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 appearedThe 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 thePoetical Works(1905), which has rescued Blake from the “improvements” of previous editors. See alsoThe 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).
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 appearedThe 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 thePoetical Works(1905), which has rescued Blake from the “improvements” of previous editors. See alsoThe 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 Gallisonnière, 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 Gallisonnière 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.
SeeMemoirs of General William Blakeney(1757).
SeeMemoirs 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 toThe Timeson 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 theauthor of the first EnglishLife of Aristotle(1839), an edition of Herodotus (1852-1854) in theBibliotheca Classica, andFour 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 asThe 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’sScots’ 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 theRevue du progrès, which he founded, he published in 1839 his study onL’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—“à chacun selon ses besoins, de chacun selon ses facultés.” 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 hisHistoire 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 hisHistoire de la Revolution Française. 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 hisAppel aux honnêtes 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 thesansculottes, 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 theNouveau Monde, a review published in Paris under his direction. These he afterwards collected and published asPages 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 hisHistoire de la Révolution Française12 vols. (1847-1862). In 1858 he published a reply to Lord Normanby’sA Year of Revolution in Paris(1858), which he developed later into hisHistoire de la révolution 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 Père-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. HisDiscours politiques(1847-1881) was published in 1882. His most important works, besides those already mentioned, areLettres sur l’Angleterre(1866-1867),Dix années de l’histoire de l’Angleterre(1879-1881), andQuestions d’aujourd’hui et de demain(1873-1884).
See L. Fiaux,Louis Blanc(1883).
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. Güssfeldt,DerMontblanc,(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).
See C. Durier,Le Mont Blanc(4th ed., Paris, 1897); C.E. Mathews,The Annals of Mont Blanc(London, 1898); P. Güssfeldt,DerMontblanc,(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 calledDrama. For a short time he was a member of a travelling dramatic company, but subsequently became a proof-reader in London, and wrote for theMonthly Magazine. In 1827 he was made secretary of the Zoological Society, a post which he held for three years. In 1828 he publishedLyric Offerings, dedicated to Charles Lamb. He had a very varied journalistic experience, editing in succession theMonthly Magazine, theTrue Sun, theConstitutional, theCourt Journal, theCourier, andGeorge Cruikshank’s Omnibus; and from 1841 till his death he was connected with theExaminer. In 1846 Bulwer-Lytton collected a number of his prose-essays under the titleSketches 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 ofYesterday and To-day in India, died in 1883.
BLANCHE, JACQUES ÉMILE(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 Louÿs, 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 Graçay, together with those that André de Chavigny, lord of Châteauroux, 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 Élie Berger, “Histoire de Blanche de Castille, reine de France,” inBibliothèque des écoles françaises d’Athènes et de Rome, vol. lxx. (Paris, 1895); Le Nain de Tillemont, “Vie de Saint Louis,” ed. by J. de Gaulle for theSociété de l’histoire de France(6 vols., 1847-1851); and Paulin Paris, “Nouvelles recherches sur les moeurs de la reine Blanche et de Thibaud,” inCabinet historique(1858).
Besides the works of Joinville and William of Nangis, see Élie Berger, “Histoire de Blanche de Castille, reine de France,” inBibliothèque des écoles françaises d’Athènes et de Rome, vol. lxx. (Paris, 1895); Le Nain de Tillemont, “Vie de Saint Louis,” ed. by J. de Gaulle for theSociété de l’histoire de France(6 vols., 1847-1851); and Paulin Paris, “Nouvelles recherches sur les moeurs de la reine Blanche et de Thibaud,” inCabinet historique(1858).
BLANCH FEE,orBlanch 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,orBlandford 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,orBiandrata,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 Pinczów (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 Báthory, whose tolerance permitted the propagation of heresies; and when (1579) Christopher Báthory 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 Dávid (d. 1579), the anti-trinitarian bishop, but in 1578 two circumstances broke theconnexion. Blandrata was charged with “Italian vice”; Dávid renounced the worship of Christ. To influence Dávid, Blandrata sent for Faustus Socinus from Basel. Socinus was Dávid’s guest, but the discussion between them led to no result. At the instance of Blandrata, Dávid was tried and condemned to prison at Déva (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 Dávid.
See Malacarne,Commentario delle Opere e delle Vicende di G. Blandrata(Padova, 1814); Wallace,Anti-trinitarian Biography, vol. ii. (1850).
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 wereObservations on the Diseases of Seamen(1795) andElements 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 Mágdala 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), andManual of the Geology of India, with H.B. Medlicott (1879).
Biography, with bibliography and portrait, inGeological Magazine, January 1905.
Biography, with bibliography and portrait, inGeological 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) AnotherBlankenburg, 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 Provençal 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 hisCompleynte to Pitieabout 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 ofSophonisba(1515) of G.G. Trissino (1478-1550) was the earliest work completed in this form; it was followed in 1525 by the didactic poemLe 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 calledversi scioltior blank verse. In a very short time this form was largely adopted in Italian dramatic poetry, and the comedies of Ariosto, theAmintaof Tasso and thePastor Fidoof 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 theclose of the reign of Henry VIII., Henry Howard, earl of Surrey, translated two books of theAeneidinto 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.”
“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 theGorboducof Sackville and Norton. In 1576, in theSteel Glassof Gascoigne, it was first used for satire, and by the year 1585 it had come into almost universal use for theatrical purposes. In Lyly’sThe Woman in the Moonand Peek’sArraignment 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 beThe Misfortunes of Arthur(1587) of Thomas Hughes. Marlowe now immediately followed, with the magnificent movement of hisTamburlaine(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,”
“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 inThe 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”—
“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, andParadise Lostis 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 inParadise Regainedand inSamson 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 inSamson 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”—
“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 theNight Thoughtsof 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 Décasyllabe romain et sa fortune en Europe(1904); Robert BridgesMilton’s Prosody(1894); Ed. Guest,A History of English Rhythms(1882); J. Motheré,Les Théories du vers héreoïque anglais(1886); J. Schipper,Englische Metrik(1881-1888).
See J.A. Symonds,Blank Verse(1895); Walter Thomas,Le Décasyllabe romain et sa fortune en Europe(1904); Robert BridgesMilton’s Prosody(1894); Ed. Guest,A History of English Rhythms(1882); J. Motheré,Les Théories du vers héreoïque anglais(1886); J. Schipper,Englische Metrik(1881-1888).
(E. G.)
BLANQUI, JERÔME 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 Métiers. In 1833 he succeeded Say as professor of political economy at the same institution, and in 1838 was elected a member of the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques. In 1838 appeared his most important work,Histoire de l’économie politique en Europe, depuis les anciens jusqu’à 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 wereDe la situation économique et morale de l’Espagne en 1846; Résumé de l’histoire du commerce et de l’industrie(1826);Précis élémentaire d’économie politique(1826);Les Classes ouvrières en France(1848).
BLANQUI, LOUIS AUGUSTE(1805-1881), French publicist, was born on the 8th of February 1805 at Puget-Théniers, 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 Société des Saisons, of which he was aleading 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 theSociété républicaine 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 journalLa 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 entitledL’Éternité par les astres(1872), and after his death his writings on economic and social questions were collected under the title ofCritique sociale(1885).
A biography by G. Geffroy,L’Enfermé(1897), is highly coloured and decidedly partisan.
A biography by G. Geffroy,L’Enfermé(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 Shiré Highlands 300 m. by river and rail N.N.W. of the Chínde 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, builtc. 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 wroteItalian Cities(1900) and edited Vasari’sLives 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(orBlaise),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.