end of its career retained a standard of discipline and efficiency only surpassed by that of the Army of the Potomac. In the spring of 1862 Buell followed the retiring Confederates under Sidney Johnston, and appeared on the field of Shiloh (q.v.) at the end of the first day's fighting. On the following day, aided by Buell's fresh and well-trained army, Grant carried all before him. Buell subsequently served under Halleck in the advance on Corinth, and in the autumn commanded in the campaign in Kentucky against Bragg. After a period of manoeuvring in which Buell scarcely held his own, this virtually ended in the indecisive battle of Perryville. The alleged tardiness of his pursuit, and his objection to a plan of campaign ordered by the Washington authorities, brought about Buell's removal from command. With all his gifts as an organizer and disciplinarian, he was haughty in his dealings with the civil authorities, and, in high command, he showed, on the whole, unnecessary tardiness of movement and an utter disregard for the requirements of the political situation. Moreover, as McClellan's friend, holding similar views, adverse politically to the administration, he suffered by McClellan's displacement. The complaints made against him were investigated in 1862-1863, but the result of the investigation was not published. Subsequently he was offered military employment, which he declined. He resigned his volunteer commission in May, and his regular commission in June 1864. He was president of Green River ironworks (1865-1870), and subsequently engaged in various mining enterprises; he served (1885-1889) as pension agent at Louisville. He died near Rockport, Kentucky, on the 19th of November 1898.
BUENAVENTURA, a Pacific port of Colombia, in the department of Cauca, about 210 m. W.S.W. of Bogotá. Pop. about 1200. The town is situated on a small island, called Cascajal, at the head of a broad estuary or bay projecting inland from the Bay of Chocó and 10 m. from its mouth. Its geographical position is lat. 3° 48' N., long. 77° 12' W. The estuary is deep enough for vessels of 24 ft. draught and affords an excellent harbour. Buenaventura is a port of call for two lines of steamers (English [v.04 p.0697] and German), and is the Colombian landing-place of the West Coast cable. The town is mean in appearance, and has a very unhealthy climate, oppressively hot and humid. It is the port for the upper basin of the Cauca, an elevated and fertile region, with two large commercial centres, Popayan and Cali. In 1907 a railway was under construction to the latter, and an extension to Bogotá was also projected.
BUENOS AIRES, a maritime province of Argentina, South America, bounded N. by the province of Santa Fé and Entre Rios, E. by the latter, the La Plata estuary, and the Atlantic, S. by the Atlantic, and W. by the territories (gobernaciones) of Rio Negro and Las Pampas, and the provinces of Córdoba and Santa Fé. Its area is 117,812 sq. m., making it the largest province of the republic. It is also the most populous, even excluding the federal district, an official estimate of 1903 giving it a population of 1,251,000. Although it has a frontage of over 900 m. on the La Plata and the Atlantic, the province has but few good natural ports, the best being Bahia Blanca, where the Argentine government has constructed a naval port, and Ensenada (La Plata), where extensive artificial basins have been constructed for the reception of ocean-going steamers. San Nicolas in the extreme north has a fairly good river port, while at Buenos Aires a costly artificial port has been constructed.
In its general aspect the province forms a part of the great treeless plain extending from the Atlantic and La Plata estuary westward to the Andes. A fringe of small tangled wood covers the low river banks and delta region of the Paraná between San Nicolas and Buenos Aires; thence southward to Bahia Blanca the sea-shore is low and sandy, with a zone of lagoons and partially submerged lands immediately behind. The south-eastern and central parts of the province are low and marshy, and their effective drainage has long been an urgent problem. Two ranges of low mountains extend partly across the southern part of the province--the first from Mar del Plata, on the coast, in a north-east direction, known at different points as the Sierra del Volcan (885 ft.), Sierra de Tandil (1476 ft.), and Sierra Baya, and the second and shorter range nearer Bahia Blanca, having the same general direction, known at different points as the Sierra Pillahuinco and Sierra de la Ventana (3543 ft.). The country is well watered with numerous lakes and small rivers, the largest river being the Rio Salado del Sud, which rises near the north-western boundary and flows entirely across the province in a south-easterly direction with a course of about 360 m. The Rio Colorado crosses the extreme southern extension of the province, a distance of about 80 m., but its mouth is obstructed, and its lower course is subject to occasional disastrous inundations.
Cattle-raising naturally became the principal industry of this region soon after its settlement by the Spaniards, and sheep-raising on a profitable basis was developed about the middle of the 19th century. Toward the end of that century the exports of wool, live-stock and dressed meats reached enormous proportions. There is a large export of jerked beef (tasajo) to Brazil and Cuba, and of live-stock to Europe, South Africa and neighbouring South American republics. Much attention also has been given to raising horses, asses, mules, swine and goats, all of which thrive on these grassy plains. Butter and cheese-making have gained considerable prominence in the province since 1890, and butter has become an article of export. Little attention had been given to cereals up to 1875, but subsequently energetic efforts were made to increase the production of wheat, Indian corn, linseed, barley, oats and alfalfa, so that by the end of the century the exports of wheat and flour had reached a considerable value. In 1895 there were 3,400,000 acres under cultivation in the province, and in 1900 the area devoted to wheat alone aggregated 1,960,000 acres. Fruit-growing also has made good progress, especially on the islands of the Paraná delta, and Argentine peaches, pears, strawberries, grapes and figs are highly appreciated.
The navigation of the Paraná is at all times difficult, and is impossible for the larger ocean-going steamers. The greater part of the trade of the northern and western provinces, therefore, must pass through the ports of Buenos Aires and Ensenada, at which an immense volume of business is concentrated. All the great trunk railways of the republic pass through the province and converge at these ports, and from them a number of transatlantic steamship lines carry away the products of its fertile soil. The province is also liberally supplied with branch railways. In the far south the new port of Bahia Blanca has become prominent in the export of wool and wheat.
The principal cities and towns of the province (apart from Buenos Aires and its suburbs of Belgrano and Flores) are its capital La Plata; Bahia Blanca, San Nicolas, a river port on the Paraná 150 m. by rail north-west of Buenos Aires, with a population (1901) of 13,000; Campana (pop. 5419 in 1895), the former river port of Buenos Aires on one of the channels of the Paraná, 51 m. by rail north-west of that city, and the site of the first factory in Argentina (1883) for freezing mutton for export; Chivilcoy, an important interior town, with a population (1901) of 15,000; Pergamino (9540 in 1895), a northern inland railway centre; Mar del Plata, a popular seaside resort 250 m. by rail south of Buenos Aires; Azul (9494), Tandil (7088), Chascomús (5667), Mercedes (9269), and Barracas al Sud (10,185), once the centre of the jerked beef industries.
The early history of the province of Buenos Aires was a struggle for supremacy over the other provinces for a period of two generations. Its large extent of territory was secured through successive additions by conquest of adjoining Indian territories south and west, the last additions being as late as 1879. Buenos Aires became a province of the Confederation in 1820, and adopted a constitution in 1854, which provides for its administration by a governor and legislature of two chambers, both chosen by popular vote. An unsuccessful revolt in 1880 against the national government led to the federalization of the city of Buenos Aires, and the selection of La Plata as the provincial capital, the republic assuming the public indebtedness of the provinces at that time as an indemnification. Before the new capital was finished, however, the province had incurred further liabilities of ten millions sterling, and has since then been greatly handicapped in its development in consequence.
(A. J. L.)
BUENOS AIRES, a city and port of Argentina, and capital of the republic, in 34° 36' 21" S. lat. and 58° 21' 33" W. long., on the west shore of the La Plata estuary, about 155 m. above its mouth, and 127 m. W. by N. from Montevideo. The estuary at this point is 34 m. wide, and so shallow that vessels can enter the docks only through artificial channels kept open by constant dredging. Previously to the construction of the new port, ocean-going vessels of over 15 ft. draught were compelled to anchor in the outer roads some 12 m. from the city, and communication with the shore was effected by means of steam tenders and small boats, connecting with long landing piers, or with carts driven out from the beach. The city is built upon an open grassy plain extending inland from the banks of the estuary, and north from the Riachuelo or Matanzas river where the "Boca" port is located. Its average elevation is about 65 ft. above sea-level. The federal district, which includes the city and its suburbs and covers an area of 72 sq. m., was detached from the province of Buenos Aires by an act of congress in 1880. With the construction of the new port and reclamation of considerable areas of the shallow water frontage, the area of the city has been greatly extended below the line of the original estuary banks. The streets of the old city, which are narrow and laid out to enclose rectangular blocks of uniform size, run nearly parallel with the cardinal points of the compass, but this plan is not closely followed in the new additions and suburbs. This uniformity in plan, combined with the level ground and the style of buildings first erected, gave to the city an extremely monotonous and uninteresting appearance, but with its growth in wealth and population, greater diversity and better taste in architecture have resulted.
The prevailing style of domestic architecture is that introduced from Spain and used throughout all the Spanish colonies--the grouping of one-storey buildings round one or two patios, which open on the street through a wide doorway. These residences have heavily barred windows on the street, and flat roofs with [v.04 p.0698] parapets admirably adapted for defence. The domiciliation of wealthy foreigners, and the introduction of foreign customs and foreign culture, have gradually modified the style of architecture, both public and domestic, and modern Buenos Aires is adorned with many costly and attractive public edifices and residences. French renaissance, lavishly decorated, has become the prevailing style. The Avenida Alvear is particularly noted for the elegance of its private residences, and the new Avenida de Mayo for its display of elaborately ornamented public and business edifices, while the suburban districts of Belgrano and Flores are distinguished for the attractiveness of their country-houses and gardens. A part of the population is greatly overcrowded, one-fifth living in conventillos, or tenement-houses.
Among the city's many plazas, or squares, twelve are especially worthy of mention, viz.: 25 de Mayo (formerly Victoria) on which face the Government-House and Cathedral, San Martin (or Retiro), Lavalle, Libertad, Lorea, Belgrano, 6 de Junio, Once de Setiembre, Independencia (formerly Conceptión), Constitución, Caridad and 29 de Deciembre. These vary in size from one to three squares, or 4 to 12 acres each, and are handsomely laid out with flowers, shrubbery, walks and shade trees. There are also two elaborately laid out alamedas, the Recoleta and the Paseo de Julio, the latter on the river front and partially absorbed by the new port works, and the great park at Palermo, officially called 3 de Febrero, which contains 840 acres, beautifully laid out in drives, footpaths, lawns, gardens and artificial lakes. In all, the plazas and parks of Buenos Aires cover an area of 960 acres.
The cathedral, which is one of the largest in South America, dating from 1752, resembles the Madeleine of Paris in design, and its classical portico facing the Plaza 25 de Mayo has twelve stately Corinthian columns supporting an elaborately sculptured pediment. The archbishop's palace (Buenos Aires became an archiepiscopal see in 1866) adjoins the cathedral. There are about twenty-five Roman Catholic churches in the city, one of the richest and most popular of which is the Merced on Calle Reconquista, and four Protestant churches--English, Scottish Presbyterian, American Methodist and German Lutheran. Twenty asylums for orphans and indigent persons and one for lunatics are maintained at public expense and by private religious associations, while the demand for organized medical and surgical treatment is met by fifteen well-appointed hospitals, having an aggregate of 2600 beds, and treating 17,000 patients annually. Of these, five belong to foreign nationalities. The city has six cemeteries covering 230 acres.
Among the more noteworthy public buildings are the Casa Rosada (government-house), facing the Plaza 25 de Mayo and occupying in part the site of the fort built by Garay in 1580; the new congress hall on Calle Callao and Avenida de Mayo, finished in 1906 at a cost of about £1,300,000; the new municipal hall on Avenida de Mayo; the bolsa or exchange, distributing reservoir, mint, and some of the more modern educational buildings. Higher education is represented by the university of Buenos Aires, with its several faculties, including law and medicine, and 3562 students (1901), four national colleges, three normal schools and various technical schools. There are, also, a national library, a national museum, a zoological garden and an aquarium. The people are fond of music, the drama and amusements, and devote much time and expense to diversions of a widely varied character, from Italian opera to horse-racing and pelota. They have two or three large public baths, and a large number of social, sporting and athletic clubs. The Porteños, as the residents of Buenos Aires are called, are accustomed to call their city the "Paris of America," and not without reason. Buenos Aires has become the principal manufacturing centre of the republic, and its industrial establishments are numbered by thousands and their capital by hundreds of millions of dollars.
The growth of Buenos Aires since settled conditions have prevailed, and especially since its federalization, has been very rapid, and the city has finally outstripped all rivals and become the largest city of South America. At the time of its first authentic census in 1869, it had a population of 177,767. In 1887, when the suburbs of Belgrano and Flores with an aggregate population of 28,000 were annexed, its population without this increment was estimated at 404,000. In 1895 the national census gave the population as 663,854, and in 1904 a municipal census increased it to 950,891. At the close of 1905 the national statistical office estimated it at 1,025,653. The excess of births over deaths is unusually large (about 14 per thousand in 1905). The city has about one-fifth of the population of the whole republic. The government is vested in an intendente municipal (mayor) appointed by the national executive with the approval of the senate, and a concejo deliberante (legislative council) elected by the people and composed of two councillors from each parish. The police force is a military organization under the control of the national executive, and the higher municipal courts are subject to the same authority. Every ratepayer, whether foreigner or native, has the right to vote in municipal elections and to serve in the municipal council.
The water-supply is drawn from the estuary at Belgrano and conducted 3½ m. to the Recoleta, where three great settling basins, with an aggregate capacity of 12,000,000 gallons, and six acres of covered filters, are located. It is then pumped to the great distributing reservoir at Calles Córdoba and Viamonte, which covers four acres and has a capacity of 13,500,000 gallons. These works were begun in 1873. Up to 1873, when the water and drainage works were initiated by English engineers and contractors, there were no public sewers, and the sanitary state of the city was indescribably bad. The cholera epidemic of 1867-1868, with 15,000 victims, and the yellow fever epidemic of 1871, with 26,000 victims, were greatly intensified by these insanitary conditions. The construction of the sewers lasted about 19 years, when in 1892 the water and drainage works were taken over by the government, and are now administered at public expense and at a profit. The main sewer is 16 m. long and extends southward beyond Quilmes. The total cost of the two systems exceeded six millions sterling. Buenos Aires is now provided with a good water-supply, and its sanitary condition compares favourably with that of other great cities, the annual death-rate being about 18 per thousand, against 27 per thousand in 1887. Its mean annual temperature is 64° Fahr., and its annual rainfall 34 in.
The lighting includes both gas and electricity, the former dating from 1856. Previously to that time street lighting had been effected at first with lamps burning mares' grease, and then with tallow candles. The streets were at first paved with cobble-stones, then with dressed granite paving-stones (parallelepipedons), and finally with wood and asphalt. The tram service is in the hands of nine private companies, operating 313 m. of track (31st of December 1905), on almost five-sevenths of which electric traction is employed. The city is the principal terminus and port for nearly all the trunk railway lines of the republic, which have large passenger stations at the Retiro, Once de Setiembre, and Constitución plazas, and are connected with the central produce market and the new Madero port. The great central produce market at Barracas al Sud (Mercado Central de Frutos), whose lands, buildings, railway sidings, machinery and mole cost £750,000, is designed to handle the pastoral and agricultural products of the country on a large scale, while 20 markets in the city meet the needs of local consumers.
The most important feature of the port of Buenos Aires is the "Madero docks," constructed to enlarge and improve its shipping facilities. Improvements had been, begun in 1872 at the "Boca," as the port on the Riachuelo is called, and nearly £1,500,000 was spent there in landing facilities and dredging a channel 12 m. in length, to deep water. These improvements were found insufficient, and in 1887 work was begun on plans executed by Sir John Hawkshaw for a series of four docks and two basins in front of the city, occupying 3 m. of reclaimed shore-line, and connected with deep water by two dredged channels. The north basin is provided with two dry docks, and the new quays are equipped with 24 warehouses, hydraulic cranes, and 28 m. of railway sidings and connexions. The total cost of the new port works [v.04 p.0699] up to 1908 was about £8,000,000 sterling ($40,000,000 gold). In September of that year it was decided by congress to borrow £5,000,000 for still further extensions which were found to be required. The channels to deep water require constant dredging because of the great quantity of silt deposited by the river, and on this and allied purposes an expenditure of £560,000 was voted in 1908. In 1907 there were 29,178 shipping entries in the port, with an aggregate of 13,335,737 tons, the merchandise movement being 4,360,000 tons imports and 2,900,000 tons of produce exports. The revenues for 1907 were $5,452,000 gold, and working expenses, $2,213,000 gold, the profit ($3,229,000) being equal to about 8% on the cost of construction.
History.--Three attempts were made to establish a colony where the city of Buenos Aires stands. The first was in 1535 by Don Pedro de Mendoza with a large and well-equipped expedition from Spain, which, through mismanagement and the hostility of the Indians, resulted in complete failure. An expedition sent up the river by Mendoza founded Asunción, and thither went the colonists from his "Santa Maria de Buenos Ayres" when that settlement was abandoned. The second was in 1542 by a part of the expedition from Spain under Cabeza de Vaca, but with as little success. The third was in 1580 by Don Juan de Garay, governor of Paraguay, who had already established a half-way post at Santa Fé in 1573, and from this attempt dates the foundation of the city. The need of a port near the sea, where supplies from Spain could be received and ships provisioned, was keenly felt by the Spanish colonists at Asunción, and Garay's expedition down the Paraná in 1580 had that special object in view. Garay built a fort and laid out a town in the prescribed Spanish style above Mendoza's abandoned settlement, giving it the name of "Ciudad de la Santissima Trinidad," but retaining Mendoza's descriptive name for the port in appreciation of the agreeable and invigorating atmosphere of that locality. Buenos Aires remained a dependency of Asunción until 1620, when the Spanish settlements of the La Plata region were divided into three provinces, Paraguay, Tucuman and Buenos Aires, and Garay's "city" became the capital of the latter and also the seat of a new bishopric. The increasing population and trade of the La Plata settlements naturally contributed to the importance and prosperity of Buenos Aires, but Spain seems to have taken very little interest in the town at that time. Peru still dazzled the imagination with her stores of gold and silver, and the king and his councillors and merchants had no thought for the little trading station on the La Plata, for which one small shipment of supplies each year was at first thought sufficient. The proximity of the Portuguese settlements of Brazil and the unprotected state of the coast, however, made smuggling easy, and the colonists soon learned to supply their own needs in that way. The heavy seigniorage tax on gold and silver, and the costs of transportation by way of Panama, also sent a stream of contraband metal from Charcas to Buenos Aires, where it found eager buyers among the Portuguese traders from Brazil, who even founded the town of Colonia on the opposite bank of the estuary to facilitate their hazardous traffic. In time the magnitude of these operations attracted attention at Madrid and efforts were made to suppress them, but without complete success until more liberal provisions were made to promote trade between Spain and her colonies. In 1776 the Rio de la Plata provinces were erected into a vice-royalty, and Buenos Aires became its capital. Two years later the old commercial restrictions were abolished and a new code was promulgated, so liberal in character compared with the old that it was called the "free trade regulations." Under the old system all intercourse with foreign countries had been prohibited, with the exception of Great Britain and Portugal--the former having a contract (1715 to 1739) to introduce African slaves, and permission to send one shipload of merchandise each year to certain colonial ports, and the latter's Brazilian colonies having permission to import from Buenos Aires each year 2000 fanegas of wheat, 500 quintals of jerked beef and 500 of tallow. The African slaves introduced into Buenos Aires in this way were limited to 800 a year, and were the only slaves of that character ever received except some from Brazil after 1778, when greater commercial activity in the port created a sudden demand for labourers. Under the new regulations 9 ports in Spain and 24 in the colonies were declared puertos habilitados, or ports of entry, and trade between them was permitted, though under many restrictions. The effect of this change may be seen in the exportation of hides to the mother country, which had been only 150,000 a year before 1778, but rose to 700,000 and 800,000 a year after that date. (For the later history of the city see ARGENTINA.)
(A. J. L.)
BUFF (from Fr. buffle, a buffalo), a leather originally made from the skin of the buffalo, now also from the skins of other animals, of a dull pale yellow colour, used for making the buffcoat or jerkin, a leathern military coat. The old 3rd Foot regiment of the line in the British army (now the East Kent Regiment), and the old 78th Foot (now 2nd battalion Seaforth Highlanders), are called the "Buffs" and the "Ross-shire Buffs" respectively, from the yellow or buff-colour of their facings. The term is commonly used now of the colour alone.
BUFFALO, a city and port of entry, and the county-seat of Erie county, New York, U.S.A., the second city in population in the state, and the eighth in the United States, at the E. extremity of Lake Erie, and at the upper end of the Niagara river; distant by rail from New York City 423 m., from Boston 499 m., and from Chicago 540 m.
The site of the city, which has an area of 42 sq. m., is a broad, undulating tract, rising gradually from the lake to an elevation of from 50 to 80 ft., its altitude averaging somewhat less than 600 ft. above sea-level. The high land and temperate climate, and the excellent drainage and water-supply systems, make Buffalo one of the most healthy cities in the United States, its death-rate in 1900 being 14.8 per thousand, and in 1907 15.58. As originally platted by Joseph Ellicott, the plan of Buffalo somewhat resembled that of Washington, but the plan was much altered and even then not adhered to. Buffalo to-day has broad and spacious streets, most of which are lined by trees, and many small parks and squares. The municipal park system is one of unusual beauty, consisting of a chain of parks with a total area of about 1030 acres, encircling the city and connected by boulevards and driveways. The largest is Delaware Park, about 365 acres, including a lake of 46½ acres, in the north part of the city; the north part of the park was enclosed in the grounds of the Pan-American Exposition of 1901. Adjoining it is the Forest Lawn cemetery, in which are monuments to President Millard Fillmore, and to the famous Seneca chief Red Jacket (1751-1830), a friend of the whites, who was faithful when approached by Tecumseh and the Prophet, and warned the Americans of their danger; by many he has been considered the greatest orator of his race. Among the other parks are Cazenovia Park, Humboldt Park, South Park on the Lake Shore, and "The Front" on a bluff overlooking the source of the Niagara river; in the last is Fort Porter (named in honour of Peter B. Porter), where the United States government maintains a garrison.
Principal Buildings.--Buffalo is widely known for the beauty of its residential sections, the houses being for the most part detached, set well back from the street, and surrounded by attractive lawns. Among the principal buildings are the Federal building, erected at a cost of $2,000,000; the city and county hall, costing $1,500,000, with a clock tower 245 ft. high; the city convention hall, the chamber of commerce, the builders' exchange, the Masonic temple, two state armouries, the Prudential, Fidelity Trust, White and Mutual Life buildings, the Teck, Star and Shea's Park theatres, and the Ellicott Square building, one of the largest office structures in the world; and, in Delaware Park, the Albright art gallery, and the Buffalo Historical Society building, which was originally the New York state building erected for the Pan-American Exposition held in 1901. Among the social clubs the Buffalo, the University, the Park, the Saturn and the Country clubs, and among the hotels the Iroquois, Lafayette, Niagara and Genesee, may be especially mentioned. There are many handsome churches, including St Joseph's (Roman Catholic) and St Paul's (Protestant Episcopal) cathedrals, [v.04 p.0700] and Trinity (Protestant Episcopal), the Westminster Presbyterian, the Delaware Avenue Baptist, and the First Presbyterian churches.
Education.--In addition to the usual high and grammar schools, the city itself supports a city training school for teachers, and a system of night schools and kindergartens. Here, too, is a state normal school. The university of Buffalo (organized in 1845) comprises schools of medicine (1845), law (1887), dentistry (1892), and pharmacy (1886). Canisius College is a Roman Catholic (Jesuit) institution for men (established in 1870 and chartered in 1883), having in 1907 a college department and an academic (or high school) department, and a library of about 26,000 volumes. Martin Luther Seminary, established in 1854, is a theological seminary of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. Among the best-known schools are the Academy of the Sacred Heart, Buffalo Seminary, the Franklin and the Heathcote schools, Holy Angels and St Mary's academies, St Joseph's Collegiate Institute, and St Margaret's school for girls. The Buffalo public library, founded in 1837, is housed in a fine building erected in 1887 (valued at $1,000,000), and contains about 300,000 books and pamphlets. Other important libraries, with the approximate number of their books, are the Grosvenor (founded in 1859), for reference (75,000 volumes and 7000 pamphlets); the John C. Lord, housed in the building of the Historical Society (10,620); the Law (8th judicial district) (17,000); the Catholic Institute (12,000); and the library of the Buffalo Historical Society (founded 1862) (26,600), now in the handsome building in Delaware Park used as the New York state building during the Pan-American Exposition of 1901. The Buffalo Society of Natural Sciences has a museum in the public library building.
Public Institutions.--The hospitals and the charitable and correctional institutions are numerous and are well administered. Many private institutions are richly endowed. Among the hospitals are a state hospital for the insane, the Erie county, the Buffalo general, the Children's, the United States marine (maintained by the Federal government), the German, the Homeopathic, the Women's, the German Deaconess and the Riverside hospitals, and the Buffalo hospital of the Sisters of Charity. Nurses' training schools are connected with most of these. Among the charitable institutions are the Home for the Friendless, the Buffalo, St Vincent's and St Joseph's orphan asylums, St John's orphan home, St Mary's asylum for widows and foundlings, and the Ingleside home for erring women. One of the most noteworthy institutions in the city is the Charity Organisation Society, with headquarters in Fitch Institute. Founded in 1877, it was the first in the United States, and its manifold activities have not only contributed much to the amelioration of social conditions in Buffalo, but have caused it to be looked to as a model upon which similar institutions have been founded elsewhere.
The first newspaper, the Gazette (a weekly), was established in 1811 and became the Commercial, a daily, in 1835. The first daily was the Courier, established in 1831. There were in 1908 eleven daily papers published, three of which were in German and two in Polish. The weekly papers include several in German, three in Polish, and one in Italian.
Government and Population.--Buffalo is governed under an amended city charter of 1896 by which the government is vested in a bicameral city council, and a mayor elected for a term of four years. The mayor appoints the heads of the principal executive departments (health, civil service, parks, police and fire). The city clerk is elected by the city council. The municipality maintains several well-equipped public baths, and owns its water-supply system, the water being obtained from Lake Erie. The city is lighted by electricity generated by the water power of Niagara Falls, and by manufactured gas. Gas, obtained by pipe lines from the Ohio-Pennsylvania and the Canadian (Welland) natural gas fields, is also used extensively for lighting and heating purposes.
From the first census enumeration in 1820 the population has steadily and rapidly increased from about 2000 till it reached 352,387 inhabitants in 1900, and 423,715 (20% increase) in 1910. In 1900 there were 248,135 native-born and 104,252 foreign-born; 350,586 were white and only 1801 coloured, of whom 1698 were negroes. Of the native-born whites, 155,716 had either one or both parents foreign-born; and of the total population 93,256 were of unmixed German parentage. Of the foreign-born population 36,720 were German, the other large elements in their order of importance being Polish, Canadian, Irish, the British (other than Irish). Various sections of the poorer part of the city are occupied almost exclusively by the immigrants from Poland, Hungary and Italy.
Communications and Commerce.--Situated almost equidistant from Chicago, Boston and New York, Buffalo, by reason of its favourable location in respect to lake transportation and its position on the principal northern trade route between the East and West, has become one of the most important commercial and industrial centres in the Union. Some fourteen trunk lines have terminals at, or pass through, Buffalo. Tracks of a belt line transfer company encircle the city, and altogether there are more than 500 m. of track within the limits of Buffalo. Of great importance also is the lake commerce. Almost all the great steamship transportation lines of the Great Lakes have an eastern terminus at Buffalo, which thus has direct passenger and freight connexion with Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, Milwaukee and the "Head of the Lakes" (Duluth-Superior). With the latter port it is connected by the Great Northern Steamship Company, a subsidiary line of the Great Northern railway, the passenger service of which is carried on by what are probably the largest and finest inland passenger steamships in existence. The tonnage of the port of Buffalo is considerably more than 5,000,000 tons annually. With a water front of approximately 20 m. and with 8 to 10 m. of wharfs, the shipping facilities have been greatly increased by the extensive harbour improvements undertaken by the Federal government. These improvements comprise a series of inner breakwaters and piers and an outer breakwater of stone and cement, 4 m. in length, constructed at a cost of more than $2,000,000. Another artery of trade of great importance is the Erie Canal, which here has its western terminus, and whose completion (1825) gave the first impetus to Buffalo's commercial growth. With the Canadian shore Buffalo is connected by ferry, and by the International bridge (from Squaw Island), which cost $1,500,000 and was completed in 1873.
It is as a distributing centre for the manufactured products of the East to the West, and for the raw products of the West to the East, and for the trans-shipment from lake to rail and vice versa, that Buffalo occupies a position of greatest importance. It is one of the principal grain and flour markets in the world. Here in 1843 Joseph Dart erected the first grain elevator ever constructed. In 1906 the grain elevators had a capacity of between twenty and thirty millions of bushels, and annual receipts of more than 200,000,000 bushels. The receipts of flour approximate 10,000,000 barrels yearly. More than 10,000,000 head of live stock are handled in a year in extensive stock-yards (75 acres) at East Buffalo; and the horse market is the largest in America. Other important articles of commerce are lumber, the receipts of which average 200,000,000 ft. per annum; fish (15,000,000 lb annually); and iron ore and coal, part of which, however, is handled at Tonawanda, really a part of the port of Buffalo. Buffalo is the port of entry of Buffalo Creek customs district; in 1908 its imports were valued at $6,708,919, and its exports at $26,192,563.
Manufactures.--As a manufacturing centre Buffalo ranks next to New York among the cities of the state. The manufactures were valued in 1900 at $122,230,061 (of which $105,627,182 was the value of the factory product), an increase of 22.2% over 1890; value of factory product in 1905, $147,377,873. The value of the principal products in 1900 was as follows: slaughtering and meat packing, $9,631,187 (in 1905 slaughtering and meat-packing $12,216,433, and slaughtering, not including meat-packing, $3,919,940); foundry and machine shop products, $6,816,057 (1905, $11,402,855); linseed oil, $6,271,170; cars and shop construction, $4,513,333 (1905, $3,609,471); malt liquors, $4,269,973 (1905, $5,187,216); soap and candles, $3,818,571 (in 1905, soap [v.04 p.0701] $4,792,915); flour and grist mill products, $3,263,697 (1905, $9,807,906); lumber and planing mill products, $3,095,760 (1905, $4,186,668); clothing, $3,246,723 (1905, $4,231,126); iron and steel products, $2,624,547. Other industrial establishments of importance include petroleum refineries, ship-yards, brick, stone and lime works, saddlery and harness factories, lithographing establishments, patent medicine works, chemical works, and copper smelters and refineries. Some of the plants are among the largest in existence, notably the Union and the Wagner Palace car works, the Union dry docks, the steel plants of the Lackawanna Iron and Steel Company, and the Larkin soap factory.
History.--The first white men to visit the site of Buffalo were undoubtedly the adventurous French trappers and various Jesuit missionaries. Near here, on the east bank of the Niagara river at the mouth of Cayuga Creek, La Salle in 1679 built his ship the "Griffin," and at the mouth of the river built Fort Conti, which, however, was burned in the same year. In 1687 marquis de Denonville built at the mouth of the river a fort which was named in his honour and was the predecessor of the fortifications on or near the same site successively called Fort Niagara; and the neighbourhood was the scene of military operations up to the close of the War of Independence. As early as 1784 the present site of the city of Buffalo came to be known as "the Buffalo Creek region" either from the herds of buffalo or bison which, according to Indian tradition, had frequented the salt licks of the creek, or more probably from an Indian chief. A little later, possibly in 1788-1789, Cornelius Winney, an Indian trader, built a cabin near the mouth of the creek and thus became the first permanent white resident. Slowly other settlers gathered. The land was a part of the original Phelps-Gorham Purchase, and subsequently (about 1793) came into the possession of the Holland Land Company, being part of the tract known as the Holland Purchase. Joseph Ellicott, the agent of the company, who has been called the "Father of Buffalo," laid out a town in 1801-1802, calling it New Amsterdam, and by this name it was known on the company's books until about 1810. The name of Buffalo Creek or Buffalo, however, proved more popular; the village became the county-seat of Niagara county in 1808, and two years later the town of Buffalo was erected. Upon the outbreak of the second war with Great Britain, Buffalo and the region about Niagara Falls became a centre of active military operations; directly across the Niagara river was the British Fort Erie. It was from Buffalo that Lieutenant Jesse D. Elliott (1782-1845) made his brilliant capture of the "Detroit" and "Caledonia" in October 1812; and on the 30th and 31st of December 1813 the settlement was attacked, captured, sacked, and almost completely destroyed by a force of British, Canadians and Indians under General Sir Phineas Riall (c. 1769-1851). After the cessation of hostilities, however, Buffalo, which had been incorporated as a village in 1813, was rapidly rebuilt. Its advantages as a commercial centre were early recognized, and its importance was enhanced on the opening up of the middle West to settlement, when Buffalo became the principal gateway for the lake routes. Here in 1818 was rebuilt the "Walk-in-the-Water," the first steamboat upon the Great Lakes, named in honour of a famous Wyandot Indian chief. In 1825 the completion of the Erie Canal with its western terminus at Buffalo greatly increased the importance of the place, which now rapidly outstripped and soon absorbed Black Rock, a village adjoining it on the N., which had at one time threatened to be a dangerous rival. In 1832 Buffalo obtained a city charter, and Dr Ebenezer Johnson (1786-1849) was chosen the first mayor. In that year, and again in 1834, a cholera epidemic caused considerable loss of life. At Buffalo in 1848 met the Free-Soil convention that nominated Martin van Buren for the presidency and Charles Francis Adams for the vice-presidency. Grover Cleveland lived in Buffalo from 1855 until 1884, when he was elected president, and was mayor of Buffalo in 1882, when he was elected governor of New York state. The Pan-American Exposition, in celebration of the progress of the Western hemisphere in the nineteenth century, was held there (May 1-November 2, 1901). It was during a reception in the Temple of Music on the Exposition grounds that President McKinley was assassinated (September 6th); he died at the home of John G. Milburn, the president of the Exposition. In the house of Ansley Wilcox here Vice-President Theodore Roosevelt took the oath of office as president. A marble shaft 80 ft. high, in memory of McKinley, has been erected in Niagara Square.
See William Ketchum, History of Buffalo (2 vols., Buffalo, 1864-1865); H.P. Smith, History of Buffalo and Erie County (Syracuse, 1884); Publications of the Buffalo Historical Society (Buffalo, 1879 et seq.); O. Turner, History of the Holland Purchase (Buffalo, 1850); T.H. Hotchkin, History of Western New York (New York, 1845); and the sketch in Lyman P. Powell's Historic Towns of the Middle States (New York, 1901).
BUFFALO, a name properly pertaining to an aberrant species of cattle which has been kept in a state of domestication in India and Egypt from time immemorial, and had been introduced from the latter country into southern Europe. It is now taken, however, to include not only this species, whose native home is India, but all more or less nearly related animals.[1] Buffaloes are heavily built oxen, with sparsely haired skin, large ears, long, tufted tails, broad muzzles and massive angulated horns. In having only 13 pairs of ribs they resemble the typical oxen. African buffaloes all have the hair of the back directed backwards.
In the Cape buffalo, Bos (Bubalus) caffer, the horns do not attain an excessive length, but in old bulls are so expanded and thickened at the base as to form a helmet-like mass protecting the whole forehead. Several more or less nearly allied local races have been named; and in Eastern Africa the buffaloes (B. caffer aequinoctialis) have smaller horns, which do not meet in the middle line. From this animal, which is brown instead of black, there seems to be a transition towards the red dwarf buffalo (B. nanus) of West Africa, an animal scarcely more than two-thirds the size of its gigantic southern cousin, with relatively small, much flattened, upwardly curved horns. In South Africa buffaloes frequent reedy swamps, where they associate in herds of from fifty to a hundred or more individuals. Old bulls may be met with either alone or in small parties of from two or three to eight or ten. This buffalo formerly roamed in herds over the plains of Central and Southern Africa, always in the near vicinity of water, but the numbers are greatly diminished. In Cape Colony some herds are protected by the government in the eastern forest-districts. This species has never been domesticated, nor does there appear to have been any attempt to reduce it to service. Like its Indian ally it is fond of water, which it visits at regular intervals during the twenty-four hours; it also plasters itself with mud, which, when hardened by the sun, protects it from the bite of the gadflies which in spite of its thick hide seem to cause it considerable annoyance. It is relieved of a portion of the parasitic ticks, so common on the hides of thick-skinned animals, by means of the red-beaked rhinoceros birds, Buphaga erythrorhynca, a dozen or more of which may be seen partly perched on its horns and partly moving about on its back, and picking up the ticks on which they feed. The hunter is often guided by these birds in his search for the buffalo, but oftener still they give timely warning to their host of the dangerous proximity of the hunter, and have thus earned the title of "the buffalo's guardian birds."
In a wild state the typical Indian buffalo, Bos (Bubalus) bubalis, seems to be restricted to India and Ceylon, although some of the buffaloes found in the Malay Peninsula and Islands probably represent local races. The species has been introduced into Asia Minor, Egypt, Italy and elsewhere. The large size and wide separation of the horns, as well as the less thickly fringed ears, and the more elongated and narrow head, form marked points of distinction between the Asiatic and South African species. Moreover, all Asiatic buffaloes are distinguished from the African forms by having the hair on the fore-part of the back directed forwards; and these go far to support the views of those who would make them the types of a distinct subgenus, [v.04 p.0702] or genus, Buffelus. In Assam there formerly existed a local race, B. bubalis macrocercus, characterized by the horns, which are of immense size, being directed mainly outwards, instead of curving upwards in a circular form. Another Assam race (B. bubalis fulvus) is characterized by the tawny, in place of black, colour of its hair and hide. The haunts of the Indian buffalo are the grass-jungles near swamps, in which the grass exceeds 20 ft. in height. Here the buffaloes--like the Indian rhinoceros--form covered pathways, in which they are completely concealed. The herds frequently include fifty or more individuals. These animals are fond of passing the day in marshes, where they love to wallow in the mud; they are by no means shy, and do much harm to the crops. The rutting-season occurs in autumn, when several females follow a single male, forming for the time a small herd. The period of gestation lasts for ten months, and the female produces one or two calves at a birth. The bull is capable, it is said, of overthrowing an elephant, and generally more than a match even for the tiger, which usually declines the combat when not impelled by hunger. The Indian driver of a herd of tame buffaloes does not shrink from entering a tiger-frequented jungle, his cattle, with their massive horns, making short work of any tiger that may come in their way. Buffalo fights and fights between buffaloes and tigers were recognized Indian sports in the old days. Domesticated buffaloes differ from their wild brethren merely by their inferior size and smaller horns; some of the latter being of the circular and others of the straight type. The milk is good and nourishing, but of a ropy consistency and a peculiar flavour.
The tamarao, or Philippine buffalo, Bos (Bubalus) mindorensis, is a smaller animal, in many respects intermediate between the Indian buffalo and the dwarf anoa, or Celebes buffalo (B. depressicornis).
(R. L.*)
[1] In America, it is worth noting, the term "buffalo" is almost universally taken, at all events in popular parlance, to designate the American bison, for which see BISON.
BUFFET, LOUIS JOSEPH (1818-1898), French statesman, was born at Mirecourt. After the revolution of February 1848 he was elected deputy for the department of the Vosges, and in the Assembly sat on the right, pronouncing for the repression of the insurrection of June 1848 and for Louis Napoleon Bonaparte. He was minister of agriculture from August to December 1849 and from August to October 1851. Re-elected deputy in 1863, he was one of the supporters of the "Liberal Empire" of Emile Ollivier, being finance minister in Ollivier's cabinet from January to the 10th of April 1870. He was president of the National Assembly from the 4th of April 1872 to the 10th of March 1875, and minister of the interior in 1875. Then, elected senator for life (1876), he pronounced himself in favour of the coup d'état of the 16th of May 1877. Buffet had some oratorical talent, but shone most in opposition.
BUFFET, a piece of furniture which may be open or closed, or partly open and partly closed, for the reception of dishes, china, glass and plate. The word may also signify a long counter at which one stands to eat and drink, as at a restaurant, or--which would appear to be the original meaning--the room in which the counter stands. The word, like the thing it represents, is French. The buffet is the descendant of the credence, and the ancestor of the sideboard, and consequently has a close affinity to the dresser. Few articles of furniture, while preserving their original purpose, have varied more widely in form. In the beginning the buffet was a tiny apartment, or recess, little larger than a cupboard, separated from the room which it served either by a breast-high balustrade or by pillars. It developed into a definite piece of furniture, varying from simplicity to splendour, but always provided with one or more flat spaces, or broad shelves, for the reception of such necessaries of the dining-room as were not placed upon the table. The early buffets were sometimes carved with the utmost elaboration; the Renaissance did much to vary their form and refine their ornament. Often the lower part contained receptacles as in the characteristic English court-cupboard. The rage for collecting china in the middle of the 18th century was responsible for a new form--the high glazed back, fitted with shelves, for the display of fine pieces of crockery-ware. This, however, was hardly a true buffet, and was the very antithesis of the primary arrangement, in which the huge goblets and beakers and fantastic pieces of plate, of which so extremely few examples are left, were displayed upon the open "gradines." The tiers of shelves, with or without a glass front, which are still often found in Georgian houses, were sometimes called buffets--in short, any dining-room receptacle for articles that were not immediately wanted came at last to bear the name. In France the variations of type were even more numerous than in England, and it is sometimes difficult to distinguish a commode from a buffet. In the latter part of the 18th century the buffet occasionally took the form of a console table.
BUFFIER, CLAUDE (1661-1737), French philosopher, historian and educationalist, was born in Poland, on the 25th of May 1661, of French parents, who returned to France, and settled at Rouen, soon after his birth. He was educated at the Jesuit college there, and was received into the order at the age of nineteen. A dispute with the archbishop compelled him to leave Rouen, and after a short stay in Rome he returned to Paris to the college of the Jesuits, where he spent the rest of his life. He seems to have been an admirable teacher, with a great power of lucid exposition. His object in the Traité des vérités premières (1717), his best-known work, is to discover the ultimate principle of knowledge. This he finds in the sense we have of our own existence and of what we feel within ourselves. He thus takes substantially the same ground as Descartes, but he rejected the a priori method. In order to know what exists distinct from the self, "common sense" is necessary. Common sense he defined as "that disposition which nature has placed in all or most men, in order to enable them, when they have arrived at the age and use of reason, to form a common and uniform judgment with respect to objects different from the internal sentiment of their own perception, which judgment is not the consequence of any anterior judgment." The truths which this "disposition of nature" obliges us to accept can be neither proved nor disproved; they are practically followed even by those who reject them speculatively. But Buffier does not claim for these truths of "common sense" the absolute certainty which characterizes the knowledge we have of our own existence or the logical deductions we make from our thoughts; they possess merely the highest probability, and the man who rejects them is to be considered a fool, though he is not guilty of a contradiction. Buffier's aversion to scholastic refinements has given to his writings an appearance of shallowness and want of metaphysical insight, and unquestionably he failed entirely even to indicate the nature of that universality and necessity which he ascribed to his "eternal verities"; he was, however, one of the earliest to recognize the psychological as distinguished from the metaphysical side of Descartes's principle, and to use it, with no inconsiderable skill, as the basis of an analysis of the human mind, similar to that enjoined by Locke. In this he has anticipated the spirit and method as well as many of the results of Reid and the Scottish school. Voltaire described him as "the only Jesuit who has given a reasonable system of philosophy."
He wrote also Éléments de métaphysique (1724), a "French Grammar on a new plan," and a number of historical essays. Most of his works appeared in a collected form in 1732, and an English translation of the Traité was published in 1780.
BUFFON, GEORGE LOUIS LECLERC, COMTE DE (1707-1788), French naturalist, was born on the 7th of September 1707, at Montbard (Côte d'Or), his father, Benjamin François Leclerc de Buffon (1683-1775), being councillor of the Burgundian parlement. He studied law at the college of Jesuits at Dijon; but he soon exhibited a marked predilection for the study of the physical sciences, and more particularly for mathematics. Whilst at Dijon he made the acquaintance of a young Englishman, Lord Kingston, and with him travelled through Italy and then went to England. He published a French translation of Stephen Hales's Vegetable Statics in 1735, and of Sir I. Newton's Fluxions in 1740. At twenty-five years of age he succeeded to a considerable property, inherited from his mother, and from this time onward his life was devoted to regular scientific labour. At first he directed his attention more especially to mathematics, physics, [v.04 p.0703] and agriculture, and his chief original papers are connected with these subjects. In the spring of 1739 he was elected an associate of the Academy of Sciences; and at a later period of the same year he was appointed keeper of the Jardin du Roi and of the Royal Museum. This appears to have finally determined him to devote himself to the biological sciences in particular, and he began to collect materials for his Natural History. In the preparation of this voluminous work he associated with himself L.J.M. Daubenton, to whom the descriptive and anatomical portions of the treaties were entrusted, and the first three volumes made their appearance in the year 1749. In 1752 (not in 1743 or 1760, as sometimes stated) he married Marie Françoise de Saint-Belin. He seems to have been fondly attached to her, and felt deeply her death at Montbard in 1769. The remainder of Buffon's life as a private individual presents nothing of special interest. He belonged to a very long-lived race, his father having attained the age of ninety-three, and his grandfather eighty-seven. He himself died at Paris on the 15th of April 1788, at the age of eighty-one, of vesical calculus, having refused to allow any operation for his relief. He left one son, George Louis Marie Leclerc Buffon, who was an officer in the French army, and who died by the guillotine, at the age of thirty, on the 10th of July 1793 (22 Messidor, An II.), having espoused the party of the duke of Orleans.
Buffon was a member of the French Academy (his inaugural address being the celebrated Discours sur le style, 1753), perpetual treasurer of the Academy of Sciences, fellow of the Royal Society of London, and member of the Academies of Berlin, St Petersburg, Dijon, and of most of the learned societies then existing in Europe. Of handsome person and noble presence, endowed with many of the external gifts of nature, and rejoicing in the social advantages of high rank and large possessions, he is mainly known by his published scientific writings. Without being a profound original investigator, he possessed the art of expressing his ideas in a clear and generally attractive form. His chief defects as a scientific writer are that he was given to excessive and hasty generalization, so that his hypotheses, however seemingly brilliant, are often destitute of any sufficient basis in observed facts, whilst his literary style is not unfrequently theatrical and turgid, and a great want of method and order is commonly observable in his writings.
His great work is the Histoire naturelle, générale et particulière; and it can undoubtedly claim the merit of having been the first work to present the previously isolated and apparently disconnected facts of natural history in a popular and generally intelligible form. The sensation which was made by its appearance in successive parts was very great, and it certainly effected much good in its time by generally diffusing a taste for the study of nature. For a work so vast, however--aiming, as it did, at being little less than a general encyclopaedia of the sciences--Buffon's capacities may, without disparagement, be said to have been insufficient, as is shown by the great weakness of parts of the work (such as those relating to mineralogy). The Histoire naturelle passed through several editions, and was translated into various languages. The edition most highly prized by collectors, on account of the beauty of its plates, is the first, which was published in Paris (1749-1804) in forty-four quarto volumes, the publication extending over more than fifty years. In the preparation of the first fifteen volumes of this edition (1749-1767) Buffon was assisted by Daubenton, and subsequently by P. Guéneau de Montbéliard, the abbé G.L.C.A. Bexon, and C.N.S. Sonnini de Manoncourt. The following seven volumes form a supplement to the preceding, and appeared in 1774-1789, the famous Époques de la nature (1779) being the fifth of them. They were succeeded by nine volumes on the birds (1770-1783), and these again by five volumes on minerals (1783-1788). The remaining eight volumes, which complete this edition, appeared after Buffon's death, and comprise reptiles, fishes and cetaceans. They were executed by B.G.E. de Lacépède, and were published in successive volumes between 1788 and 1804. A second edition begun in 1774 and completed in 1804, in thirty-six volumes quarto, is in most respects similar to the first, except that the anatomical descriptions are suppressed and the supplement recast.
See Humbert-Bazile, Buffon, sa famille, &c. (1863); M.J.P. Flourens, Hist. des travaux et des idées de Buffon (1844, 3rd ed., 1870); H. Nadault de Buffon, Correspondance de Buffon (1860); A.S. Packard, Lamarck (1901).
BUG, the name of two rivers of Europe. (1) A stream of European Russia, distinguished sometimes as the Southern Bug, which rises in the S. of the government of Volhynia, and flows generally S.E. through the governments of Podolia and Kherson, and after picking up the Ingul from the left at Nikolayev, enters the liman or lagoon into which the Dnieper also discharges. Its length is 470 m. Its upper part is beset with rapids, and its lower is of little value for navigation on account of the numerous sandbanks and blocks of rock which choke its bed. (2) A river distinguished as the Western Don, which rises in the E. of Austrian Galicia between Tarnopol and Brody, and flows N.N.W. as far as Brest-Litovsk, separating the Polish provinces of Lublin and Siedlce from the Russian governments of Volhynia and Grodno; it then swings away almost due W., between the provinces of Warsaw and Lomza, and joins the Vistula, 23 m. below the city of Warsaw. Length, 470 m. It is navigable from Brest-Litovsk downwards.
BUG, the common name for hemipterous insects of the family Cimicidae, of which the best-known example is the house bug or bed bug (Cimex lectularius). This disgusting insect is of an oval shape, of a rusty red colour, and, in common with the whole tribe to which it belongs, gives off an offensive odour when touched; unlike the others, however, it is wingless. The bug is provided with a proboscis, which when at rest lies along the inferior side of the thorax, and through which it sucks the blood of man, the sole food of this species. It is nocturnal in its habits, remaining concealed by day in crevices of bed furniture, among the hangings, or behind the wall paper, and shows considerable activity in its nightly raids in search of food. The female deposits her eggs at the beginning of summer in crevices of wood and other retired situations, and in three weeks the young emerge as small, white, and almost transparent larvae. These change their skin very frequently during growth, and attain full development in about eleven weeks. Two centuries ago the bed bug was a rare insect in Britain, and probably owes its name, which is derived from a Celtic word signifying "ghost" or "goblin," to the terror which its attacks at first inspired. An allied species, the dove-cote bug (Cimex columbaria), attacks domestic fowls and pigeons.