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# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Allegri, Gregorio

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​ALLEGRI, GREGORIO, Italian priest and musical composer, probably of the Correggio family, was born at Rome either in 1560 or in 1585. He studied music under G. Maria Nanini, the intimate friend of Palestrina. Being intended for the church, he obtained a benefice in the cathedral of Fermo. Here he composed a large number of motets and sacred pieces, which, being brought under the notice of Pope Urban VIII., obtained for him an appointment in the choir of the Sistine Chapel at Rome. He held this from December 1629 till his death on the 18th of February 1652. His character seems to have been singularly pure and benevolent. Among the musical compositions of Allegri were two volumes of concerti, published in 1618 and 1619; two volumes of motets, published in 1620 and 1621; besides a number of works still in manuscript. He was one of the earliest composers for stringed instruments, and Kircher has given one specimen of this class of his works in the Musurgia. But the most celebrated composition of Allegri is the Miserere, still annually performed in the Sistine Chapel at Rome. It is written for two choirs, the one of five and the other of four voices, and has obtained a celebrity which, if not entirely factitious, is certainly not due to its intrinsic merits alone. The mystery in which the composition was long enshrouded, no single copy being allowed to reach the public, the place and circumstances of the performance, and the added embellishments of the singers, account to a great degree for much of the impressive effect of which all who have heard the music speak. This view is confirmed by the fact that, when the music was performed at Venice by permission of the pope, it produced so little effect that the emperor Leopold I., at whose request the manuscript had been sent, thought that something else had been substituted. In spite of the precautions of the popes, the Miserere has long been public property. In 1769 Mozart (q.v.) heard it and wrote it down, and in 1771 a copy was procured and published in England by Dr Burney. The entire music performed at Rome in Holy Week, Allegri’s Miserere included, has been issued at Leipzig by Breitkopf and Härtel. Interesting accounts of the impression produced by the performance at Rome may be found in the first volume of Mendelssohn’s letters and in Miss Taylor’s Letters from Italy.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Alleine, Richard

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​ALLEINE, RICHARD (1611–1681), English Puritan divine, was born at Ditcheat, Somerset, where his father was rector. He was a younger brother of William Alleine, the saintly vicar of Blandford. Richard was educated at St Alban’s Hall, Oxford, where he was entered commoner in 1627, and whence, having taken the degree of B.A., he transferred himself to New Inn, continuing there until he proceeded M.A. On being ordained he became assistant to his father, and immediately stirred the entire county by his burning eloquence. In March 1641 he succeeded the many-sided Richard Bernard as rector of Batcomb (Somerset). He declared himself on the side of the Puritans by subscribing “The testimony of the ministers in Somersetshire to the truth of Jesus Christ” and “The Solemn League and Covenant,” and assisted the commissioners of the parliament in their work of ejecting unsatisfactory ministers. Alleine continued for twenty years rector of Batcomb and was one of the two thousand ministers ejected in 1662. The Five Mile Act drove him to Frome Selwood, and in that neighbourhood he preached until his death on the 22nd of December 1681. His works are all of a deeply spiritual character. His Vindiciae Pietatis (which first appeared in 1660) was refused licence by Archbishop Sheldon, and was published, in common with other nonconformist books, without it. It was rapidly bought up and “did much to mend this bad world.” Roger Norton, the king’s printer, caused a large part of the first impression to be seized on the ground of its not being licensed and to be sent to the royal kitchen. Glancing over its pages, however, it seemed to him a sin that a book so holy—and so saleable—should be destroyed. He therefore bought back the sheets, says Calamy, for an old song, bound them and sold them in his own shop. This in turn was complained of, and he had to beg pardon on his knees before the council-table; and the remaining copies were sentenced to be “bisked,” or rubbed over with an inky brush, and sent back to the kitchen for lighting fires. Such “bisked” copies occasionally occur still. The book was not killed. It was often reissued with additions, The Godly Man’s Portion in 1663, Heaven Opened in 1666, The World Conquered in 1668. He also published a book of sermons. ​Godly Fear, in 1664, and other less noticeable devotional compilations.
See Calamy, s.v.; Palmer’s Nonconf. Mem. iii. 167-168; C. Stanford’s Joseph Alleine; Researches at Batcomb and Frome Selwood; Wood’s Athenae (Bliss), iv. 13.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bela III.

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​BELA III. (d. 1196), king of Hungary, was the second son of King Géza II. Educated at the Byzantine court, where he had been compelled to seek refuge, he was fortunate enough to win the friendship of the brilliant emperor Manuel who, before the birth of his own son Alexius, intended to make Bela his successor and betrothed him to his daughter. Subsequently, however, he married the handsome and promising youth to Agnes of Châtilion, duchess of Antioch, and in 1173 placed him, by force of arms, on the Hungarian throne, first expelling Bela’s younger brother Géza, who was supported by the Catholic party. Initiated from childhood in all the arts of diplomacy at what was then the focus of civilization, and as much a warrior by nature as his imperial kinsman Manuel, Bela showed himself from the first fully equal to all the difficulties of his peculiar position. He began by adopting Catholicism and boldly seeking the assistance of Rome. He then made what had hitherto been an elective a hereditary throne by crowning his infant son Emerich his successor. In the beginning of his reign he adopted a prudent policy of amity with his two most powerful neighbours, the emperors of the East and West, but the death of Manuel in 1180 gave Hungary once more a free hand in the affairs of the Balkan Peninsula, her natural sphere of influence. The attempt to recover Dalmatia, which involved Bela in two bloody wars with Venice (1181–88 and 1190–91), was only partially successful. But he assisted the Rascians or Serbs (see Hungary: History) to throw off the Greek yoke and establish a native dynasty, and attempted to made Galicia an appanage of his younger son Andrew. It was in Bela’s reign that the emperor Frederick I., in the spring of 1189, traversed Hungary with 100,000 crusaders, on which occasion the country was so well policed that no harm was done to it and the inhabitants profited largely from their commerce with the German host. In his last years Bela assisted the Greek emperor Isaac II. Angelus against the Bulgarians. His first wife bore Bela two sons, Emerich and Andrew. On her death he married Margaret of France, sister of King Philip Augustus. Bela was in every sense of the word a great statesman, and his court was accounted one of the most brilliant in Europe.
For an account of his internal reforms see Hungary. Though the poet Ede Szigligeti has immortalized his memory in the play Bela III., we have no historical monograph of him, but in Ignacz Acsády, History of the Hungarian Realm (Hung.), i. 2 (Budapest, 1903), there is an excellent account of his reign. (R. N. B.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bekker, Balthasar

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​BEKKER, BALTHASAR (1634–1698), Dutch divine, was born in Friesland in 1634, and educated at Groningen, under Jacob Alting, and at Franeker. He was pastor at Franeker, and from 1679, at Amsterdam. An enthusiastic disciple of Descartes, he wrote several works in philosophy and theology, which by their freedom of thought aroused considerable hostility. His best known work Die Betooverde Wereld (1691), or The World Bewitched (1695; one volume of an English translation from a French copy), in which he examined critically the phenomena generally ascribed to spiritual agency, and attacked the belief in sorcery and “possession” by the devil, whose very existence he questioned. The book is interesting as an early study in comparative religion, but its publication in 1692 led to Bekker’s deposition from the ministry. He died at Amsterdam.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bela (United Provinces)

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​BELA, a town of British India, administrative headquarters of the Partabgarh district of the United Provinces, with a railway station 80 m. from Benares. Pop. (1901) 8041. It adjoins the village of Partabgarh proper, and the civil station sometimes known as Andrewganj. Bela, which was founded in 1802 as a cantonment, became a district headquarters after the mutiny. It has trade in agricultural produce. There is a well-known hospital for women here.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bek, Antony

See also Antony Bek (bishop of Durham), Thomas Bek (bishop of St David's), Thomas Bek (bishop of Lincoln) and Antony Bek (bishop of Norwich) on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​BEK, ANTONY (d. 1311), bishop of Durham, belonged to a Lincolnshire family, and, having entered the church, received several benefices and soon attracted the attention of Edward I., who secured his election as bishop of Durham in 1283. When, after the death of King Alexander III. in 1285, Edward interfered in the affairs of Scotland, he employed Bek on this business, and in 1294 he sent him on a diplomatic errand to the German king, Adolph of Nassau. Taking part in Edward’s campaigns in Scotland, the bishop received the surrender of John de Baliol at Brechin in 1296, and led one division of the English army at the battle of Falkirk in 1298. Soon after his return to England he became involved in a quarrel with Richard de Hoton, prior of Durham. Deposed and excommunicated by Bek, the prior secured the king’s support; but the bishop, against whom other complaints were preferred, refused to give way, and by his obstinacy incurred the lasting enmity of Edward. In 1302, in obedience to the command of Pope Boniface VIII., he visited Rome on this matter, and during his absence the king seized and administered his lands, which, however, he recovered when he returned and submitted to Edward. He continued, however, to pursue Richard with unrelenting hostility, and was in his turn seriously harassed by the king. Having been restored to the royal favour by Edward II. who made him lord of the Isle of Man, the bishop died at Eltham on the 3rd of March 1311. A man of great courage and energy, chaste and generous, Bek was remarkable for his haughtiness and ostentation. Both as a bishop and as a private individual he was very wealthy, and his household and retinue were among the most magnificent in the land. He was a soldier and a hunter rather than a bishop, and built castles at Eltham and elsewhere.
Bek’s elder brother, Thomas Bek (d. 1293), bishop of St David’s, was a trusted servant of Edward I. He obtained many important and wealthy ecclesiastical positions, was made treasurer of England in 1279, and became bishop of St David’s in 1280. He was a benefactor to his diocese and died on the 12th of May 1293.
Another Thomas Bek (1282–1347), who was bishop of Lincoln from 1341 until his death on the 2nd of February 1347, was a member of the same family.
Antony Bek must not be confused with his kinsman and namesake, Antony Bek (1279–1343), who was chancellor and dean of Lincoln cathedral, and became bishop of Norwich after a disputed election in 1337. He was a quarrelsome man, and after a stormy episcopate, died on the 19th of December 1343.
See Robert of Graystanes, Historia de statu ecclesiae Dunelmensis, edited by J. Raine in his Historiae Dunelmensis scriptores (London, 1839); W. Hutchinson, History of Durham (Newcastle, 1785–1794); J. L. Low, Diocesan History of Durham (London, 1881); and M. Creighton in the Dictionary of National Biography, vol. iv. (London, 1885).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bekker, August Immanuel

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​BEKKER, AUGUST IMMANUEL (1785–1871), German philologist and critic, was born on the 21st of May 1785. He completed his classical education at the university of Halle under F. A. Wolf, who considered him as his most promising pupil. In 1810 he was appointed professor of philosophy in the university of Berlin. For several years, between 1810 and 1821, he travelled in France, Italy, England and parts of Germany, examining classical manuscripts and gathering materials for his great editorial labours. He died at Berlin on the 7th of June 1871. Some detached fruits of his researches were given in the Anecdota Graeca, 1814–1821; but the full result of his unwearied industry and ability is to be found in the enormous array of classical authors edited by him. Anything like a complete list of his works would occupy too much space, but it may be said that his industry extended to nearly the whole of Greek literature with the exception of the tragedians and lyric poets. His best known editions are: Plato (1816–1823), Oratores Attici (1823–1824), Aristotle (1831–1836), Aristophanes (1829), and twenty-five volumes of the Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae. The only Latin authors edited by him were Livy (1829–1830) and Tacitus (1831). Bekker confined himself entirely to textual recension and criticism, in which he relied solely upon the MSS., and contributed little to the extension of general scholarship.
See Sauppe, Zur Erinnerung an Meineke und Bekker (1872); Haupt, “Gedächtnisrede auf Meineke und Bekker,” in his Opuscula, iii.; E. I. Bekker, “Zur Erinnerung an meinen Vater,” in the Preussisches Jahrbuch, xxix.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bekker, Elizabeth

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​BEKKER (or Wolff), ELIZABETH (1738–1804), Dutch novelist, was married to Adrian Wolff, a Reformed clergyman, but is always known under her maiden name. After the death of her husband in 1777, she resided for some time in France, with her close friend, Agatha Deken. She was exposed to some of the dangers of the French Revolution, and, it is said, escaped the guillotine only by her great presence of mind. In 1795 she returned to Holland, and resided at the Hague till her death. Her novels were written in conjunction with Agatha Deken, and it is somewhat difficult to determine the exact qualities contributed by each. The Historie van William Levend (1785), Historie van Sara Burgerhart (1790), Abraham Blankaart (1787), Cornelie Wildschut (1793–1796), were extremely popular.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Blackpool

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​BLACKPOOL, a municipal and county borough and seaside resort in the Blackpool parliamentary division of Lancashire, England, 46 m. N. of Liverpool, served by the Lancashire & Yorkshire, and London & North Western railways. Pop. (1891) 23,846; (1901) 47,346. The town, which is quite modern, contains many churches and chapels of all denominations, a town hall, public libraries, the Victoria hospital, three piers, theatres, ball-rooms, and other places of public amusement, including a lofty tower, resembling the Eiffel Tower of Paris. The municipality maintains an electric tram service. There are handsome promenades along the sea front, which command fine views. Extensive works upon these, affording a sea front unsurpassed by that of any English watering-place, were completed in 1905. The beach is sandy and the bathing good. The borough was created in 1876 (county borough, 1904), and is governed by a mayor, 12 aldermen and 36 councillors. Area, exclusive of foreshore, 3496 acres; including foreshore, 4244 acres.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Blackwood, William

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​BLACKWOOD, WILLIAM (1776–1834), Scottish publisher, founder of the firm of William Blackwood & Sons, was born of humble parents at Edinburgh on the 20th of November 1776. At the age of fourteen he was apprenticed to a firm of booksellers in Edinburgh, and he followed his calling also in Glasgow and London for several years. Returning to Edinburgh in 1804, he opened a shop in South Bridge Street for the sale of old, rare and curious books. He undertook the Scottish agency for John Murray and other London publishers, and gradually drifted into publishing on his own account, removing in 1816 to Princes Street. On the 1st of April 1817 was issued the first number of the Edinburgh Monthly Magazine, which on its seventh number, bore the name of Blackwood’s as the leading part of the title. “Maga,” as this magazine soon came to be called, was the organ of the Scottish Tory party, and round it gathered a host of able writers. William Blackwood died on the 16th of September 1834, and was succeeded by his two sons, Alexander and Robert, who added a London branch to the firm. In 1845 Alexander Blackwood died, and shortly afterwards Robert.
A younger brother, John Blackwood (1818–1879), succeeded to the business; four years later he was joined by Major William Blackwood, who continued in the firm until his death in 1861. In 1862 the major’s elder son, William Blackwood (b. 1836), was taken into partnership. John Blackwood was a man of strong personality and great business discernment; it was in the pages of his magazine that George Eliot’s first stories, Scenes of Clerical Life, appeared. He also inaugurated the “Ancient Classics for English readers” series. On his death Mr William Blackwood was left in sole control of the business. With him were associated his nephews, George William and J. H. Blackwood, sons of Major George Blackwood, who was killed at Maiwand in 1880.
See Annals of a Publishing House; William Blackwood and his Sons . . . (1897–1898), the first two volumes of which were written by Mrs Oliphant; the third, dealing with John Blackwood, by his daughter, Mrs Gerald Porter.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Blackwell, Thomas

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​BLACKWELL, THOMAS (1701–1757), Scottish classical scholar, was born at Aberdeen on the 4th of August 1701. He took the degree of M.A. at the Marischal College in 1718. He was appointed professor of Greek in 1723, and was principal of the institution from 1748 until his death on the 8th of March 1757. In 1735 his first work, An Inquiry into the Life and Writings of Homer, was published anonymously. It was reprinted in 1736, and followed (in 1747) by Proofs of the Enquiry into Homer’s Life and Writings, a translation of the copious notes in foreign languages which had previously appeared. This work, intended to explain the causes of the superiority of Homer to all the poets who preceded or followed him, shows considerable research, and contains many curious and interesting details; but its want of method made Bentley say that, when he had gone through half of it, he had forgotten the beginning, and, when he had finished the reading of it, he had forgotten the whole. Blackwell’s next work (also published anonymously in 1748) was Letters Concerning Mythology. In 1752 he took the degree of doctor of laws, and in the following year published the first volume of Memoirs of the Court of Augustus; the second volume appeared in 1755, the third in 1764 (prepared for the press, after Blackwell’s death, by John Mills). This work shows considerable originality and erudition, but is even more unmethodical than his earlier writings and full of unnecessary digressions. Blackwell has been called the restorer of Greek literature in the north of Scotland; but his good qualities were somewhat spoiled by pomposity and affectation, which exposed him to ridicule.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Blades, William

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​BLADES, WILLIAM (1824–1890), English printer and bibliographer, was born at Clapham, London, on the 5th of December 1824. In 1840 he was apprenticed to his father’s printing business in London, being subsequently taken into partnership. The firm was afterwards known as Blades, East & Blades. His interest in printing led him to make a study of the volumes produced by Caxton’s press, and of the early history of printing in England. His Life and Typography of William Caxton, England’s First Printer, was published in 1861–1863, and the conclusions which he set forth were arrived at by a careful examination of types in the early books, each class of type being traced from its first use to the time when, spoilt by wear, it passed out of Caxton’s hands. Some 450 volumes from the Caxton Press were thus carefully compared and classified in chronological order. In 1877 Blades took an active part in organizing the Caxton celebration, and strongly supported the foundation of the Library Association. He was a keen collector of old books, prints and medals. His publications relate chiefly to the early history of printing, the Enemies of Books, his most popular work, being produced in 1881. He died at Sutton in Surrey on the 27th of April 1890.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bladder

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​BLADDER (from A.S. blaēddre, connected with blāwan, to blow, cf. Ger. blase), the membranous sac in animals which receives the urine secreted from the kidneys. The word is also used for any similar sac, such as the gall-bladder, the swim-bladder in fishes, or the small vesicle in various seaweeds.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Blackwater

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​BLACKWATER, the name of a number of rivers and streams in England, Scotland and Ireland. The Blackwater in Essex, which rises near Saffron Walden, has a course of about 40 m. to the North Sea. The most important river of the name is in southern Ireland, rising in the hills on the borders of the counties Cork and Kerry, and flowing nearly due east for the greater part of its course, as far as Cappoquin, where it turns abruptly southward, and discharges through an estuary into Youghal Bay. ​The length of its valley (excluding the lesser windings of the river) is about 90 m., and the drainage area about 1300 sq. m. It is navigable only for a few miles above the mouth, but its salmon fisheries are both attractive to sportsmen and of considerable commercial value. The scenery of its banks is at many points very beautiful.