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 as his partners, and it was in one or the other of these houses that he gained his greatest triumphs, taking the leading part in almost every new play. He was specially famous for his impersonation of Richard III. and other Shakespearian characters, and it was in tragedy that he especially excelled. Every playwright of his day endeavoured to secure his services. He died on the 13th of March 1619. Richard Burbage was a painter as well as an actor. The Felton portrait of Shakespeare is attributed to him, and there is a portrait of a woman, undoubtedly by him, preserved at Dulwich College.

BURBOT, or (Lota vulgaris), a fish of the family Gadidae, which differs from the ling in the dorsal and anal fins reaching the caudal, and in the small size of all the teeth. It exceeds a length of 3 ft. and is a freshwater fish, although examples are exceptionally taken in British estuaries and in the Baltic; some specimens are handsomely marbled with dark brown, with black blotches on the back and dorsal fins. It is very locally distributed in central and northern Europe, and an uncommon fish in England. Its flesh is excellent. The American burbot (Lota maculosa) is coarser, and not favoured for the table.

BURCKHARDT, JAKOB (1818–1897), Swiss writer on art, was born at Basel on the 25th of May 1818; he was educated there and at Neuchâtel, and till 1839 was intended to be a pastor. In 1838 he made his first journey to Italy, and also published his first important articles Bemerkungen über schweizerische Kathedralen. In 1839 he went to the university of Berlin, where he studied till 1843, spending part of 1841 at Bonn, where he was a pupil of Franz Kugler, the art historian, to whom his first book, Die Kunstwerke D. belgischen Städte (1842), was dedicated. He was professor of history at the university of Basel (1845–1847, 1849–1855 and 1858–1893) and at the federal polytechnic school at Zurich (1855–1858). In 1847 he brought out new editions of Kugler’s two great works, Geschichte der Malerei and Kunstgeschichte, and in 1853 published his own work, Die Zeit Constantins des Grossen. He spent the greater part of the years 1853–1854 in Italy, where he collected the materials for one of his most famous works, Der Cicerone: eine Anleitung sum Genuss der Kunstwerke Italiens, which was dedicated to Kugler and appeared in 1855 (7th German edition, 1899; English translation of the sections relating to paintings, by Mrs A. H. Clough, London, 1873). This work, which includes sculpture and architecture, as well as painting, has become indispensable to the art traveller in Italy. About half of the original edition was devoted to the art of the Renaissance, so that Burckhardt was naturally led on to the preparation of his two other celebrated works, Die Cultur der Renaissance in Italien (1860, 5th German edition 1896, and English translation, by S. G. C. Middlemore, in 2 vols., London, 1878), and the Geschichte der Renaissance in Italien (1867, 3rd German edition 1891). In 1867 he refused a professorship at Tübingen, and in 1872 another (that left vacant by Ranke) at Berlin, remaining faithful to Basel. He died in 1897.

BURCKHARDT, JOHN LEWIS [] (1784–1817), Swiss traveller and orientalist, was born at Lausanne on the 24th of November 1784. After studying at Leipzig and Göttingen he visited England in the summer of 1806, carrying a letter of introduction from the naturalist Blumenbach to Sir Joseph Banks, who, with the other members of the African Association, accepted his offer to explore the interior of Africa. After studying in London and Cambridge, and inuring himself to all kinds of hardships and privations, Burckhardt left England in March 1809 for Malta, whence he proceeded, in the following autumn, to Aleppo. In order to obtain a better knowledge of oriental life he disguised himself as a Mussulman, and took the name of Sheikh Ibrahim Ibn Abdallah. After two years passed in the Levant he had thoroughly mastered Arabic, and had acquired such accurate knowledge of the Koran, and of the commentaries upon its religion and laws, that after a critical examination the most learned Mussulmans entertained no doubt of his being really what he professed to be, a learned doctor of their law. During his residence in Syria he visited Palmyra, Damascus, Lebanon and thence journeyed via Petra to Cairo with the intention of joining a caravan to Fezzan, and of exploring from there the sources of the Niger. In 1812, whilst waiting for the departure of the caravan, he travelled up the Nile as far as Dar Mahass; and then, finding it impossible to penetrate westward, he made a journey through the Nubian desert in the character of a poor Syrian merchant, passing by Berber and Shendi to Suakin, on the Red Sea, whence he performed the pilgrimage to Mecca by way of Jidda. At Mecca he stayed three months and afterwards visited Medina. After enduring privations and sufferings of the severest kind, he returned to Cairo in June 1815 in a state of great exhaustion; but in the spring of 1816 he travelled to Mount Sinai, whence he returned to Cairo in June, and there again made preparations for his intended journey to Fezzan. Several hindrances prevented his prosecuting this intention, and finally, in April 1817, when the long-expected caravan prepared to depart, he was seized with illness and died on the 15th of October. He had from time to time carefully transmitted to England his journals and notes, and a very copious series of letters, so that nothing which appeared to him to be interesting in the various journeys he made has been lost. He bequeathed his collection of 800 vols. of oriental MSS. to the library of Cambridge University.

BURDEAU, AUGUSTE LAURENT (1851–1894), French politician, was the son of a labourer at Lyons. Forced from childhood to earn his own living, he was enabled to secure an education by bursarships at the Lycée at Lyons and at the Lycée Louis Le Grand in Paris. In 1870 he was at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris, but enlisted in the army, and was wounded and made prisoner in 1871. In 1874 he became professor of philosophy, and translated several works of Herbert Spencer and of Schopenhauer into French. His extraordinary aptitude for work secured for him the position of chef de cabinet under Paul Bert, the minister of education, in 1881. In 1885 he was elected deputy for the department of the Rhone, and distinguished himself in financial questions. He was several times minister, and became minister of finance in the cabinet of Casimir-Périer (from the 3rd of November 1893 to the 22nd of May 1894). On the 5th of July 1894 he was elected president of the chamber of deputies. He died on the 12th of December 1894, worn out with overwork.

BURDEN, or, (1) (A.S. byrthen, from beran, to bear), a load, both literally and figuratively; especially the carrying capacity of a ship; in mining and smelting, the tops or heads of stream-work which lie over the stream of tin, and the proportion of ore and flux to fuel in the charge of a blast-furnace. In Scots and English law the term is applied to an encumbrance on real or personal property. (2) (From the Fr. bourdon, a droning, humming sound) an accompaniment to a song, or the refrain of a song; hence a chief or recurrent topic, as “the burden of a speech.”

BURDER, GEORGE (1752–1832), English Nonconformist divine, was born in London on the 5th of June 1752. In early manhood he was an engraver, but in 1776 he began preaching, and was minister of the Independent church at Lancaster from 1778 to 1783. Subsequently he held charges at Coventry (1784–1803) and at Fetter Lane, London (1803–1832). He was one of the founders of the British and Foreign Bible Society, the Religious Tract Society, and the London Missionary Society, and was secretary to the last-named for several years. As editor of the Evangelical Magazine and author of Village Sermons, he commanded a wide influence. He died on the 29th of May 1832, and a Life (by H. Burder) appeared in 1833.

BURDETT, SIR FRANCIS (1770–1844), English politician, was the son of Francis Burdett by his wife Eleanor, daughter of William Jones of Ramsbury manor, Wiltshire, and grandson of