The Nuttall Encyclopaedia Part 68

BERBRUGGER, a French archaeologist and philologist; wrote on Algiers, its history and monuments (1801-1869).

BERCHTA, a German Hulda, but of severer type. See BERTHA.

BERCY, a commune on the right bank of the Seine, outside Paris, included in it since 1860; is the great mart for wines and brandies.

BERE'ANS, a sect formed by John Barclay in 1778, who regard the Bible as the one exclusive revelation of G.o.d.

BERENGER, or BERENGA'RIUS, OF TOURS, a distinguished theologian, born at Tours; held an ecclesiastical office there, and was made afterwards archdeacon of Angers; ventured to deny the doctrine of transubstantiation, a denial for which he was condemned by successive councils of the Church, and which he was compelled more than once publicly to retract, though he so often and openly recalled his retractation that the pope, notwithstanding the opposition of the orthodox, deemed it prudent at length to let him alone. After this he ceased to trouble the Church, and retired to an island on the Loire, where he gave himself up to quiet meditation and prayer (998-1088).

BERENGER I., king of Italy, grandson of Louis the Debonnaire, an able general; provoked the jealousy of the n.o.bles, who dreaded the abridgment of their rights, which led to his a.s.sa.s.sination at their hands in 934. B. II., king of Italy, grandson of the preceding, was dethroned twice by the Emperor Otho, who sent him a prisoner to Bamberg, where he died, 966.

BERENGER, THOMAS, a French criminalist and magistrate (1785-1866).

BERENI'CE, a Jewish widow, daughter of Herod Agrippa, with whom t.i.tus was fascinated, and whom he would have taken to wife, had not the Roman populace protested, from their Anti-Jewish prejudice, against it.

The name was a common one among Egyptian as well as Jewish princesses.

BERESFORD, WILLIAM CARR, VISCOUNT, an English general, natural son of the first Marquis of Waterford; distinguished himself in many a military enterprise, and particularly in the Peninsular war, for which he was made a peer; he was a member of the Wellington administration, and master-general of the ordnance (1770-1854).

BERESI'NA, a Russian river, affluent of the Dnieper, into which it falls after a course of 350 m.; it is serviceable as a water conveyance for large rafts of timber to the open sea, and is memorable for the disastrous pa.s.sage of the French in their retreat from Moscow in 1812.

BEREZOV', a town in Siberia, in the government of Tobolsk; a place of banishment.

BERG, DUCHY OF, on right bank of the Rhine, between Dusseldorf and Cologne, now part of Prussia; Murat was grand-duke of it by Napoleon's appointment.

BER'GAMO (42), a Lombard town, in a province of the same name, and 34 m. NE. of Milan, with a large annual fair in August, the largest in Italy; has grindstone quarries in the neighbourhood.

BERGa.s.sE, French jurisconsult, born at Lyons; celebrated for his quarrel with Beaumarchais; author of an "Essay on Property" (1750-1832).

BERGEN (52), the old capital of Norway, on a fjord of the name, open to the Gulf Stream, and never frozen; the town, consisting of wooden houses, is built on a slope on which the streets reach down to the sea, and has a picturesque appearance; the trade, which is considerable, is in fish and fish products; manufactures gloves, porcelain, leather, etc.; the seat of a bishop, and has a cathedral.

BERGEN-OP-ZOOM (11), a town in N. Brabant, once a strong place, and much coveted and frequently contested for by reason of its commanding situation; has a large trade in anchovies.

BER'GENROTH, GUSTAV ADOLPH, historian, born in Prussia; held a State office, but was dismissed and exiled because of his sympathy with the revolutionary movement of 1848; came to England to collect materials for a history of the Tudors; examined in Simancas, in Spain, under great privations, papers on the period in the public archives; made of these a collection and published it in 1862-68, under the t.i.tle of "Calendar of Letters, Despatches, &c., relating to Negotiations between England and Spain" (1813-1869).

BERGERAC (11), a manufacturing town in France, 60 m. E. of Bordeaux, celebrated for its wines; it was a Huguenot centre, and suffered greatly in consequence.

BERGERAC, SAVINIEN CYRANO DE, an eccentric man with comic power, a Gascon by birth; wrote a tragedy and a comedy; his best work a fiction ent.i.tled "Histoire Comique des etats et Empires de la Lune et du Soleil"; fought no end of duels in vindication, it is said, of his preposterously large nose (1619-1655).

BERGHAUS, HEINRICH, a geographer of note, born at Cleves; served in both the French and Prussian armies as an engineer, and was professor of mathematics at Berlin; his "Physical Atlas" is well known (1797-1884).

BERGHEM, a celebrated landscape-painter of the Dutch school, born at Haarlem (1624-1683).

BERGMAN, TORBERN OLOF, a Swedish chemist, studied under Linnaeus, and became professor of Chemistry at Upsala; discovered oxalic acid; was the first to arrange and cla.s.sify minerals on a chemical basis (1735-1784).

BERI, a town in the Punjab, 40 m. NW. of Delhi, in a trading centre.

BERKELEY, a town in Gloucesters.h.i.+re, famous for its cattle.

BERKELEY, GEORGE, bishop of Cloyne, born in Kilkenny; a philanthropic man, who conducted in a self-sacrificing spirit practical schemes for the good of humanity, which failed, but the interest in whom has for long centred, and still centres, in his philosophic teaching, his own interest in which was that it contributed to clear up our idea of G.o.d and consolidate our faith in Him, and it is known in philosophy as Idealism; only it must be understood, his idealism is not, as it was absurdly conceived to be, a denial of the existence of matter, but is an a.s.sertion of the doctrine that the universe, with every particular in it, _as man sees it and knows it_, is not the creation of matter but the creation of mind, and a reflex of the Eternal Reason that creates and dwells in both it and him; for as Dr. Stirling says, "the object can only be known in the subject, and therefore is subjective, and if subjective, ideal." The outer, as regards our knowledge of it, is within; such is Berkeley's fundamental philosophical principle, and it is a principle radical to the whole recent philosophy of Europe (1684-1753).

BERKs.h.i.+RE (238), a midland county of England, with a fertile, well-cultivated soil on a chalk bottom, in the upper valley of the Thames, one of the smallest but most beautiful counties in the country.

In the E. part of it is Windsor Forest, and in the SE. Bagshot Heath. It is famous for its breed of pigs.

BERLICHINGEN, GOETZ VON, surnamed "The Iron Hand," a brave but turbulent n.o.ble of Germany, of the 15th and 16th centuries, the story of whose life was dramatised by Goethe, "to save," as he said, "the memory of a brave man from darkness," and which was translated from the German by Sir Walter Scott.

BERLIN' (1,579), capital of Prussia and of the German empire; stands on the Spree, in a flat sandy plain, 177 m. by rail SE. of Hamburg. The royal and imperial palaces, the great library, the university, national gallery and museums, and the a.r.s.enal are all near the centre of the city.

There are schools of science, art, agriculture, and mining; technical and military academies; a cathedral and some old churches; zoological and botanical gardens. Its position between the Baltic and North Seas, the Spree, the numerous ca.n.a.ls and railways which converge on it, render it a most important commercial centre; its staple trade is in grain, cattle, spirits, and wool. Manufactures are extensive and very varied; the chief are woollens, machinery, bronze ware, drapery goods, and beer.

BERLIN DECREE, a decree of Napoleon of Nov. 21, 1806, declaring Britain in a state of blockade, and vessels trading with it liable to capture.

BERLIOZ, HECTOR, a celebrated musical composer and critic, born near Gren.o.ble, in the dep. of Isere, France; sent to study medicine in Paris; abandoned it for music, to which he devoted his life. His best known works are the "Symphonie Fantastique," "Romeo and Juliet," and the "d.a.m.nation of Faust"; with the "Symphonie," which he produced while he was yet but a student at the Conservatoire in Paris, Paganini was so struck that he presented him with 20,000 francs (1803-1869).

BER'MONDSEY, a busy SE. suburb of London, on the S. bank of the Thames.

BERMOO'THES, the Bermudas.