Chapter 5

(M. Bat.)

Irish Boroughs.â€”In Ireland the earliest traces of burghal life are connected with the maritime settlements on the southern and eastern coast. The invasion of Henry II. colonized these Ostman ports with Anglo-Norman communities, who brought with them, or afterwards obtained, municipal charters of a favourable kind. The English settlement obviously depended on the advantages which the burgesses possessed over the native population outside. Quite different from these were the new close boroughs which during the plantation of Ulster James I. introduced from England. The conquest was by this time completed, and by a rigorous enforcement of the Supremacy and Uniformity Acts the existing liberties of the older boroughs were almost entirely withdrawn. By the new rules published (in terms of the Act of Settlement and Explanation) in 1672 resident traders were permitted to become freemen, but neither this regulation nor the ordinary admissions through birth, marriage and apprenticeship succeeded in giving to Ireland free and vigorous municipalities. The corrupt admission of non-resident freemen, in order to outvote the ancient freeholders in parliamentary elections, and the systematic exclusion of Roman Catholics, soon divorced the â€œcommonaltyâ€ from true local interests, and made the corporations, which elected themselves or selected the constituency, dangerously unpopular.

Scottish Boroughs.â€”In Scotland burghs or burrows are divided into royal burghs, burghs of regality and burghs of barony. The first were erected by royal charter, and every burgess held direct of the crown. It was, therefore, impossible to subfeu the burgh lands,â€”a distinction still traceable in modern conveyancing. Where perhaps no charter ever existed, the law on proof of immemorial possession of the privileges of a royal burgh has presumed that a charter of erection once existed. The charter gave power to elect provost, bailies and council, a power long exercised under the act of 1469, which directed the new council to be chosen annually by the retiring council, and the magistrates by both councils. The jurisdiction of these magistrates, which was specially reserved in the act of 1747 abolishing heritable jurisdictions, was originally cumulative with, and as large as, that of the sheriff. It is now confined to police offences, summary ejections, orders forinterimaliment (for prisoners), payment of burgh dues and delivery of title deeds. Three head courts were held in the year, at which all burgesses were obliged to attend, and at which public business was done and private transactions were ratified. There were three classes of burgessesâ€”burgessesin sua arte, members of one or other of the corporations; burgesses who were gild brothers; and simple burgesses. The Leges Burgorum apparently contemplate that all respectable inhabitants should have the franchise, but a ceremony of admission was required, at which the applicant swore fealty and promised to watch and ward for the community, and to pay his â€œmaillâ€ to the king. These borough maills, or rents, and the great and small customs of burghs, formed a large part of theroyal revenue, and, although frequently leased or feued out for a fixed duty, were on the accession of James I. annexed to the crown as an alimentary fund. Burgh customs still stand in the peculiar position of being neither adjudgeable nor arrestable; they are therefore bad security. The early charters contain the usual privileges of holding a market, of exemption from toll or tribute, and that distraint will be allowed only for the burgessâ€™s own debts. There was also the usual strife between the gildry and the craftsmen, who were generally prohibited from trading, and of whom dyers, fleshers and shoemakers were forbidden to enter the gildry. Deacons, wardens and visitors were appointed by the crafts, and the rate of wages was fixed by the magistrates. The crafts in Scotland were frequently incorporated, not by royal charter, but, as in the case of the cordiners of Edinburgh, by seals of cause from the corporation. The trade history of the free burghs is very important. Thus in 1466 the privilege of importing and exporting merchandise was confined to freemen, burgesses and their factors. Ships were directed to trade to the kingâ€™s free burghs, there to pay the customs, and to receive theircocquetsor custom-house seals; and in 1503 persons dwelling outside burghs were forbidden to â€œuse any merchandise,â€ or to sell wine or staple goods. An act of 1633, erroneously called aRatificationof the privileges of burghs, extended these privileges of buying and selling to retail as well as wholesale trade, but restricted their enjoyment to royal burghs. Accordingly, in 1672, a general declaratory act was passed confirming to the freemen in royal burghs the wholesale trade in wine, wax, silk, dyeing materials, &c., permitting generally to all persons the export of native raw material, specially permitting the burgesses of barony and regality to export their own manufactures, and such goods as they may buy in â€œmarkets,â€ and to import against these consignments certain materials for tillage, building, or for use in their own manufactures, with a general permission to retail all commodities. This extraordinary system was again changed in 1690 by an act which declared that freemen of royal burghs should have the sole right of importing everything by sea or land except bestial, and also of exporting by sea everything which was not native raw material, which might be freely exported by land. The gentry were always allowed to import for their personal consumption and to export an equal quantity of commodities. The act mentions that the royal burghs as an estate of the kingdom contributed one-sixth part of all public impositions, and were obliged to build and maintain prison-houses. Some of these trade privileges were not abolished till 1846.

In the north of Scotland there was an association of free burghs called the Hanse orAnsus; and the lord chamberlain, by hisIter, or circuit of visitation, maintained a common standard of right and duties in all burghs, and examined the state of the â€œcommon good,â€ the accounts of which in 1535 were appointed to be laid before the auditors in exchequer. The chamberlain latterly presided in the Curia Quatuor Burgorum (Edinburgh, Berwick, Stirling, Roxburgh), which not only made regulations in trade, but decided questions of private right (e.g.succession), according to the varying customs of burghs. This court frequently met at Haddington; in 1454 it was fixed at Edinburgh. The more modern convention of royal burghs (which appeared as a judicialpersonain the Court of Session so late as 1839) probably dates from the act of James III. (1487, c. 111), which appointed the commissioners of burghs, both north and south, to meet yearly at Inverkeithing â€œto treat of the welfare of merchandise, the good rule and statutes for the common profit of burghs, and to provide for remeid upon the skaith and injuries sustained within the burghs.â€ Among the more important functions of this body (on whose decrees at one time summary diligence proceeded) were the prohibition of undue exactions within burghs, the revisal of the â€œsetâ€ or mode of municipal election, and thepro ratadivision among the burghs of the parliamentary subsidy required from the third estate. The reform of the municipalities, and the complete representation of the mercantile interests in the united parliament, deprived this body of any importance.

Burghs of regality and of barony held in vassalage of some great lordship, lay or ecclesiastical, but were always in theory or in practice created by crown grant. They received jurisdiction in civil and criminal matters, generally cumulative with that of the baron or the lord of regality, who in some cases obtained the right of nominating magistrates. Powers to hold markets and to levy customs were likewise given to these burghs.

The Scottish burghs emerged slowly into political importance. In 1295 the procurators of six burghs ratified the agreement for the marriage of Edward Baliol; and in 1326 they were recognized as a third estate, granting a tenth penny on all rents for the kingâ€™s life, if he should apply it for the public good. The commissioners of burghs received from the exchequer their costages or expenses of attending parliament. The burghs were represented in the judicial committee, and in the committee on articles appointed during the reign of James V. After the Reformation, in spite of the annexation of kirk lands to the crown, and the increased burdens laid on temporal lands, the proportion of general taxation borne by the burghs (viz. 1s. 6d.) was expressly preserved by act 1587, c. 112. The number of commissioners, of course, fluctuated from time to time. Cromwell assigned ten members to the Scottish burghs in the second parliament of Three Nations (1654). The general practice until 1619 had been, apparently, that each burgh should send two members. In that year (by an arrangement with the convention of burghs) certain groups of burghs returned one member, Edinburgh returning two. Under art. 22 of the treaty of Union the number of members for royal burghs was fixed at fifteen, who were elected in Edinburgh by the magistrates and town council, and in the groups of burghs by delegates chosen ad hoc.

(W. C. S.)

See C. Gross,Bibliography of British Municipal History(1897), which contains all needful references up to that date; F.W. Maitland,Township and Borough(1898); A. Ballard,Domesday Boroughs(1904); M. Bateson,Borough Customs(1904-1906); S. and B. Webb,English Local Government(3 vols., 1906-1908). For the character of the modern Scottish burgh see Mabel Atkinson,Local Government in Scotland(Edinburgh, 1904), where other works are mentioned.

BOROUGHBRIDGE,a market town in the Ripon parliamentary division of the West Riding of Yorkshire, England; 22 m. N.W. of York on a branch of the North Eastern railway. Pop. (1901) 830. It lies in the central plain of Yorkshire, on the river Ure near its confluence with the Swale. It is in the parish of Aldborough, the village of that name (q.v.), celebrated for its Roman remains, lying a mile south-east.

About half a mile to the west of Boroughbridge there are three upright stones called the Devilâ€™s Arrows, which are of uncertain origin but probably of the Celtic period. The manor of Boroughbridge, then called Burc, was held by Edward the Confessor and passed to William the Conqueror, but suffered so much from the ravages of his soldiers that by 1086 it had decreased in value from Â£10 to 55 s. When the site of the Great North Road was altered, towards the end of the 11th century, a bridge was built across the Ure, about half a mile above the Roman bridge at Aldborough, and called Burgh bridge or Ponteburgem. This caused a village to spring up, and it afterwards increased so much as to become a market town. In 1229 Boroughbridge, as part of the manor of Aldborough, was granted to Hubert de Burgh, but was forfeited a few years later by his son who fought against the king at Evesham. It then remained a royal manor until Charles I. granted it to several citizens of London, from whom it passed through numerous hands to the present owner. The history of Boroughbridge during the early 14th century centres round the war with Scotland, and culminates with the battle fought there in 1321. When in 1317 the Scots invaded England, they penetrated as far south as Boroughbridge and burnt the town. Boroughbridge was evidently a borough by prescription, and as such was called upon to return two members to parliament in 1299. It was not represented again until 1553, when the privilege was revived. The town was finally disfranchised in 1832. In 1504 the bailiff and inhabitants of Boroughbridge received a grant of two fairs, and Charles II. in 1670 created three new fairs in the borough, on the 12th of June, the 5th of August and the 12th of October, and leased them to Francis Calvert and Thomas Wilkinson for ninety-nine years.

BOROUGH ENGLISH,a custom prevailing in certain ancient English boroughs, and in districts attached to them (where the lands are held in socage), and also in certain copyhold manors (chiefly in Surrey, Middlesex, Suffolk and Sussex), by which in general lands descend to the youngest son, to the exclusion of allthe other children, of the person dying seised and intestate. Descent to the youngest brother to the exclusion of all other collaterals, where there is no issue, is sometimes included in the general definition, but this is really a special custom to be proved from the court-rolls of the manor and from local reputationâ€”a custom which is sometimes extended to the youngest sister, uncle, aunt. Generally, however, Borough English, apart from specialties, may be said to differ from gavelkind in not including collaterals. It is often found in connexion with the distinct custom that the widow shall take as dower the whole and not merely one-third of her husbandâ€™s lands.

The origin of the custom of Borough English has been much disputed. Though frequently claimed to be of Saxon origin, there is no direct evidence of such being the case. The first mention of the custom in England occurs in Glanvil, without, however, any explanation as to its origin. Littletonâ€™s explanation, which is the more usually accepted, is that custom casts the inheritance upon the youngest, because after the death of his parents he is least able to support himself, and more likely to be left destitute of any other support. Blackstone derived Borough English from the usages of pastoral life, the elder sons migrating and the youngest remaining to look after the household. C.I. Elton claims it to be a survival of pre-Aryan times. It was referred to by the Normans as â€œthe custom of the English towns.â€ In the Yearbook of 22 Edward IV. fol. 32b it is described as the custom of Nottingham, which is made clear by the report of a trial in the first year of Edward III. where it was found that in Nottingham there were two districts, the one theBurgh-FraunÃ§oyes, the other theBurgh-Engloyes, where descent was to the youngest son, from which circumstance the custom has derived its name. On the European continent the custom of junior-rights is not unknown, more particularly in Germany, and it has by some been ascribed to thejus primae noctis(q.v.). It is also said to exist amongst the Mongols.

See alsoGavelkind;Inheritance;Primogeniture;Tenure; Blackstoneâ€™sCommentaries; Cokeâ€™sInstitutes; Comynâ€™sDigest of the Law; Eltonâ€™sOrigin of English History; Pollock and Maitland,History of English Law.

BORROMEAN ISLANDS,a group of four islands on the W. side of Lago Maggiore off Baveno and Stresa. The southernmost, the Isola Bella, is famous for its chÃ¢teau and terraced gardens, constructed by Count Vitaliano Borromeo (d. 1690). To the N.W. is the Isola dei Pescatori, containing a fishing village; and to the N.E. of this the Isola Madre, the largest of the group, with a chÃ¢teau and garden; and to the N. again, off Pallanza, is the little Isola S. Giovanni.

BORROMEO, CARLO(1538-1584), saint and cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church, son of Ghiberto Borromeo, count of Arona, and Margarita deâ€™ Medici, was born at the castle of Arona on Lago Maggiore on the 2nd of October 1538. When he was about twelve years old, Giulio Cesare Borromeo resigned to him an abbacy, the revenue of which he applied wholly in charity to the poor. He studied the civil and canon law at Pavia. In 1554 his father died, and, although he had an elder brother, Count Federigo, he was requested by the family to take the management of their domestic affairs. After a time, however, he resumed his studies, and in 1559 he took his doctorâ€™s degree. In 1560 his uncle, Cardinal Angelo deâ€™ Medici, was raised to the pontificate as Pius IV. Borromeo was made prothonotary, entrusted with both the public and the privy seal of the ecclesiastical state, and created cardinal with the administration of Romagna and the March of Ancona, and the supervision of the Franciscans, the Carmelites and the knights of Malta. He was thus at the age of twenty-two practically the leading statesman of the papal court. Soon after he was raised to the archbishopric of Milan. In compliance with the popeâ€™s desire, he lived in great splendour; yet his own temperance and humility were never brought into question. He established an academy of learned persons, and published their memoirs as theNoctes Vaticanae. About the same time he also founded and endowed a college at Pavia, which he dedicated to Justina, virgin and martyr. On the death of his elder brother Federigo, he was advised to quit the church and marry, that his family might not become extinct. He declined the proposal, however, and became henceforward still more fervent in exercises of piety, and more zealous for the welfare of the church. Owing to his influence over Pius IV., he was able to facilitate the final deliberations of the council of Trent, and he took a large share in the drawing up of the Tridentine catechism (Catechismus Romanus).

On the death of Pius IV. (1566), the skill and diligence of Borromeo contributed materially to suppressing the cabals of the conclave. Subsequently he devoted himself wholly to the reformation of his diocese, which had fallen into a most unsatisfactory condition owing to the prolonged absences of its previous archbishops. He made a series of pastoral visits, and restored decency and dignity to divine service. In conformity with the decrees of the council of Trent, he cleared the cathedral of its gorgeous tombs, rich ornaments, banners, arms, sparing not even the monuments of his own relatives. He divided the nave of the church into two compartments for the separation of the sexes. He extended his reforms to the collegiate churches (even to the fraternities of penitents and particularly that of St John the Baptist), and to the monasteries. The great abuses which had overrun the church at this time arose principally from the ignorance of the clergy. Borromeo, therefore, established seminaries, colleges and communities for the education of candidates for holy orders. The most remarkable, perhaps, of his foundations was the fraternity of the Oblates, a society whose members were pledged to give aid to the church when and where it might be required. He further paved the way for the â€œGoldenâ€ or â€œBorromeanâ€ league formed in 1586 by the Swiss Catholic cantons of Switzerland to expel heretics if necessary by armed force.

In 1576, when Milan was visited by the plague, he went about giving directions for accommodating the sick and burying the dead, avoiding no danger and sparing no expense. He visited all the neighbouring parishes where the contagion raged, distributing money, providing accommodation for the sick, and punishing those, especially the clergy, who were remiss in discharging their duties. He met with much opposition to his reforms. The governor of the province, and many of the senators, apprehensive that the cardinalâ€™s ordinances and proceedings would encroach upon the civil jurisdiction, addressed remonstrances and complaints to the courts of Rome and Madrid. But Borromeo had more formidable difficulties to struggle with, in the inveterate opposition of several religious orders, particularly that of the Humiliati (Brothers of Humility). Some members of that society formed a conspiracy against his life, and a shot was fired at him in the archiepiscopal chapel under circumstances which led to the belief that his escape was miraculous. The number of his enemies was increased by his successful attack on his Jesuit confessor Ribera, who with other members of the college of Milan was found to be guilty of unnatural offences. His manifold labours and austerities appear to have shortened his life. He was seized with an intermittent fever, and died at Milan on the 4th of November 1584. He was canonized in 1610, and his feast is celebrated on the 4th of November.

Besides theNodes Vaticanae, to which he appears to have contributed, the only literary relics of this intrepid and zealous reformer are some homilies, discourses and sermons, with a collection of letters. His sermons, which have little literary merit, were published by J.A. Sax (5 vols., Milan, 1747-1748), and have been translated into many languages. The record of his episcopate is to be found in the two volumes of theActa Ecclesiae Mediolanensis(Milan, 1599). Contrary to his last wishes a memorial was erected to him in Milan cathedral, as well as a statue 70 ft. high on the hill above Arona, by his admirers who regarded him as the leader of a Counter-Reformation.

His nephew, Federigo Borromeo (1564-1631), was archbishop of Milan from 1595, and in 1609 founded the Ambrosian library in that city.

See G.P. Giussano,Vita di S. Carlo Borromeo(1610, Eng. ed. by H.E. Manning, London, 1884); A. Sala,Documenti circa la vita e la gesta di Borromeo(4 vols., Milan, 1857-1859); Chanoine Silvain,Histoire de St Charles BorromÃ©e(Milan, 1884); and A. Cantono,Un grande riformatore del secolo XVI(Florence, 1904); article â€œBorromÃ¤usâ€ in Herzog-Hauck,RealencyklopÃ¤die(Leipzig, 1897).

BORROMINI, FRANCESCO(1599-1667), Italian architect, was born at Bissone in 1599. He was the chief representative of the style known in architecture as â€œbaroque,â€ which marked a fearless and often reckless departure from the traditional laws of the Renaissance, and often obtained originality only at the cost of beauty or wisdom. One of the main opponents of this style was Barocchio (q.v.). Borromini was much employed in the middle of the 17th century at Rome. His principal works are the church of St Agnese in Piazza Navona, the church of La Sapienza in Rome, the church of San Carlino alle Fontane, the church of the Collegio di Propaganda, and the restoration of San Giovanni in Laterano. He died by his own hand at Rome in 1667. Engravings of his chief compositions are to be found in the posthumous work,Francisci Borromini opus Architectonicum(1727).

BORROW, GEORGE HENRY(1803-1881), English traveller, linguist and author, was born at East Dereham, Norfolk, on the 5th of July 1803, of a middle-class Cornish family. His father was a recruiting officer, and his mother a Norfolk lady of French extraction. From 1816 to 1818 Borrow attended, with no very great profit, the grammar school at Norwich. After leaving school he was articled to a firm of Norwich solicitors, where he neglected the law, but gave a great deal of desultory attention to languages. He was encouraged in these studies by William Taylor, the friend of Southey. On the death of his father, in 1824 he went to London to seek his fortune as a literary adventurer. In 1826 he published a volume ofRomantic Balladstranslated from the Danish. Engaged by Sir Richard Phillips, the publisher, as a hack-writer at starvation wages, his experiences in London were bitter indeed. His struggles at last became so dire that if he would escape Chattertonâ€™s doom, he must leave London and either return to Norwich and share his motherâ€™s narrow income, or turn to account in some way the magnificent physical strength with which nature had endowed him. Determining on the latter of these courses, he left London on tramp. As he stood considerably more than 6 ft. in height, was a fairly trained athlete, and had a countenance of extraordinary impressiveness, if not of commanding beautyâ€”Greek in type with a dash of the Hebrewâ€”we may assume that there had never before appeared on the English high-roads so majestic-looking a tramp as he who, on an afternoon in May, left his squalid lodging with bundle and stick to begin life on the roads. Shaping his course to the south-west, he soon found himself on Salisbury Plain. And then his extraordinary adventures began. After a while he became a travelling hedge-smith, and it was while pursuing this avocation that he made the acquaintance of the splendid road-girl, born at Long Melford workhouse, whom he has immortalized under the name of Isopel Berners. He was now brought much into contact with the gipsies, and this fact gave him the most important subject-matter for his writings. For picturesque as is Borrowâ€™s style, it is this subject-matter of his, the Romany world of Great Britain, whichâ€”if his pictures of that world are trueâ€”will keep his writings alive. Now that the better class of gipsies are migrating so rapidly to America that scarcely any are left in England, Borrowâ€™s pictures of them are challenged as being too idealistic. It is unfortunate that no one who knew Borrow, and the gryengroes or horse-dealers with whom he associated, and whom he depicted, has ever written about him and them. Full of â€œdocumentsâ€ as is Dr Knappâ€™s painstaking biography, it cannot be said to give a vital picture of Borrow and his surroundings during this most interesting period of his life. It is this same peculiar class of gipsies (the gryengroes) with whom the present writer was brought into contact, and he can only refer, in justification of Borrowâ€™s descriptions of them, to certain publications of his own, where the whole question is discussed at length, and where he has set out to prove that Borrowâ€™s pictures of the section of the English gipsies he knew are not idealized. But there is one great blemish inallBorrowâ€™s dramatic scenes of gipsy life, wheresoever they may be laid. This was pointed out by the gentleman who â€œreadâ€Zincalifor Mr Murray, the publisher:â€”

â€œThe dialogues are amongst the best parts of the book; but in several of them the tone of the speakers, of those especially who are in humble life, is too correct and elevated, and therefore out of character. This takes away from their effect. I think it would be very advisable that Mr Borrow should go over them with reference to this point, simplifying a few of the terms of expression and introducing a few contractionsâ€”donâ€™ts, canâ€™ts, &c. This would improve them greatly.â€

It is the same with his pictures of the English gipsies. The reader has only to compare the dialogues between gipsies given in that photographic study of Romany life,In Gipsy Tents, by F.H. Groome, with the dialogues inLavengroandThe Romany Rye, to see how the illusion in Borrowâ€™s narrative is disturbed by the uncolloquial locutions of the speakers. It is true, no doubt, that all Romanies, especially perhaps the English and Hungarian, have a passion for the use of high-sounding words, and the present writer has shown this in his remarks upon the Czigany Czindol, who is said to have taught the Czigany language to the archduke Joseph, often called the â€œGipsy Archduke.â€ But after all allowance is made for this racial peculiarity, Borrowâ€™s presentation of it considerably weakens our belief in Mr and Mrs Petulengro, Ursula, and the rest, to find them using complex sentences and bookish words which, even among English people, are rarely heard in conversation. As to the deep impression that Borrow made upon his gipsy friends, that is partly explained by the singular nobility of his appearance, for the gipsies of all countries are extremely sensitive upon matters of this kind. The silvery whiteness of the thick crop of hair which Borrow retained to the last seemed to add in a remarkable way to the nobility of his hairless face, but also it gave to the face a kind of strange look â€œnot a bit like a Gorgioâ€™s,â€ to use the words of one of his gipsy friends. Moreover, the shy, defiant, stand-off way which Borrow assumed in the company of his social equals left him entirely when he was with the gipsies. The result of this was that these wanderers knew him better than did his own countrymen.

Seven years after the events recorded inLavengroandThe Romany RyeBorrow obtained the post of agent to the Bible Society, in which capacity he visited St Petersburg (1833-1835) (where he publishedTargum, a collection of translations), and Spain, Portugal and Morocco (1835-1839). From 1837 to 1839 he acted as correspondent to theMorning Herald. The result of these travels and adventures was the publication, in 1841, ofZincali, or The Gypsies in Spain, the original MS. of which, in the hands of the present writer, shows how careful was Borrowâ€™s method of work. In 1843 appearedThe Bible in Spain, when suddenly Borrow became famous. Every page of the book glows with freshness, picturesqueness and vivacity. In 1840 he married Mary Clarke, the widow of a naval officer, and permanently settled at Oulton Broad, near Lowestoft, with her and her daughter. Here he began to write again. Very likely Borrow would never have told the world about his vagabond life in England as a hedge-smith had notThe Bible in Spainmade him famous as a wanderer.Lavengroappeared in 1851 with a success which, compared with that ofThe Bible in Spain, was only partial. He was much chagrined at this, and althoughLavengrobroke off in the midst of a scene in the Dingle, and only broke off there because the three volumes would hold no more, it was not until 1857 that he published the sequel,The Romany Rye. In 1844 he travelled in south-eastern Europe, and in 1854 he made a tour with his step-daughter in Wales. This tour he described inWild Wales, published in 1862. In 1874 he brought out a volume of ill-digested material upon the Romany tongue,Romano Lavo-lil, or Word-book of the Gypsy Language, a book which has been exhaustively analysed and criticized by Mr John Sampson. In the summer of 1874 he left London, bade adieu to Mr Murray and a few friends, and returned to Oulton. On the 26th of July 1881 he was found dead in his house at Oulton, in his seventy-ninth year.

Borrow was indisputably a linguist of wide knowledge, though he was not a scholar in the strict sense. The variety of hisattainments is shown by his translation of the Church of EnglandHomiliesinto Manchu, of the Gospel of St Luke into the Git dialect of the Gitanos, ofThe Sleeping Bardfrom the Cambrian-British, and ofBluebeardinto Turkish. But it is not Borrowâ€™s linguistic accomplishments that have kept his name fresh, and will continue to keep it fresh for many a generation to come. It is his character, his unique character as expressed, or partially expressed, in his books. Among all the â€œremarkable individualsâ€ (to use his favourite expression) who during the middle of the 19th century figured in the world of letters, Borrow was surely the most eccentric, the most whimsical, and in many ways the most extraordinary. There was scarcely a point in which he resembled any other writer of his time. With regard toLavengroandThe Romany Rye, there has been very much discussion as to how muchDichtungis mingled with theWahrheitin those fascinating books. Had it not been for the amazingly clumsy pieces of fiction which he threw into the narrative, few readers would have doubted the autobiographical nature of the two books. Such incidents as are here alluded to shed an air of unreality over the whole. It has been said by Dr Knapp that Borrow never created a character, and that to one who thoroughly knows the times and Borrowâ€™s writings the originals are easily recognizable. This is true, no doubt, as regards people whom he knew at Norwich, and indeed generally as regards those he knew before the period of his gipsy wanderings. It must not be supposed, however, that such a character as the man who â€œtouchedâ€ to avert the evil chance is in any sense a portrait of an individual with whom he had been brought into contact. The character has so many of Borrowâ€™s own eccentricities that it might rather be called a portrait of himself. There was nothing that Borrow strove against with more energy than the curious impulse, which he seems to have shared with Dr Johnson, to touch the objects along his path in order to save himself from the evil chance. He never conquered the superstition. In walking through Richmond Park with the present writer he would step out of his way constantly to touch a tree, and he was offended if the friend he was with seemed to observe it. Many of the peculiarities of the man who taught himself Chinese in order to distract his mind from painful thoughts were also Borrowâ€™s own.

(T. W.-D.)

BORSIPPA(Barsipin the Babylonian and Assyrian inscriptions;Borsifin the Talmud; mod. Birs or Birs-Nimrud), the Greek name of an ancient city about 15 m. S.W. of Babylon and 10 m. from Hillah, on the Nahr Hindieh, or Hindieh canal, formerly known as â€œthe Euphrates of Borsippa,â€ and even during the Arabic period called â€œthe river of Birs.â€ Borsippa was the sister city of Babylon, and is often called in the inscriptions Babylon II., also the â€œcity without equal.â€ Its patron god was Nebo or Nabu. Like Babylon Borsippa is not mentioned in the oldest inscriptions, but comes into importance first after Khammurabi had made Babylon the capital of the whole land, somewhere before 2000B.C.He built or rebuilt the temple E-Zida at this place, dedicating it, however, to Marduk (Bel-Merodach). But although Khammurabi himself does not seem to have honoured Nebo (q.v.), subsequent kings recognized him as the deity of E-Zida and made him the son of Marduk (q.v.). Each new year his image was taken to visit his father, in Babylon, who in his turn gave him escort homeward, and his temple was second in wealth and importance only to E-Saggila, the temple of Marduk in Babylon. As with Babylon, so with Borsippa, the time of Nebuchadrezzar was the period of its greatest prosperity. In general Borsippa shared the fate of Babylon, falling into decay after the time of Alexander, and finally in the middle ages into ruins. The site of the ancient city is represented by two large ruin mounds. Of these the north-westerly, the lower of the two, but the larger in superficial area, is called Ibrahim Khalil, from aziara, or shrine, of Abraham, the friend of God, which stands on its highest point. According to Arabic lore, based on Jewish legends, at this spot Nimrod sought to throw Abraham into a fiery furnace, from which he was saved by the grace of God. Excavations were first conducted here by the French ExpÃ©dition Scientifique en MÃ©sopotamie in 1852, with small result. In 1879 and 1880 Hormuzd Rassam conducted more extensive, although unsystematic, excavations in this mound, finding a considerable quantity of inscribed tablets and the like, now in the British Museum; but by far the greater part of this ruin still remains unexplored. The south-westerly mound, the Birs proper, is probably the most conspicuous and striking ruin in all Irak. On the top of a hill over 100 ft. high rises a pointed mass of vitrified brick split down the centre, over 40 ft. high, about which lie huge masses of vitrified brick, some as much as 15 ft. in diameter, and also single enamelled bricks, generally bearing an inscription of Nebuchadrezzar, twisted, curled and broken, apparently by great heat. Jewish and Arabic tradition makes this the Tower of Babel, which was supposed to have been destroyed by lightning. Excavations conducted here by Sir Henry Rawlinson in 1854 showed it to be the stage tower orziggurat, called the â€œhouse of the seven divisions of heaven and earth,â€ of E-Zida, the temple of Nebo. On a large platform rose seven solid terraces, each smaller than the one below it, the lowest being 272 ft. square and 26 ft. high. Each of these terraces was faced with bricks of a different colour. The approach to thiszigguratwas toward the north-east, and on this side lay also the principal rooms of the temple of which this was the tower. These rooms were partly excavated by Hormuzd Rassam in 1879-1880. In its final form this temple and tower were the work of Nebuchadrezzar, but from the clay cylinders found by Sir Henry Rawlinson in two of the corners of the tower it appears that he restored an incompletezigguratof a former king, â€œwhich was long since fallen into decay.â€ Some of the best authorities believe that it was this ambitious but incomplete and ruinousziggurat, existing before the time of Nebuchadrezzar, which gave occasion to or afforded local attachment for the Biblical story of the Tower of Babel.

Authorities.â€”H.C. Rawlinson,Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society(1860); J. Oppert,ExpÃ©dition scientifique en MÃ©sopotamie(Paris, 1863); F. Delitzsch,Wo lag das Paradies?(Leipzig, 1881); J.P. Peters,Nippur(New York and London, 1896); H. Rassam,Asshur and the Land of Nimrod(London and New York, 1897); M. Jastrow,Religion of Babylonia and Assyria(Boston, 1898); see alsoBabylon,Babel.

(J. P. Pe.)

BORT,orBoart, an inferior kind of diamond, unfit for cutting but useful as an abrasive agent. The typical bort occurs in small spherical masses, of greyish colour, rough or drusy on the surface, and showing on fracture a radiate crystalline structure. These masses, known in Brazil as bolas, are often called â€œshot bortâ€ or â€œround bort.â€ Much of the bort consists of irregular aggregates of imperfect crystals. In trade, the term bort is extended to all small and impure diamonds, and crystalline fragments of diamond, useless as gem-stones. A large proportion of the output of some of the South African mines consists of such material. This bort is crushed in steel mortars to form diamond powder, which is largely used in lapidariesâ€™ work.

BORY DE SAINT-VINCENT, JEAN BAPTISTE GEORGE MARIE(1780-1846), French naturalist, was born at Agen in 1780. He was sent as naturalist with Captain Nicholas Baudinâ€™s expedition to Australia in 1798, but left the vessel at Mauritius, and spent two years in exploring RÃ©union and other islands. Joining the army on his return, he was present at the battles of Ulm and Austerlitz, and in 1808 went to Spain with Marshal Soult. His attachment to the Napoleonic dynasty and dislike to the Bourbons were shown in various ways during 1815, and his name was consequently placed on the list of the proscribed; but after wandering in disguise from place to place he was allowed quietly to return to Paris in 1820. In 1829 he was placed at the head of a scientific expedition to the Morea, and in 1839 he had charge of the exploration of Algeria. He died on the 23rd of December 1846. He was editor of theDictionnaire classique dâ€™histoire naturelle, and among his separate productions were:â€”Essais sur les ÃŽles FortunÃ©es(1802);Voyage dans les ÃŽles dâ€™Afrique(1803);Voyage souterrain, ou description du plateau de Saint-Pierre de Maestricht et de ses vastes cryptes(1821);Lâ€™Homme, essai zoologique sur le genre humain(1827);RÃ©sumÃ© de la gÃ©ographie de la PÃ©ninsule(1838).

BORZHOM,a watering-place of Russian Transcaucasia, in the government of Tiflis, and 93 m. by rail W. of the city ofTiflis. Pop. (1897) 5800. It is situated at an altitude of 2750 ft. in the Borzhom gorge, a narrow rift in the Little Caucasus mountains, and on the Kura. Its warm climate, its two hot springs (71Â½Â°-82Â° Fahr.) and its beautiful parks make it a favourite summer resort, and give it its popular name of â€œthe pearl of Caucasus.â€ The bottled mineral waters are very extensively exported.

BOS, LAMBERT(1670-1717), Dutch scholar and critic, was born at Workum in Friesland, where his father was headmaster of the school. He went to the university of Franeker (suppressed by Napoleon in 1811), and was appointed professor of Greek there in 1704; after an uneventful life he died at Franeker in 1717. His most famous work,Ellipses Graecae(1702), was translated into English by John Seager (1830); and hisAntiquitates Graecae(1714) passed through several editions. He also publishedVetus Testamentum, Ex Versione lxx. Interpretum (1709); notes on Thomas Magister (1698);Exercitationes Philologicae(1700);Animadversiones ad Scriptores quosdam Graecos(1715); and two small treatises on Accents and Greek Syntax.

BOSA,a seaport and episcopal see on the W. coast of Sardinia, in the province of Cagliari, 30 m. W. of Macomer by rail. Pop. (1901) 6846. The height above the town is crowned by a castle of the Malaspina family. The cathedral, founded in the 12th century, restored in the 15th, and rebuilt in 1806, is fine. There are some tanneries, and the fishing industry is important, but the coral production of Sicily has entirely destroyed that of Bosa since 1887. The district produces oil and wine. The present town of Bosa was founded in 1112 by the Malaspina, 1Â½ m. from the site of the ancient town (Bosa or Calmedia), where a well-preserved church still exists. The old town is of Roman origin, but is only mentioned by Pliny and Ptolemy, and as a station on the coast-road in the Itineraries (Corp. Inscr. Lat.x. 7939 seq.). One of the inscriptions preserved in the old cathedral records the erection of four silver statues, of Antoninus Pius, his wife Faustina and their two sons.

BOSBOOM-TOUSSAINT, ANNA LOUISA GEERTRUIDA(1812-1886), Dutch novelist, was born at Alkmaar in north Holland on the 16th of September 1812. Her father, named Toussaint, a local chemist of Huguenot descent, gave her a fair education, and at an early period of her career she developed a taste for historical research, fostered, perhaps, by a forced indoor life, the result of weak health. In 1851 she married the Dutch painter, Johannes Bosboom (1817-1891), and thereafter was known as Mrs Bosboom-Toussaint. Her first romance,Almagro, appeared in 1837, followed by theGraaf van Devonshire(The Earl of Devonshire) in 1838; theEngelschen te Rome(The English at Rome) in 1840, andHet Huis Lauernesse(The House of Lauernesse) in 1841, an episode of the Reformation, translated into many European languages. These stories, mainly founded upon some of the most interesting epochs of Dutch history, betrayed a remarkable grasp of facts and situations, combined with an undoubted mastery over her mother tongue, though her style is sometimes involved, and not always faultless. Ten years (1840-1850) were mainly devoted to further studies, the result of which was revealed in 1851-1854, when herLeycester in Nederland(3 vols.),Vrouwen van het Leycestersche Tydperk(Women of Leicesterâ€™s Epoch, 3 vols.), andGideon Florensz(3 vols.) appeared, a series dealing with Robert Dudleyâ€™s adventures in the Low Countries. After 1870 Mrs Bosboom-Toussaint abandoned historical romance for the modern society novel, but herDelftsche Wonderdokter(The Necromancer of Delft, 1871, 3 vols.) andMajoor Frans(1875, 3 vols.) did not command the success of her earlier works.Major Frankhas been translated into English (1885). She died at the Hague on the 13th of April 1886. Her novels have been published there in a collected edition (1885-1888, 25 vols.).

BOSC, LOUIS AUGUSTIN GUILLAUME(1759-1828), French naturalist, was born at Paris on the 29th of January 1759. He was educated at the college of Dijon, where he showed a taste for botany, and he followed up his studies in Paris at the Jardin des Plantes, where he made the acquaintance of Mme M.J.P. Roland. At the age of eighteen he obtained a government appointment, and he rose to be one of the chief officials in the postal department. Under the ministry of J.M. Roland in 1792 he also held the post of superintendent of prisons, but the violent outbreaks of 1793 drove him from office, and compelled him to take refuge in flight. For some months he lay concealed at Sainte-RadÃ©gonde, in the forest of Montmorency, barely subsisting on roots and vegetables. He was enabled to return to Paris on the fall of Robespierre, and under the titleAppel Ã lâ€™impartiale postÃ©ritÃ© par la citoyenne Rolandpublished a manuscript Mme Roland had entrusted to him before her execution. Soon afterwards he set out for America, resolving to explore the natural riches of that country. The immense materials he gathered were never published in a complete form, but much went to enrich the works of B.G.E. de LacÃ©pÃ¨de, P.A. Latreille and others. After his return, on the establishment of the Directory, he was reinstated in his old office. Of this he was again deprived by thecoup dâ€™Ã©tatof 1799, and for a time he was in great destitution; but by his copious contributions to scientific literature he contrived to support himself and to lay the foundations of a solid reputation. He was engaged on the newDictionnaire dâ€™histoire naturelle, and on theEncyclopÃ©die mÃ©thodique, he edited theDictionnaire raisonnÃ© et universel dâ€™agriculture, and was one of the editors of theAnnales de lâ€™agriculture franÃ§aise. He was made inspector of the gardens at Versailles, and of the public nurseries belonging to the ministry of the interior. The last years of his life were devoted to an elaborate work on the vine, for which he had amassed an immense quantity of materials, but his death at Paris on the 10th of July 1828 prevented its completion.

BOSCÃN ALMOGAVER, JUAN(1490?-1542), Spanish poet, was born about the close of the 15th century. He was a Catalan of patrician birth, and, after some years of military service, became tutor to the duke of Alva. His poems were published in 1543 at Barcelona by his widow. They are divided into sections which mark the stages of BoscÃ¡nâ€™s poetical evolution. The first book contains poems in the old Castilian metres, written in his youth, before 1526, in which year he became acquainted with the Venetian ambassador, Andrea Navagiero, who urged him to adopt Italian measures, and this advice gave a new turn to BoscÃ¡nâ€™s activity. The remaining books contain a number of pieces in the Italian manner, the longest of these beingHero y Leander, a poem in blank verse, based on Musaeus. BoscÃ¡nâ€™s best effort, theOctava Rima, is a skilful imitation of Petrarch and Bembo. BoscÃ¡n also published in 1534 an admirable translation of Castiglioneâ€™sIl Cortegiano. Italian measures had been introduced into Spanish literature by Santillana and Villalpando; it is BoscÃ¡nâ€™s distinction to have naturalized these forms definitively, and to have founded a poetic school.

Back to Index Next