OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bouilly, Jean Nicolas

See also Jean-Nicolas Bouilly on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​BOUILLY, JEAN NICOLAS (1763–1842), French author, was born near Tours on the 24th of January 1763. At the outbreak of the Revolution he held office under the new government, and had a considerable share in the organization of primary education. In 1799 he retired from public life to devote himself to literature. His numerous works include the musical comedy, Pierre le Grand (1790), for Grétry’s music, and the opera, Les Deux Journées (1800), music by Cherubini; also L’Abbé de l’épée (1800), and some other plays; and Causeries d’un vieillard (1807), Contes à ma fille (1809), and Les Adieux du vieux conteur (1835). His Léonore (1798) formed the basis of the libretto of the Fidelio of Beethoven. Bouilly died in Paris on the 14th of April 1842.
See Bouilly, Mes récapitulations (3 vols., 1836–1837); E. Legouvé, Soixante ans de souvenir (1$^{ère}$ partie, 1886).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Boulanger

See also Boulanger on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​BOULANGER, the name of several French artists:—Jean (1606–1660), a pupil of Guido Reni at Bologna, who had an academy at Modena; his cousin Jean (1607–1680), a celebrated line-engraver; the latter’s son Matthieu, another engraver; Louis (1806–1867), a subject-painter, the friend of Victor Hugo, and director of the imperial school of art at Dijon; the best-known, Gustave Rodolphe Clarence (1824–1888), a pupil of Paul Delaroche, a notable painter of Oriental and Greek and Roman subjects, and a member of the Institute (1882); and Clément (1805–1842), a pupil of Ingres.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Boulder

See also Boulder on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​BOULDER (short for “boulder-stone,” of uncertain origin; cf. Swed. bullersten, a large stone which causes a noise of rippling water in a stream, from bullra, to make a loud noise), a large stone, weathered or water-worn; especially a geological term for a large mass of rock transported to a distance from the formation to which it belongs. Similarly, in mining, a mass of ore found at a distance from the lode.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bouillotte

See also Bouillotte on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​BOUILLOTTE, a French game of cards, very popular during the Revolution, and again for some years from 1830. Five, four or three persons may play; a piquet pack is used, from which, in case five play, the sevens, when four the knaves, and when three the queens also, are omitted. Counters or chips, as in poker, are used. Before the deal each player “antes” one counter, after which each, the “age” passing, may “raise” the pot; those not “seeing the raise” being obliged to drop out. Three cards are dealt to each player, and a thirteenth, called the retourne, when four play, turned up. Each player must then bet, call, raise or drop out. When a call is made the hands are shown and the best hand wins. The hands rank as follows: brélan carré, four of a kind, one being the retourne; simple brélan, three of a kind, ace being high; brélan favori, three of a kind, one being the retourne. When no player holds a brélan the hand holding the greatest number of pips wins, ace counting 11, and court cards 10.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bovey Beds

See also Bovey Formation on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​BOVEY BEDS, in geology, a deposit of sands, clays and lignite, 200–300 ft. thick, which lies in a basin extending from Bovey Tracey to Newton Abbot in Devonshire, England. The deposit is evidently the result of the degradation of the neighbouring Dartmoor granite; and it was no doubt laid down in a lake. O. Heer, who examined the numerous plant remains from these beds, concluded that they belonged to the same geological horizon as the Molasse or Oligocene of Switzerland. Starkie Gardiner, however, who subsequently examined the flora, showed that it bore a close resemblance to that of the Bournemouth Beds or Lower Bagshot; in this view he is supported by C. Reid. Large excavations have been made for the extraction of the clays, which are very valuable for pottery and similar purposes. The lignite or “Bovey Coal” has at times been burned in the local kilns, and in the engines and workmen’s cottages, but it is not economical.
See S. Gardiner, Q. J. G. S. London, xxxv., 1879; W. Pengelly and O. Heer, Phil. Trans., 1862; C. Reid, Q. J. G. S. lii., 1896, p. 490, and loc. cit. liv., 1898, p. 234. An interesting general account is given by A. W. Clayden, The History of Devonshire Scenery (London, 1906), pp. 159-168.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bowdich, Thomas Edward

See also Thomas Edward Bowdich on Wikipedia; Thomas Edward Bowdich in the 9th Edition; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​BOWDICH, THOMAS EDWARD (1790–1824), English traveller and author, was born at Bristol in 1790. In 1814, through his uncle, J. Hope-Smith, governor of the British Gold Coast Settlements, he obtained a writership in the service of the African Company of Merchants and was sent to Cape Coast. In 1817 he was sent, with two companions, to Kumasi on a mission to the king of Ashanti, and chiefly through his skilful diplomacy the mission succeeded in its object of securing British control over the coast natives (see Ashanti: History). In 1818 Bowdich returned to England, and in 1819 published an account of his mission and of the study he had made of the barbaric court of Kumasi, entitled Mission from Cape Coast Castle to Ashantee, &c. (London, 1819). His African collections he presented to the British Museum. Bowdich publicly attacked the management of the African committee, and his strictures were instrumental in leading the British government to assume direct control over the Gold Coast. From 1820 to 1822 Bowdich lived in Paris, studying mathematics and the natural sciences, and was on intimate terms with Cuvier, Humboldt and other savants. During his stay in France he edited several works on Africa, and also wrote scientific works. In 1822, accompanied by his wife, he went to Lisbon, where, from a study of historic MSS., he published An Account of the Discoveries of the Portuguese in . . . Angola and Mozambique (London, 1824). In 1823 Bowdich and his wife, after some months spent in Madeira and Cape Verde Islands, arrived at Bathurst at the mouth of the Gambia, intending to go to Sierra Leone and thence explore the interior. But at Bathurst Bowdich died on the 10th of January 1824. His widow published an account of his last journey, entitled Excursions in Madeira and Porto Santo . . . to which is added . . . A Narrative of the Continuance of the Voyage to its Completion, &c. (London, 1825). Bowdich’s daughter, Mrs Hutchinson Hale, republished in 1873, with an introductory preface, her father’s Mission from Cape Coast Castle to Ashantee.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bowditch, Nathaniel

See also Nathaniel Bowditch on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​BOWDITCH, NATHANIEL (1773–1838), American mathematician, was born at Salem, Massachusetts. He was bred to his father’s business as a cooper, and afterwards apprenticed to a ship-chandler. His taste for mathematics early developed itself; and he acquired Latin that he might study Newton’s Principia. As clerk (1795) and then as supercargo (1796, 1798, 1799) he made four long voyages; and, being an excellent navigator, he afterwards (1802) commanded a vessel, instructing his crews in lunar and other observations. He edited two editions of Hamilton Moore’s Navigation, and in 1802 published a valuable work, New American Practical Navigator, founded on the earlier treatise by Moore. In 1804 he became president of a Salem insurance company. In the midst of his active career he undertook a translation of the Mécanique céleste of P. S. Laplace, with valuable annotations (vol. i., 1829). He was offered, but declined, the professorship of mathematics and astronomy at Harvard. Subsequently he became president of the Mechanics’ Institute in Boston, and also of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He died at Boston on the 16th of March 1838.
A life of Bowditch was written by his son Nathaniel Ingersoll Bowditch (1805–1861), and was prefixed to the fourth volume (1839) of the translation of Laplace. In 1865 this was elaborated into a separate biography by another son, Henry Ingersoll Bowditch (1808–1892), a famous Boston physician.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bowdler, Thomas

See also Thomas Bowdler on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​BOWDLER, THOMAS (1754–1825), editor of the “family” Shakespeare, younger son of Thomas Bowdler, a gentleman of independent fortune, was born at Ashley, near Bath, on the 11th of July 1754. He studied medicine at the universities of St Andrews and Edinburgh, graduating M.D. in 1776. After four years spent in foreign travel, he settled in London, where he became intimate with Mrs Montague and other learned ladies. In 1800 he left London to live in the Isle of Wight, and later on he removed to South Wales. He was an energetic philanthropist, and carried on John Howard’s work in the prisons and penitentiaries. In 1818 he published The Family Shakespeare “in ten volumes, in which nothing is added to the original text; but those words and expressions are omitted which cannot with propriety be read aloud in a family.” Criticisms of this edition appeared in the British Critic of April 1822. Bowdler also expurgated Edward Gibbon’s History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (published posthumously, 1826); and he issued a selection from the Old Testament for the use of children. He died at Rhyddings, near Swansea, on the 24th of February 1825.
From Bowdler’s name we have the word to “bowdlerize,” first known to occur in General Perronet Thompson’s Letters of a Representative to his Constituents during the Session of 1836, printed in Thompson’s Exercises, iv. 126. The official interpretation is “to expurgate (a book or writing) by omitting or modifying words or passages considered indelicate or offensive.” Both the word and its derivatives, however, are associated with false squeamishness. In the ridicule poured on the name of Bowdler it is worth noting that Swinburne in “Social Verse” (Studies in Prose and Poetry, 1894, p. 98) said of him that “no man ever did better service to Shakespeare than the man who made it possible to put him into the hands of intelligent and imaginative children,” and stigmatized the talk about his expurgations as “nauseous and foolish cant.”
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bovianum

See also Bojano and Pietrabbondante on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​BOVIANUM, the name of two ancient Italian towns, (1) Undecimanorum [Boiano], the chief city of the Pentri Samnites, 9 m. N.W. of Saepinum and 18 m. S.E. of Aesernia, on the important road from Beneventum to Corfinium, which connected the Via Appia and the Via Valeria. The original city occupied the height (Civita) above the modern town, where remains of Cyclopean walls still exist, while the Roman town (probably founded after the Social War, in which Bovianum was the seat of the Samnite assembly) lay in the plain. It acquired the name Undecimanorum when Vespasian settled the veterans of the Legio XI. Claudia there. Its remains have been covered by over 30 ft. of earth washed down from the mountains. Comparatively few inscriptions have been discovered. (2) Vetus (near Pietrabbondante, 5 m. S. of Agnone and 19 m. N.W. of Campobasso), according to Th. Mommsen (Corpus Inscrip. Lat. ix. Berlin, 1883, p. 257) the chief town of the Caraceni. It lay in a remote situation among the mountains, and where Bovianum is mentioned the reference is generally to Bovianum Undecimanorum. Remains of fortifications and lower down of a temple and a theatre (cf. Römische Mitteilungen, 1903, 154)—the latter remarkable for the fine preservation of the stone seats of the three lowest rows of the auditorium—are to be seen. No less than eight Oscan inscriptions have been found.  (T. As.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bovill, Sir William

See also William Bovill on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​BOVILL, SIR WILLIAM (1814–1873), English judge, a younger son of Benjamin Bovill, of Wimbledon, was born at Allhallows, Barking, on the 26th of May 1814. On leaving school he was articled to a firm of solicitors, but entering the Middle Temple he practised for a short time as a special pleader below the bar. He was called in 1841 and joined the home circuit. His special training in a solicitor’s office, and its resulting connexion, combined with a thorough knowledge of the details of engineering, acquired through his interest in a manufacturing firm in the east end of London, soon brought him a very extensive patent and commercial practice. He became Q.C. in 1855, and in 1857 was elected M.P. for Guildford. In the House of Commons he was very zealous for legal reform, and the Partnership Law Amendment Act 1865, which he helped to pass, is always referred to as Bovill’s Act. In 1866 he was appointed solicitor-general, an office which he vacated on becoming chief justice of the common pleas in succession to Sir W. Erie in November of the same year. He died at Kingston, Surrey, on the 1st of November 1873. As a barrister he was unsurpassed for his remarkable knowledge of commercial law; and when promoted to the bench his painstaking labour and unswerving uprightness, as well as his great patience and courtesy, gained for him the respect and affection of the profession.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bovillae

See also Bovillae on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​BOVILLAE, an ancient town of Latium, a station on the Via Appia (which in 293 B.C. was already paved up to this point), 11 m. S.E. of Rome. It was a colony of Alba Longa, and appears as one of the thirty cities of the Latin league; after the destruction of Alba Longa the sacra were, it was held, transferred to Bovillae, including the cult of Vesta (in inscriptions virgines Vestales Albanae are mentioned, and the inhabitants of Bovillae are always spoken of as Albani Longani Bovillenses) and that of the gens Iulia. The existence of this hereditary worship led to an increase in its importance when the Julian house rose to the highest power in the state. The knights met Augustus’s dead body at Bovillae on its way to Rome, and in A.D. 16 the shrine of the family worship was dedicated anew, and yearly games in the circus instituted, probably under the charge of the sodales Augustales, whose official calendar has been found here. In history Bovillae appears as the scene of the quarrel between Milo and Clodius, in which the latter, whose villa lay above the town on the left of the Via Appia, was killed. The site is not naturally strong, and remains of early fortifications cannot be traced. It may be that Bovillae took the place of Alba Longa as a local centre after the destruction of the latter by Rome, which would explain the deliberate choice of a strategically weak position. Remains of buildings of the imperial period—the circus, a small theatre, and edifices probably connected with the post-station—may still be seen on the south-west edge of the Via Appia.
See L. Canina, Via Appia (Rome, 1853), i. 202 seq.; T. Ashby in Mélanges de l’école française de Rome (1903), p. 395. (T. As.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Finsterwalde

See also Finsterwalde on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​FINSTERWALDE, a town of Germany, in the kingdom of Prussia, on the Schackebach, a tributary of the Little Elster, 28 m. W.S.W. of Cottbus by rail. Pop. (1905) 10,726. The town has a Gothic church (1581), a château, schools, cloth and cigar factories, iron-foundries, flour and saw mills and factories for machine building. The town, which is first mentioned in 1288, came into the possession of electoral Saxony in 1635 and of Prussia in 1815.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Fiorillo, Johann Dominicus

See also Johann Dominicus Fiorillo on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​FIORILLO, JOHANN DOMINICUS (1748–1821), German painter and historian of art, was born at Hamburg on the 13th of October 1748. He received his first instructions in art at an academy of painting at Bayreuth; and in 1761, to continue his studies, he went first to Rome, and next to Bologna, where he distinguished himself sufficiently to attain in 1769 admission to the academy. Returning soon after to Germany, he obtained the appointment of historical painter to the court of Brunswick. In 1781 he removed to Göttingen, occupied himself as a drawing-master, and was named in 1784 keeper of the collection of prints at the university library. He was appointed professor extraordinary in the philosophical faculty in 1799, and ordinary professor in 1813. During this period he had made himself known as a writer by the publication of his Geschichte der zeichnenden Künste, in 5 vols. (1798–1808). This was followed in 1815 to 1820 by the Geschichte der zeichnenden Künste in Deutschland und den vereinigten Niederlanden, in 4 vols. These works, though not attaining to any high mark of literary excellence, are esteemed for the information collected in them, especially on the subject of art in the later middle ages. Fiorillo practised his art almost till his death, but has left no memorable masterpiece. The most noticeable of his painting is perhaps the “Surrender of Briseis.” He died at Göttingen on the 10th of September 1821.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Fiorenzuola d'Arda

See also Fiorenzuola d'Arda on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​FIORENZUOLA D’ARDA, a town of Emilia, Italy, in the province of Piacenza, from which it is 14 m. S.E. by rail, 270 ft. above sea-level. Pop. (1901) 7792. It is traversed by the Via Aemilia, and has a picturesque piazza with an old tower in the centre. The Palazzo Grossi also is a fine building. Alseno lies 4 m. to the S.E., and near it is the Cistercian abbey of Chiaravalle della Colomba, with a fine Gothic church and a large and beautiful cloister (in brick and Verona marble), of the 12th-14th century.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bücheler, Franz

See also Franz Bücheler on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​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.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Büchner, Friedrich Karl Christian Ludwig

See also Ludwig Büchner on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​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).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Böttiger, Karl August

See also Karl Böttiger on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​BÖTTIGER, KARL AUGUST (1760–1835), German archaeologist, was born at Reichenbach on the 8th of June 1760. He was educated at the school of Pforta, and the university of Leipzig. After holding minor educational posts, he obtained in 1791, through the influence of Herder, the appointment of rector of the gymnasium at Weimar, where he entered into a circle of literary men, including Wieland, Schiller, and Goethe. He published in 1803 a learned work, Sabina, oder Morgenszenen im Putzzimmer einer reichen Römerin, a description of a wealthy Roman lady’s toilette, and a work on ancient art, Griechische Vasengemälde. At the same time he assisted in editing the Journal des Luxus und der Moden, the Deutsche Merkur, and the London and Paris. In 1804 he was called to Dresden as superintendent of the studies of the court pages, and received the rank of privy councillor. In 1814 he was made director of studies at the court academy, and inspector of the Museum of Antiquities. He died at Dresden on the 17th of November 1835. His chief works are:—Ideen zur Archäologie der Malerei, i. (1811) (no more published); Kunstmythologie (1811); Vorlesungen und Aufsätze zur Alterthumskunde (1817); Amalthea (1821–1825); Ideen zur Kunstmythologie (1826–1836). The Opuscula et Carmina Latina were published separately in 1837; with a collection of his smaller pieces, Kleine Schriften (1837–1838), including a complete list of his works (56 pages). His biography was written by his son Karl Wilhelm Böttiger (1790–1862), for some time professor of history at Erlangen, and author of several valuable histories (History of Germany, History of Saxony, History of Bavaria, Universal History of Biographies).