BILLIARDS. paraphernalia of quite modern production. For two centuries, B. was played with only two balls: and when the third or red ball was imported from France, the red winning hazard-that is to say, the holing of the red ball-was almost the sole object of the performers. The cushions also, now universally constructed of india-rubber, up to a recent date were lined with felt. In no game are knowledge and manual dexterity so combined as in B., nor can the spectacle of first-rate play be appreciated, or the difficulties which it overcomes be understood, except by those who have a scientific as well as practical acquaintance with the game. A billiard-table varies in size, but it is generally about 12 feet long and 6 feet wide. It is covered with fine green cloth, and set round with cushions, to keep the balls upon the table and make them rebound. The six holes or pockets are placed at the four corners and in the middle, opposite to each other, to hold the balls, which, when played into them, are called 'hazards.' The cues are long smooth sticks, with one end thick, and the other pointed; and the small end is covered with leather. The maces-slender sticks with a club at one end, adapted for pushing-are rarely taken in hand except by tyros and ladies, the but-end of the cue, when the point cannot conveniently be used, being commonly employed instead. The thre balls are of ivory, ranging from an inch to an inch and a half in diameter, and two of them are white, and one is red. One of the former has a spot upon it; and when two persons are playing, he who uses the spot ball is called Spot, and he who uses the plain ball, Plain. The cue is held in the right Bridge. hand, and supported in playing, by the forefinger and thumb of the left so placed as to form a 'bridge;' and the ball is struck with the point of the cue, which is chalked, to prevent its slipping. On a certain mark on the cloth, at the distance of about a foot from one end of the table, and exactly in its centre, the red ball is placed before commencing the game. At the other or lower end, and at the distance of about two feet from it, a line is drawn across the table; and from the centre of this line a semicircle is described between it and the lower end, of about 20 inches diameter. The space within this semicircle is called baulk. The object of the player is, by striking his own ball against the red ball or his adversary's, to drive either it or them into the pockets, or else to make 'a cannon that is to say, to strike both balls with his own. The score is usually recorded by a third person, by means of a marking-board. The game of B. can be played by two, three, or four persons, and in a great many different fashions; but it is most commonly played by two, and the ordinary game is that called Carambole, which was introduced from France at the same time with the third or red ball. The technical term 'cannoning' may perhaps have arisen from caramboling,' which was the old word for striking both balls with your own. The method of play is as follows: 1. The limit of the game is properly 21, though it is sometimes made 24, 50, 63 and 100, as may be agreed upon before commencing. The shorter games were probably used when billiard tables were rarer, so that persons waiting for the use of them might sooner have their turn; 50, or '50 up,' as it is called, is now the most usual limit. 2. For the lead and choice of balls, the players string-that is to say, placing their balls within the semicircle, they strike them against the furthermost cushion, in order to see which will return nearest the cushion next to them: the owner of the ball so placed, provided it does not strike the other ball, has then the option: but after the first match, the winner of each game leads. 3. The red ball on the spot at the upper end is replaced there on being put into a pocket, knocked off the table, or when the balls are 'broken' (sce 1:) after a foul stroke; but should any ball be on the spot, or so near to it as to prevent the red being placed there without touching the ball, the red must be placed in the centre of the table. 4. The points of the game are these: 1 for a mis, 2 for a cannon, 2 for a white hazard, 3 for a red hazard, and 3 for 'running a coo;' but the miss and the coo count for the adversary. 5. A white winning hazard is made when you play at the white ball and pocket it; a white losing hazard, when you pocket your own ball off the white. These names of winning' and 'losing' were used in the old game of B. with two balls, but their meaning is now reversed, it now being commonly a disadvantage to make a winning hazard; and vice versâ. 6. A red winning hazard is when you pocket the red; a red losing hazard, when you pocket your own ball off the red. 7. A cannon is when your ball strikes the other two. 8. A miss is when your ball strikes no other. 9. A coo is when your ball goes into a pocket, or jumps off the table without striking another. 10. A four-stroke is made by playing at the white, making a cannon, and pocketing your own or adversary's ball; or by pocketing his and your own without the cannon, or by playing at the red, making a cannon, and pocketing your opponent's ball. 11. A five-stroke is made by playing at the red, making a cannon, and pocketing your own or the red; or by pocketing the red and your adversary's ball without the cannon; or by pocketing your own and adversary's ball off the red; or by playing at the white, making a cannon, and pocketing the red; or by playing at the white, and pocketing your own and the red. 12. A six-stroke is made by playing at the red, and pocketing it and your own; or by striking the white first, making a cannon, and pocketing your own and adversary's ball. 13. A seven-stroke is made by playing at the red, making a cannon, and pocketing your own and adversary's ball; or by playing at the white first, making a cannon, and pocketing your own adversary's and the red; or by striking the white, and pocketing all the balls without a cannon. or 14. An eight-stroke is made by playing at the red ball, making a cannon, and pocketing your own and. the red; or by striking the red, and pocketing all the balls without the cannon. 15. A nine-stroke is made when you cannon by striking the white first, and pocket all the balls. 16. A ten-stroke is made when you cannon by playing at the red first, and pocket all the balls. This is the greatest number that can be made. 17. If the striker, in making a cannon or hazard, should by accident touch either of the balls with his cue, hand, or otherwise, the adversary can, if he thinks proper, claim the stroke as foul, and have the balls broken; in which case, the points made by such stroke are not scored, and the person claiming the foul stroke leads off. 18. Foul strokes are made as follows-namely, BILLINGSGATE-BILLINGTON. by the striker's ball touching either of the others; by touching any ball while rolling; by moving another ball in any way while taking aim or in the act of striking; by pushing the balls together when playing with the butt of the cue; by playing with both feet off the floor; by playing at a ball before it has done rolling; or by playing with the wrong ball in this last case, should a hazard or cannon be made, the adversary can have the balls broken and lead off; or should no score be made by such stroke, he can take his choice of balls and play. : 19. In 'breaking' the balls, you take them all off the table, place the red on the spot, and both parties play from the baulk as at commencing. 20. If the balls have been changed, and it cannot be ascertained by whom, the game must be played out with them as they then are; or even if two strokes have been made before the mistake is discovered, it must still be played out in the same way. 21. Should the striker, in making a cannon or hazard, knock his own or either of the balls off the table, he cannot score the points made by such stroke, and the opponent plays, but the balls are not broken. 22. If a ball stops on the edge of a pocket, and afterwards falls in, either through the shaking of the room, or table, or by any other accident, it must be replaced as near the original place as possible. 23. Should the striker, when in hand (i. e., when his ball is off the table), play at a ball in baulk, his adversary has the option of scoring a miss, or of having the balls replaced, and the stroke played again, or of breaking the balls. has a right to interfere until appealed to by one or both players. 35. It is called a love-game when no hazard has been made by the loser. As evidence of what may be done in the way of swift and sure performance by masters of this art, we may mention that two of them (one of whom was the celebrated Kentfield) actually played thirty games of 24 up'-that is to say, supposing they were well-contested matches, they scored about 720 each-within an hour. The greatest achievement of the player above mentioned, and perhaps of any player, was the making a hazard off the red ball from three different cushions. The only other game played upon a billiard-table which it seems necessary for us to notice, is that called Pool. It is quite different from that above described, nor is it necessary that a good player at the one should greatly distinguish himself at the other. Pool is the game pursued at all the public billiard-rooms, and is the sole profession of many persons who might otherwise employ themselves to more advantage, if not to greater profit, since the requisites for forming a first-rate player are really high-namely, steadiness of hand and eye, imperturbable temper, and exact dynamical calculation. Pool is played by ny number of persons-when between two only, it is called 'single pool,' and is nothing else than the old game at B. before the introduction of the red ball-and after various methods, such as playing at the last player, playing at the nearest ball, and playing at any ball whatever. The most common is that of playing at the last player, the rules of which game are to be found, by those whom they concern, upon the walls of every room where it is played. The best billiardtables, furnished with slate bed and India-rubber cushions, cost from £70 to £80. 24. If the striker's ball touch another, he must play, and should he make a cannon or hazard, the adversary can claim it as foul, or he can allow points to be scored and the person to play on; but should the striker not score, it is at the option of the oppo-ket, a little below London Bridge, to the west of the nent to break them or not. 25. Should the marker, whilst marking for the players, by accident touch either of the balls, while rolling or not, it must be put as near as possible to the place it would have otherwise occupied. 26. If the last player should alter the direction of the balls while rolling, with cue, hand, or otherwise, the striker may place it where he thinks proper. 27. A line-ball is when either the white or red is exactly on the line of the baulk, in which case it cannot be played at by a person whose ball is in hand, it being considered in baulk. 28. If the striker's ball is over the pocket, and he should, in the act of striking, miss it, but in drawing his cue back knock it into the pocket, he will lose three points, it being a coo. 29. If the red ball has been put into a pocket, it must not be placed on the spot till the other balls have done rolling, should there be a probability of either of them touching it again, as the stroke is not finished till the balls stop. 30. If the striker should touch his ball by accident when taking aim, it is not a stroke, and the ball is to be replaced; but should he touch it in the act of striking, then it is a stroke. 31. If either of the balls lodge on a cushion, it is off the table, and should a cannon or hazard be made, it does not score, and the ball must be placed on the spot, or played from the baulk, according to whether it is white or red. 32. Any person refusing to play the game out after he has played one stroke, loses it. 33. In a match of four, each person is at liberty to offer his partner advice. 34. All disputes in the game to be decided by the marker or majority of the company, but no person BI'LLINGSGATE, a gate, wharf, and fish-mar Custom-house. It was opened in 1558 as a landingplace for provisions; and in 1699 was made a free only wholesale fishmarket in London; and fish of and open market for all sorts of fish.' It is the every kind, fresh or cured, is admitted free of duty, vessels. Lobsters and turbot, also, are admitted free, if taken by British subjects and imported in British though in foreign vessels. All fish are sold by tale, except salmon and eels, which are sold by weight; and oysters and other small shell-fish, which are sold by measure. The influx of salmon about the beginning of autumn is sometimes above 1000 boxes per day. The market opens daily at 5 A.M.; no fish is sold on Sunday, except mackerel. The fishermen consign their cargoes to the dealers, or 'salesmen,' who occupy stalls in the market; and these supply the general superintendence of the market, and the quality of all fish offered for sale is tested by inspec the retail-dealers. An officer called the clerk has tors. The unpolished phraseology native, though not peculiar, to this quarter of London, has given rise to the proverbial use of the name. BILLINGTON, ELIZABETH, the most celebrated English female singer of her day, was the daughter of a German musician named Weichsel, and born in London, 1769. She early came forward as a performer on the piano and as a composer; and having married her music-master, Thomas B., appeared with brilliant success on the Opera stage in Dublin in 1786. Returning to London, she was engaged at Covent Garden at the then unheard-of salary of £1000 for the season. She perfected her musical education under Sacchini in Paris, who wrote for her his opera, Inez de Castro, while she was singing in Naples 1794. She appeared subsequently in Venice BILLITON-BINARY THEORY. and Rome with the greatest applause. In 1799, her first husband being dead, not without suspicion of poison, she married a Frenchman of the name of Florissant, and returned to London, 1801, where she received £4000 for six months, playing alternately at Covent Garden and Drury Lane. She retired from the stage in 1809, and died (1818) at her villa, near Venice. Her character as a wife was the reverse of exemplary; but as a singer she was unrivalled. To a voice of the largest compass and richest tone, trained in all the art of the Italian school, she added a fascinating personal beauty and grace. In illustration of her spirit, it is told that Catharine II. proposing, through her London ambassador, to engage Mrs. B. for the theatre of St. Petersburg, the vocalist demanded a sum that seemed to the ambassador exorbitant. 'The Empress of all the Russias does not give more to her ministers.' 'Then let her make her ministers sing,' was the reply. BILLITO'N, an island in the Dutch East Indies, between the south-east of Banca and the south-west of Borneo. It is separated from the former by Clement's Strait, and from the latter by the Caremata or B. Passage. Its north-west point is in lat. 3° 13′ S., and long. 108° 7' E. It is said to contain 1150 square miles and 6000 inhabitants. It is rich in iron and timber, and imports rice, trepang, edible birds' nests, sea-weed, tortoise-shell, and wax. Its coasts are beset with rocks and islets. BILLOM, a town of France, in the department of Puy-de-Dôme, situated on a hill 14 miles east-southeast of Clermont. It is one of the most ancient towns of Auvergne, and was formerly surrounded by walls, which have now disappeared; its commerce and manufactures have also declined. So early as 1455, a university was founded at B., which a century later passed into the hands of the Jesuits, and was governed by them until the suppression of their order. Pop. 3500, chiefly engaged in the manufacture of earthenware. BI'LLON (see BULLION) is an alloy of copper and silver, in which the copper predominates, and which is used in some countries for the smaller denominations of money. The Groschen of North Germanye. g., corresponding nearly to an English penny-is of B., and is about the size of an English fourpenny silver-piece. The object is to avoid the bulkiness of copper coin; but B., besides affording facilities for counterfeits, is dirty and inelegant. the north coast, being 100 miles to the east of Sumbawa, a town feudally dependent on its sultan. Its chief exports are horses and timber. See BI'MANA (Lat. two-handed), in some zoological systems, the first order of Mammalia (q. v.), an order containing the human species alone. MAN. Others reject this order altogether, declaiming against this classification of man with brutes, and maintaining that the distance between him and them is too great to be represented as that between two orders in one class, or even between two classes of a zoological system. In assigning a place in this manner to man among animals, naturalists of course consider exclusively or chiefly his animal nature and bodily frame. The name B. has reference to the hands (q. v.) which terminate his anterior limbs; thumbs in all the four extremities, may be regarded monkeys and lemurs, which, having opposable as having four hands, although much less perfect than the human, are called Quadrumana (q. v.); but none of the inferior animals are two-handed, as man is. BINA'B, a town of Persia, in the province of Azerbijan, charmingly situated on the banks of the Sofi Chai (a feeder of Lake Urumiyah), in the midst of orchards and vineyards, about 55 miles southsouth-west of Tabriz. B. contains about 1500 houses; the streets are very clean, many of them having a stream of pure water, which is here very plentiful, B. forms a dependency flowing down the centre. of Marághah, paying 4000 tómáns of revenue, and furnishing a quota of 400 men to the Azerbijan army. BI'NARY COMPOUND. See BINARY THEORY. BI'NARY THEORY, in Chemistry, takes cognizance of the mode of construction of salts. It assumes that all salts contain merely two substances, which either are both simple, or of which one is simple, and the other a compound playing the part of a simple body. The best and most familiar illustration of the B. T. is common salt or chloride of sodium (NaCl), which is constructed of the metal sodium (Na) and the non-metal chlorine (Cl), and is at a glance seen to be a binary compound (a compound of two). In like manner, fluor-spar, or the fluoride of calcium (CaF), consists of the metal calcium (Ca) and the non-metal fluorine (F); iodide of potassium (KI), largely employed in photography, of potassium (K) and iodide (I); and bromide of BI'LMA, a town of the Sahara, Central Africa, silver (AgBr), also useful in photography, of silver situated in lat. 18° 40′ N., long. 14° E., on an oasis (Ag) and bromine (Br). Considerable difficulty is called the Wady Kawas, on the route between experienced in including all salts under the B. T., Murzuk and Lake Tsad. It is the capital of the but in many cases the apparent difficulty may be Tibu country, and important as a resting-place got over. Thus, saltpetre, or the nitrate of potash of caravans crossing the desert. Dates grow abun- (KO,NO5), according to the ordinary mode of repredantly here; and large quantities of salt are col-senting its composition in symbols, naturally breaks lected from lakes in the vicinity for export to Bornu and Sudan. up into potash (KO) and nitric acid (NO); but in this form it cannot be correctly included in the binary theory. If, however, the same elements BILSTON, a town in South Staffordshire, situated be arranged differently, as when the nitrate of on a rising-ground about 3 miles south-east of Wolpotash (KNO.) is represented as containing the verhampton. Pop. 23,527. It forms a part of the metal potassium (K) and the compound non-metal parliamentary borough of Wolverhampton. It has nitrationide (NO), the latter playing the part of extensive iron and coal mines, iron smelting-works, chlorine or other simple substance, the apparent iron-foundries for making machinery, besides works barrier to the introduction of such salts into the for manufacturing tinplate goods, japanned and list of those comprehended under the B. T. to a enamelled wares, nails, wire, screws, and coarse pottery. It is the centre, indeed, of the hardware great extent disappears. represent this more clearly: trade, and consequently a very busy place. Fine sand, adapted for metal-casting, is found here. Upwards of 700 persons died of cholera here both in 1832 and 1849. BI'MA, a seaport in Sumbawa, one of the Sunda Isles, and capital of a state of the same name, in lat. 8° 30′ S., and long. 119° E. It is on a bay of Chloride of Sodium, The following table will SYMBOLS. Ordinary Binary Na, Cl Na, Cl BINASCO-BINOMIAL. Much, however, remains to be cleared up, and in very many cases the B. T. does not answer the purpose of including all salts under one class. See SALTS. BINA'SCO, a town of Lombardy, about 11 miles north-west of Pavia. It is defended by a castle, where, in September 1418, Beatrice di Tenda, wife of the Duke Filippo Maria, was beheaded by order of her husband, who unjustly suspected her of infidelity. Pop. 5000. BIN - BIR-KILISA' (One Thousand and One Churches), the name of extensive ruins in the pashalic of Karamania, Asia Minor, and 20 miles north-north-west of the town of Karama. The ruins consist chiefly of the remains of Byzantine churches, evidently of great antiquity, and some of very considerable size. B. is supposed to be the ancient Lystra, where the cripple was healed by St. Paul. was devoured by rats in the year 969. History, however, fixes the date of the erection of the tower in the 13th c., as a toll-house for the collection of duties on goods passing this point in the river. BINGLEY, a town in the West Riding, Yorkshire, 15 miles west-north-west of Leeds, situated on an eminence in a well-wooded district, on the west bank of the Aire, between that river and the Leeds and Liverpool Canal. It chiefly consists of one long street. It has considerable worsted manufactures. Pop. (1851) 5019. tacle), is a wooden box or case BI'NCHÉ, a town of Belgium, province of BINDRABA'N, a town on the right bank of the Jumna, is situated in the district of Muttra and sub-presidency of the North-west Provinces. It is in lat. 27° 34' N., and long. 77° 45′ E., being 823 miles to the north-west of Calcutta, and 92 to the south of Delhi. The population of B., almost exclusively Hindu, has been returned at 19,776 inhabitants. Superstition appears to be the principal business of the place. Crowds of pilgrims come from all parts of India, more particularly in honour of Krishna; and, through the munificence of wealthy devotees, sacred edifices are constantly becoming more numerous and costly. Here, as at Benares, the immediate margin of the river is occupied by flights of steps, or ghauts, as they are called. These extend for about a mile along the bank, being constructed of red stone, which is brought from Jeypore, nearly 150 miles distant. BI'NDWEED. See CONVOLVULUS. BINGEN (the ancient Vincum or Bingium), a town in the grand-duchy of Hesse-Darmstadt, Germany, is situated in a charming country on the left bank of the Rhine, and on the right of the Nahe, here crossed by a bridge, generally supposed to have been built by the Romans, and called the bridge of Drusus. Pop. about 7000, who are chiefly engaged in the manufacture of fustian, leather, flannel, and tobacco. The vine is extensively cultivated in the surrounding country. The celebrated Scharlachberger wine is produced in the vineyard of the same name, near the village of Rüdesheim. In the vicinity of the town vicinity of the town is the Rochusberg, with a chapel, to which annual pilgrimages are made. On the declivity of the hill are still to be seen the ruins of the old castle (blown up by the French in 1689), in which the Emperor Henry IV. was detained a prisoner by his son in the year 1105. On the other side of the Nahe is the Rupertsberg, with the ruins of a monastery, in which St. Hildegarde resided in the 12th c. Below the town is the celebrated Bingerloch, formerly a very dangerous point in the navigation of the Rhine, on account of the sunk rocks which, with the exception of a narrow passage through which the waters rushed loud and furious, stretched across the river; but in the year 1834, these rocks were partially blown up, so that there is no longer any great danger. In the middle of the river stands the tower, in which, according to the legend, Bishop Hatto times a lamp is so placed as to Usual form of Binnacle. BINNEY, REV. THOMAS, one of the most distinguished preachers of the Independent body in England, is a native of Newcastleon-Tyne. After officiating as a elergyman in Newport, Isle of Wight, he, in 1829, removed to London, where he soon acquired extensive popularity. The hall in which he preached becoming too small for his congregation, Weighhouse Chapel, near London Bridge, was erected for him by his hearers in 1833. Here he continued to labour with great success for about a quarter of a century, attracting around him a large number of the more intelligent class of young men in the metropolis. An address delivered at the inauguration of the new chapel, in which certain expressions rather derogatory of the influence of the English Church were used, brought B. into notoriety from the replies it called forth from many of the English clergy, including the Bishop of London. Within recent years, he took the more liberal side in the Rivulet controversy, as it has been called, regarding the orthodoxy of certain hymns of a high order of poetic merit, written by the Rev. T. Lynch of London; and the malignant attacks to which he was in consequence subjected, are generally understood to have injured his health, to recruit which he went to Australia in 1858. He has since returned to this country and resumed his pastoral duties. He has since published Lights and Shadows of Church Life in Australia, and Micah the Priest Maker, a hand-book of Ritualism. Among his former works, How to Make the Most of Both Worlds is he most popular. BINO'MIAL, in Algebra, is a quantity consisting of two terms or parts-e. g., a + b, or 9 — 5; a trinomial consists of three terins, as a+b+c, or 105-8. The BINOMIAL THEOREM is that remarkable series or analytical formula by which any power of a B. can be expressed and developed. Thus, the 8th or any other power of a+b can be at once written down without going through the actual multiplication of a+b by itself for the given number of times. The older mathematicians were acquainted with this theorem in the case of integral exponents, though the actual discoverer is unknown. Newton was the first to demonstrate its truth for all exponents-fractional and negative, as BINTANG-BIOT. well as integral. It is one of the finest of his discoveries, and is engraved on his tomb. Among its many applications, it affords the means of finding any root of any number much more conveniently than by the usual method of extraction. BINTA'NG, an island of the Dutch East Indies, about 40 miles south-east of Singapore, and in lat. 1° 5' N., long. 104° 29′ E. Area, 600 square miles. Pop., including that of small adjacent isles, 13,000. It is calculated that not less than 4000 tons of the astringent gum called gambir are obtained here annually. This, along with rice and pepper, forms its chief exports. BINTURONG (Ictides), a genus of quadrupeds nearly allied to Racoons (q. v.), from which the chief distinction is in the smaller and less tuberculated back molar (grinder) teeth. Only two species are known, natives of Malacca, Java, Sumatra, &c. BI'OBI'O, the largest river of Chili, has a west-| north-west course from the Andes to Concepcion on the Pacific, being 2 miles wide at its mouth, and navigable for boats from the sea to the mountains. Its lower stream separates the province of Concepcion on the north from independent Araucania on the south. BIO'GRAPHY (from the Gr. bios, life, and graphe, writing) is the term applied to that depart ment of literature which treats of the lives of individuals. The mode of treatment, especially in modern times, is far from uniform. In some cases, B. approaches the sphere of philosophy; in others, that of history; while in the majority it assumes, to a large extent, the character of analytic or descriptive criticism.-To none of these modes, theoretically considered, can there be any valid objection; everything depends on the judiciousness of the biographer. The great points which he must keep perpetually in view are the personality and characteristics of his subject. If these are buried under a load of digressive dissertations, his book, however valuable or interesting, ceases to be a B., except in name. Anciently, B. was more of a mere curriculum vitæ than it is now; that is to say, the leading incidents of a man's life were narrated in their historical sequence, without any elaborate attempt to analyse the character from which they emanated. Like ancient history, it was possessed of a simple greatness, a stately dignity of narrative, coloured here and there but sparingly with grave eulogy or censure. Modern B., on the other hand, like modern history, is full of elucidations, criticism, and disquisition; and if wanting in the severe grace of its classic predecessor, it is much more lively, acute, and expansive. Biographical literature appears to have existed from a very early period. The oldest historical books of the Jews abound- with beautiful examples of it, such as the lives of the patriarchs and the story of Ruth. But what, indeed, are the mythologies of all ancient nations, except a chaos of heroic or divine biographies, written not on walls of stone, or rolls of parchment, or leaves of papyrus, but on the tablets of the memory? Of purely biographical works, the most valuable that has come down to us from the Greeks is the Parallel Lives of Plutarch, a composition of the 2d c. after Christ. Roman literature also possesses an admirable specimen in the Life of Agricola by his son-in-law, Tacitus. Besides these may be mentioned the Life of Alexander the Great (in Latin) by Curtius, and of Apollonius of Tyana (in Greek) by Philostratus, Lives of the Sophists (in Greek) by Philostratus, and a Life of Plato (in Greek) by Olympiodorus of Alexandria. Coming later down, we encounter St. Jerome's Lives of the Fathers; while biographies, more or less complete, of saints, martyrs, bishops, &c., are scattered profusely through primitive ecclesiastical literature. The monks of the middle ages also worked hard at the manufacture of absurd and superstitious legendary biographies, in which the hunger for the marvellous characteristic of that credulous time was hugely gratified. Modern biographical literature may be said to date from the 17th c., and has since developed itself to an unmanageable extent. Among the most valuable works belonging to this class, written since the Reformation, may be mentioned Vasari's Lives of the Painters (Florence, 1550); the Acta Sanctorum (q. v.); Tillemont's Mémoires pour servir à l'Histoire Ecclésiastique des six Premières Siècles de l'Eglise in 16 vols. 4to (Paris, 1693); Thomas Stanley's History of Philosophy, containing the Lives, Opinions, Actions, and Discourses of Philosophers of every Sect (1655—1662); Bayle's Dictionnaire Historique et Critique (Rotterdam, 1697); Johnson's Lives of the Poets (completed in 1781); the Biographie Universelle (1810-1828); Conversations-Lexicon (10th Ed. 1851-55); Lippincott's Univer'l Pronouncing Dict of Biog. & Myth'y, by J. Thomas, M. D. (1870). As for individual biographies in modern times, it would be endless to enumerate them. It having unhappily been discovered that these constitute the most attractive form of literature, the world is annually inundated with an intolerable flood of lives of nobodies. At present, the most insignificant literary, clerical, or philanthropical personages are not permitted to pass quietly away. Nevertheless, amid the desert of commonplace, the choicest oases may be found; works so rich in pleasant or profound thought, so copious in agreeable gossip, so valuable in unexpected glimpses and revelations of character, so abundant, in short, in everything that can stimulate, elevate, or enlighten, that it is not wonderful they should be read and re-read with avidity. Chief among such in our own country is Boswell's Life of Johnson (1790). During the last decade also appeared the Life of John Sterling, by work which is considered a Thomas Carlyle, a model of its kind; and the Life of Goethe by G. H. Lewes, which has been universally accepted, both in Germany and England, as an adequate B. of the illustrious monarch of continental literature. In France, where B., at least in the shape of 'Memoirs,' has attained perfection, we may specify among others the Life of Descartes by Baillet, of Charles XII. by Voltaire, of Voltaire by Condorcet, of Fénélon and Bossuet by Cardinal de Bausset, of Molière and Corneille by M. Taschereau, and of Monk by Guizot. In Germany, among others, we have the Life of Heyne by Heeren, of Reinhard by Poelitz, and of Dorothea, Duchess of | Courland, by Tiedge; while America has contributed by the valuable Life of Christopher Columbus Washington Irving. An Autobiography is the life of a person written by him or her self. This branch of literature, also, has become superabundant in this egotistic and selfconscious age. Unquestionably the highest work in this department of literature is Goethe's Dichtung und Wahrheit, a kind of ideal sed autobiography, in which the outward and inward truth, the fact and poetry of the author's life, are strangely but beautifully interwoven. |