[1] This attack led to a dramatic scene in the House, in which Blaine
fervidly asseverated his denial.
BLAINVILLE, HENRI MARIE DUCROTAY DE (1777-1850), French naturalist, was
born at Arques, near Dieppe, on the 12th of September 1777. About 1796
he went to Paris to study painting, but he ultimately devoted himself to
natural history, and attracted the attention of Baron Cuvier, for whom
he occasionally lectured at the College de France and at the Athenaeum.
In 1812 he was aided by Cuvier to obtain the chair of anatomy and
zoology in the Faculty of Sciences at Paris, but subsequently an
estrangement grew up between the two men and ended in open enmity. In
1825 Blainville was admitted a member of the Academy of Sciences; and in
1830 he was appointed to succeed J.B. Lamarck in the chair of natural
history at the museum. Two years later, on the death of Cuvier, he
obtained the chair of comparative anatomy, which he continued to occupy
for the space of eighteen years, proving himself no unworthy successor
to his great teacher. He died at Paris on the 1st of May 1850. Besides
many separate memoirs, he was the author of _Prodrome d'une nouvelle
distribution methodique du regne animal_ (1816); _Osteographic ou
description iconographique comparee du squelette, &c._ (1839-1864);
_Faune francaise_ (1821-1830); _Corns de physiologie generale et
comparee_ (1833); _Manuel de malacologie et de conchyliologie_
(1825-1827); _Histoire des sciences de l'organisme_ (1845).
BLAIR, FRANCIS PRESTON (1791-1876), American journalist and politician,
was born at Abingdon, Virginia, on the 12th of April 1791. He removed to
Kentucky, graduated at Transylvania University in 1811, took to
journalism, and was a contributor to Amos Kendall's paper, the _Argus_,
at Frankfort. In 1830, having become an ardent follower of Andrew
Jackson, he was made editor of the Washington _Globe_, the recognized
organ of the Jackson party. In this capacity, and as a member of
Jackson's "Kitchen Cabinet," he long exerted a powerful influence; the
_Globe_ was the administration organ until 1841, and the chief
Democratic organ until 1845; Blair ceased to be its editor in 1849. In
1848 he actively supported Martin Van Buren, the Free Soil candidate,
for the presidency, and in 1852 he supported Franklin Pierce, but soon
afterwards helped to organize the new Republican party, and presided at
its preliminary convention at Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, in February 1856.
He was influential in securing the nomination of John C. Fremont at the
June convention (1856), and of Abraham Lincoln in 1860. After Lincoln's
re-election in 1864 Blair thought that his former close personal
relations with the Confederate leaders might aid in bringing about a
cessation of hostilities, and with Lincoln's consent went unofficially
to Richmond and induced President Jefferson Davis to appoint
commissioners to confer with representatives of the United States. This
resulted in the futile "Hampton Roads Conference" of the 3rd of February
1865 (see LINCOLN, ABRAHAM). After the Civil War Blair became a
supporter of President Johnson's reconstruction policy, and eventually
rejoined the Democratic party. He died at Silver Spring, Maryland, on
the 18th of October 1876.
His son, MONTGOMERY BLAIR (1813-1883), politician and lawyer, was born
in Franklin county, Kentucky, on the 10th of May 1813. He graduated at
West Point in 1835, but, after a year's service in the Seminole War,
left the army, studied law, and began practice at St Louis, Missouri.
After serving as United States district attorney (1839-1843), as mayor
of St Louis (1842-1843), and as judge of the court of common pleas
(1843-1849), he removed to Maryland (1852), and devoted himself to law
practice principally in the Federal supreme court. He was United States
solicitor in the court of claims from 1855 until 1858, and was
associated with George T. Curtis as counsel for the plaintiff in the
Dred Scott case in 1857. In 1860 he took an active part in the
presidential campaign in behalf of Lincoln, in whose cabinet he was
postmaster-general from 1861 until September 1864, when he resigned as a
result of the hostility of the Radical Republican faction, who
stipulated that Blair's retirement should follow the withdrawal of
Fremont's name as a candidate for the presidential nomination in that
year. Under his administration such reforms and improvements as the
establishment of free city delivery, the adoption of a money order
system, and the use of railway mail cars were instituted --the last
having been suggested by George B. Armstrong (d. 1871), of Chicago, who
from 1869 until his death was general superintendent of the United
States railway mail service. Differing from the Republican party on the
reconstruction policy, Blair gave his adherence to the Democratic party
after the Civil War. He died at Silver Spring, Maryland, on the 27th of
July 1883.
Another son, FRANCIS PRESTON BLAIR, jun. (1821-1875), soldier and
political leader, was born at Lexington, Kentucky, on the 19th of
February 1821. After graduating at Princeton in 1841 he practised law in
St Louis, and later served in the Mexican War. He was ardently opposed
to the extension of slavery and supported Martin Van Buren, the Free
Soil candidate for the presidency in 1848. He served from 1852 to 1856
in the Missouri legislature as a Free Soil Democrat, in 1856 joined the
Republican party, and in 1857-1860 and 1861-1862 was a member of
Congress, where he proved an able debater. Immediately after South
Carolina's secession, Blair, believing that the southern leaders were
planning to carry Missouri into the movement, began active efforts to
prevent it and personally organized and equipped a secret body of 1000
men to be ready for the emergency. When hostilities became inevitable,
acting in conjunction with Captain (later General) Nathaniel Lyon, he
suddenly transferred the arms in the Federal arsenal at St Louis to
Alton, Illinois, and a few days later (May 10, 1861) surrounded and
captured a force of state guards which had been stationed at Camp
Jackson in the suburbs of St Louis with the intention of seizing the
arsenal. This action gave the Federal cause a decisive initial advantage
in Missouri. Blair was promoted brigadier-general of volunteers in
August 1862 and a major-general in November 1862. In Congress as
chairman of the important military affairs committee his services were
of the greatest value. He commanded a division in the Vicksburg campaign
and in the fighting about Chattanooga, and was one of Sherman's corps
commanders in the final campaigns in Georgia and the Carolinas. In 1866
like his father and brother he opposed the Congressional reconstruction
policy, and on that issue left the Republican party. In 1868 he was the
Democratic candidate for vice-president on the ticket with Horatio
Seymour. In 1871-1873 he was a United States senator from Missouri. He
died in St Louis, on the 8th of July 1875.
BLAIR, HUGH (1718-1800), Scottish Presbyterian divine, was born on the
7th of April 1718, at Edinburgh, where his father was a merchant.
Entering the university in 1730 he graduated M.A. in 1739; his thesis,
_De Fundamentis et Obligations Legis Naturae_, contains an outline of
the moral principles afterwards unfolded in his sermons. He was licensed
to preach in 1741, and a few months later the earl of Leven, hearing of
his eloquence, presented him to the parish of Collessie in Fife. In 1743
he was elected to the second charge of the Canongate church, Edinburgh,
where he ministered until removed to Lady Yester's, one of the city
churches, in 1754. In 1757 the university of St Andrews conferred on him
the degree of D.D., and in the following year he was promoted to the
High Church, Edinburgh, the most important charge in Scotland. In 1759
he began, under the patronage of Lord Kames, to deliver a course of
lectures on composition, the success of which led to the foundation of a
chair of rhetoric and _belles lettres_ in the Edinburgh University. To
this chair he was appointed in 1762, with a salary of L70 a year. Having
long taken interest in the Celtic poetry of the Highlands, he published
in 1763 a laudatory _Dissertation_ on Macpherson's _Ossian_, the
authenticity of which he maintained. In 1777 the first volume of his
_Sermons_ appeared. It was succeeded by four other volumes, all of which
met with the greatest success. Samuel Johnson praised them warmly, and
they were translated into almost every language of Europe. In 1780
George III. conferred upon Blair a pension of L200 a year. In 1783 he
retired from his professorship and published his _Lectures on Rhetoric_,
which have been frequently reprinted. He died on the 27th of December
1800. Blair belonged to the "moderate" or latitudinarian party, and his
_Sermons_ have been criticized as wanting in doctrinal definiteness. His
works display little originality, but are written in a flowing and
elaborate style. He is remembered chiefly by the place he fills in the
literature of his time. _Blair's Sermons_ is a typical religious book of
the period that preceded the Anglican revival.
See J. Hall, _Account of Life and Writings of Hugh Blair_ (1807).
BLAIR, JAMES (1656-1743), American divine and educationalist, was born
in Scotland, probably at Edinburgh, in 1656. He graduated M.A. at
Edinburgh University in 1673, was beneficed in the Episcopal Church in
Scotland, and for a time was rector of Cranston Parish in the diocese of
Edinburgh. In 1682 he left Scotland for England, and three years later
was sent by the bishop of London, Henry Compton, as a missionary to
Virginia. He soon gained great influence over the colonists both in
ecclesiastical and in civil affairs, and, according to Prof. Moses Coit
Tyler, "probably no other man in the colonial time did so much for the
intellectual life of Virginia." He was the minister of Henrico parish
from 1685 until 1694, of the Jamestown church from 1694 until 1710, and
of Bruton church at Williamsburg from 1710 until his death. From 1689
until his death he was the commissary of the bishop of London for
Virginia, the highest ecclesiastical position in the colony, his duties
consisting "in visiting the parishes, correcting the lives of the
clergy, and keeping them orderly." In 1693, by the appointment of King
William III., he became a member of the council of Virginia, of which he
was for many years the president. Largely because of charges brought
against them by Blair, Governor Sir Edmund Andros, Lieutenant-governor
Francis Nicholson, and Lieutenant-governor Alexander Spotswood were
removed in 1698, 1705 and 1722 respectively. Blair's greatest service to
the colony was rendered as the founder, and the president from 1693
until his death, of the College of William and Mary, for which he
himself secured a charter in England. "Thus, James Blair may be called,"
says Tyler, "the creator of the healthiest and most extensive
intellectual influence that was felt in the Southern group of colonies
before the Revolution." He died on the 18th of April 1743, and was
buried at Jamestown, Va. He published a collection of 117 discourses
under the title _Our Saviour's Divine Sermon on the Mount_ (4 vols.,
1722; second edition, 1732), and, in collaboration with Henry Hartwell
and Edward Chilton, a work entitled _The Present State of Virginia and
the College_ (1727; written in 1693), probably the best account of the
Virginia of that time.
See Daniel E. Motley's _Life of Commissary James Blair_ (Baltimore,
1901; series xix. No. 10, of the Johns Hopkins University Studies in
Historical and Political Science), and, for a short sketch and an
estimate, M.C. Tyler's _A History of American Literature, 1607-1765_
(New York, 1878).
BLAIR, ROBERT (1699-1746), Scottish poet, eldest son of the Rev. Robert
Blair, one of the king's chaplains, was born at Edinburgh in 1699. He
was educated at Edinburgh University and in Holland, and in 1731 was
appointed to the living of Athelstaneford in East Lothian. He married in
1738 Isabella, daughter of Professor William Law. The possession of a
small fortune gave him leisure for his favourite pursuits, gardening and
the study of English poets. He died at Athelstaneford on the 4th of
February 1746. His only considerable work, _The Grave_ (1743), is a poem
written in blank verse of great vigour and freshness, and is much less
conventional than its gloomy subject might lead one to expect. Its
religious subject no doubt contributed to its great popularity,
especially in Scotland; but the vogue it attained was justified by its
picturesque imagery and occasional felicity of expression. It inspired
William Blake to undertake a series of twelve illustrative designs,
which were engraved by Louis Schiavonetti, and published in 1808.
See the biographical introduction prefixed to his _Poetical Works_, by
Dr Robert Anderson, in his _Poets of Great Britain_, vol. viii.
(1794.)
BLAIR ATHOLL (Gaelic _blair_, "a plain"), a village and parish of
Perthshire, Scotland, 35-1/4 m. N.W. of Perth by the Highland railway.
Pop. (1901) 367; of parish, 1722. It is situated at the confluence of
the Tilt and the Garry. The oldest part of Blair Castle, a seat of the
duke of Atholl, dates from 1269; as restored and enlarged in 1869-1872
from the plans of David Bryce, R.S.A., it is a magnificent example of
the Scottish baronial style. It was occupied by the marquess of Montrose
prior to the battle of Tippermuir in 1644, stormed by the Cromwellians
in 1653, and garrisoned on behalf of James II. in 1689. The Young
Pretender stayed in it in 1743, and the duke of Cumberland in 1746. The
body of Viscount Dundee, conveyed hither from the battlefield of
Killiecrankie, was buried in the church of Old Blair, in which a
monument was erected to his memory in 1889 by the 7th duke of Atholl.
The grounds surrounding the castle are among the most beautiful in the
Highlands. A golf course has been laid down south-east of the village,
between the railway and the Garry, and every September a great display
of Highland games is held. Ben-y-gloe (3671 ft. high), the scene of the
hunt given in 1529 by the earl of Atholl in honour of James V. and the
queen dowager, may be climbed by way of Fender Burn, a left-hand
tributary of the Tilt. The falls of Fender, near the old bridge of Tilt,
are eclipsed by the falls of Bruar, 4 m. west of Blair Atholl, formed by
the Bruar, which, rising in Ben Dearg (3304 ft.), flows into the Garry
after an impetuous course of 10 m.
BLAIRGOWRIE, a police burgh of Perthshire, Scotland, situated on the
Ericht. Pop. (1901) 3378. It is the terminus of a branch line of the
Caledonian railway from Coupar Angus, from which it is 4-3/4 m. distant,
and is 16 m. N. by E. of Perth by road. The town is entirely modern, and
owes its progress to the water-power supplied by the Ericht for linen
and jute factories. There are also sawmills, breweries and a large
factory for bee appliances. Strawberries, raspberries and other fruits
are largely grown in the neighbourhood. A park was presented to the town
in 1892. On the left bank of the Ericht, opposite Blairgowrie, with
which it is connected by a four-arched bridge, stands the town and
police burgh of Rattray (pop. 2019), where there are flax and jute
mills. Donald Cargill the Covenanter, who was executed at Edinburgh, was
a native of the parish. Four miles west of Blairgowrie, on the coach
road to Dunkeld, lies Loch Clunie, of some interest historically. On a
crannog in the lake are the ruins of a small castle which belonged to
James ("the Admirable") Crichton, and the large mound near the loch was
the site of the castle in which Edward I. lodged on one of his Scottish
expeditions.
BLAKE, EDWARD (1833- ), Irish-Canadian statesman, eldest son of
William Hume Blake of Cashel Grove, Co. Galway, who settled in Canada in
1832, and there became a distinguished lawyer and chancellor of Ontario,
was born on the 13th of October 1833 at Adelaide in Middlesex county,
Ontario. Educated at Upper Canada College and the university of Toronto,
Blake was called to the bar in 1856 and quickly obtained a good
practice, becoming Q.C. in 1864. In 1867 he was elected member for West
Durham in the Dominion parliament, and for South Bruce in the provincial
legislature, in which he became leader of the Liberal opposition two
years later. On the defeat of John Sandfield Macdonald's government in
1871 Blake became prime minister of Ontario, but resigned this office
the same year in consequence of the abolition of dual representation. He
declined the leadership of the Liberal party in the Dominion parliament,
but, having taken an active part in bringing about the overthrow of Sir
John Macdonald's ministry in 1873, joined the Liberal cabinet of
Alexander Mackenzie, though without portfolio or salary. Impaired health
soon compelled him to resign, and to take the voyage to Europe; on his
return in 1875 he rejoined the cabinet as minister of justice, in which
office it fell to him to take the chief part in framing the constitution
of the supreme court of Canada. Continued ill-health compelled him in
1877 again to seek rest in Europe, having first exchanged the portfolio
of justice for the less exacting office of president of the council.
During his absence the Liberal government was driven from power by the
elections of 1878; and Blake himself, having failed to secure
re-election, was for a short time without a seat in parliament. From
1880 to 1887 he was leader of the opposition, being succeeded on his
resignation of the position in the latter year by Mr (afterwards Sir)
Wilfrid Laurier. In 1892 he became a member of the British House of
Commons as an Irish Nationalist, being elected for South Longford. But
he did not fulfil the expectations which had been formed on the strength
of his colonial reputation; he took no very prominent part in debate,
and gave little evidence of his undoubted oratorical gifts. In 1907 he
retired from public life. In 1858 he had married Margaret, daughter of
Benjamin Cronyn, first bishop of Huron.
See John Charles Dent, _The Last Forty Years: Canada Since the Union
of 1841_ (2 vols., Toronto, 1881); J.S. Willison, _Sir Wilfrid Laurier
and the Liberal Party_ (2 vols., London, 1904).
BLAKE, ROBERT (1509-1657), English parliamentarian and admiral, was born
at Bridgwater in Somersetshire. The day of his birth is not known, but
he was baptized on the 27th of September 1599. Blake was the eldest son
of a well-to-do merchant, and received his early education at the
grammar school of Bridgwater. In 1615 he was sent to Oxford, entering at
first St Alban's Hall, but removing afterwards to Wadham College, then
recently founded. He remained at the university till 1625, but failed to
obtain any college preferment. Nothing is known of his life with
certainty for the next fifteen years. An anonymous Dutch writer, in the
_Hollandische Mercurius_ (1652), represents him as saying that he had
lived in Schiedam "for five or six years" in his youth. He doubtless
engaged in trade, and apparently with success. When, after eleven years
of kingship without parliaments, a parliament was summoned to meet in
April 1640, Blake was elected to represent his native borough. This
parliament, named "the Short," was dissolved in three weeks, and the
career of Blake as a politician was suspended. Two years later the
inevitable conflict began. Blake declared for the Parliament, and served
under Sir John Horner. In 1643 he was entrusted with the command of one
of the forts of Bristol. This he stoutly held during the siege of the
town by Prince Rupert, and earned the approval of parliament by refusing
to surrender his post till duly informed of the capitulation. In 1644 he
gained high distinction by the resolute defence of Lyme in Dorsetshire.
The siege was raised on the 23rd of May, and on the 8th of July Blake
took Taunton by surprise, and notwithstanding its imperfect defences and
inadequate supplies, held the town for the Parliament against two sieges
by the Royalists until July 1645, when it was relieved by Fairfax. In
1645 he re-entered parliament as member for Taunton, when the Royalist
Colonel Windham was expelled.
He adhered to the Parliamentary party after the king's death, and within
a month (February 1649) was appointed, with Colonels Dean and Popham, to
the command of the fleet, under the title of General of the Sea. In
April he was sent in pursuit of Prince Rupert, who with the Royalist
fleet had entered the harbour of Kinsale in Ireland. There he blockaded
the prince for six months; and when the latter, in want of provisions,
and hopeless of relief, succeeded in making his escape with the fleet
and in reaching the Tagus, Blake followed him thither, and again
blockaded him for some months. The king of Portugal refusing permission
for Blake to attack his enemy, the latter made reprisals by falling on
the Portuguese fleet, richly laden, returning from Brazil. He captured
seventeen ships and burnt three, bringing his prizes home without
molestation. After revictualling his fleet, he sailed again, captured a
French man-of-war, and then pursued Prince Rupert, who had been asked to
go away by the Portuguese and had entered the Mediterranean. In November
1650 Blake destroyed the bulk of the Royalist squadron near Cartagena.
The thanks of parliament were voted to Blake, and he received a grant of
L1000. He was continued in his office of admiral and general of the sea;
and in May following he took, in conjunction with Ayscue, the Scilly
Islands. For this service the thanks of parliament were again awarded
him, and he was soon after made a member of the council of state.
In 1652 war broke out with the Dutch, who had made great preparations
for the conflict. In March the command of the fleet was given to Blake
for nine months; and in the middle of May the Dutch fleet of forty-five
ships, led by their great admiral Tromp, appeared in the Downs. Blake,
who had only twenty ships, sailed to meet them, and the battle took
place off Dover on the 19th of May. The Dutch were defeated in an
engagement of four or five hours, lost two ships, and withdrew under
cover of darkness. Attempts at accommodation were made by the states,
but they failed. Early in July war was formally declared, and in the
same month Blake captured a large part of the Dutch fishery-fleet and
the twelve men-of-war that formed their convoy. On the 28th of September
Blake and Penn again encountered the Dutch fleet, now commanded by De
Ruyter and De Witt, off the Kentish Knock, defeated it, and chased it
for two days. The Dutch took refuge in Goree. A third battle was fought
near the end of November. By this time the ships under Blake's command
had been reduced in number to forty, and nearly the half of these were
useless for want of seamen. Tromp, who had been reinstated in command,
appeared in the Downs, with a fleet of eighty ships besides ten
fireships. Blake, nevertheless, risked a battle off Dungeness, but was
defeated, and withdrew into the Thames. The English fleet having been
refitted, put to sea again in February 1653; and on the 18th Blake, at
the head of eighty ships, encountered Tromp in the Channel. The Dutch
force, according to Clarendon, numbered 100 ships of war, but according
to the official reports of the Dutch, only seventy. The battle was
severe, and continued through three days, the Dutch, however,
retreating, and taking refuge in the shallow waters off the French
coast. In this action Blake was severely wounded. The three English
admirals put to sea again in May; and on the 3rd and 4th of June another
battle was fought near the North Foreland. On the first day Dean and
Monk were repulsed by Tromp; but on the second day the scales were
turned by the arrival of Blake, and the Dutch retreated to the Texel.
Ill-health now compelled Blake to retire from the service for a time,
and he did not appear again on the seas for about eighteen months;
meanwhile he sat as a member of the Little Parliament (Barebones's). In
November 1654 he was selected by Cromwell to conduct a fleet to the
Mediterranean to exact compensation from the duke of Tuscany, the
knights of Malta, and the piratical states of North Africa, for wrongs
done to English merchants. This mission he executed with his accustomed
spirit and with complete success. Tunis alone dared to resist his
demands, and Tunis paid the penalty of the destruction of its two
fortresses by English guns. In the winter of 1655-1656, war being
declared against Spain, Blake was sent to cruise off Cadiz and the
neighbouring coasts, to intercept the Spanish shipping. One of his
captains captured a part of the Plate fleet in September 1656. In April
1657 Blake, then in very ill health, suffering from dropsy and scurvy,
and anxious to have assistance in his arduous duties, heard that the
Plate fleet lay at anchor in the bay of Santa Cruz, in the island of
Teneriffe. The position was a very strong one, defended by a castle and
several forts with guns. Under the shelter of these lay a fleet of
sixteen ships drawn up in crescent order. Captain Stayner was ordered to
enter the bay and fall on the fleet. This he did. Blake followed him.
Broadsides were poured into the castle and the forts at the same time;
and soon nothing was left but ruined walls and charred fragments of
burnt ships. The wind was blowing hard into the bay; but suddenly, and
fortunately for the heroic Blake, it shifted, and carried him safely out
to sea. "The whole action," says Clarendon, "was so incredible that all
men who knew the place wondered that any sober man, with what courage
soever endowed, would ever have undertaken it; and they could hardly
persuade themselves to believe what they had done; while the Spaniards
comforted themselves with the belief that they were devils and not men
who had destroyed them in such a manner." The English lost one ship and
200 men killed and wounded. The thanks of parliament were voted to
officers and men; and a very costly jewel (diamond ring) was presented
to Blake, "as a testimony," says Cromwell in his letter of 10th June,
"of our own and the parliament's good acceptance of your carriage in
this action." "This was the last action of the brave Blake."
After again cruising for a time off Cadiz, his health failing more and
more, he was compelled to make homewards before the summer was over. He
died at sea, but within sight of Plymouth, on the 17th of August 1657.
His body was brought to London and embalmed, and after lying in state at
Greenwich House was interred with great pomp and solemnity in
Westminster Abbey. In 1661 Charles II. ordered the exhumation of
Blake's body, with those of the mother and daughter of Cromwell and
several others. They were cast out of the abbey, and were reburied in
the churchyard of St Margaret's. "But that regard," says Johnson, "which
was denied his body has been paid to his better remains, his name and
his memory. Nor has any writer dared to deny him the praise of
intrepidity, honesty, contempt of wealth, and love of his country."
Clarendon bears the following testimony to his excellence as a
commander:--"He was the first man that declined the old track, and made
it apparent that the science might be attained in less time than was
imagined. He was the first man that brought ships to contemn castles on
the shore, which had ever been thought very formidable, but were
discovered by him to make a noise only, and to fright those who could be
rarely hurt by them."
A life of Blake is included in the work entitled _Lives, English and
Foreign_. Dr Johnson wrote a short life of him, and in 1852 appeared
Hepworth Dixon's fuller narrative, _Robert Blake, Admiral and General
at Sea_. Much new matter for the biography of Blake will be found in
the _Letters and Papers Relating to the First Dutch War_, edited by
S.R. Gardiner for the Navy Records Society (1898-1899.)
BLAKE, WILLIAM (1757-1827), English poet and painter, was born in
London, on the 28th of November 1757. His father, James Blake, kept a
hosier's shop in Broad Street, Golden Square; and from the scanty
education which the young artist received, it may be judged that the
circumstances of the family were not very prosperous. For the facts of
William Blake's early life the world is indebted to a little book,
called _A Father's Memoirs on a Child_, written by Dr Malkin in 1806.
Here we learn that young Blake quickly developed a taste for design,
which his father appears to have had sufficient intelligence to
recognize and assist by every means in his power. At the age of ten the
boy was sent to a drawing school kept by Henry Pars in the Strand, and
at the same time he was already cultivating his own taste by constant
attendance at the different art sale rooms, where he was known as the
"little connoisseur." Here he began to collect prints after
Michelangelo, and Raphael, Durer and Heemskerk, while at the school in
the Strand he had the opportunity of drawing from the antique. After
four years of this preliminary instruction Blake entered upon another
branch of art study. In 1777 he was apprenticed to James Basire, an
engraver of repute, and with him he remained seven years. His
apprenticeship had an important bearing on Blake's artistic education,
and marks the department of art in which he was made technically
proficient. In 1778, at the end of his apprenticeship, he proceeded to
the school of the Royal Academy, where he continued his early study from
the antique, and had for the first time an opportunity of drawing from
the living model.
This is in brief all that is known of Blake's artistic education. That
he ever, at the academy or elsewhere, systematically studied painting we
do not know; but that he had already begun the practice of water colour
for himself is ascertained. So far, however, the course of his training
in art schools, and under Basire, was calculated to render him
proficient only as a draughtsman and an engraver. He had learned how to
draw, and he had mastered besides the practical difficulties of
engraving, and with these qualifications he entered upon his career. In
1780 he exhibited a picture in the Royal Academy Exhibition, conjectured
to have been executed in water colours, and he continued to contribute
to the annual exhibitions up to the year 1808. In 1782 he married
Catherine Boucher, the daughter of a market-gardener at Battersea, with
whom he lived always on affectionate terms, and the young couple after
their marriage established themselves in Green Street, Leicester Fields.
Blake had already become acquainted with some of the rising artists of
his time, amongst them Stothard, Flaxman and Fuseli, and he now began to
see something of literary society. At the house of the Rev. Henry
Mathew, in Rathbone Place, he used to recite and sometimes to sing poems
of his own composition, and it was through the influence of this
gentleman, combined with that of Flaxman, that Blake's first volume of
poetry was printed and published in 1783. From this time forward the
artist came before the world in a double capacity. By education as well
as native talent, he was pledged to the life of a painter, and these
_Poetical Sketches_, though they are often no more than the utterances
of a boy, are no less decisive in marking Blake as a future poet.
For a while the two gifts are exhibited in association. To the close of
his life Blake continued to print and publish, after a manner of his
own, the inventions of his verse illustrated by original designs, but
there is a certain period in his career when the union of the two gifts
is peculiarly close, and when their service to one another is
unquestionable. In 1784 Blake, moving from Green Street, set up in
company with a fellow-pupil, Parker, as print-seller and engraver next
to his father's house in Broad Street, Golden Square, but in 1787 this
partnership was severed, and he established an independent business in
Poland Street. It was from this house, and in 1787, that the _Songs of
Innocence_ were published, a work that must always be remarkable for
beauty both of verse and of design, as well as for the singular method
by which the two were combined and expressed by the artist. Blake became
in fact his own printer and publisher. He engraved upon copper, by a
process devised by himself, both the text of his poems and the
surrounding decorative design, and to the pages printed from the copper
plates an appropriate colouring was afterwards added by hand. The poetic
genius already discernible in the first volume of _Poetical Sketches_ is
here more decisively expressed, and some of the songs in this volume
deserve to take rank with the best things of their kind in our
literature. In an age of enfeebled poetic style, when Wordsworth, with
more weighty apparatus, had as yet scarcely begun his reform of English
versification, Blake, unaided by any contemporary influence, produced a
work of fresh and living beauty; and if the _Songs of Innocence_
established Blake's claim to the title of poet, the setting in which
they were given to the world proved that he was also something more. For
the full development of his artistic powers we have to wait till a later
date, but here at least he exhibits a just and original understanding of
the sources of decorative beauty. Each page of these poems is a study of
design, full of invention, and often wrought with the utmost delicacy of
workmanship. The artist retained to the end this feeling for decorative
effect; but as time went on, he considerably enlarged the imaginative
scope of his work, and decoration then became the condition rather than
the aim of his labour.
Notwithstanding the distinct and precious qualities of this volume, it
attracted but slight attention, a fact perhaps not very wonderful, when
the system of publication is taken into account. Blake, however,
proceeded with other work of the same kind. The same year he published
_The Book of Thel_, more decidedly mystic in its poetry, but scarcely
less beautiful as a piece of illumination; _The Marriage of Heaven and
Hell_ followed in 1790; and in 1793 there are added _The Gates of
Paradise_, _The Vision of the Daughters of Albion_, and some other
"Prophetic Books." It becomes abundantly clear on reaching this point in
his career that Blake's utterances cannot be judged by ordinary rules.
The _Songs of Experience_, put forth in 1794 as a companion to the
earlier _Songs of Innocence_, are for the most part intelligible and
coherent, but in these intervening works of prophecy, as they were
called by the author, we get the first public expression of that phase
of his character and of his genius upon which a charge of insanity has
been founded. The question whether Blake was or was not mad seems likely
to remain in dispute, but there can be no doubt whatever that he was at
different periods of his life under the influence of illusions for which
there are no outward facts to account, and that much of what he wrote is
so far wanting in the quality of sanity as to be without a logical
coherence. On the other hand, it is equally clear that no madness
imputed to Blake could equal that which would be involved in the
rejection of his work on this ground. The greatness of Blake's mind is
even better established than its frailty, and in considering the work
that he has left we must remember that it is by the sublimity of his
genius, and not by any mental defect, that he is most clearly
distinguished from his fellows. With the publication of the _Songs of
Experience_ Blake's poetic career, so far at least as ordinary readers
are concerned, may be said to close. A writer of prophecy he continued
for many years, but the works by which he is best known in poetry are
those earlier and simpler efforts, supplemented by a few pieces taken
from various sources, some of which were of later production. But
although Blake the poet ceases in a general sense at this date, Blake
the artist is only just entering upon his career. In the _Songs of
Innocence_ and _Experience_, and even in some of the earlier _Books of
Prophecy_, the two gifts worked together in perfect balance and harmony;
but at this point the supremacy of the artistic faculty asserts itself,
and for the remainder of his life Blake was pre-eminently a designer and
engraver. The labour of poetical composition continues, but the product
passes beyond the range of general comprehension; while, with apparent
inconsistency, the work of the artist gains steadily in strength and
coherence, and never to the last loses its hold upon the understanding.
It may almost be said without exaggeration that his earliest poetic
work, _The Songs of Innocence_, and nearly his latest effort in design,
the illustrations to _The Book of Job_, take rank among the sanest and
most admirable products of his genius. Nor is the fact, astonishing
enough at first sight, quite beyond a possible explanation. As Blake
advanced in his poetic career, he was gradually hindered and finally
overpowered by a tendency that was most serviceable to him in design.
His inclination to substitute a symbol for a conception, to make an
image do duty for an idea, became an insuperable obstacle to literary
success. He endeavoured constantly to treat the intellectual material of
verse as if it could be moulded into sensuous form, with the inevitable
result that as the ideas to be expressed advanced in complexity and
depth of meaning, his poetic gifts became gradually more inadequate to
the task of interpretation. The earlier poems dealing with simpler
themes, and put forward at a time when the bent of the artist's mind was
not strictly determined, do not suffer from this difficulty; the
symbolism then only enriches an idea of no intellectual intricacy; but
when Blake began to concern himself with profounder problems the want of
a more logical understanding of language made itself strikingly
apparent. If his ways of thought and modes of workmanship had not been
developed with an intensity almost morbid, he would probably have been
able to distinguish and keep separate the double functions of art and
literature. As it is, however, he remains as an extreme illustration of
the ascendancy of the artistic faculty. For this tendency to translate
ideas into image, and to find for every thought, however simple or
sublime, a precise and sensuous form, is of the essence of pure artistic
invention. If this be accepted as the dominant bent of Blake's genius,
it is not so wonderful that his work in art should have strengthened in
proportion as his poetic powers waned; but whether the explanation
satisfies all the requirements of the case or not, the fact remains, and
cannot be overlooked by any student of Blake's career.
In 1796 Blake was actively employed in the work of illustration.
Edwards, a bookseller of New Bond Street, projected a new edition of
Young's _Night Thoughts_, and Blake was chosen to illustrate the work.
It was to have been issued in parts, but for some reason not very clear
the enterprise failed, and only a first part, including forty-three
designs, was given to the world. These designs were engraved by Blake
himself, and they are interesting not only for their own merit but for
the peculiar system by which the illustration has been associated with
the text. It was afterwards discovered that the artist had executed
original designs in water-colour for the whole series, and these
drawings, 537 in number, form one of the most interesting records of
Blake's genius. Gilchrist, the painter's biographer, in commenting upon
the engraved plates, regrets the absence of colour, "the use of which
Blake so well understood, to relieve his simple design and give it
significance," and an examination of the original water-colour drawings
fully supports the justice of his criticism. Soon after the publication
of this work Blake was introduced by Flaxman to the poet Hayley, and in
the year 1801 he accepted the suggestion of the latter, that he should
take up his residence at Felpham in Sussex. The mild and amiable poet
had planned to write a life of Cowper, and for the illustration of this
and other works he sought Blake's help and companionship. The residence
at Felpham continued for three years, partly pleasant and partly irksome
to Blake, but apparently not very profitable to the progress of his art.
One of the annoyances of his stay was a malicious prosecution for
treason set on foot by a common soldier whom Blake had summarily ejected
from his garden; but a more serious drawback was the increasing
irritation which the painter seems to have experienced from association
with Hayley. In 1804 Blake returned to London, to take up his residence
in South Moulton Street, and as the fruit of his residence in Felpham,
he published, in the manner already described, the prophetic books
called the _Jerusalem_, _The Emanation of the Giant Albion_, and
_Milton_. The first of these is a very notable performance in regard to
artistic invention. Many of the designs stand out from the text in
complete independence, and are now and then of the very finest quality.
In the years 1804-1805 Blake executed a series of designs in
illustration of Robert Blair's _The Grave_, of much beauty and grandeur,
though showing stronger traces of imitation of Italian art than any
earlier production. These designs were purchased from the artist by an
adventurous and unscrupulous publisher, Cromek, for the paltry sum of
L21, and afterwards published in a series of engravings by Schiavonetti.
Despite the ill treatment Blake received in the matter, and the other
evils, including a quarrel with his friend Stothard as to priority of
invention of a design illustrating the Canterbury Pilgrims, which his
association with Cromek involved, the book gained for him a larger
amount of popularity than he at any other time secured. Stothard's
picture of the Canterbury Pilgrims was exhibited in 1807, and in 1809
Blake, in emulation of his rival's success, having himself painted in
water-colour a picture of the same subject, opened an exhibition, and
drew up a _Descriptive Catalogue_, curious and interesting, and
containing a very valuable criticism of Chaucer.
The remainder of the artist's life is not outwardly eventful. In 1813 he
formed, through the introduction of George Cumberland of Bristol, a
valuable friendship with John Linnell and other rising water-colour
painters. Amongst the group Blake seems to have found special sympathy
in the society of John Varley, who, himself addicted to astrology,
encouraged Blake to cultivate his gift of inspired vision; and it is
probably to this influence that we are indebted for several curious
drawings made from visions, especially the celebrated "ghost of a flea"
and the very humorous portrait of the builder of the Pyramids. In 1821
Blake removed to Fountain Court, in the Strand, where he died on the
12th of August 1827. The chief work of these last years was the splendid
series of engraved designs in illustration of the book of Job. Here we
find the highest imaginative qualities of Blake's art united to the
technical means of expression which he best understood. Both the
invention and the engraving are in all ways remarkable, and the series
may fairly be cited in support of a very high estimate of his genius.
None of his works is without the trace of that peculiar artistic
instinct and power which seizes the pictorial element of ideas, simple
or sublime, and translates them into the appropriate language of sense;
but here the double faculty finds the happiest exercise. The grandeur of
the theme is duly reflected in the simple and sublime images of the
artist's design, and in the presence of these plates we are made to feel
the power of the artist over the expressional resources of human form,
as well as his sympathy with the imaginative significance of his
subject.
A life of Blake, with selections from his works, by Alexander
Gilchrist, was published in 1863 (new edition by W.G. Robertson,
1906); in 1868 A.C. Swinburne published a critical essay on his
genius, remarkable for a full examination of the Prophetic Books, and
in 1874 William Michael Rossetti published a memoir prefixed to an
edition of the poems. In 1893 appeared _The Works of William Blake_,
edited by E.J. Ellis and W.B. Yeats. But for a long time all the
editors paid too little attention to a correct following of Blake's
own MSS. The text of the poems was finally edited with exemplary care
and thoroughness by John Sampson in his edition of the _Poetical
Works_ (1905), which has rescued Blake from the "improvements" of
previous editors. See also _The Letters of_ ~~ _William Blake,
together with a Life by Frederick Tatham_; edited by A.G.B. Russell
(1906); and Basil de Selincourt, _William Blake_ (1909).
(J. C. C.)
BLAKELOCK, RALPH ALBERT (1847- ), American painter, was born in New
York, on the 15th of October, 1847. He graduated at the College of the
City of New York in 1867. In art he was self-taught and markedly
original. Until ill-health necessitated the abandonment of his
profession, he was a most prolific worker, his subjects including
pictures of North American Indian life, and landscapes--notably such
canvases as "The Indian Fisherman"; "Ta-wo-koka: or Circle Dance";
"Silvery Moonlight"; "A Waterfall by Moonlight"; "Solitude"; and
"Moonlight on Long Island Sound."
BLAKENEY, WILLIAM BLAKENEY, BARON (1672-1761), British soldier, was born
at Mount Blakeney in Limerick in 1672. Destined by his father for
politics, he soon showed a decided preference for a military career, and
at the age of eighteen headed the tenants in defending the Blakeney
estate against the Rapparees. As a volunteer he went to the war in
Flanders, and at the siege of Venlo in 1702 won his commission. He
served as a subaltern throughout Marlborough's campaigns, and is said to
have been the first to drill troops by signal of drum or colour. For
many years after the peace of Utrecht he served unnoticed, and was
sixty-five years of age before he became a colonel. This neglect, which
was said to be due to the hostility of Lord Verney, ceased when the duke
of Richmond was appointed colonel of Blakeney's regiment, and
thenceforward his advance was rapid. Brigadier-general in the Cartagena
expedition of 1741, and major-general a little later, he distinguished
himself by his gallant and successful defence of Stirling Castle against
the Highlanders in 1745. Two years later George II. made him
lieutenant-general and lieutenant-governor of Minorca. The governor of
that island never set foot in it, and Blakeney was left in command for
ten years.
In 1756 the Seven Years' War was preluded by a swift descent of the
French on Minorca. Fifteen thousand troops under marshal the duc de
Richelieu, escorted by a strong squadron under the marquis de la
Gallisonniere, landed on the island on the 18th of April, and at once
began the siege of Fort St Philip, where Blakeney commanded at most some
5000 soldiers and workmen. The defence, in spite of crumbling walls and
rotted gun platforms, had already lasted a month when a British fleet
under vice-admiral the Hon. John Byng appeared. La Gallisonniere and
Byng fought, on the 20th of May, an indecisive battle, after which the
relieving squadron sailed away and Blakeney was left to his fate. A
second expedition subsequently appeared off Minorca, but it was then too
late, for after a heroic resistance of seventy-one days the old general
had been compelled to surrender the fort to Richelieu (April 18-June 28,
1756). Only the ruined fortifications were the prize of the victors.
Blakeney and his little garrison were transported to Gibraltar with
absolute liberty to serve again. Byng was tried and executed; Blakeney,
on his return to England, found himself the hero of the nation. Rewards
came freely to the veteran. He was made colonel of the Enniskillen
regiment of infantry, knight of the Bath, and Baron Blakeney of Mount
Blakeney in the Irish peerage. A little later Van Most's statue of him
was erected in Dublin, and his popularity continued unabated for the
short remainder of his life. He died on the 20th of September 1761, and
was buried in Westminster Abbey.
See _Memoirs of General William Blakeney_ (1757).
BLAKESLEY, JOSEPH WILLIAMS (1808-1885), English divine, was born in
London on the 6th of March 1808, and was educated at St Paul's school,
London, and at Corpus Christi and Trinity Colleges, Cambridge. In 1831
he was elected a fellow, and in 1839 a tutor of Trinity. In 1833 he took
holy orders, and from 1845 to 1872 held the college living of Ware,
Hertfordshire. Over the signature "Hertfordshire Incumbent" he
contributed a large number of letters to _The Times_ on the leading
social and political subjects of the day, and he also wrote many reviews
of books for that paper. In 1863 he was made a canon of Canterbury, and
in 1872 dean of Lincoln. Dean Blakesley was the author of the first
English _Life of Aristotle_ (1839), an edition of Herodotus (1852-1854)
in the _Bibliotheca Classica_, and _Four Months in Algeria_ (1859). He
died on the 18th of April 1885.
BLAMIRE, SUSANNA (1747-1794), English poet, daughter of a Cumberland
yeoman, was born at Cardew Hall, near Dalston, in January 1747. Her
mother died while she was a child, and she was brought up by her aunt, a
Mrs Simpson of Thackwood, who sent her niece to the village school at
Raughton Head. Susanna Blamire's earliest poem is "Written in a
Churchyard, on seeing a number of cattle grazing," in imitation of Gray.
She lived an uneventful life among the farmers of the neighbourhood, and
her gaiety and good-humour made her a favourite in rustic society. In
1767 her elder sister Sarah married Colonel Graham of Gartmore. "An
Epistle to her friends at Gartmore" gives a playful description of the
monotonous simplicity of her life. To her Perthshire visits her songs in
the Scottish vernacular are no doubt partly due. Her chief friend was
Catharine Gilpin of Scaleby Castle. The two ladies spent the winters
together in Carlisle, and wrote poems in common. Susanna Blamire died in
Carlisle on the 5th of April 1794. The poems which were not collected
during her lifetime, were first published in 1842 by Henry Lonsdale as
_The Poetical Works of Miss Susanna Blamire, "the Muse of Cumberland,"_
with a memoir by Mr Patrick Maxwell. Some of her songs rank among the
very best of north-country lyrics. "And ye shall walk in silk attire"
and "What ails this heart o' mine," are well known, and were included in
Johnson's _Scots' Musical Museum_.
BLANC, (JEAN JOSEPH CHARLES) LOUIS (1811-1882), French politician and
historian, was born on the 29th of October 1811 at Madrid, where his
father held the post of inspector-general of finance under Joseph
Bonaparte. Failing to receive aid from Pozzo di Borgo, his mother's
uncle, Louis Blanc studied law in Paris, living in poverty, and became a
contributor to various journals. In the _Revue du progres_, which he
founded, he published in 1839 his study on _L'Organisation du travail_.
The principles laid down in this famous essay form the key to Louis
Blanc's whole political career. He attributes all the evils that afflict
society to the pressure of competition, whereby the weaker are driven to
the wall. He demanded the equalization of wages, and the merging of
personal interests in the common good--"_a chacun selon ses besoins, de
chacun selon ses facultes_." This was to be effected by the
establishment of "social workshops," a sort of combined co-operative
society and trade-union, where the workmen in each trade were to unite
their efforts for their common benefit. In 1841 he published his
_Histoire de dix ans 1830-1840_, an attack upon the monarchy of July. It
ran through four editions in four years.
In 1847 he published the two first volumes of his _Histoire de la
Revolution Francaise_. Its publication was interrupted by the revolution
of 1848, when Louis Blanc became a member of the provisional government.
It was on his motion that, on the 25th of February, the government
undertook "to guarantee the existence of the workmen by work"; and
though his demand for the establishment of a ministry of labour was
refused--as beyond the competence of a provisional government--he was
appointed to preside over the government labour commission (_Commission
du Gouvernement pour les travailleurs_) established at the Luxembourg to
inquire into and report on the labour question. On the 10th of May he
renewed, in the National Assembly, his proposal for a ministry of
labour, but the temper of the majority was hostile to socialism, and the
proposal was again rejected. His responsibility for the disastrous
experiment of the national workshops he himself denied in his _Appel aux
honnetes gens_ (Paris, 1849), written in London after his flight; but by
the insurgent mob of the 15th of May and by the victorious Moderates
alike he was regarded as responsible. Between the _sansculottes_, who
tried to force him to place himself at their head, and the national
guards, who maltreated him, he was nearly done to death. Rescued with
difficulty, he escaped with a false passport to Belgium, and thence to
London; in his absence he was condemned by the special tribunal
established at Bourges, _in contumaciam_, to deportation. Against trial
and sentence he alike protested, developing his protest in a series of
articles in the _Nouveau Monde_, a review published in Paris under his
direction. These he afterwards collected and published as _Pages de
l'histoire de la revolution de 1848_ (Brussels, 1850).
During his stay in England he made use of the unique collection of
materials for the revolutionary period preserved at the British Museum
to complete his _Histoire de la Revolution Francaise_ 12 vols.
(1847-1862). In 1858 he published a reply to Lord Normanby's _A Year of
Revolution in Paris_ (1858), which he developed later into his _Histoire
de la revolution de 1848_ (2 vols., 1870-1880). As far back as 1839
Louis Blanc had vehemently opposed the idea of a Napoleonic restoration,
predicting that it would be "despotism without glory," "the Empire
without the Emperor." He therefore remained in exile till the fall of
the Second Empire in September 1870, after which he returned to Paris
and served as a private in the national guard. On the 8th of February
1871 he was elected a member of the National Assembly, in which he
maintained that the republic was "the necessary form of national
sovereignty," and voted for the continuation of the war; yet, though a
member of the extreme Left, he was too clear-minded to sympathize with
the Commune, and exerted his influence in vain on the side of
moderation. In 1878 he advocated the abolition of the presidency and the
senate. In January 1879 he introduced into the chamber a proposal for
the amnesty of the Communists, which was carried. This was his last
important act. His declining years were darkened by ill-health and by
the death, in 1876, of his wife (Christina Groh), an Englishwoman whom
he had married in 1865. He died at Cannes on the 6th of December 1882,
and on the 12th of December received a state funeral in the cemetery of
Pere-Lachaise.
Louis Blanc possessed a picturesque and vivid style, and considerable
power of research; but the fervour with which he expressed his
convictions, while placing him in the first rank of orators, tended to
turn his historical writings into political pamphlets. His political and
social ideas have had a great influence on the development of socialism
in France. His _Discours politiques_ (1847-1881) was published in 1882.
His most important works, besides those already mentioned, are _Lettres
sur l'Angleterre_ (1866-1867), _Dix annees de l'histoire de
l'Angleterre_ (1879-1881), and _Questions d'aujourd'hui et de demain_
(1873-1884).
See L. Fiaux, _Louis Blanc_ (1883).
BLANC, MONT, the culminating point (15,782 ft.) of the mountain range of
the same name, which forms part of the Pennine Alps, and is divided
unequally between France, Italy and Switzerland. The actual highest
summit is wholly French and is the loftiest peak in the Alps, and in
Europe also, if certain peaks in the Caucasus be excluded. At Geneva the
mountain was in former days named the Montagne Maudite, but the present
name seems to have been always used locally. On the north is the valley
of Chamonix, and on the east the head of the valley of Aosta. Among the
great glaciers which stream from the peak the most noteworthy are those
of Bossons and Taconnaz (northern slope) and of Brenva and Miage
(southern slope). The first ascent was made in 1786 by two Chamonix men,
Jacques Balmat and Dr Michel Paccard, and the second in 1787 by Balmat
with two local men. Later in 1787 H.B. de Saussure made the third
ascent, memorable in many respects, and was followed a week later by
Colonel Beaufoy, the first Englishman to gain the top. These ascents
were all made from Chamonix, which is still the usual starting point,
though routes have been forced up the peak from nearly every side, those
on the Italian side being much steeper than that from Chamonix. The
ascent from Chamonix is now frequently made in summer (rarely in winter
also), but, owing to the great height of the mountain, the view is
unsatisfactory, though very extensive (Lyons is visible). There is an
inn at the Grands Mulets (9909 ft.). In 1890 M. Vallot built an
observatory and shelter hut (14,312 ft.) on the Bosses du Dromadaire
(north-west ridge of the mountain), and in 1893 T.J.C. Janssen
constructed an observatory just below the very summit.
See C. Durier, _Le Mont Blanc_ (4th ed., Paris, 1897); C.E. Mathews,
_The Annals of Mont Blanc_ (London, 1898); P. Gussfeldt, _Der
Montblanc_, (Berlin, 1894, also a French translation, Geneva, 1899);
L. Kurz, _Climbers' Guide to the Chain of Mont Blanc_, section vi.
(London, 1892); L. Kurz and X. Imfeld, _Carte de la chaine du Mont
Blanc_ (1896, new edition 1905). (W. A. B. C.)
BLANCHARD, SAMUEL LAMAN (1804-1845), British author and journalist, the
son of a painter and glazier, was born at Great Yarmouth on the 15th of
May 1804. He was educated at St Olave's school, Southwark, and then
became clerk to a proctor in Doctors' Commons. At an early age he
developed literary tastes, contributing dramatic sketches to a paper
called _Drama_. For a short time he was a member of a travelling
dramatic company, but subsequently became a proof-reader in London, and
wrote for the _Monthly Magazine_. In 1827 he was made secretary of the
Zoological Society, a post which he held for three years. In 1828 he
published _Lyric Offerings_, dedicated to Charles Lamb. He had a very
varied journalistic experience, editing in succession the _Monthly
Magazine_, the _True Sun_, the _Constitutional_, the _Court Journal_,
the _Courier_, and _George Cruikshank's Omnibus_; and from 1841 till his
death he was connected with the _Examiner_. In 1846 Bulwer-Lytton
collected a number of his prose-essays under the title _Sketches of
Life_, to which a memoir of the author was prefixed. His verse was
collected in 1876 by Blanchard Jerrold. Over-work broke down his
strength, and, unnerved by the death of his wife, he died by his own
hand on the 15th of February 1845.
His eldest son, SIDNEY LAMAN BLANCHARD, who was the author of _Yesterday
and To-day in India_, died in 1883.
BLANCHE, JACQUES EMILE (1861- ), French painter, was born in Paris. He
enjoyed an excellent cosmopolitan education, and was brought up at Passy
in a house once belonging to the princesse de Lamballe, which still
retained the atmosphere of 18th-century elegance and refinement and
influenced his taste and work. Although he received some instruction in
painting from Gervex, he may be regarded as self-taught. He acquired a
great reputation as a portrait painter; his art is derived from French
and English sources, refined, sometimes super-elegant, but full of
character. Among his chief works are his portraits of his father, of
Pierre Louys, the Thaulow family, Aubrey Beardsley and Yvette Guilbert.
BLANCHE OF CASTILE (1188-1252), wife of Louis VIII. of France, third
daughter of Alphonso VIII., king of Castile, and of Eleanor of England,
daughter of Henry II., was born at Valencia. In consequence of a treaty
between Philip Augustus and John of England, she was betrothed to the
former's son, Louis, and was brought to France, in the spring of 1200,
by John's mother Eleanor. On the 22nd of May 1200 the treaty was finally
signed, John ceding with his niece the fiefs of Issoudun and Gracay,
together with those that Andre de Chavigny, lord of Chateauroux, held in
Berry, of the English crown. The marriage was celebrated the next day,
at Portmort on the right bank of the Seine, in John's domains, as those
of Philip lay under an interdict.
Blanche first displayed her great qualities in 1216, when Louis, who on
the death of John claimed the English crown in her right, invaded
England, only to find a united nation against him. Philip Augustus
refused to help his son, and Blanche was his sole support. The queen
established herself at Calais and organized two fleets, one of which was
commanded by Eustace the Monk, and an army under Robert of Courtenay;
but all her resolution and energy were in vain. Although it would seem
that her masterful temper exercised a sensible influence upon her
husband's gentler character, her role during his reign (1223-1226) is
not well known. Upon his death he left Blanche regent and guardian of
his children. Of her twelve or thirteen children, six had died, and
Louis, the heir--afterwards the sainted Louis IX.,--was but twelve years
old. The situation was critical, for the hard-won domains of the house
of Capet seemed likely to fall to pieces during a minority. Blanche had
to bear the whole burden of affairs alone, to break up a league of the
barons (1226), and to repel the attack of the king of England (1230).
But her energy and firmness overcame all dangers. There was an end to
the calumnies circulated against her, based on the poetical homage
rendered her by Theobald IV., count of Champagne, and the prolonged
stay in Paris of the papal legate, Romano Bonaventura, cardinal of Sant'
Angelo. The nobles were awed by her warlike preparations or won over by
adroit diplomacy, and their league was broken up. St Louis owed his
realm to his mother, but he himself always remained somewhat under the
spell of her imperious personality. After he came of age (1236) her
influence upon him may still be traced. In 1248 she again became regent,
during Louis IX.'s absence on the crusade, a project which she had
strongly opposed. In the disasters which followed she maintained peace,
while draining the land of men and money to aid her son in the East. At
last her strength failed her. She fell ill at Melun in November 1252,
and was taken to Paris, but lived only a few days. She was buried at
Maubuisson.
Besides the works of Joinville and William of Nangis, see Elie Berger,
"Histoire de Blanche de Castille, reine de France," in _Bibliotheque
des ecoles francaises d'Athenes et de Rome_, vol. lxx. (Paris, 1895);
Le Nain de Tillemont, "Vie de Saint Louis," ed. by J. de Gaulle for
the _Societe de l'histoire de France_ (6 vols., 1847-1851); and Paulin
Paris, "Nouvelles recherches sur les moeurs de la reine Blanche et de
Thibaud," in _Cabinet historique_ (1858).
BLANCH FEE, or BLANCH HOLDING (from Fr. _blanc_, white), an ancient
tenure in Scottish land law, the duty payable being in silver or white
money in contradistinction to gold. The phrase was afterwards applied to
any holding of which the quit-rent was merely nominal, such as a penny,
a peppercorn, &c.
BLANDFORD, or BLANDFORD FORUM, a market town, and municipal borough in
the northern parliamentary division of Dorsetshire, England, on the
Stour, 19 m. N.W. of Bournemouth by the Somerset & Dorset railway. Pop.
(1901) 3649. The town is ancient, but was almost wholly destroyed by
fire in the 18th century. The church of St Peter and St Paul, a
classical building, was built in 1732. There are a grammar-school
(founded in 1521 at Milton Abbas, transferred to Blandford in 1775), a
Blue Coat school (1729), and other educational charities. Remnants of a
mansion of the 14th century, Damory Court, are seen in a farmhouse, and
an adjoining Perpendicular chapel is used as a barn. There are numerous
early earthworks on the chalk hills in the neighbourhood. The fine
modern mansion of Bryanston, in the park adjoining the town, is the seat
of Lord Portman. The municipal borough is under a mayor, 4 aldermen and
12 councillors. Area, 145 acres.
BLANDRATA, or BIANDRATA, GIORGIO (c. 1515-1588), Italian physician and
polemic, who came of the De Blandrate family, powerful from the early
part of the 13th century, was born at Saluzzo, the youngest son of
Bernardino Blandrata. He graduated in arts and medicine at Montpellier
in 1533, and specialized in the functional and nervous disorders of
women. In 1544 he made his first acquaintance with Transylvania; in 1553
he was with Alciati in the Grisons; in 1557 he spent a year at Geneva,
in constant intercourse with Calvin, who distrusted him. He attended the
English wife (Jane Stafford) of Count Celso Massimiliano Martinengo,
preacher of the Italian church at Geneva, and fostered anti-trinitarian
opinions in that church. In 1558 he found it expedient to remove to
Poland, where he became a leader of the heretical party at the synods of
Pinczow (1558) and Ksionzh (1560 and 1562). His point was the
suppression of extremes of opinion, on the basis of a confession
literally drawn from Scripture. He obtained the position of court
physician to the queen dowager, the Milanese Bona Sforza. She had been
instrumental in the burning (1539) of Catharine Weygel, at the age of
eighty, for anti-trinitarian opinions; but the writings of Ochino had
altered her views, which were now anti-Catholic. In 1563 Blandrata
transferred his services to the Transylvanian court, where the daughters
of his patroness were married to ruling princes. He revisited Poland
(1576) in the train of Stephen Bathory, whose tolerance permitted the
propagation of heresies; and when (1579) Christopher Bathory introduced
the Jesuits into Transylvania, Blandrata found means of conciliating
them. Throughout his career he was accompanied by his two brothers,
Ludovico and Alphonso, the former being canon of Saluzzo. In
Transylvania, Blandrata co-operated with Francis David (d. 1579), the
anti-trinitarian bishop, but in 1578 two circumstances broke the
connexion. Blandrata was charged with "Italian vice"; David renounced
the worship of Christ. To influence David, Blandrata sent for Faustus
Socinus from Basel. Socinus was David's guest, but the discussion
between them led to no result. At the instance of Blandrata, David was
tried and condemned to prison at Deva (in which he died) on the charge
of innovation. Having amassed a fortune, Blandrata returned to the
communion of Rome. His end is obscure. According to the Jesuit, Jacob
Wujek, he was strangled by a nephew (Giorgio, son of Alphonso) in May
1588. He published a few polemical writings, some in conjunction with
David.
See Malacarne, _Commentario delle Opere e delle Vicende di G.
Blandrata_ (Padova, 1814); Wallace, _Anti-trinitarian Biography_, vol.
ii. (1850). (A. Go.*)
BLANE, SIR GILBERT (1740-1834), Scottish physician, was born at
Blanefield, Ayrshire, on the 29th of August 1749. He was educated at
Edinburgh university, and shortly after his removal to London became
private physician to Lord Rodney, whom he accompanied to the West Indies
in 1779. He did much to improve the health of the fleet by attention to
the diet of the sailors and by enforcing due sanitary precautions, and
it was largely through him that in 1795 the use of lime-juice was made
obligatory throughout the navy as a preventive of scurvy. Enjoying a
number of court and hospital appointments he built up a good practice
for himself in London, and the government constantly consulted him on
questions of public hygiene. He was made a baronet in 1812 in reward for
the services he rendered in connexion with the return of the Walcheren
expedition. He died in London on the 26th of June 1834. Among his works
were _Observations on the Diseases of Seamen_ (1795) and _Elements of
Medical Logic_ (1819).
BLANFORD, WILLIAM THOMAS (1832-1905), English geologist and naturalist,
was born in London on the 7th of October 1832. He was educated in
private schools in Brighton and Paris, and with a view to the adoption
of a mercantile career spent two years in a business house at Civita
Vecchia. On returning to England in 1851 he was induced to enter the
newly established Royal School of Mines, which his younger brother Henry
F. Blanford (1834-1893), afterwards head of the Indian Meteorological
Department, had already joined; he then spent a year in the mining
school at Freiburg, and towards the close of 1854 both he and his
brother obtained posts on the Geological Survey of India. In that
service he remained for twenty-seven years, retiring in 1882. He was
engaged in various parts of India, in the Raniganj coalfield, in Bombay,
and in the coalfield near Talchir, where boulders considered to have
been ice-borne were found in the Talchir strata--a remarkable discovery
confirmed by subsequent observations of other geologists in equivalent
strata elsewhere. His attention was given not only to geology but to
zoology, and especially to the land-mollusca and to the vertebrates. In
1866 he was attached to the Abyssinian expedition, accompanying the army
to Magdala and back; and in 1871-1872 he was appointed a member of the
Persian Boundary Commission. The best use was made of the exceptional
opportunities of studying the natural history of those countries. For
his many contributions to geological science Dr Blanford was in 1883
awarded the Wollaston medal by the Geological Society of London; and for
his labours on the zoology and geology of British India he received in
1901 a royal medal from the Royal Society. He had been elected F.R.S. in
1874, and was chosen president of the Geological Society in 1888. He was
created C.I.E. in 1904. He died in London on the 23rd of June 1905. His
principal publications were: _Observations on the Geology and Zoology of
Abyssinia_ (1870), and _Manual of the Geology of India_, with H.B.
Medlicott (1879).
Biography, with bibliography and portrait, in _Geological Magazine_,
January 1905.
BLANK (from the Fr. _blanc_, white), a word used in various senses based
on that of "left white," i.e. requiring something to be filled in; thus
a "blank cheque" is one which requires the amount to be inserted, an
insurance policy in blank, where the name of the beneficiary is lacking,
"blank verse" (_q.v_.) verse without rhyme, "blank cartridge" that
contains only powder and no ball or shot. The word is also used, as a
substantive, for a ticket in a lottery or sweepstake which does not
carry a number or the name of a horse running or for an unstamped metal
disc in coining.
BLANKENBERGHE, a seaside watering-place on the North Sea in the province
of West Flanders, Belgium, 12 m. N.E. of Ostend, and about 9 m. N.W. of
Bruges, with which it is connected by railway. It is more bracing than
Ostend, and has a fine parade over a mile in length. During the season,
which extends from June to September, it receives a large number of
visitors, probably over 60,000 altogether, from Germany as well as from
Belgium. There is a small fishing port as well as a considerable
fishing-fleet. Two miles north of this place along the dunes is
Zeebrugge, the point at which the new ship-canal from Bruges enters the
North Sea. Fixed population (1904) 5925.
BLANKENBURG. (1) A town and health resort of Germany, in the duchy of
Brunswick, at the N. foot of the Harz Mountains, 12 m. by rail S.W. from
Halberstadt. Pop. (1901) 10,173. It has been in large part rebuilt since
a fire in 1836, and possesses a castle, with various collections, a
museum of antiquities, an old town hall and churches. There are
pine-needle baths and a hospital for nervous diseases. Gardening is a
speciality. In the vicinity is a cliff or ridge of rock called
Teufelsmauer (Devil's wall), from which fine views are obtained across
the plain and into the deep gorges of the Harz Mountains.
(2) Another BLANKENBURG, also a health-resort, is situated in
Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt, Thuringia, at the confluence of the rivers Rinne
and Schwarza, and at the entrance of the Schwarzatal. Its environs are
charming, and to the north of it, on an eminence, rise the fine ruins of
the castle of Greifenstein, built by the German king Henry I., and from
1275 to 1583 the seat of a cadet branch of the counts of Schwarzburg.
BLANKETEERS, the nickname given to some 5000 operatives who on the 10th
of March 1817 met in St Peter's Field, near Manchester, to march to
London, each carrying blankets or rugs. Their object was to see the
prince regent and lay their grievances before him. The Habeas Corpus Act
was suspended, and the leaders were seized and imprisoned. The bulk of
the demonstration yielded at once. The few stragglers who persisted in
the march were intercepted by troops, and treated with considerable
severity. Eventually the spokesmen had an interview with the ministers,
and some reforms were the result.
BLANK VERSE, the unrhymed measure of iambic decasyllable in five beats
which is usually adopted in English epic and dramatic poetry. The
epithet is due to the absence of the rhyme which the ear expects at the
end of successive lines. The decasyllabic line occurs for the first time
in a Provencal poem of the 10th century, but in the earliest instances
preserved it is already constructed with such regularity as to suggest
that it was no new invention. It was certainly being used almost
simultaneously in the north of France. Chaucer employed it in his
_Compleynte to Pitie_ about 1370. In all the literatures of western
Europe it became generally used, but always with rhyme. In the beginning
of the 16th century, however, certain Italian poets made the experiment
of writing decasyllabics without rhyme. The tragedy of _Sophonisba_
(1515) of G.G. Trissino (1478-1550) was the earliest work completed in
this form; it was followed in 1525 by the didactic poem _Le Api_ (The
Bees), of Giovanni Rucellai (1475-1525), who announced his intention of
writing _"Con verso Etrusco dalle rime sciolto,"_ in consequence of
which expression this kind of metre was called _versi sciolti_ or blank
verse. In a very short time this form was largely adopted in Italian
dramatic poetry, and the comedies of Ariosto, the _Aminta_ of Tasso and
the _Pastor Fido_ of Guarini are composed in it. The iambic blank verse
of Italy was, however, mainly hendecasyllabic, not decasyllabic, and
under French influences the habit of rhyme soon returned.
Before the close of Trissino's life, however, his invention had been
introduced into another literature, where it was destined to enjoy a
longer and more glorious existence. Towards the close of the reign of
Henry VIII., Henry Howard, earl of Surrey, translated two books of the
_Aeneid_ into English rhymeless verse, "drawing" them "into a strange
metre." Surrey's blank verse is stiff and timid, permitting itself no
divergence from the exact iambic movement:--
"Who can express the slaughter of that night,
Or tell the number of the corpses slain,
Or can in tears bewail them worthily?
The ancient famous city falleth down,
That many years did hold such seignory."
Surrey soon found an imitator in Nicholas Grimoald, and in 1562 blank
verse was first applied to English dramatic poetry in the _Gorboduc_ of
Sackville and Norton. In 1576, in the _Steel Glass_ of Gascoigne, it was
first used for satire, and by the year 1585 it had come into almost
universal use for theatrical purposes. In Lyly's _The Woman in the Moon_
and Peek's _Arraignment of Paris_ (both of 1584) we find blank verse
struggling with rhymed verse and successfully holding its own. The
earliest play written entirely in blank verse is supposed to be _The
Misfortunes of Arthur_ (1587) of Thomas Hughes. Marlowe now immediately
followed, with the magnificent movement of his _Tamburlaine_ (1589),
which was mocked by satirical critics as "the swelling bombast of
bragging blank verse" (Nash) and "the spacious volubility of a drumming
decasyllable" (Greene), but which introduced a great new music into
English poetry, in such "mighty lines" as
"Still climbing after knowledge infinite,
And always moving as the restless spheres,"
or:--
"See where Christ's blood streams in the firmament!"
Except, however, when he is stirred by a particularly vivid emotion, the
blank verse of Marlowe continues to be monotonous and uniform. It still
depends too exclusively on a counting of syllables. But Shakespeare,
after having returned to rhyme in his earliest dramas, particularly in
_The Two Gentlemen of Verona_, adopted blank verse conclusively about
the time that the career of Marlowe was closing, and he carried it to
the greatest perfection in variety, suppleness and fulness. He released
it from the excessive bondage that it had hitherto endured; as Robert
Bridges has said, "Shakespeare, whose early verse may be described as
syllabic, gradually came to write a verse dependent on stress." In
comparison with that of his predecessors and successors, the blank verse
of Shakespeare is essentially regular, and his prosody marks the
admirable mean between the stiffness of his dramatic forerunners and the
laxity of those who followed him. Most of Shakespeare's lines conform to
the normal type of the decasyllable, and the rest are accounted for by
familiar and rational rules of variation. The ease and fluidity of his
prosody were abused by his successors, particularly by Beaumont and
Fletcher, who employed the soft feminine ending to excess; in Massinger
dramatic blank verse came too near to prose, and in Heywood and Shirley
it was relaxed to the point of losing all nervous vigour.
The later dramatists gradually abandoned that rigorous difference which
should always be preserved between the cadence of verse and prose, and
the example of Ford, who endeavoured to revive the old severity of blank
verse, was not followed. But just as the form was sinking into dramatic
desuetude, it took new life in the direction of epic, and found its
noblest proficient in the person of John Milton. The most intricate and
therefore the most interesting blank verse which has been written is
that of Milton in the great poems of his later life. He reduced the
elisions, which had been frequent in the Elizabethan poets, to law; he
admitted an extraordinary variety in the number of stresses; he
deliberately inverted the rhythm in order to produce particular effects;
and he multiplied at will the caesurae or breaks in a line. Such verses
as
"Arraying with reflected purple and gold--
Shoots invisible virtue even to the deep--
Universal reproach, far worse to bear--
Me, me only, just object of his ire"--
are not mistaken in rhythm, nor to be scanned by forcing them to obey
the conventional stress. They are instances, and _Paradise Lost_ is
full of such, of Milton's exquisite art in ringing changes upon the
metrical type of ten syllables, five stresses and a rising rhythm, so as
to make the whole texture of the verse respond to his poetical thought.
Writing many years later in _Paradise Regained_ and in _Samson
Agonistes_, Milton retained his system of blank verse in its general
characteristics, but he treated it with increased dryness and with a
certain harshness of effect. It is certainly in his biblical drama that
blank verse has been pushed to its most artificial and technical
perfection, and it is there that Milton's theories are to be studied
best; yet it must be confessed that learning excludes beauty in some of
the very audacious irregularities which he here permits himself in
_Samson Agonistes_. Such lines as
"Made arms ridiculous, useless the forgery--
My griefs not only pain me as a lingering disease--
Drunk with idolatry, drunk with wine--
Justly, yet despair not of his final pardon"--
are constructed with perfect comprehension of metrical law, yet they
differ so much from the normal structure of blank verse that they need
to be explained, and to imitate them would be perilous. A persistent
weakness in the third foot has ever been the snare of English blank
verse, and it is this element of monotony and dulness which Milton is
ceaselessly endeavouring to obviate by his wonderful inversions,
elisions and breaks.
After the Restoration, and after a brief period of experiment with
rhymed plays, the dramatists returned to the use of blank verse, and in
the hands of Otway, Lee and Dryden, it recovered much of its
magnificence. In the 18th century, Thomson and others made use of a very
regular and somewhat monotonous form of blank verse for descriptive and
didactic poems, of which the _Night Thoughts_ of Young is, from a
metrical point of view, the most interesting. With these poets the form
is little open to licence, while inversions and breaks are avoided as
much as possible. Since the 18th century, blank verse has been subjected
to constant revision in the hands of Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley,
Keats, Tennyson, the Brownings and Swinburne, but no radical changes, of
a nature unknown to Shakespeare and Milton, have been introduced into
it.
See J.A. Symonds, _Blank Verse_ (1895); Walter Thomas, _Le Decasyllabe
romain et sa fortune en Europe_ (1904); Robert Bridges _Milton's
Prosody_ (1894); Ed. Guest, _A History of English Rhythms_ (1882); J.
Mothere, _Les Theories du vers hereoique anglais_ (1886); J. Schipper,
_Englische Metrik_ (1881-1888). (E. G.)
BLANQUI, JEROME ADOLPHE (1798-1854), French economist, was born at Nice
on the 21st of November 1798. Beginning life as a schoolmaster in Paris,
he was attracted to the study of economics by the lectures of J.B. Say,
whose pupil and assistant he became. Upon the recommendation of Say he
was in 1825 appointed professor of industrial economy and of history at
the Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers. In 1833 he succeeded Say as
professor of political economy at the same institution, and in 1838 was
elected a member of the Academie des Sciences Morales et Politiques. In
1838 appeared his most important work, _Histoire de l'economie politique
en Europe, depuis les anciens jusqu'a nos jours_. He was indefatigable
in research, and for the purposes of his economic inquiries travelled
over almost the whole of Europe and visited Algeria and the East. He
contributed much to our knowledge of the conditions of the
working-classes, especially in France. Other works of Blanqui were _De
la situation economique et morale de l'Espagne en 1846; Resume de
l'histoire du commerce et de l'industrie_ (1826); _Precis elementaire
d'economie politique_ (1826); _Les Classes ouvrieres en France_ (1848).
BLANQUI, LOUIS AUGUSTE (1805-1881), French publicist, was born on the
8th of February 1805 at Puget-Theniers, where his father, Jean Dominique
Blanqui, was at that time sub-prefect. He studied both law and medicine,
but found his real vocation in politics, and at once constituted himself
a champion of the most advanced opinions. He took an active part in the
revolution of July 1830, and continuing to maintain the doctrine of
republicanism during the reign of Louis Philippe, was condemned to
repeated terms of imprisonment. Implicated in the armed outbreak of the
Societe des Saisons, of which he was a leading spirit, he was in the
following year, 1840, condemned to death, a sentence that was afterwards
commuted to imprisonment for life. He was released by the revolution of
1848, only to resume his attacks on existing institutions. The
revolution, he declared, was a mere change of name. The violence of the
_Societe republicaine centrale_, which was founded by Blanqui to demand
a modification of the government, brought him into conflict with the
more moderate Republicans, and in 1849 he was condemned to ten years'
imprisonment. In 1865, while serving a further term of imprisonment
under the Empire, he contrived to escape, and henceforth continued his
propaganda against the government from abroad, until the general amnesty
of 1869 enabled him to return to France. Blanqui's leaning towards
violent measures was illustrated in 1870 by two unsuccessful armed
demonstrations: one on the 12th of January at the funeral of Victor
Noir, the journalist shot by Pierre Bonaparte; the other on the 14th of
August, when he led an attempt to seize some guns at a barrack. Upon the
fall of the Empire, through the revolution of the 4th of September,
Blanqui established the club and journal _La patrie en danger_. He was
one of the band that for a moment seized the reins of power on the 31st
of October, and for his share in that outbreak he was again condemned to
death on the 17th of March of the following year. A few days afterwards
the insurrection which established the Commune broke out, and Blanqui
was elected a member of the insurgent government, but his detention in
prison prevented him from taking an active part. Nevertheless he was in
1872 condemned along with the other members of the Commune to
transportation; but on account of his broken health this sentence was
commuted to one of imprisonment. In 1879 he was elected a deputy for
Bordeaux; although the election was pronounced invalid, Blanqui was set
at liberty, and at once resumed his work of agitation. At the end of
1880, after a speech at a revolutionary meeting in Paris, he was struck
down by apoplexy, and expired on the 1st of January 1881. Blanqui's
uncompromising communism, and his determination to enforce it by
violence, necessarily brought him into conflict with every French
government, and half his life was spent in prison. Besides his
innumerable contributions to journalism, he published an astronomical
work entitled _L'Eternite par les astres_ (1872), and after his death
his writings on economic and social questions were collected under the
title of _Critique sociale_ (1885).
A biography by G. Geffroy, _L'Enferme_ (1897), is highly coloured and
decidedly partisan.
BLANTYRE, the chief town of the Nyasaland protectorate, British Central
Africa. It is situated about 3000 ft. above the sea in the Shire
Highlands 300 m. by river and rail N.N.W. of the Chinde mouth of the
Zambezi. Pop. about 6000 natives and 100 whites. It is the headquarters
of the principal trading firms and missionary societies in the
protectorate. It is also a station on the African trans-continental
telegraph line. The chief building is the Church of Scotland church, a
fine red brick building, a mixture of Norman and Byzantine styles, with
lofty turrets and white domes. It stands in a large open space and is
approached by an avenue of cypresses and eucalyptus. The church was
built entirely by native labour. Blantyre was founded in 1876 by
Scottish missionaries, and is named after the birthplace of David
Livingstone.
BLANTYRE (Gaelic, "the warm retreat"), a parish of Lanarkshire,
Scotland. Pop. (1901) 14,145. The parish lies a few miles south-east of
Glasgow, and contains High Blantyre (pop. 2521), Blantyre Works (or Low
Blantyre), Stonefield and several villages. The whole district is rich
in coal, the mining of which is extensively carried on. Blantyre Works
(pop. 1683) was the birthplace of David Livingstone (1813-1873) and his
brother Charles (1821-1873), who as lads were both employed as piecers
in a local cotton-mill. The scanty remains of Blantyre Priory, founded
towards the close of the 13th century, stand on the left bank of the
Clyde, almost opposite the beautiful ruins of Bothwell Castle. High
Blantyre and Blantyre Works are connected with Glasgow by the Caledonian
railway. Stonefield (pop. 7288), the most populous place in the parish,
entirely occupied with mining, lies between High Blantyre and Blantyre
Works, Calderwood Castle on Rotten Calder Water, near High Blantyre, is
situated amid picturesque scenery.
BLARNEY, a small town of Co. Cork, Ireland, in the mid parliamentary
division, 5 m. N.W. of the city of Cork on the Cork & Muskerry light
railway. Pop. (1901) 928. There is a large manufacture of tweed. The
name "blarney" has passed into the language to denote a peculiar kind of
persuasive eloquence, alleged to be characteristic of the natives of
Ireland. The "Blarney Stone," the kissing of which is said to confer
this faculty, is pointed out within the castle. The origin of this
belief is not known. The castle, built c. 1446 by Cormac McCarthy, was
of immense strength, and parts of its walls are as much as 18 ft. thick.
To its founder is traced by some the origin of the term "blarney," since
he delayed by persuasion and promises the surrender of the castle to the
lord president. Richard Millikin's song, "The Groves of Blarney" (c.
1798), contributed to the fame of the castle, which is also bound up
with the civil history of the county and the War of the Great Rebellion.
BLASHFIELD, EDWIN HOWLAND (1848- ), American artist, was born on the
15th of December 1848 in New York City. He was a pupil of Bonnat in
Paris, and became (1888) a member of the National Academy of Design in
New York. For some years a genre painter, he later turned to decorative
work, marked by rare delicacy and beauty of colouring. He painted mural
decorations for a dome in the manufacturers' building at the Chicago
Exposition of 1893; for the dome of the Congressional library,
Washington; for the capitol at St Paul, Minnesota; for the Baltimore
court-house; in New York City for the Appellate court house, the grand
ball-room of the Waldorf-Astoria hotel, the Lawyers' club, and the
residences of W.K. Vanderbilt and Collis P. Huntington; and in
Philadelphia for the residence of George W. Drexel. With his wife he
wrote _Italian Cities_ (1900) and edited Vasari's _Lives of the
Painters_ (1896), and was well known as a lecturer and writer on art. He
became president of the Society of Mural Painters, and of the Society of
American Artists.
BLASIUS (or BLAISE), SAINT, bishop of Sebaste or Sivas in Asia Minor,
martyred under Diocletian on the 3rd of February 316. The Roman Catholic
Church holds his festival on the 3rd of February, the Orthodox Eastern
Church on the 11th. His flesh is said to have been torn with
woolcombers' irons before he was beheaded, and this seems to be the only
reason why he has always been regarded as the patron saint of
woolcombers. In pre-Reformation England St Blaise was a very popular
saint, and the council of Oxford in 1222 forbade all work on his
festival. Owing to a miracle which he is alleged to have worked on a
child suffering from a throat affection, who was brought to him on his
way to execution, St Blaise's aid has always been held potent in throat
and lung diseases. The woolcombers of England still celebrate St
Blaise's day with a procession and general festivities. He forms one of
a group of fourteen (i.e. twice seven) saints, who for their help in
time of need have been associated as objects of particularly devoted
worship in Roman Catholic Germany since the middle of the 15th century.
See William Hone, _Every Day Book_, i. 210.
BLASPHEMY (through the Fr. from Gr. [Greek: blasphaemia], profane
language, slander, probably derived from root of [Greek: blaptein], to
injure, and [Greek: phaemae], speech), literally, defamation or evil
speaking, but more peculiarly restricted to an indignity offered to the
Deity by words or writing. By the Mosaic law death by stoning was the
punishment for blasphemy (Lev. xxiv. 16). The 77th Novel of Justinian
assigned death as the penalty, as did also the Capitularies. The common
law of England treats blasphemy as an indictable offence. All
blasphemies against God, as denying His being, or providence, all
contumelious reproaches of Jesus Christ, all profane scoffing at the
Holy Scriptures, or exposing any part thereof to contempt or ridicule,
are punishable by the temporal courts with fine, imprisonment and also
infamous corporal punishment. An act of Edward VI. (1547; repealed 1553
and revived 1558) enacts that persons reviling the sacrament of the
Lord's Supper, by contemptuous words or otherwise, shall suffer
imprisonment. Persons denying the Trinity were deprived of the benefit
of the Act of Toleration by an act of 1688. An act of 1697-1698,
commonly called the Blasphemy Act, enacts that if any person, educated
in or having made profession of the Christian religion, should by
writing, preaching, teaching or advised speaking, deny any one of the
Persons of the Holy Trinity to be God, or should assert or maintain that
there are more gods than one, or should deny the Christian religion to
be true, or the Holy Scriptures to be of divine authority, he should,
upon the first offence, be rendered incapable of holding any office or
place of trust, and for the second incapable of bringing any action, of
being guardian or executor, or of taking a legacy or deed of gift, and
should suffer three years' imprisonment without bail. It has been held
that a person offending under the statute is also indictable at common
law (_Rex_ v. _Carlisle_, 1819, where Mr Justice Best remarks, "In the
age of toleration, when that statute passed, neither churchmen nor
sectarians wished to protect in their infidelity those who disbelieved
the Holy Scriptures"). An act of 1812-1813 excepts from these enactments
"persons denying as therein mentioned respecting the Holy Trinity," but
otherwise the common and the statute law on the subject remain as
stated. In the case of _Rex_ v. _Woolston_ (1728) the court declared
that they would not suffer it to be debated whether to write against
Christianity in _general_ was not an offence punishable in the temporal
courts at common law, but they did not intend to include disputes
between learned men on _particular_ controverted points.
The law against blasphemy has practically ceased to be put in active
operation. In 1841 Edward Moxon was found guilty of the publication of a
blasphemous libel (Shelley's _Queen Mab_), the prosecution having been
instituted by Henry Hetherington, who had previously been condemned to
four months' imprisonment for a similar offence, and wished to test the
law under which he was punished. In the case of _Cowan_ v. _Milbourn_
(1867) the defendant had broken his contract to let a lecture-room to
the plaintiff, on discovering that the intended lectures were to
maintain that "the character of Christ is defective, and his teaching
misleading, and that the Bible is no more inspired than any other book,"
and the court of exchequer held that the publication of such doctrine
was blasphemy, and the contract therefore illegal. On that occasion the
court reaffirmed the dictum of Chief Justice Hale, that Christianity is
part of the laws of England. The commissioners on criminal law (sixth
report) remark that "although the law forbids _all_ denial of the being
and providence of God or the Christian religion, it is only when
irreligion assumes the form of an insult to God and man that the
interference of the criminal law has taken place." In England the last
prominent prosecution for blasphemy was the case of _R._ v. _Ramsey &
Foote_, 1883, 48 L.T. 739, when the editor, publisher and printer of the
_Freethinker_ were sentenced to imprisonment; but police court
proceedings were taken as late as 1908 against an obscure Hyde Park
orator who had become a public nuisance.
Profane cursing and swearing is made punishable by the Profane Oaths Act
1745, which directs the offender to be brought before a justice of the
peace, and fined five shillings, two shillings or one shilling,
according as he is a gentleman, below the rank of gentleman, or a common
labourer, soldier, &c.
By the law of Scotland, as it originally stood, the punishment of
blasphemy was death, but by an act of 1825, amended in 1837, blasphemy
was made punishable by fine or imprisonment or both.