The Nuttall Encyclopaedia Part 97

BURNE-JONES, SIR EDWARD, artist, born at Birmingham, of Welsh descent; came early under the influence of the Pre-Raphaelite movement, and all along produced works imbued with the spirit of it, which is at once mystical in conception and realistic in execution; he was one of the foremost, if not the foremost, of the artists of his day; imbued with ideas that were specially capable of art-treatment; William Morris and he were bosom friends from early college days at Oxford, and used to spend their Sunday mornings together (1831-1898).

BURNES, SIR ALEXANDER, born at Montrose, his father a cousin of Robert Burns; was an officer in the Indian army; distinguished for the services he rendered to the Indian Government through his knowledge of the native languages; appointed Resident at Cabul; was murdered, along with his brother and others, by an Afghan mob during an Insurrection (1805-1841).

BURNET, GILBERT, bishop of Salisbury, born at Edinburgh, of an old Aberdeen family; professor of Divinity in Glasgow; afterwards preacher at the Rolls Chapel, London; took an active part in supporting the claims of the Prince of Orange to the English throne; was rewarded with a bishopric, that of Salisbury; wrote the "History of the Reformation," an "Exposition of the Thirty-nine Articles," the "History of His Own Times"; he was a Whig in politics, a broad Churchman in creed, and a man of strict moral principle as well as Christian charity; the most famous of his works is his "History of His Own Times," a work which Pope, Swift, and others made the b.u.t.t of their satire (1643-1715).

BURNET, JOHN, engraver and author, born at Fisherrow; engraved Wilkie's works, and wrote on art (1784-1868).

BURNET, THOMAS, master of the Charterhouse, born in Yorks.h.i.+re, author of the "Sacred Theory of the Earth," eloquent in descriptive parts, but written wholly in ignorance of the facts (1635-1715).

BURNETT, FRANCES HODGSON, novelist, born in Manchester, resident for a time in America; wrote "That La.s.s o' Lowrie's," and other stories of Lancas.h.i.+re manufacturing life, characterised by shrewd observation, pathos, and descriptive power; _b_. 1849.

BURNEY, CHARLES, musical composer and organist, born at Shrewsbury; a friend of Johnson's; author of "The History of Music," and the father of Madame d'Arblay; settled in London as a teacher of music (1726-1814).

BURNEY, CHARLES, son of preceding, a great cla.s.sical scholar; left a fine library, purchased by the British Museum for 13,500 (1757-1817).

BURNEY, JAMES, brother of preceding, rear-admiral, accompanied Cook in his last two voyages; wrote "History of Voyages of Discovery"

(1750-1821).

BURNLEY (87), a manufacturing town in Lancas.h.i.+re, 27 m. N. of Manchester; with cotton mills, foundries, breweries, &c.

BURNOUF, EUGENE, an ill.u.s.trious Orientalist, born in Paris; professor of Sanskrit in the College of France; an authority on Zend or Zoroastrian literature; edited the text of and translated the "Bhagavata Purana," a book embodying Hindu mythology; made a special study of Buddhism; wrote an introduction to the history of the system (1801-1852).

BURNS, JOHN, politician and Socialist, born at Vauxhall, of humble parentage; bred to be an engineer; imbibed socialistic ideas from a fellow-workman, a Frenchman, a refugee of the Commune from Paris; became a platform orator in the interest of Socialism, and popular among the working cla.s.s; got into trouble in consequence; was four times elected member of the London County Council for Battersea; and has been twice over chosen to represent that const.i.tuency in Parliament; _b_. 1858.

BURNS, ROBERT, celebrated Scottish poet, born at Alloway, near Ayr, in 1759, son of an honest, intelligent peasant, who tried farming in a small way, but did not prosper; tried farming himself on his father's decease in 1784, but took to rhyming by preference; driven desperate in his circ.u.mstances, meditated emigrating to Jamaica, and published a few poems he had composed to raise money for that end; realised a few pounds thereby, and was about to set sail, when friends and admirers rallied round him and persuaded him to stay; he was invited to Edinburgh; his poems were reprinted, and money came in; soon after he married, and took a farm, but failing, accepted the post of exciseman in Dumfries; fell into bad health, and died in 1796, aged 37. "His sun shone as through a tropical tornado, and the pale shadow of death eclipsed it at noon.... To the ill-starred Burns was given the power of making man's life more venerable, but that of wisely guiding his own life was not given.... And that spirit, which might have soared could it but have walked, soon sank to the dust, its glorious faculties trodden under foot in the blossom; and died, we may almost say, without ever having lived." See Carlyle's "Miscellanies" for by far the justest and wisest estimate of both the man and the poet that has yet by any one been said or sung. He is at his best in his "Songs," he says, which he thinks "by far the best that Britain has yet produced.... In them," he adds, "he has found a tune and words for every mood of man's heart; in hut and hall, as the heart unfolds itself in many-coloured joy and woe of existence, the _name_, the _voice_ of that joy and that woe, is the name and voice which Burns has given them."

BURRA-BURRA, a copper-mine in S. Australia, about 103 m. NE. of Adelaide.

BURRARD INLET, an inlet of river Fraser, in British Columbia, forming one of the best harbours on the Pacific coast.

BURRITT, ELIHU, a blacksmith, born in Connecticut; devoted to the study of languages, of which he knew many, both ancient and modern; best known as the unwearied Advocate of Peace all over America and a great part of Europe, on behalf of which he ruined his voice (1810-1879).

BURROUGHS, JOHN, popular author, born in New York; a farmer, a cultured man, with a great liking for country life and natural objects, on which he has written largely and _con amore_; _b_. 1837.

BURRUS, a Roman general, who with Seneca had the conduct of Nero's education, and opposed his tyrannical acts, till Nero, weary of his expostulations, got rid of him by poison.

BURSCHENSCHAFT, an a.s.sociation of students in the interest of German liberation and unity; formed in 1813, and broken up by the Government in 1819.

BURSLEM (31), a pottery-manufacturing town in Staffords.h.i.+re, and the "mother of the potteries"; manufactures porcelain and gla.s.s.

BURTON, JOHN HILL, historian and miscellaneous writer, born at Aberdeen; an able man, bred for the bar; wrote articles for the leading reviews and journals, "Life of Hume," "History of Scotland," "The Book-Hunter," "The Scot Abroad," &c.; characterised by Lord Rosebery as a "dispa.s.sionate historian"; was Historiographer-Royal for Scotland (1809-1881).

BURTON, SIR RICHARD FRANCIS, traveller, born in Hertfords.h.i.+re; served first as a soldier in Scind under Sir C. Napier; visited Mecca and Medina as an Afghan pilgrim; wrote an account of his visit in his "Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage, &c."; penetrated Central Africa along with Captain Speke, and discovered Lake Tanganyika; visited Utah, and wrote "The City of the Saints"; travelled in Brazil, Palestine, and Western Africa, accompanied through many a hards.h.i.+p by his devoted wife; translated the "Arabian Nights"; his works on his travels numerous, and show him to have been of daring adventure (1821-1890).

BURTON, ROBERT, an English clergyman, born in Leicesters.h.i.+re; Scholar of Christ Church, Oxford; lived chiefly in Oxford, spending his time in it for some 50 years in study; author of "The Anatomy of Melancholy," which he wrote to alleviate his own depression of mind, a book which is a perfect mosaic of quotations on every conceivable topic, familiar and unfamiliar, from every manner of source (1576-1640). See ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY.

BURTON-ON-TRENT (46), a town in Staffords.h.i.+re; brews and exports large quant.i.ties of ale, the water of the place being peculiarly suitable for brewing purposes.

BURY (56), a manufacturing town in Lancas.h.i.+re, 10 m. NW. of Manchester; originally but a small place engaged in woollen manufacture, but cotton is now the staple manufacture in addition to paper-works, dye-works, &c.

BURY ST. EDMUNDS, or ST. EDMUNDSBURY (16), a market-town in Suffolk, 26 m. NW. of Ipswich, named from Edmund, king of East Anglia, martyred by the Danes in 870, in whose honour it was built; famous for its abbey, of the interior life of which in the 12th century there is a matchlessly graphic account in CARLYLE'S "PAST AND PRESENT."

BUSA'CO, a mountain ridge in the prov. of Beira, Portugal, where Wellington with 40,000 troops beat Ma.s.sena with 65,000.

BUSBY, RICHARD, distinguished English schoolmaster, born at Lutton, Lincolns.h.i.+re; was head-master of Winchester School; had a number of eminent men for his pupils, among others Dryden, Locke, and South (1606-1695).

BuSCHING, ANTON FRIEDRICH, a celebrated German geographer; his "Erdbeschreibung," the first geographical work of any scientific merit; gives only the geography of Europe (1724-1793).

BUs.h.i.+RE (27), the chief port of Persia on the Persian Gulf, and a great trading centre.

BUSHMEN, or BOSJESMANS, aborigines of South-west Africa; a rude, nomadic race, at one time numerous, but now fast becoming extinct.

BUSHRANGERS, in Australia a gang made up of convicts who escaped to the "bush," and there a.s.sociated with other desperadoes; at one time caused a great deal of trouble in the colony by their maraudings.

BUSIRIS, a king of Egypt who used to offer human beings in sacrifice; seized Hercules and bound him to the altar, but Hercules snapped the bonds he was bound with, and sacrificed him.