See Bohren,De Septem Sapientibus(1860).
See Bohren,De Septem Sapientibus(1860).
BIAS(from the Fr.biais, of unknown origin; the derivation from Lat.bifax, two-faced, is wrong), something oblique or slanting. The term is used especially of a piece of cloth cut obliquely across the texture, or of a seam of two such pieces brought together; and in the game of bowls (q.v.) it is applied alike to the one-sided construction of the bowl, flattened on one side and protruding on the other, and to the slanting line the bowl takes when thrown. The figurative sense of the word, prejudice or undue leaning to one side of a subject, is derived from this bowling term.
BIBACULUS, MARCUS FURIUS,Roman poet, flourished during the last century of the republic. According to Jerome, he was born at Cremona in 103B.C., and probably lived to a great age. He wrote satirical poems after the manner of Catullus, whose bitterness he rivalled, according to Quintilian (Instit.x. i. 196), in his iambics. He even attacked Augustus (and perhaps Caesar), who treated the matter with indifference. He was also author of proseLucubrationesand perhaps of an epic poem on Caesar’s Gallic wars (Pragmatia Belli Gallici). Otto Ribbeck attributes to him one of the shorter poems usually assigned to Virgil. It is doubtful whether he is the person ridiculed by Horace (Satires, ii 5. 40) and whether he is identical with theturgidus Alpinus(Satires, i. 10. 36), the author of an Aethiopis dealing with the life and death of Memnon and of a poem on the Rhine. Some critics, on the ground that Horace would not have ventured to attack so dangerous an adversary, assume the existence of a poet whose real name was Furius (or Cornelius) Alpinus. Bibaculus was ridiculed for his high-flown and exaggerated style and manner of expression.
See Weichert, “De M. Furio Bibaculo,” in hisPoetarum Latinorum Reliquiae(1830); fragments in L. Müller’s edition ofCatullusin the Teubner Series (1870).
See Weichert, “De M. Furio Bibaculo,” in hisPoetarum Latinorum Reliquiae(1830); fragments in L. Müller’s edition ofCatullusin the Teubner Series (1870).
BIBER, HEINRICH JOHANN FRANZ VON(1644-1704), German violinist and composer, was for some time musical conductor at Salzburg, and was ennobled by the emperor Leopold in 1681. He is regarded as the earliest important German composer for the violin, his works including sonatas and church music.
BIBERACH,a town of Germany, in the kingdom of Württemberg, on the Riss, a small affluent of the Danube, 22 m. S.S.W. from Ulm. Pop. (1900) 8390. It is still surrounded by medieval walls and towers, and is strikingly picturesque. Its principal church dates from the 12th century, and it possesses a hospital with rich endowments. Its main industries are cloth, bell-casting, toys and zinc wares, and its fruit markets are famous.
Biberach appears as a village in the 8th century, and in 1312 it became a free imperial city. During the Thirty Years’ War it underwent various vicissitudes, and was for a while held by the Swedes. In 1707 it was captured and put to ransom by the French, who afterwards, in 1796 and 1800, defeated the Austrians in the neighbourhood. In 1803 the city was deprived of its imperial freedom and assigned to Baden, and in 1806 was transferred to Württemberg. Biberach is the birthplace of the sculptor Johann Lorenz Natter (1705-1763) and the painter Bernhard Neher (1806-1886); Christoph Martin Wieland, born in 1733 at the neighbouring village of Oberholzheim, spent several years in the town.
BIBIRINE,orBebeerine, C19H21NO3, an alkaloid obtained from the bark and fruit of the greenheart (q.v.) tree,Nectandra rodiaei, calledbibiruorsipiriin Guiana, where the tree grows. The substance was discovered about the year 1835 by Hugh Rodie, a surgeon in Demerara, who used it as a febrifuge in substitution for quinine.