The Nuttall Encyclopaedia Part 79

BOISSIERE, a French lexicographer (1806-1885).

BOISSY D'ANGLAS, COUNT, a member and president of the Convention in Paris, noted for his firmness and coolness during the frenzy of the Revolution: one day the Parisian mob burst in upon the Convention, shot dead a young deputy, Feraud, "sweeping the members of it before them to the upper-bench ... covered, the president sat unyielding, like a rock in the beating of seas; they menaced him, levelled muskets at him, he yielded not; they held up Feraud's b.l.o.o.d.y head to him; with grave, stern air he bowed to it, and yielded not"; became a senator and commander of the Legion of Honour under Napoleon; was made a peer by Louis XVIII.

(1756-1826).

BOISTE, a French lexicographer (1765-1824).

BOKHA'RA (1,800), a Mohammedan State in Central Asia, N. of Afghanistan, nominally independent; but the Khan is a va.s.sal of the Czar.

The surface is arid, and cultivation possible only near the rivers-the Oxus, Zarafshan, and Kars.h.i.+. In the sands of the Oxus, gold and salt are found. Rice, cotton, and cereals are grown; silk, cotton-thread, jewellery, cutlery, and firearms are manufactured. The people are of Turk and Persian origin. The capital, Bokhara (70), is on the plain of the Zarafshan, a walled, mud-built city, 8 or 9 m. in circ.u.mference, with numerous colleges and mosques, the centre of learning and religious life in Central Asia. It has important trade and large slave markets.

BOLAN' Pa.s.s, a high-lying, deep, narrow gorge, extending between Quetta (Beluchistan) and Kandahar (Afghanistan), sloping upwards at an inclination of 90 ft. a mile; is traversed by a torrent.

BOLESLAUS, the name of several dukes of Poland, of whom the most famous is Boleslaus I. the Great, who ruled from 992 to 1025.

BOLEYN, ANNE, or BULLEN, second wife of Henry VIII. and mother of Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Thoman Bullen (afterwards Earl of Wilts.h.i.+re); after a three years' residence at the French Court became maid of honour to Queen Katherine; attracted the admiration of Henry; was married to him, and became queen; charged with adultery and conspiracy, was found guilty and beheaded; was of the Reformed faith; her marriage with Henry had important bearings on the English Reformation (1507-1536).

BOLINGBROKE, HENRY ST. JOHN, VISCOUNT, English statesman, orator, and political writer, born at Battersea; Prime Minister of Queen Anne in the Tory interest, after her dismissal of the Whigs; on the accession of George I. fled to France and joined the Pretender; was impeached and attainted; returned in 1723 to his estates, but denied a seat in the House of Lords, an indignity which he resented by working the overthrow of Walpole; was the friend of Pope and Swift, and the author of "Letters"

bearing upon politics and literature. "Bolingbroke," says Prof.

Saintsbury, "is a rhetorician pure and simple, but the subjects of his rhetoric were not the great and perennial subjects, but puny ephemeral forms of them--the partisan and personal politics of his day, the singularly shallow form of infidelity called Deism and the like; and his time deprived him of many, if not most, of the rhetorician's most telling weapons. The 'Letter to Windham,' a sort of apologia, and the 'Ideal of a Patriot King,' exhibit him at his best." It was he who suggested to Pope his "Essay on Man" (1678-1751).

BOLIVAR, SIMON, surnamed the Liberator, general and statesman, born at Caracas; a man of good birth and liberal education; seized with the pa.s.sion for freedom during a visit to Madrid and Paris, devoted himself to the cause of S. American independence; freed from the yoke of Spain Venezuela and New Grenada, which, in 1819, he erected into a republic under the name of Colombia; achieved in 1824 the same for Upper Peru, henceforth called Bolivia, after his name; accused of aspiring to the Dictators.h.i.+p, he abdicated, and was preparing to leave the country when he died of fever, with the sage reflection on his lips, "The presence of a soldier, however disinterested he may be, is always dangerous in a State that is new to freedom"; he has been called the Was.h.i.+ngton of S.

America (1783-1830).

BOLIVIA (1,500), an inland republic of S. America, occupying lofty tablelands E. of the Andes, and surrounded by Peru, Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina, and Chili. The S. is chiefly desert; in the N. are Lake t.i.ticaca and many well-watered valleys. The very varied heights afford all kinds of vegetation, from wheat and maize to tropical fruits. In the lower plains coffee, tobacco, cotton, and cinchona are cultivated. The most important industry is mining: gold, silver, copper, and tin. Trade is hampered by want of navigable rivers, but helped by railways from Chili, Peru, and Argentina. Silver is the chief export; manufactured goods are imported. The country has been independent since 1825; it lost its sea provinces in the war with Chili, 1879-83. The capital is Sucre (12), but La Pay (45) and Cochabamba (14) are larger towns.

BOLLAND, JOHN, a Jesuit of Antwerp, born in Belgium; compiled five vols. of the Lives of the Saints called "Acta Sanctorum," which was continued by others, called after him "Bollandists."

BOLLANDISTS, a succession of Jesuits who produced the Lives of the Saints, now extended to sixty vols.

BOLOGNA (147), an ancient walled city of Italy, on a fertile plain, at the foot of the Lower Apennines, 83 m. N. of Florence; has many fine buildings, a university, one of the oldest in Europe, schools of music and art, libraries, and art collections. There are some silk and other industries, and considerable trade.

BOLOGNA, JOHN OF, one of the most celebrated sculptors of art in his time, born at Douai, settled at Florence (1524-1608).

BOLOR-TAGH, a high tableland in Central Asia, stretching from the Hindu Kush mountains northwards to the Tian Shan.

BOLSE'NA, a small town in Italy, on the E. sh.o.r.e of Lake Bolsena.

BOLSENA, a lake with clear water in a hollow crater of a volcano, and abounding with fish, but with an unwholesome atmosphere.

BOLTON (115), manufacturing town of Lancas.h.i.+re.

BOLTON ABBEY, an old abbey in Yorks.h.i.+re, 6 m. E. of Skipton; was founded by the Augustinian canons.

BOMA, a station on the Lower Congo, in the Congo Independent State; once a great slave mart.

BOMARSUND, a fortress of the island of Aland occupied by Russia, destroyed by the Anglo-French fleet in 1854; the Russians bound not to restore it.

BOMBA, nickname of Ferdinand II., late king of the Two Sicilies, given him, it is alleged, from his calling upon his soldiers to bombard his people during an insurrection.

BOMBASTES FURIOSO, an opera by Thomas Rhodes in ridicule of the bombastic style of certain tragedies in vogue.

BOMBAY (26,960), the western Presidency of India, embraces 26 British districts and 19 feudatory states. N. of the Nerbudda River the country is flat and fertile; S. of it are mountain ranges and tablelands.

In the fertile N. cotton, opium, and wheat are the staple products. In the S., salt, iron, and gold are mined; but coal is wanting. The climate is hot and moist on the coast and in the plains, but pleasant on the plateaux. Cotton manufacture has developed extensively and cotton cloths, with sugar, tea, wool, and drugs are exported. Machinery, oil, coal, and liquors are imported. BOMBAY (822), the chief city, stands on an island, connected with the coast by a causeway, and has a magnificent harbour and n.o.ble docks. It is rapidly surpa.s.sing Calcutta in trade, and is one of the greatest of seaports; its position promises to make it the most important commercial centre in the East, as it already is in the cotton trade of the world. It swarms with people of every clime, and its merchandise is mainly in the hands of the Pa.r.s.ees, the descendants of the ancient fire-wors.h.i.+ppers. It is the most English town in India. It came to England from Portugal as dowry with Catherine of Braganza, wife of Charles II., who leased it to the East India Company for 10 a year. Its prosperity began when the Civil War in America afforded it an opening for its cotton.

BON GAULTIER, _nom de plume_ a.s.sumed by Professor Aytoun and Sir Theodore Martin.

BONA (30), a seaport in Algeria, in the province of Constantine, on a bay of the Mediterranean, with an excellent harbour and a growing trade; is much improved since its occupation by the French in 1832. Near it are the ruins of Hippo, the episcopal city of Augustine.

BONA, an ascetic writer, surnamed the Fenelon of Italy, one of feuillant order of monks (1609-1674).

BONA DEA (the good G.o.ddess), a Roman G.o.ddess of fertility, wors.h.i.+pped by women; her priests vestals and her wors.h.i.+p by rites from which men were excluded. Her symbol was a serpent, but the name under which she was wors.h.i.+pped is not known.

BONALD, VICOMTE DE, a French publicist, a violent royalist and ultramontanist; looked upon the Catholic religion and the royal authority as fundamental to the stability of the social fabric, and was opposed to the law of divorce, which led to its alteration. He denied that language was innate, but revealed, and that causation was inherent in matter (1758-1840).

BONAPARTE, name of a celebrated family of Italian origin settled in Corsica; the princ.i.p.al members of it were: CHARLES MARIE, born at Ajaccio, 1744; died at Montpellier, 1785; married, 1767. MARIE-Laet.i.tIA RAMOLINO, born at Ajaccio, 1750; died at Rome, 1836; of this union were born eight children: JOSEPH, became king of Naples, 1806; king of Spain from 1808 to 1813; retired to United States after Waterloo; returned to Europe, and died at Florence, 1844. NAPOLEON I. (q. v.). LUCIEN, _b_.

1775; became president of the Council of the Five Hundred, and prince of Canino; died in Viterbo, 1840. MARIE-ANNE-ELIZA, _b_. 1777; married Felix Bacciochi, who became prince of Lucca; died at Trieste, 1826. LOUIS, _b_.

1778; married Hortense de Beauharnais; father of Napoleon III.; king of Holland (from 1806 to 1810); died at Leghorn, 1846. MARIE PAULINE, _b_.

1780; married General Leclerc, 1801; afterwards, in 1803, Prince Camille Borghese; became d.u.c.h.ess of Guastalla; died at Florence, 1825.

CAROLINE-MARIE, _b_. 1782; married Marat in 1800; became Grand-d.u.c.h.ess of Berg and Cleves, then queen of Naples; died at Florence, 1839. Jerome, _b_. 1784, king of Westphalia (from 1807 to 1813); marshal of France in 1850; married, by second marriage, Princess Catherine of Wurtemburg; died in 1860; his daughter, the Princess Mathilde, _b_. 1820, and his son, Prince Napoleon, called Jerome, _b_. 1822, married Princess Clothilde, daughter of Victor Emmanuel, of which marriage was born Prince Victor Napoleon in 1862.