OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Barbon, Nicholas

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​BARBON, NICHOLAS (c. 1640–1698), English economist, probably the son of Praise-god Barbon, was born in London, studied medicine at Leiden, graduated M.D. at Utrecht in 1661, and was admitted an honorary fellow of the College of Physicians in 1664. He took a considerable part in the rebuilding of London after the great fire of 1666, and has a claim to be considered the institutor of fire-insurance in England, which he started somewhere about 1680. He was M.P. for Bramber in 1690 and 1695. He founded a land bank which, according to contemporaries, was fairly successful and was united with that of John Briscoe in 1696. He died in 1698. His writings are interesting as expressing views much in advance of his time and very near akin to those of modern times on such important topics as value, rent and foreign trade. The more important were Apology for the Builder; or a Discourse showing the Cause and Effects of the Increase of Building (1685); A Discourse of Trade (1690); and A Discourse Concerning Coining the New Money Lighter (1696).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Barbican

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​BARBICAN (from Fr. barbacane, probably of Arabic or Persian origin), an outwork for the defence of a gate or drawbridge; also a sort of pent-house or construction of timber to shelter warders or sentries from arrows or other missiles.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Barbeyrac, Jean

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​BARBEYRAC, JEAN (1674–1744), French jurist, the nephew of Charles Barbeyrac, a distinguished physician of Montpellier, was born at Beziers in Lower Languedoc on the 15th of March 1674. He removed with his family into Switzerland after the revocation of the edict of Nantes, and there studied jurisprudence. After spending some time at Geneva and Frankfort-on-Main, he became professor of belles-lettres in the French school of Berlin. Thence, in 1711, he was called to the professorship of history and civil law at Lausanne, and finally settled as professor of public law at Groningen. He died on the 3rd of March 1744. His fame rests chiefly on the preface and notes to his translation of Pufendorf’s treatise De Jure Naturae et Gentium. In fundamental principles he follows almost entirely Locke and Pufendorf; but he works out with great skill the theory of moral obligation, referring it to the command or will of God. He indicates the distinction, developed more fully by Thomasius and Kant, between the legal and the moral qualities of action. The principles of international law he reduces to those of the law of nature, and combats, in so doing, many of the positions taken up by Grotius. He rejects the notion that sovereignty in any way resembles property, and makes even marriage a matter of civil contract. Barbeyrac also translated Grotius’s De Jure Belli et Pacis, Cumberland’s De Legibus Naturae, and Pufendorf’s smaller treatise De Officio Hominis et Civis. Among his own productions are a treatise, De la morale des pères, a history of ancient treaties contained in the Supplément au grand corps diplomatique, and the curious Traité du jeu (1709), in which he defends the morality of games of chance.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bleak

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​BLEAK, or Blick (Alburnus lucidus), a small fish of the Cyprinid family, allied to the bream and the minnow, but with a more elongate body, resembling a sardine. It is found in European streams, and is caught by anglers, being also a favourite in aquariums. The well-known and important industry of “Essence Orientale” and artificial pearls, carried on in France and Germany with the crystalline silvery colouring matter of ​the bleak, was introduced from China about the middle of the 17th century.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bleek, Wilhelm Heinrich Immanuel

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​BLEEK, WILHELM HEINRICH IMMANUEL (1827–1875), German philologist, son of Friedrich Bleek, was born in 1827 at Berlin. He studied first at Bonn and afterwards at Berlin, where his attention was directed towards the philological peculiarities of the South African languages. In his doctor’s dissertation (Bonn, 1851), De nominum generibus linguarum Africae Australis, he endeavoured to show that the Hottentot language was of North African descent. In 1854 his health prevented him accompanying Dr W. B. Baikie in the expedition to the Niger; but in the following year he accompanied Bishop Colenso to Natal, and was enabled to prosecute his researches into the language and customs of the Kaffirs. Towards the close of 1856 he settled at Cape Town, and in 1857 was appointed interpreter by Sir George Grey. In 1859 he was compelled by ill health to visit Europe, and on his return in the following year he was made librarian of the valuable collection of books presented to the colony by Sir George Grey. In 1869 he visited England, where the value of his services was recognized by a pension from the civil list. He died at Cape Town on the 17th of August 1875. His works, which are of considerable importance for African and Australian philology, consist of the Vocabulary of the Mozambique Language (London, 1856); Handbook of African, Australian and Polynesian Philology (Cape Town and London, 3 vols., 1858–1863); Comparative Grammar of the South African Languages (vol. i., London, 1869); Reynard the Fox in South Africa, or Hottentot Fables and Tales (London, 1864); Origin of Language (London, 1869).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bry, Theodorus

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​BRY, THEODORUS [Dirk] DE (1528–1598), German engraver and publisher, was born at Liége in 1528. In the earlier years of his career he worked at Strassburg. Later he established an engraving and publishing business at Frankfort-on-Main, and also visited London in or before 1587. Here he became acquainted with the geographer Richard Hakluyt, with whose assistance he collected materials for a finely illustrated collection of voyages and travels, Collectiones Peregrinationum in Indiam Orientalem et Indiam Occidentalem (25 parts, 1590–1634). Among other works he engraved a set of 12 plates illustrating the Procession of the Knights of the Garter in 1576, and a set of 34 plates illustrating the Procession at the Obsequies of Sir Philip Sidney; plates for T. Hariot’s Briefe and True Report of the new found Land of Virginia (Frankfort, 1595); the plates for the first four volumes of J. J. Boissard’s Romanae Urbis Topographia et Antiquitates (1597–1598), and a series of portraits entitled Icones Virorum Illustrium (1597–1599). De Bry died at Frankfort on the 27th of March 1598. He had been assisted by his eldest son Johannes Theodorus de Bry (1561–1623), who after his father’s death carried on the Collectiones and the illustration of Boissard’s work, and also added to the Icones. His brother Johannes Israel de Bry (d. 1611) collaborated with him.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Brush, George de Forest

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​BRUSH, GEORGE DE FOREST (1855–), American painter, was born at Shelbyville, Tennessee, on the 28th of September 1855. He was a pupil of J. L. Gérôme at Paris, and became a member of the National Academy of Design, New York. From 1883 onwards, he attracted much attention by his paintings of North American Indians, his “Moose Hunt,” “Aztec King” and “Mourning her Brave” achieving great popularity and showing the strong influence of Gérôme. These ​were followed by picture portraits, particularly of mother and child, largely suggestive of the work of the Dutch, Flemish and German masters, carefully arranged as to line and mass, and worked out in great detail with consummate technical skill. Several of his paintings have for subject his own children and his wife; one of these is in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Brut

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​BRUT, Brute, or Brutus the Trojan, a legendary British character, who, according to Geoffrey of Monmouth and others, ​was the eponymous hero of Britain. He was reputed to be grandson of Aeneas, and the legend was that he was banished from Italy and made his way to Britain, where he founded New Troy (London). The name is an obvious confusion between Bryt (a Briton) and the classical name Brutus.
For the romance literature of the subject see Wace; and Barbour.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bryansk

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​BRYANSK, a town of Russia, in the government of Orel, 83 m. by rail W.N.W. of the city of that name, in 53° 15′ N. and 34° 10′ E. on the river Desna. It is mentioned in 1146, being then also known as Debryansk. It afterwards formed a separate principality, which came to an end in 1356 with the death of the prince. After the Mongol invasion of 1241, Bryansk fell into the power of the Lithuanians; and finally became incorporated with the Russian empire in the beginning of the 17th century. Bryansk was taken by the followers of the first false Demetrius, but it successfully resisted the attacks of the second impostor of that name. Under the empress Anne a dock was constructed for the building of ships, but it was closed in 1739. In 1783 an arsenal was established for the founding of cannon. The cathedral was built in 1526, and restored in the end of the 17th century. There are two high schools; and the industrial establishments include iron, rope, brick and tallow-boiling works, saw-mills and flour-mills, tobacco-factories and a brewery. Some distance north of the town are the Maltsov iron-works, with glass factories and rope-walks, employing 20,000 men. A considerable trade is carried on, especially in wood, tar, hemp, pitch, hemp-seed-oil and cattle. In 1867 the population numbered 13,881, and in 1897 23,520.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bruté, Simon William Gabriel

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​BRUTÉ, SIMON WILLIAM GABRIEL (1779–1839), American prelate, first Roman Catholic bishop of the diocese of Vincennes, Indiana, U.S.A., was born at Rennes, France, on the 20th of March 1779, his father, Simon Gabriel Guillaume Bruté de Remur (1729–1786), being superintendent of the crown lands in Brittany. He was educated for the medical profession, but entered the Sulpician Seminary of Paris in November 1803, was ordained priest in 1808, refused the post of chaplain to Napoleon, was professor of theology in the Diocesan Seminary at Rennes in 1808–1810, and in August 1810 settled in Baltimore, Maryland, whither his long general interest in missions, and particularly his acquaintance with Bishop Flaget of Kentucky, had drawn him. After teaching for two years (1810–1812) in Baltimore, he was sent to Mount St Mary’s College, Emmitsburg, Maryland, where he remained until 1815, acting both as teacher and as pastor. He next visited France in the interest of American missions, and on his return in November 1815, became president of St Mary’s College, Baltimore. In 1818 he resumed his labours at Emmitsburg, and from this time until 1834 he held an almost unparalleled place in the American church, being constantly consulted by clergy throughout the country, besides lecturing, teaching, preaching and caring for his parish. The see of Vincennes was created in 1834; and Bruté, nominated its first bishop and consecrated in the same year, went to France for financial aid, with which he built his cathedral and several useful institutions. Here, too, he was professor of theology in his seminary, teacher in one of his academies, as well as pastor and bishop. Interesting stories are told of the high respect in which he was held by the neighbouring Indians, who called him “chief of the Black robes” and “man of the true prayer.” He died in Vincennes, Indiana, on the 26th of June 1839. His great influence on the entire church, his wonderful success in planning, financing, and carrying out necessary ecclesiastical reforms, and the constructive and executive ability he displayed in his diocese, make him one of the foremost Catholic emigrants to the United States. He wrote Brief Notes on his experiences in France in 1793, in which he describes state persecution of Catholic priests.
See James Roosevelt Bayley, The Memoirs of the Rt. Rev. Simon William Gabriel Bruté, First Bishop of Vincennes (New York, 1861), containing much autobiographical matter.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bryant, Jacob

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​BRYANT, JACOB (1715–1804), English antiquarian and writer on mythological subjects, was born at Plymouth. His father had a place in the customs there, but was afterwards stationed at Chatham. The son was first sent to a school near ​Rochester, whence he was removed to Eton. In 1736 he was elected to a scholarship at King’s College, Cambridge, where he took his degrees of B.A. (1740) and M.A. (1744), subsequently being elected a fellow. He returned to Eton as private tutor to the duke of Marlborough, then marquess of Blandford; and in 1756 he accompanied the duke, then master-general of ordnance and commander-in-chief of the forces in Germany, to the continent as private secretary. He was rewarded by a lucrative appointment in the ordnance department, which allowed him ample leisure to indulge his literary tastes. He twice refused the mastership of the Charterhouse. Bryant died on the 14th of November 1804 at Cippenham near Windsor. He left his library to King’s College, having, however, previously made some valuable presents from it to the king and the duke of Marlborough. He bequeathed £2000 to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, and £1000 for the use of the superannuated collegers of Eton.
His principal works are: Observations and Inquiries relating to various Parts of Ancient History (1767); A New System, or an Analysis, of Ancient Mythology, wherein an attempt is made to divest Tradition of Fable, and to reduce Truth to its original Purity (1774–1776), which is fantastic and now wholly valueless; Vindication of the Apamean Medal (1775), which obtained the support of the great numismatist Eckhel; An Address to Dr Priestley upon his Doctrine of Philosophical Necessity (1780); Vindiciae Flavianae, a Vindication of the Testimony of Josephus concerning Jesus Christ (1780); Observations on the Poems of Thomas Rowley, in which the Authenticity of those Poems is ascertained (1781); Treatise upon the Authenticity of the Scriptures, and the Truth of the Christian Religion (1792); Observations upon the Plagues inflicted upon the Egyptians (1794); Observations on a Treatise, entitled Description of the Plain of Troy, by Mr de Chevalier (1795); A Dissertation concerning the War of Troy, and the Expedition of the Grecians, as described by Homer, with the view of showing that no such expedition was ever undertaken, and that no such city as Phrygia existed (1796); The Sentiments of Philo Judaeus concerning the Λόγος or Word of God (1797).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Boccalini, Trajano

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​BOCCALINI, TRAJANO (1556–1613), Italian satirist, was born at Loretto in 1556. The son of an architect, he himself adopted that profession, and it appears that he commenced late in life to apply to literary pursuits. Pursuing his studies at Rome, he had the honour of teaching Bentivoglio, and acquired the friendship of the cardinals Gaetano and Borghesi, as well as of other distinguished personages. By their influence he obtained various posts, and was even appointed by Gregory XIII. governor of Benevento in the states of the church. Here, however, he seems to have acted imprudently, and he was soon recalled to Rome, where he shortly afterwards composed his most important work, the Ragguagli di Parnaso, in which Apollo is represented as receiving the complaints of all who present themselves, and distributing justice according to the merits of each particular case. The book is full of light and fantastic satire on the actions and writings of his eminent contemporaries, and some of its happier hits are among the hackneyed felicities of literature. To escape, it is said, from the hostility of those whom his shafts had wounded, he returned to Venice, and there, according to the register in the parochial church of Sta Maria Formosa, died of colic, accompanied with fever, on the 16th of November 1613. It was asserted, indeed, by contemporary writers that he had been beaten to death with sand-bags by a band of Spanish bravadoes, but the story seems without foundation. At the same time, it is evident from the Pietra del Paragone, which appeared after his death in 1615, that whatever the feelings of the Spaniards towards him, he cherished against them feelings of the bitterest hostility. The only government, indeed, which is exempt from his attacks is that of Venice, a city for which he seems to have had a special affection.
The Ragguagli, first printed in 1612, has frequently been republished. The Pietra has been translated into French, German, English and Latin; the English translator was Henry, earl of Monmouth, his version being entitled The Politicke Touchstone (London, 1674). Another posthumous publication of Boccalini was his Commentarii sopra Cornelia Tacito (Geneva, 1669). Many of his manuscripts are preserved still unprinted.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bochart, Samuel

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​BOCHART, SAMUEL (1599–1667), French scholar, was born at Rouen on the 30th of May 1599. He was for many years a pastor of a Protestant church at Caen, and became tutor to Wentworth Dillon, earl of Roscommon. In 1646 he published his Phaleg and Chanaan (Caen, 1646 and 1651), the two parts of his Geographia Sacra. His Hierozoicon, which treats of the animals of Scripture, was printed in London (2 vols., 1663). In 1652 Christina of Sweden invited him to Stockholm, where he studied the Arabian manuscripts in the queen’s possession. He was accompanied by Pierre Daniel Huet, afterwards bishop of Avranches. On his return to Caen he was received into the academy of that city. Bochart was a man of profound erudition; he possessed a thorough knowledge of the principal Oriental languages, including Hebrew, Syriac, Chaldaic and Arabic; and at an advanced age he wished to learn Ethiopic. He was so absorbed in his favourite study, that he saw Phoenician and nothing but Phoenician in everything, even in Celtic words, and hence the number of chimerical etymologies which swarm in his works. He died at Caen on the 16th of May 1667.
A complete edition of his works was published at Leiden, under the title of Sam. Bochart Opera Omnia (1675, 2 vols. folio; 4th ed., 3 vols., 1712). An Essay on the Life and Writings of Samuel Bochart, by W. R. Whittingham, appeared in 1829.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bocskay, Stephen

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​BOCSKAY, STEPHEN [István] (1557–1606), prince of Transylvania, the most eminent member of the ancient Bocskay family, son of György Bocskay and Krisztina Sulyok, was born at Kolozsvár, Hungary. As the chief councillor of Prince Zsigmond Báthory, he advised his sovereign to contract an alliance with the emperor instead of holding to the Turk, and rendered important diplomatic services on frequent missions to Prague and Vienna. The enmity towards him of the later Báthory princes of Transylvania, who confiscated his estates, drove him to seek protection at the imperial court (1599); but the attempts of the emperor Rudolph II. to deprive Hungary of her constitution and the Protestants of their religious liberties speedily alienated Bocskay, especially after the terrible outrages inflicted on the Transylvanians by the imperial generals Basta and Belgiojoso from 1602 to 1604. Bocskay, to save the independence of Transylvania, assisted the Turks; and in 1605, as a reward for his part in driving Basta out of Transylvania, the Hungarian diet, assembled at Modgyes, elected him prince (1605), on which occasion the Ottoman sultan sent a special embassy to congratulate him and a splendid jewelled crown made in Persia. Bocskay refused the royal dignity, but made skilful use of the Turkish alliance. To save the Austrian provinces of Hungary, the archduke Matthias, setting aside his semi-lunatic imperial brother Rudolph, thereupon entered into negotiations with Bocskay, and ultimately the peace of Vienna was concluded (June 23, 1606), which guaranteed all the constitutional and religious rights and privileges of the Hungarians both in Transylvania and imperial Hungary. Bocskay, at the same time, was acknowledged as prince of Transylvania by the Austrian court, and the right of the Transylvanians to elect their own independent princes in future was officially recognized. The fortress of Tokaj and the counties of Bereg, Szatmár and Ugocsa were at the same time ceded to Bocskay, with reversion to Austria if he should die childless. Simultaneously, at Zsitvatorok, a peace, confirmatory of the peace of Vienna, was concluded with the Turks. Bocskay survived this signal and unprecedented triumph only a few months. He is said to have been poisoned (December 29, 1606) by his chancellor, Mihály Kátay, who was hacked to bits by Bocskay’s adherents in the market-place of Kassa.
See Political Correspondence of Stephen Bocskay (Hung.), edited by Károly Szábo (Budapest, 1882); Jenö Thury, Stephen Bocskay’s Rebellion (Hung.), Budapest, 1899.  (R. N. B.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bode, Johann Elert

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​BODE, JOHANN ELERT (1747–1826), German astronomer, was born at Hamburg on the 19th of January 1747. Devoted to astronomy from his earliest years, he eagerly observed the heavens at a garret window with a telescope made by himself, and at nineteen began his career with the publication of a short work on the solar eclipse of the 5th of August 1766. This was followed by an elementary treatise on astronomy entitled Anleitung zur Kenntniss des gestirnten Himmels (1768, 10th ed. 1844), the success of which led to his being summoned to Berlin in 1772 for the purpose of computing ephemerides on an improved plan. There resulted the foundation by him, in 1774, of the well-known Astronomisches Jahrbuch, 51 yearly volumes of which he compiled and issued. He became director of the Berlin observatory in 1786, withdrew from official life in 1825, and died at Berlin on the 23rd of November 1826. His works were highly effective in diffusing throughout Germany a taste for astronomy. Besides those already mentioned he wrote:—Sammlung astronomischer Tafeln (3 vols., 1776); Erläuterung der Sternkunde (1776, 3rd ed. 1808); Uranographia (1801), a collection of 20 star-maps accompanied by a catalogue of 17,240 stars and nebulae. In one of his numerous incidental essays he propounded, in 1776, a theory of the solar constitution similar to that developed in 1795 by Sir William Herschel. He gave currency, moreover, to the empirical rule known as “Bode’s Law,” which was actually announced by Johann Daniel Titius of Wittenberg in 1772. It is expressed by the statement that the proportionate distances of the several planets from the sun may be represented by adding 4 to each term of the series; 0, 3, 6, 12, 24, &c. The irregularity will be noticed of the first term, which should be 11/2 instead of 0. (See Solar System.)
See J. F. Encke, Berlin Abhandlungen (1827), p. xi.; H. C. Schumacher, Astr. Nach. v. 255, 367 (1827); Poggendorff, Biog. literarisches Handwörterbuch; Allgemeine deutsche Biographie, iii. 1.