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BAL notices are given, the mind, by the exertion of some inherent power, may be able to discover some remarkable qualities of such things, and even things of a very different nature, which are not to be discovered merely by any sense whatever."—J. M'C.  BALFOUR,, president of the court of Session in Scotland, in the reign of Queen Mary, was descended from the ancient family of Balfour of Mountquhanny in Fife. He was intended for the church, and appears to have made considerable progress in the study both of divinity and law, but soon became embroiled in the political strife of that stormy period. He joined the conspirators who, after the murder of Cardinal Beaton, held out the castle of St. Andrews against the governor Arran, and, on the surrender of that fortress, was sent with his companions to the French galleys. It was to Balfour that John Knox addressed the celebrated remark, while lying off St. Andrews, expressive of his confident expectation of deliverance. On his escape from France in 1550 he joined the reformers, and was appointed official in Lothian and rector of Flisk. In 1563 he was nominated by Queen Mary a lord of Session, and next year became one of the four judges of the new commissary court. On the murder of Riccio in 1566 Balfour was knighted, and promoted to the office of clerk-register in the room of Macgill, who was concerned in the conspiracy. In the beginning of the following year, Sir James, who had become an unscrupulous partisan of Bothwell, was appointed governor of Edinburgh castle, and became deeply implicated in the murder of Darnley; indeed, the "band" or covenant for the perpetration of that atrocious deed was drawn up by him. It was through his treachery that the famous silver casket intrusted to him by Bothwell, containing the letters and sonnets of the queen, fell into the hands of her enemies. He was rewarded with the priory of Pittenweem, and shortly afterwards with the presidency of the court of Session, and a pension of £500 in lieu of the clerk-registry, which he resigned in favour of Macgill. After the death of the earl of Moray, Balfour changed sides, and was charged by Lennox, the new regent, with a share in the murder of Darnley. The accusation was subsequently revived by Morton, and Sir James was in consequence obliged to retire to France, where he lived for some years. In spite of all his crimes, he died in his bed early in 1583-84. Balfour was a man of considerable abilities and learning, but utterly devoid of principle, and was justly styled "the most corrupt man of his age." He was the author of a collection of the statutes, entitled "The Practicks of Scots Law."—J. T.  BALFOUR,, a Scottish annalist and herald, was the eldest son of Sir Michael Balfour, of Denmylne in Fife, comptroller of the Scottish household in the reign of Charles I., and was born about the close of the sixteenth century. Young Balfour seems to have spent several years in travelling on the continent. On his return he passed some time in London, in antiquarian and heraldic pursuits, and was honoured with the friendship of Sir Robert Cotton, the distinguished antiquary. Sir William Segar, Garter king-at-arms, Sir William Dugdale, Sir Robert Aytoun, and the poetical earl of Stirling. At an earlier period, he appears to have been intimate with the celebrated Drummond o f Hawthornden. On the recommendation of George, first earl of Kinnoul, Balfour was created by Charles I., Lord Lyon king-at-arms, June 15, 1630. In the following year he obtained a grant of the lands of Kinnaird in Fife, and in 1633 was created a baronet. Though a firm royalist, he was decidedly hostile to the impolitic attempt of Charles to impose the liturgy on Scotland. During the civil contests which ensued. Sir James lived in retirement at Falkland and Kinnaird, engaged in historical and antiquarian pursuits, and formed a valuable collection of charters and manuscripts, illustrative of the history of Scotland, many of which were afterwards unfortunately destroyed. He wrote a concise history of the kings of Scotland, and compiled the annals of several of these sovereigns on a more extensive scale. After lying nearly two centuries in MS., these works were published in 1824 in four volumes, 8vo. Besides his annals, Sir James composed no less than sixteen treatises on genealogies and heraldry; together with his work on gems. He died in February, 1657, leaving a very numerous family, but the male line is now extinct.—T. J.  * BALFOUR,, professor of botany in the university of Edinburgh. He was born in Buccleuch Place, Edinburgh, on the 15th of September, 1808. He is related on his father's side to Dr. James Hutton, the well-known author of the Huttonian Theory. He received his early education at the High School, Edinburgh, under two of its famous masters—Carson and Pillans. He matriculated at the university of Edinburgh in 1821, and attended the literary and philosophical classes necessary for the M.A. degree, for four years. He then proceeded to St. Andrews, to study philosophy and mathematics, and was a pupil of the celebrated Dr. Chalmers, with a view of entering the church. He subsequently attended the divinity and Hebrew classes in the university of Edinburgh. He did not, however, go on with his theological studies, and commenced the study of medicine in Edinburgh in the year 1826. Here he passed through the various classes with eclat, and was elected president of the Royal Medical Society in 1831, and again in 1832. He passed the Edinburgh College of Surgeons in 1831, and took his degree of M.D. in the university of Edinburgh in the same year. He subsequently travelled on the continent, and studied in Paris. He was elected a Fellow of the College of Surgeons in 1833, and of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1835. Having acquired a taste for botany under his distinguished preceptor, Professor Graham, he collected a large herbarium, and became a lecturer on botany in the Extra-academical school of Edinburgh in 1840. His success as a teacher was very great, and in 1841, when the chair of botany became vacant in the university of Glasgow, by the resignation of Sir William Jackson Hooker, he was appointed to the professorship. Here he continued four years, till the death of Dr. Robert Graham, professor of botany in the university of Edinburgh, when he was elected to the posts held by Dr. Graham. These consist of a professorship of medicine and botany, and the regius professor of botany in the university and keeper of the royal botanic garden, and her Majesty's botanist for Scotland. Dr. Balfour is not only an excellent teacher of botany in his class-rooms, but he has contributed largely to its literature. He has published several volumes, besides a large number of shorter articles contributed to Transactions, Journals, and Cyclopædias. One of his earliest works was a "Manual of Botany," which was published in 1849, but which, through some misunderstanding with the publisher, he has not edited since the first edition. In 1851 he published a more important and extended work, intended as a manual for the use of the students of his class, with the title "Class-book of Botany." This work fully bears out its title, and is admirably fitted for use in the class-room. This work was succeeded by an epitome of its contents, entitled "Outlines of Botany." He is also the author of the article "Botany," in the eighth edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Dr. Balfour's theological education has evidently given his studies a religious direction, which is indicated in two of his most recent works. "Phyto-theology" was published in 1851, and consists of a series of sketches intended to illustrate the wisdom and beneficence of the great laws which govern the structure and functions of the vegetable kingdom. In 1858 he published a volume on "The Plants of Scripture." Besides these works, he has published a great number of papers to be found in the Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the Philosophical Society of Glasgow, the Proceedings of the British Association for the advancement of science, and in the Annals and Magazine of Natural History, and the Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal, and other periodicals. He is also one of the editors of the two last-named journals. Dr. Balfour was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1856. He is a fellow of the Linnæan Society of London, a corresponding member of the Royal Horticultural Society of Liege; of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia; of the Medico-Chirurgical Society of Genoa; of the Society of Natural Sciences of Cherbourg; honorary member of the Pennsylvanian Horticultural Society, and of many other societies, Scotch and foreign.—E. L.  BALFOUR,, a learned Scotchman, born about the year 1550. He was for many years principal of Guienne college, Bordeaux. He published in 1616 a commentary on the logic and ethics of Aristotle, which displays extensive learning, as well as a vigorous intellect. His edition of Cleomedes is spoken of in the highest terms of praise by Barthius. According to Dempster, Balfour was a philosopher profoundly skilled in the Greek and Latin languages, a mathematician worthy of being compared with the ancients, and to these qualifications he joined a wonderful sagacity of manner, and the utmost warmth of affection towards his countrymen.—J. T.  BALGUY,, an English theologian, born at Sheffield in 